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As I near the end of my time here in India, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to translate this experience into a narrative that I can share with people from home, including advice for people thinking about doing something similar in the future. Of all the lessons I think I’ve learned here, I think the one that is the most interesting and helpful is the management of confusion, something I touched on a bit in my first blog.

I am in a state of constant and multi-levelled confusion in India. I mean multi-levelled in the sense that almost every level of cognitive activity there is a seen of confusion. I’m confused about the usual, everyday things that many people talk about, things like physical health, Am I sick or am I hungry or is it my anti-malarial drugs?, for example, and how much I should pay for things. I’m confused every time I try and take a bus/train/ rickshaw anywhere, confused by different hand gestures and head wobbles and whether someone is being polite or rude to me. Often when I travel, I don’t even know where I will sleep that night, a form of confusion I think. All those little confusions used to make me anxious, little uncertainties that build up and have the ability to overwhelm. But I became accustomed to them, recognizing the transient nature of many of these everyday confusions- I will find somewhere to stay, I will realize that a head shake is more of a yes than a no, I will learn to say Hello and I will find the bus I need. I trust myself and the world to resolve the confusion with time, so the anxiety lessons- the uncertainty, while constant in some ways, is ever-changing- cyclical in the emergence of new anxieties and the dissipation of old ones. So the first big lesson I would share is that to manage the every-day anxiety of moving through India, you must realize and internalize their transient nature, and work towards trusting that they will be resolved.

But some uncertainties aren’t of the “surface level” sort. They don’t arise when you are trying to catch the bus, but right after, when someone is asking you for money through the. I was, and still am, confused ethically, confused at what the right thing to do is, how I can help people while I’m here. I’m confused by the legacy of colonialism here, by the treatment of women, by my place here as a western woman. Do I give money or do I not give money? Who is to blame for the poverty in front of me? Am I supposed to feel guilty? Who is being taken advantage of here? These uncertainties don’t make it much harder for me to physically move through India, but they are just as constant. I don’t know what to expect in terms of treatment, I don’t know how to treat people with the respect I believe they deserve. I don’t know what the morally responsible thing to do is often. I’m confused by how to feel- how to reconcile the joy I feel in connecting with the people and the places here with the apparent suffering that surrounds me? And does poverty necessarily lead to suffering? What is the place of pity here? This confusion of morals and emotions is deeply penetrating and disturbing. To feel like you don’t know how to be a good person, that you don’t know how to organize your understanding of the world, can lead to a host of strange behavior in the foreigners who visit. I have had level-headed foreigners yell at people asking for selfies, complain about paying a whole 20 cents more for a rickshaw because they feel like they are getting ripped off, refuse giving food to children but hand money over to alcoholics. We build our moral structures in the world and sometimes they begin to crumble in a world that is different I think. We feel more sensitive than ever before, more unstable, and so an unknown gesture or a request can send us hiding in our anger and indignation.

Information helps, talking to foreigners and Indians alike, reading articles and novels, but I found that no matter how much I learn, the base level uncertainty is still there, because it is of a type that a few facts could not resolve. It’s the type to linger even after you leave the place, I think, that continues to educate even after the travelling is over. This is in many ways opposite the confusion I was talking about before. It is not transient, it may even be permanent for some people in some forms. It is strong, and it has shaken me certainly. So, in my experience, to manage this uncertainty requires an opposite reaction as well. Recognizing that it will maybe never be resolved, that the questions I am asking myself may never get answers, that there might not be a right answer in these situation, has freed me from my frantic searching. I’m still trying to educate myself, to move towards a more ethical version of existence, but with a recognition that I may not ever feel like I’ve done the “right thing.” It’s an acceptance that  feeling like a good person isn’t so easy after all- there are no official rules, you have to decide for yourself. That’s a big job, but it’s a wonderful one too, and all of this is because I am in a place that confuses me. I still don’t have any answers, but I’m more comfortable letting the questions fully inhabit me, letting them teach me what they can. I guess that’s my other lesson: Love the questions for what they are, questions.

 

When the Dalai Lama escaped Tibet and began his life in exile in 1957, numerous Tibetans followed him. Fleeing Chinese oppression, they took refuge in India who accepted them. Faced with a massive influx of refugees, India resettled them around the country. One such settlement was Dharamshala, where the Tibetan government in exile is located. The city has become a popular tourist destination for both Indians and foreigners alike who wish to see the Himalayas, the Dalai Lama temple and experience Tibetan culture. So many foreign tourists come to Dharamshala that they have created their own enclaves in the nearby towns of Dharmcoat and Bhagsu. Head to a restaurant/café there with a reputation for being a place where westerners who visit Dharamshala to experience eastern spirituality hang out and you will find pretty much what you expect.

When I planned to go to India I never intended to go to Dharamshala. My original plan had been to go to Darjeeling, a town in the foothills of the Himalayas known for its tea plantation. My habit of always reading the news however led me to learn that there was unrest in Darjeeling. The government of West Bengal had recently mandated that Bengali would be a mandatory subject in schools in Darjeeling. The people in Darjeeling are Indians, but ethnically Nepali and thus speak Nepali. They responded to the government of West Bengal’s imposition of them with protests, which turned to riots. An indefinite strike was called, troops were sent in and the internet was cut. Although West Bengal backed down, making Bengali an optional subject, the movement to make Darjeeling and the ethnic Nepali areas of India a new state, which has been periodically demanded since the partition seized, the opportunity to make their demands with an already motivated population. As the conflict continued, the elected government of the semi-autonomous authority that governs Darjeeling resigned. As of this writing the conflict has still not been resolved. Reading about all of this in the paper and contacting the person who was to hosting me in Darjeeling who confirmed what I’d read, the other SiSA fellow I was to travel there with, Caroline, and I decided to go to Dharamshala instead. The situation can be succinctly explain as someone said to me, “you can’t take people’s identities away from them.”

In Dharamshala, Caroline and I met up with another SiSA fellow, Addi, who was teaching English to Tibetans through an NGO named Lha. Meeting up with Addi, Caroline and I headed with her to the Dalai Lama temple, where she had seen the Dalia Lama, to see the statues there. (You can read about Addi seeing the Dalai Lama here: https://sisa2017.ii.lsa.umich.edu/what-do-we-want-from-the-dalai-lama/. He wasn’t in town when I was there so I never got the chance to see him.) Addi explained to us that part of what she did was to have conversations with Tibetans as a part of teaching them English and that we could join and have a conversation with a Tibetan. Caroline and I eagerly volunteered. That day however we couldn’t find the place where the class was in time. I made it in time for class the next day although Caroline fell ill and wouldn’t recover until the day before she was to leave.

Having made it to class on time this time, I had my heart set on talking to a monk. I had a number of questions that I wanted to ask about the viniya, the rules for monks and nuns, as well as other subjects related to Tibetan Buddhism. Addi told me where to sit to talk to a monk and I was able to speak to monk one on one. I learned that he had been a nomad in Kham, the southeast region of Tibet known for its rugged terrain. He became a monk at the age of 17 and had been a monk for 20 years. He answered all of my questions, yet what stood out to me was how he spoke about situation in Tibet. He asked me if I knew about the self-immolations in Tibet. I said that I did and he simply replyed, “it’s unfortunate.” I found this a dramatic understatement.

The day after my conversation with the monk was the Dalai Lama’s birthday, he turned 82. I joined Addi and some friends that I made through Addi in going to the Dalai Lama temple for the celebration. The Dalai Lama however missed his own party as he was celebrating in Leh, Ladakh. He was probably too cool for us. We still had fun watching traditional Tibetan dances and performances, eating laddu and drinking butter tea. I can only describe butter tea as tasting like drinking a butter cookie. There was of course cake and even though the Dalai Lama wasn’t there, I ate cake at the Dalai Lama’s birthday party. No one can tell me otherwise. After the dances and performances different people gave speeches. They of course spoke in Hindi, which only one of my friends knew so we simply talked to one another. I asked one of the Tibetans that I had made friends with about the Khata, a traditional Tibetan scarf that is given on certain occasions often white in color. Eventually, the rebirth of the Dalai Lama came up. He has said that he would not be born within Chinese control, that he might not be born again and that he might be reborn as a woman. He hasn’t really given a definitive answer on the subject. As we talked another person was called over to help answer our questions. The person who was called over explained to us that the Dalai Lama would most likely be reborn because the Tibetan people need him and that the Dalai Lama is more powerful than he has ever been. What stuck with me the most from the conversation however was when they said, “the people who burn themselves are taunting the Chinese. What can your guns do when I can burn myself alive? Nothing.”

The next day I and some of my friends decided to see the two waterfalls near Dharamshala. Caroline felt well enough to join us, albeit after a visit to the hospital and with a bottle full of oral rehydration salts in tow. The first waterfall proved easy to get to. There were steps as it was a popular tourist destination. To get to the second waterfall we took what was supposed to be a short cut. We hiked up hills moving toward the second waterfall we wanted to see. At one point, we encountered a mule on the path who decided we weren’t to pass by almost kicking one of our group. A man came out of his house and one of us asked him something in Hindi. He looked back baffled and relied, “It’s very strange to just get up and the first thing I am asked is do I speak Hindi?” We managed to get around the mule although later a cow almost decided it wanted to run into me with its horns. Footage exists that shows how close it came to me but I haven’t seen it. The path to the second water fall was comprised of rocks and dirt on the side of a hill with a metal pipe guiding the way that we would grab on to for balances when needed. As we neared the water fall it began raining on us, the second time that day. Fortunately, there was a small café at the water fall. I bought a box of cookies and gave everyone one to celebrate our achievement. We waited out the rain and took our pictures.

On the way back, I talked to a monk who had joined us on our hike. He became a monk at 4 years old and had been a monk for 20 years. He told how he wished to go back to Tibet so he could visit his grandmother. He was hopefully his request for a Chinese passport would be approved so he could go back and live in Tibet, although his request had been denied once already. I also asked him about the history of Tibet, although we had some trouble with the language barrier. Caroline left Dharamshala the next morning and I left the day after her, each of us continuing our journey through in India. I made a number of friends in Dharamshala and I miss being able to spend time with them, as well as the wonderful Tibetan community, Tibetan food and wonderful cake. I highly recommend the cake.

Picture me this: an office, full of intelligent women clicking away at computers, analyzing data, authoring reports, planning community education, training a fleet of maternal and child health warriors to sail into communities and make a tangible difference. Women in three different clinics in Mumbai slums spearhead nutritional counseling, pregnancy clubs, cooking courses, breastfeeding instruction, and mother-child bonding classes for local women. For my internship, I’m working with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health and the scene is just this. FMCH women are empowered, wise, strong, dedicated, and passionate. They are tabulating statistical analyses in the office and changing lives in clinic. FMCH is incredibly holistic and their dedication shines through everything they do; in an oral health camp last Friday, my coworker and I brushed our teeth 39 times each, because explaining proper tooth-brushing technique is not enough—you have to show people.

Day-to-day, I analyze community data and write assessment reports that FMCH will distribute internally and externally to their donors. One of the most rewarding things I’ve been able to do is observe the three local community clinics and their partner-organization about an hour and a half northeast of the city. Talking with community organizers all over Mumbai has really impressed on me how culturally diverse the city is and how creative FMCH has been in adapting to meet unique local needs.

I was talking with a coworker earlier this week and she began to tell me about an atypical family. The conversation really shook me. In the vast majority of cases, mothers bring their children to clinic. If mothers are unavailable, the mothers-in-law bring the children. The fathers very, very rarely attend. But, this case was different. My coworker explained that the father had afternoons off work and he would bring the children in during that time. Interested, I asked why. I mentally primed myself for an example of flipped traditional gender roles, expecting her to say that the mother was working a job outside the home, had uncontrollable hours, or was caught up with busy afternoons.

“This mother was different,” my coworker began, “She was not as interested as other mothers about the health of the children, so the father was actively involved in the health of the children. Actually, the problem was, they had multiple children, 4 to 5 … so she was also depressed of the fact that she had all girls. So she wanted a boy child and she had all girls. So then she was not very happy giving proper care to all these girls.” She went on to describe verbal abuse from family and neighbors, shaming the mother for having only daughters.

It felt like lead had been poured down my throat— fiery, boiling, and dense enough to burn everything in its path to a thick, tar-like sap. The sludge hardened into an uncomfortable and twisted rock in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t know how to respond. I still don’t know how to respond. I sit in an office full of empowered and successful Indian women every day; how can both of these extremes exist in the same space? I could not – and still struggle to – reconcile the contrast. Granted, this is a unique case. It is not the norm. But, she acknowledged it so casually, moved on so quickly. It is rare, but it isn’t the only case, and it was mentioned almost in passing.  I’ve struggled to make sense of this disparity and explain to myself why this conversation continues to be so piercingly difficult for me to digest.

And then it hit me. In in a parallel universe, I am one of those little girls. I’m the third of five daughters. In picturing this family – these real little girls, these real parents, these real, living, breathing people – I can’t help but see my parents, my sisters, myself. I hear my dad chanting “girl power” into our ears before we could speak English and I hear my mom chanting “girl power” across the finish line of her 9^th full marathon. I think of my childhood and how the five-year-old version of myself never gave gender a second thought. I think of my sisters today, expected to achieve, independent of gender. And my heart aches. Because the root difference between my experience as one of five daughters and that of these little girls is an attitude, a mantra, a value. “Girl power.” My heart aches because these little girls are barely being given a chance at nutrition.

There’s a concept in anthropology called ethnocentrism. It’s the assessment of another culture based on the standards and moral framework of one’s own culture. In its most basic form, it is thinking your culture is superior to another’s culture. As an anthropology major, I so value the validity and importance of different beliefs and practices and have a genuine appreciation for differing frameworks that construct others’ lives.

But, what is culture and what is injustice? How does culture relate to morality? Is it ethnocentric of me to feel that this blatant gender discrimination is not cultural – that it’s inhumane, completely and utterly wrong? Where is the line between respecting another belief system and recognizing something as immoral? What happens when that line is crossed or blurred? Is there an obligation to take a step back, and if so, who has the power and the duty to initiate that step? What is my place in this hierarchy, as a single and fiercely independent woman by herself on the opposite side of the world from her home, completely immersed in another culture?

At times, it feels like I’m inhabiting a different space, delicately layered with surgical precision atop this other world which I can’t fully comprehend. I share physical space with my coworkers. We share delicious chapatti and genuine belly laughs. Together, we work towards the common and meaningful goal of bettering nutrition and health for Mumbai’s women and children. I am genuinely and deeply touched by the strong and empowered women I’ve met at FMCH, but simultaneously shaken by quotes and moments like these.

These stark contrasts and confusing contradictions leave me wondering – what is my place here? People are shocked that I’m unmarried, that I don’t live with my parents, that I’m here by myself, even that I cook and pack my own lunch. People are shocked when I say I went to the movies by myself, did yoga alone, explored Mumbai or travelled by myself. What does it mean for me to be here, integrated and adjusted, but simultaneously, a complete anomaly?

India, it seems, “is” and “is not” simultaneously. It is itself and it is its opposite. It’s mysterious, it’s elusive, it’s just as much an experience or a feeling as a place. India escapes words and words escape me.

In Varanasi, I would find the real India, according to someone I’d met in Bangalore. The holy city located on the banks on the Ganges is associated with the god Shiva and attracts tourists and pilgrims alike who come to see the Arti ceremony, ghats, temples, sadhu-babas, make an offering or bathe in the sacred river. There with another Summer in South Asia fellow, Caroline, who had just arrived in India. My first day in Varanasi began with a walk on the Ghats, which means steps. We walked along, being continually asked if we wanted a boat ride while we took as much of the place in as possible. The river, the ghats and history of the place provided a great deal to observe. After reaching the last ghat we turned back and headed to the guest house.

With the rest of our day we decided to see Saranath, one of four pilgrimage sights in Buddhism and the sight of the Buddha’s first sermon, known in the sutras as Deer Park. The Buddha came to Saranath after achieving enlightenment at Bodh Gaya to find the five ascetics that had rejected him when he discovered the middle way. Knowing they would understand his teaching about the nature of reality and suffering he delivered the Discourse on Turning the Wheel of Dharma Sutra. Stupas stand at the spot where he met these ascetics on the edge of town and where he gave his sermon a short distance way. We wondered around the excavation site seeing the brick stupas and the sight of the Ashoka’s column. (Ashoka was a famous emperor of India who is said to have converted to Buddhism and marked the Buddhist pilgrimage sites. His column, that of four lions, is the symbol of India and can be seen on the nation’s flag.)

After seeing the stupas, we went to a Buddhist temple where the Buddha’s first sermon is recited every evening with other sutras. The temple also contained a Bodhi Tree, which was a clone of the tree found in Sri Lanka. Although many people walked around the temple complex, most left when it came time for the puja. Caroline, another person and I sat as the monks chanted. An hour flew by as the rhythmic recitation caused feeling of deep relaxation.

The next day we awoke at 4 am. Our guest house arranged a boat ride and a tour of the city for the day. A French medical anthropologist named Pierre from our guest house who was studying how religion effects schizophrenia joined us. Schizophrenia can often produce hallucinations that relate to god and the dive, thus religion can affect the hallucinations that schizophrenics have. When I first met him the night before, he said to our host “tomorrow, no rain, boat ride. Rain, tea and cigarette.” I quickly knew he was European. Even now I miss his jovial personality and sense of humor. Our guide met us at our guess house and we saw the morning ceremony on the Ganges at the Assi Ghat and drank chai from small clay pots. As the boat moved along the ghats, the guide told us about them. Some were former places of maharajas that now stood abandoned. Although one former palace was now a hotel with all the trappings of a palace, the interior still covered in gold and silver. You could spend a night there for 70,000 rupees. At the current exchange rate that’s 1,087 USD.

Our boat ride stopped at the Manikarnika Ghat, the largest burning ghat. Every fire that you see there has a body in it. People save money their entire lives to be burned here, the guide explained. Cremation costs at minimum 150,000 rupees and to be cremated there meant that you would achieve moksha, the reunion with god that is the goal of Hinduism. Although some people aren’t burned there such as Sadhu-babas and those who are bitten by a cobra. Women are only allowed on the ghat if they haven’t seen the face of the deceased. As we observed the ghat we saw a family bring another body to be burned there and a burnt bone be tossed into the holy Ganges. Only lower castes work on the burning ghats. Even the Brahmins, who are the highest priest caste are low caste there as there are sub-castes within the four major castes. These Brahmins can only preform pujas on the burning ghats and not in the temples which are reserved for the high caste brahmins. The high caste brahmins don’t even want to step into the homes of low caste brahmins who work on the ghats, believing them to be unclean.

Returning to the guest house, Caroline and I broke our fast on mangos bought from a street vendor. You can only get mangos when they are in season here, something foreign in the US where you can get fruits and produce in the store all year round. We continued our tour of the city seeing some of the numerous temples throughout Varanasi. We went to the Hanuman temple on Hanuman day to find it incredibly busy. Hanuman is the god with the face of the monkey who helped Rama in the Ramayana by lifting a mountain. Every day of the week has several gods associated with it. Friday and Tuesday are both days dedicated to Hanuman. All monkeys are considered to be incarnations of Hanuman and monkeys could be found all over the temple. Monkeys, while cute, are notoriously aggressive. Don’t get close to one. We also saw the Tulsi Dargi temple, the Durga temple or red temple and several others. We ended the afternoon at silk wholesaler who showed us beautiful silk blankets and scarves after having seen the hand looms on which they are made. The sheets were nothing short of works of art, and outside of my price range. I did still however buy a kurta, a traditional Indian garment resembling a tunic.

We returned to the guest house to avoid the heat of the day. In the evening, we ventured out again. While in Bangalore I craved a good lassi and was disappointed the few times I got one. Lassi is north Indian. In Varanasi, I found what I was searching for and our evening started with eating lassi in clay pots. As we walked through the narrow alleyways of the tourist market, our guide told me that Goldie Han had been to see his guru and had made astrological predictions for her. He asked me if I would also like such a reading, which would tell me what would happen in my future. I declined. After lassi we headed to the Kashi Vishvanath, a temple dedicated to Shiva known as the golden temple, although not to be confused with the one in Amritsar. While I could have tried to enter the temple, they ask that only Hindus do so. I chose to respect that. It still makes a striking sight from the outside earning its name being topped with gold. We saw the even arti ceremony which like the cremations never stops, rain or shine.

As the day turned to evening the ghats gained new beauty awash with light and changed from a religious space to a social space. People played cricket and teenagers looked for a place to hang out. Pierre, Caroline and I settled on one of the ghats to converse with our guide after the arti ceremony. He explained that if he wanted to be married he would ask his parents to arrange it. Although he had some desire to visit Europe he wanted to stay close to his family in Varanasi and felt fortunate to be born there because he didn’t need to go anywhere when he was to day and could be cremated there.. I also learned from him the saying “no hurry, no worry, no chicken, no curry.” He was an excellent guide and I was glad to have him show me the city as I never would have seen as much of it as I did without him.

Our last day in Varanasi was spent simply walking along the ghats once last time and heading back to the market, where I bought a few things for friends back home. We left our guest house 2 hours before we needed to catch a bus to Delhi where we would spend a day before heading to Dharamshala. When the auto dropped us at the boarding point we didn’t see the bus but the auto driver assured us it would be along shortly. We waited an hour and half. The bus hadn’t arrived. We pulled out our phones frantically trying to figure out where we needed to go as the bus was scheduled to depart in 20 minutes. With the help of strangers, we figured out the place we actually needed to be and managed to get there and board our bus. Without helpful strangers, I never would have survived for as long as I have here in India. I hope to become one someday as we could always use more of them. Odes ought to be written to them, but I‘ll save that for another time.

Attracted by its reputation for collegiate fun, I met up with friend from U of M at Bangalore airport for short plane ride to Goa. On the western coast of India, Goa is known for the beach, trace music, Russian tourists, and as I said, collegiate fun. Additionally, it’s the former Portuguese colony of India with historic forts and churches. Goa’s reputation only partially applies to the off season. Torrential rain, 90-degree heat and humidity so high you swim through the air keeps most people and the Russians away. We went to a tourist town, in the off season to find most of it closed. December and January is the time to go.

With a hostel to match the reputation of the state for our short stay in Goa, we meet an interesting number of characters. I met a computer science major from Gujarat blowing off classes that talked my ear off, a britisher who drove trucks in the US illegally and was later deported and banned from the country, a guy who used to work at the hostel and now got payed to gamble (not sure how he managed that but it was what he said,) all in my first two night in northern Goa. The first night we slept in a non-air-conditioned room. You learn to appreciate AC went you are trying to sleep in 90-degrees and what feels like 100% humidity as your tee shirt clings to your skin. Fortunately, after that first night we moved into an air-conditioned room. The power would go out every evening with the torrential rain that preceded it but the insulation kept us cool.

Early in our trip my friend and I met three medical students from Kerala. They happened to be staying in the same room in the hostel as us and we quickly befriended them. We got up to go to breakfast at the same time and joined them in finding a bit to eat. In selecting a place to go one of the medical students said, “South Indian first,” and that’s what we had. While I ordered idli, everyone else got Dosa. My friend, who had just spent the last month in rural Karnataka, and the medical students said they have idli every day and wanted something else. I needed to satisfy my desire for it before I can’t find it back in the US. The medical students from Kerala confirmed what I thought about the food however, it wasn’t very good. One of many attempts I would make to eat Indian food in Goa and be disappointed.

After breakfast, we rode on scooters up to a nearby fort to have a look around the only sight nearby. In a famous Bollywood movie that no one could remember the name of, three characters posed on the walls of the fort and everyone there wanted a picture of the three of them to imitate it. The vantage point of the fort reviled the lush green beauty of Goa and provided a gust of the sea breeze, the only relief from the heat and humidity. After seeing the fort, we returned to the hostel and I added the medical students on Facebook before they left to continue their four-day vacation from school in another part of Goa. (If they are reading this I wish them all well.)

Shortly after the medical students from Kerala left, we met an iOS developer from Mumbai. He had an Android. My friend and I hung out with him during the rest of our time there and returned to a beach we’d seen a few days before to find Siva’s face carved into a rock there. During my time in Goa I was always puzzled as to why I couldn’t get good Indian food. Once I ordered a thali and nothing on my plate was spicy. Nothing. People wore shorts and that was socially acceptable. Trance music played at the oddest times. It played when my friends and I sat down to enjoy dinner. At a sea side restaurant while families looked out at the ocean and kids ran around on the outside deck a shirtless DJ played to an empty room. All of this of course has a simple explanation: Goa isn’t in India. Although, I was later told, “forget your time in Goa.”

Though Mcleod-ganj is officially the home of the Dalai Lama, he does not spend much time in the town to which many foreigners flock because of it’s relationship to him, as he spends most of his time travelling around the world, delivering talks and engaging in conversation about Buddhism, Joy, and Tibet’s situation. That is why I feel particularly lucky to have been able to attend two of his teachings- a one-day initiation into compassion and a three-day introduction to Buddhism that I believe he does every year for Tibetan youth.

The first time I saw the Dalai Lama was my first full day in Mcleod-ganj, almost two months ago. It was also the first time I saw the temple in which the Dalai Lama gives his teachings and the monks do their daily practice of meditation, mantras and dialectics. I would come to love the large but relatively unassuming building, one of the first places of worship I had ever been that always felt thrumming with life, but that first day it was a confusing and overwhelming place, seeming at times set up to make it harder for me to access the elusive teachings of one of the most recognizable religious figures in the world. I was separated from my host mother, as there was a different entrance for foreigners, and left to my own devices to find space large enough for my body and my bag. As I was standing and looking, I realized that everyone around me was bowing and holding their hands out. I turn and suddenly, 10 feet away from me, is the shuffling and yellow-robed form of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, surrounded by people but powerfully present nonetheless. He was shorter than I had imagined, and smiling. Soon he had disappeared from my view, entering into the small central chamber that serves as the beating heart of the body of the temple. It was only a moment, but I must admit I found myself to be a little breathless as he walked away and I was left to find my seat.

In most videos I have seen of the Dalai Lama speaking, in conversation with John Oliver and other curious westerners, he is speaking in a slow and cheerful English. I knew better than to expect him to be speaking in anything other than his native language when speaking to his people in the capital of Tibet in Exile, but I was still surprised to hear him speak quickly and confidently in a language that I never really heard until that point. I scrambled to find another westerner with a radio that I could share in order to listen to the English translation. It was difficult, both to find the right radio station on the cheap FM radio, and to hear to the halting English translation over the speakers blaring the Dalai Lama’s teaching in his cheerful Tibetan. I would watch him make jokes, laugh heartily along with every other Tibetan speaker, and then wait eagerly for our English translation to translate the joke for us, only to be disappointed by a complete lack of anything that seems like a joke as I understood them. It was also physically exhausting, sitting on the floor on a small, thin pad, balancing my cup of traditional butter tea (which tastes like melted salted butter) on my knee and hunching over to fit the earbud of my neighbor into my ear.

The teaching lasted four hours, and I left feeling overwhelmed and mystified, a sort spiritual and emotional hypothermia, like I had just been to the top of a mountain and seen all the little people and now walked among them once again. I found my foreigner friends at a local café, and found out that not one of the 6 people had stayed the whole time, like I had. The Buddhism was too complex, the floor too hard, the English translation too difficult to listen to for an extended period. “It clearly wasn’t meant for us” they said. A month later, the Dalai Lama returned to his yellow throne to deliver his three day introduction to Buddhism for the Tibetan high school and college students. My foreign friends’ reasons for leaving early were much the same- it wasn’t an introduction to Buddhism that they could follow, they weren’t getting much from it, it was too hot.

What do we want from the Dalai Lama? For many of peers, it seemed, they wanted his presence near them so they could say they had seen the second most famous religious figure in the world, the first being the pope. For others, they wanted him to move them, to take them places and deliver wisdom to them wrapped in a bow. They wanted a step by step guide to spirituality. They wanted to listen to someone make arguments and deliver teachings in the way we are all used to. The Dalai Lama instead presented arguments in almost a circular way, slowly orbiting his point, falling closer and closer with every rotation, until all of a sudden, we are delivered a truth that can sit in our palm like a small but living seed. Many people, I think, find it hard to follow, to let it just wash over them when they don’t know where the Dalai Lama is going. But his teachings were a lesson in how to absorb information presented to us in ways we are unused to.

They wanted to feel included in the teaching, they wanted his words to make sense in our western context, they wanted the teaching to be “for them.” After all, the clips many people see of the Dalai Lama are like that- simple and in English, clearly crafted with westerners in mind. But we were in his home now, amongst his people. How could we expect to be the target audience? How could we expect the old Tibetans spinning their personal mani wheels and fingering their prayer beads to sit through the Dalai Lama walking us uneducated westerners through the life of the Buddha and the four noble truths? I suspect many of us are unused to not being the ones a teacher is catering to. This isn’t our religion, our history, or our story. So we struggle to know what to do, we feel that if something isn’t for us, we should not be present. But what a gift it is to be present for something that is not intended for us. To know that there is a world of understanding we had not, until coming to Mcleod-ganj knew about. That there are ways of thinking, speaking and being that push the boundaries of what we thought humans do and don’t do.

It’s understandable that us westerners (including myself) were confused by and struggled to understand the teachings given by the Tibet’s “living god.” Metaphors were more confusing than the topic they were supposed to illuminate, jokes didn’t translate, the ground on which the Dalai Lama’s words walked was just sky in our heads. So you try to learn to fly, I guess. Or you just let his words fall through you until something lands. Or you give up, you recognize you are not yet ready for the teachings. But the most worrying thing isn’t what we want, it’s how we want. How in our minds he is the one with power, the power to release us from our pain, to make us feel smarter, to educate us. We want his help. So how are we going to react when the seemingly transcendent man asks us for help? Because in the current global climate, we have more power than the homeless king of 150,000 refugees. We are citizens of the global superpowers, we are safe, we know who we are. When we write the story of the world, we cannot put the Dalai Lama and his subjects into a position of givers, because then we fail them, and in doing so, we fail ourselves.

3/7/17

As the initial part of the bee project comes to an end, we have gained enough preliminary data to move into a different animal model: Drosophila melanogaster, or the common house fly. These insects are quite similar to humans genetically and, as a result, have been very useful in the study of human genetics. However, it takes time to obtain the proper flies with the right mutations, so time just flew by. Overall, it has been an interesting experience learning to handle them. They are not as annoying, almost cute even, when they are contained in vials as compared to when they are flying around your food…

I began helping with another project in the meanwhile, in which I was able to utilize skills from my previous research experiences, while also gaining a better understanding of various molecular biology assays. It is really important to know the basics when you want to delve deeper into something. With this other project, I got to learn the basic molecular biology techniques I haven’t had the chance to study previously.

It was a wonderful opportunity, not only because I got to work with others in the lab but also because I was able to more seamlessly interact with other interns my age. I was even able to get a good picture of a researcher’s path in India. Although there are many similarities, there is one striking difference. From my understanding, a good number of those entering into a career in research may not have had the opportunity to intern and learn more about this career path during their college time. Some enter into their Master’s Degree without ever having worked in the laboratory setting before. Having been working in a research lab since the beginning of my freshman year at the University of Michigan, I was a bit shocked. I am grateful to have this opportunity to explore potential career options and get my foot in the door through fellowships like SiSA. Even though I have experience working with stem cells, this internship at inStem allows me to approach research from a different side. Animal models are crucial to understanding many biological processes and their applications to humans. Experience working with honeybees and flies will go a long way in my future as a researcher. I really look forward to what the next few weeks have in store for me!

**A quick side note is that this post was written about 2 weeks ago, but I hadn’t had the chance to post. To add, the date here, in India, is written with the day first and not the month. Although it doesn’t take long to notice, it takes a while to get used to, especially in regards to expiration dates on food items…

Phase 1: Aaah I’m here!— World appears in technicolor, overwhelming sense of enthusiasm unobstructed by reality.

• Takes pictures of everyday scenes and objects: traffic, cows and goats, coconut trees, rickshaws, streets. Picture 21^st century Dorothy exiting Kansas for Munchkinland, iPhone in hand.
• Adrenaline-induced lack of jetlag because WHY sleep when there’s SO much to see?!
• Forgets all warning and eats anything and everything, irrespective of one’s ability to identify or pronounce it, with an abandon typically reserved for children left unattended with bags of Halloween candy after trick-or-treating.

Phase 2: What the hell am I doing here? – Symptoms include delayed jetlag, food poisoning, getting caught in monsoon, and the profound realization that a full-time job is, in fact, full time.

• Everything eaten during Phase 1 exits body quickly and violently. Enter: weeklong diet of apples scrubbed hyper-clean with Aquafina mineral water, peanut butter, and Greek yogurt, eaten with a level of caution comparable that of a helicopter parent bubble-wrapping his child before her first day of middle school.
• Goes outside during monsoon without an umbrella. Receives free shower.
• Exits first day of work by promptly embracing the asphalt like a long-lost lover, walking away complete with ripped pants and a bloody knee. Looks back to see if coworkers noticed for fear of appearing unprofessional. (Coworkers did not see, but yes, those children are laughing at you.)
• Wears new kurta to work inside out. Coworkers giggle and communicate through the language barrier, that yes, in fact, you are an idiot.

Phase 3: I’m here, I can laugh at myself, and I can do this.

• Diet re-expands to adventure… with a side of apples, peanut butter, and Greek yogurt. (Old habits die hard… I am who I am!)
• Purchases umbrella and trusts NO ONE when it comes to the rain. The fact that it looks sunny right now means nothing.
• Realizes that, after the work-day is over, this experience is kind of a 2-month long date with self. Treats self to dinner and a sold-out, opening night Bollywood movie, yoga, runs around Joggers Park, and a long walk along Marine Drive.

During my first two and a half weeks here, just about every aspect of my life has gone through these phases in one way or another. I’m climbing a huge learning curve. Quite frankly, I literally know nothing here. But, I kind of love that. I love that everything is new and different, but also that I don’t feel like a blank canvas. I feel very much like myself, but with a different, surreal level of awareness.

It’s impossible to take a good, hard look at yourself while surrounded by the little constants of home that go unnoticed every day. Here, all of that is blurred. I’m more aware of my little quirks and the habits from home that I can’t let go of, as well as the nonessentials that I don’t miss at all. I’m more aware of how I react to things I’ve never considered or experienced before—and the values behind those reactions. I’m surrounded by people full of so much love, kindness, and dedication, and I feel so welcomed into both my NGO and to Mumbai, in general. I’m growing and learning and adjusting, and I’m loving it.

Upon boarding a long flight, the world inhales. Earth holds its breath at the top, soaring over the space we call home and laughing at the concept of time. The plane smiles down on rotating earth for a breathless pause, and people just exist. It doesn’t matter where they come from and it doesn’t matter where they go after the plane lands. For those small hours, it is just a flying bubble of humanity bunched together 35,000 feet above familiarity, waltzing through the clouds until the warp is burst like a child popping a soap bubble with a splash of bath water and a high-pitched giggle. Either that, or you’re the one-woman-audience-gone-disembodied-ear to the plane’s resident chatter, in which case, time does exist, just perhaps on 0.5x speed.

Eventually, Earth exhaled. My flight touched ground, and everything was slowly different. Colors more vibrant, tastes more flavorful, traffic more bustling, heat more pounding, differences more stark.

On my cab drive into Varanasi, emotions swirled through my mind like a bewildering cacophony of white noise. Cars, rickshaws, bicycles, cows, motorcycles, and people weaved through one another like bees atop the decorative paint I used to call “driving lanes.”

Some barefoot children on the roadside played makeshift cricket and cackled with laughter in fits of unadulterated joy, others used their entire bodyweight to heave water from wells to buckets, and still others simply stared into space. Women balanced large baskets of goods atop their heads and babies on their hips, men pulled carts of handicrafts through the streets to market. In that moment, I realized that I will never be able to verbalize this experience to anyone. No words could fully encapsulate the complex, diverse lives I feel so blessed to be able to witness. The way that traffic teases the laws of physics, how informality flirts incessantly with logic, the way that poignant poverty so visibly and sickeningly besieges communities.

I feel so nauseatingly privileged. It is not fair. It’s not fair that, as a starry-eyed white woman, I get to show up on the other side of the world, experience this vibrant country and learn from so many kind-hearted individuals, many of whom don’t have the same access to come back to my country and do the same. It is unfair that I have never so much as had to walk home without a pair of shoes, while there are people here, on the same planet, at the same time, literally cutting off their feet just to beg more pitifully. The inequality is nauseating. Some way, somehow, I was born into a Suburban family with an air-conditioned home and a college-bound mentality. I could’ve been born anywhere to anyone. During my fellowship, I genuinely, desperately hope to use the immeasurable privilege of being here, being in college, being a white, 20-year old American woman, to give something of value to the amazing people here in some small way.

Though I feel it’s necessary to first acknowledge my privilege, it would also be a huge disservice to the captivatingly diverse and intricate cultures that make up India to NOT mention how incredible it is here. I am currently in Mumbai and will start my internship with the Foundation for Mother and Child Health in the morning, but I spent the last week exploring Varanasi and Dharamshala.

Varanasi was a nosedive into India; as the spiritual capital, Hindu pilgrims come to bathe in the Ganges and individuals bring passed family members to burn at ghats alongside the river. Religion was prominent in every aspect of Varanasi. I was really moved by the people’s genuine, enduring dedication to their faith, day in and day out.

Two overnight buses and a day in Delhi later, I arrived in Dharamsala, home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile. Unfortunately, I missed the Dalai Lama’s birthday party because I was curled in the fetal position vomiting the contents of my digestive tract for 48 hours, but luckily I recovered in time to hike the Himalayas with a Tibetan monk, oral rehydration salts in tow. (Now, THERE’S a sentence I never thought I’d write!)

As I sit here in a little café, nestled in the corner of Mumbai that will become my home, I realize that I have gained such a rich set of experiences from just a week and a half in India. With many, many weeks ahead, and my first official day of work with FMCH tomorrow, I’m filled with so much excitement, nerves, readiness?!, fear, and passion for all that is to come with my internship and experience here in India.

I departed Bangalore on a cool, misty morning in late June. It was approximately seven o’clock when I, along with my parents and sister—who arrived in India during the last week of my internship—stepped into an ebony colored taxi, our physically exhausted bodies brimming with the catharsis that newly formed memories induce. As we careened down a slumbering highway, which was empty expect for the occasional rickshaw or plastic bag, the sun peeked its nose over our shoulders and flashed a bittersweet smile, which illuminated the inviting wrinkles running through its ancient rays. It rose into the amber-stained sky like a lotus in a mucky pond, as if to reassure me, the journey is hardly over.

On the way back to the United States, my family and I spent a few days in London. While I am incredibly grateful to have been able to explore one of the world’s most culturally rich cities—with my family, nonetheless—it felt incredibly strange to walk through the pages of a dominating Westernized narrative. The cobblestones sprawling through the English streets felt incredibly foreign after spending several weeks walking through the sandy sidewalks of Bangalore. The people in London, in true Western fashion, lacked the warm facial expressions that the citizens of Bangalore adorn so easily. It was also perplexing to suddenly be the only person in a mile radius wearing sandals instead of close-toed shoes.

And while London should have (in theory) made it incredibly easy to adjust back to the United States, I nonetheless find myself feeling dazed. Dazed as I flashed my American passport at John F. Kennedy International Airport and officially entered the country of my birth, as I fought the automatic tendency to compare India to the United States. Dazed as I stepped into the arms of a humid, New York evening, which gripped me close despite not being able to truly understand how I’ve changed. Dazed as I think back to one year ago, when the idea of participating in the Summer in South Asia Fellowship program was preposterous. One year ago, when I first discussed the fellowship program with my parents, who like me were unsure about what this journey would bring. Even as I went about the application process, the thought of interning in India the summer after my junior year was nothing more than a premature vision. I simply did not think I “had what it takes” to embark on this journey.

You often hear people say, “It’s funny how much can change in a year.” I’m not quite sure I would use the word “funny.” Perhaps “magical” is more appropriate.

As I reflect on my experience this summer, the one sentence that comes to mind is this: the world feels much bigger. Now, when I step outside and stare at the diamond-dressed sky hovering above Connecticut, I think about the people I met (and reunited with) in India. I think about the impact that they had on me and the impact they will continue to have on the world around them. I think about how when they gaze at their sky each evening, we are fixating on the same entity of infinity. For you see, the stars and their ascendants know nothing of man-made cultural barriers. In their eyes, we are nothing more (and nothing less) than multiple hearts beating and pumping in synchrony. We are all objects, uniquely crafted pieces of woodwork, blood vessels and skin, existing independently and concurrently under one sky.

Given these thoughts, the concept of departure is a strange one. While it is true that my physical body has transcended to a different landscape—one in which the clouds speak to me not in Kannada, but in a piercingly familiar American English—-part of my heart will always remain in the experiences I had in India. As I adjust back to the world I knew before India and turn towards the journey ahead, I am trying to articulate, to myself and others, how this experience has impacted me. I suppose this is one of those situations where even the English language finds itself speechless.

It is my hope that the blogs written on this site—by myself as well as the other 2017 SISA Fellows—will encourage others to take the same leap that led me on this adventure. It is my hope that someone, even one person, will find trust in our experiences this year and make the decision to dive into a new culture. This decision is not one to be taken lightly, but it is one that rewards those who are open minded and curious. The personal and professional journey I had in India has dynamically transformed my world views and has given me an education that no university classroom can. I would not be the person I am without the opportunities bestowed by the Summer in South Asia Fellowship program and the amazing staff at Swasti, who embraced me despite the short duration of my internship. Thank you to Janelle, Dan and the anonymous donor for turning my premature dream into a tangible vision that has touched my life in ways that words cannot express. Thank you to Grace Beckham and Jacob Anderson, former SISA Fellows who answered all my questions throughout the application process, challenged my misguided hesitations and inspired me to take this step forward. And, perhaps most importantly, thank you to my parents, who since emigrating from India twenty-four years ago, have sacrificed so much to give me the opportunities I have.