Jangpura, Part I: Some history

Last night I was hanging out with my friends Alice, Pooja, and Anand. Alice and Pooja also live in Jangpura, and Pooja has been working in Bhogal Market (which is in Jangpura) for the past few months. Pooja introduced me to Jangpura's interesting history, so I decided to look it up. Here's what I found out about my neighborhood:

Today's Bhogal Market used to be a village on the (Old) Delhi-Mathura road known as Bhogal. In the early 19th century, as the British expanded the city and established a "New" Delhi, someone named Colonel Charles Young relocated a village called Raisina to a new settlement adjacent to Bhogal village called "Youngpura" (Young Village) in order to make room for the viceroy's palace--now Rashtrapati Bhavan, where the President of India resides--atop Raisina Hill. Youngpura and adjacent Bhogal eventually became what is today known as Jangpura, obviously a distortion of the original name of Youngpura.

In 1947, when British India got its independence and was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Punjabi refugees from the Pakistani side of the border settled in Jangpura. (This explains the disproportionate number of Sikhs in my neighborhood.) Jangpura became a planned colony for the Partition refugees. Plots of land, formerly farmland, were set aside for houses and parks. As more and more people came to Jangpura, the neighborhood had to expand and Jangpura Extension was created.

(NOTE: I got a lot of this information from blogs, so I can't guarantee that this history is 100% true.)

Today, Jangpura/Bhogal continues its tradition of welcoming displaced people; many refugees from Afghanistan have settled here, especially in Bhogal. Pooja told me that many shops in Bhogal Market are owned by Afghanis. I had no idea they weren't Indian! Apparently you can tell someone is Afghani if he is super nice (according to Pooja, all the Afghanis are very sweet) or speaks broken Hindi (I wouldn't even notice).

Stay tuned for Jangpura, Part II: Why I love living here.

Shout-Out to Sareeta's Blog

Sareeta recently updated her blog, so you should all check it out: http://sareeta73.wordpress.com

She recounts our Agra trip in much more detail than I did, so at the very least you should read about that. Plus the blog itself is arguably prettier than mine.

An update about work

It's been a really long time since I wrote about work, so here is an update:

Today I finished a 40-page report. Well, this is technically the second time I wrote it, since my boss asked me to rewrite the first version (a result of miscommunication). So we'll see if I'm really done--I'm guessing I'm not.

Ok, let me back up a second and tell you what this report is all about. Women in rural India use traditional cookstoves, called "chulhas," which are very inefficient, consume a ton of fuelwood, and emit smoke within the house. So women spend hours collecting wood from the forests, plus they basically can't breathe inside their own home and get all sorts of respiratory problems. Not to mention that the soot from these stoves actually contributes more to climate change than one might expect (see this NYTimes article from April. Note that Stanford professor Mark Jacobson, the director of my major and the professor of two classes I took, as well as Ibrahim Rehman, the director of my division at TERI and my current boss, are quoted in the article. In fact, my project is closely related to and involves many of the same people as Project Surya, which is mentioned in the article).

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) wants to have an "improved chulha" initiative. An improved chulha, or improved "cookstove" (I still don't understand why they don't just say stoves), is a more energy-efficient stove that consumes less fuelwood and emits less smoke or has a chimney so the smoke does not stay indoors. MNRE wants to disseminate these improved cookstoves to every household in rural India. Pretty ambitious. The Government of India (GoI) tried to do this in the 80's and 90's, but it was pretty much an epic fail. Only 7% of stoves disseminated were actually adopted, or something ridiculously low. Now MNRE has asked TERI to come up with suggestions for a new, more effective initiative.

My role in this project so far has been to come up with "delivery mechanisms" for the cookstoves. The question I'm trying to answer is: how can we effectively distribute (sell) these stoves to households and actually convince women to use them? This report I wrote was reviewing past and ongoing improved cookstove programs in India and the developing world (I also looked at China, Nepal, Mexico, and Guatemala) to figure out what lessons we could learn from their successes and failures. I also looked at other programs that distribute goods and/or services to rural India to see if the cookstove initiative could, to use my boss's word, "piggyback" on their distribution channels (if these programs would be willing to collaborate, of course). Finally, I had to specify the roles and tasks for all the stakeholders. This last part turned out to be more complicated than I had anticipated. My understanding is that my report will be part of a larger report to be submitted to MNRE.

The other project I'm working on but have yet to start is creating a "total energy plan" for the state of Kerala. The project should officially start in mid December. In January, I'm going to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, for an unspecified amount of time, probably a month to six weeks. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I will be going back and forth for large chunks of time between Delhi and Kerala. I've been promised a lot of time in villages, so I'm psyched about that. But I don't really know yet what my role in the project is.

In other, completely unrelated news: I went to the movies last weekend with Will and Anand. We all took separate autos home, and Anand's autowallah asked him if I was Kashmiri! According to Anand, he said something like "your friend is so fair. Is she Kashmiri?" He thought I was Indian! Never thought that would happen. I mean, it's not like I'm Nadeen, who is constantly mistaken for Indian. ;)

I must be a real Delhiite now.

Because someone--an Indian--stopped me on the street to ask directions! Me! A gori videshi (white foreigner)! And I was actually able to give him the right directions! Unbelievable. Must be because I look like I live here.

...or at least I'm going to tell myself that. :)

FRESH AIR!!! (Manali and Kullu Valley, Himachal Pradesh)

Two weeks ago, I went to the Himalayas, and I could actually BREATHE. I took so many deep breaths, just because I could without inhaling death.

I flew into the airport at Bhuntar, Kullu Valley, and the views of the mountains made me unbelievably happy and excited. Even before touchdown I thought, "why again am I stuck in Delhi?" Then I took the bus up the Kullu Valley to Manali, which is famous for Israeli backpackers getting high on charas. This weekend, though, Manali was crawling with Punjabi tourists, because it was a long weekend for Guru Nanak's birthday (Guru Nanak is the founder of Sikhism, and most Sikhs are Punjabi).

After finding a hotel in Manali, I hopped in a taxi to tackle the first leg of the Manali-Leh road to Rohtang La, a mountain pass at about 4000 meters that separates Kullu Valley from Lahaul and Spiti Valleys. Indian tourists from the plains visit the pass to touch snow for the first time. In fact, when I got there, some Tibetan guy offered me a horse ride to "touch the snow" for Rs 1000 (the snow was about a half kilometer higher). I laughed, because I'm not paying US$20 to touch snow!! Then I explained that I grew up with snow, so no thanks.

road to Rohtang La

view from the road to Rohtang La

view from the road to Rohtang La

Rohtang La certainly delivered the spectacular views I was promised. See my previous post, "This is where I am." for two pictures. Here are some more:

chorten under construction

road back from Rohtang La

road back from Rohtang La

On my second day, I went on an all-day hike (about 6 or 7 hours, I think). I was supposed to go to Lama Dugh meadow, but there was a slight change of plans. Twice.

1) After climbing up for about an hour and a half, we found that the trail was blocked by a pile of big rocks, probably a landslide. So we walked back down, and the guide said we would go to a village instead.

2) We went back up again, this time in a different direction. Eventually we heard really strange rumbling noises, and then we saw that some villagers were cutting down trees and rolling the logs down the hill--right on the trail. Probably not a safe place to be. Luckily the guide knew an alternate route to the village.

this isn't even the steepest part

Despite the route changes, the hike was really peaceful and beautiful. We spent most of the time in pine forest, saw snowcapped mountains, and walked through apple orchards and villages. The orange, yellow, and red leaves on the deciduous trees made me especially happy, because I haven't really seen leaves turning since I started Stanford and they reminded me of autumn at home. We passed a lot of villagers on the way, and I instinctively said "kuzuzangpo la," which is "hello" in various Bhutanese languages. Even though Kullu Valley does not look particularly like Bhutan, I guess I subconsciously associated hiking to a village in the mountains with Bhutan. Of course no one knew what "kuzuzangpo la" meant and gave me strange looks. And that happened more than once. Oops.

deciduous trees!!

villagers

I got some beautiful views during the hike

the village we hiked to

with my guide in the village

After my hike, I rewarded my exhausted self with chai, a nap, and some shopping. I bought a few Kashmiri salwar kameezes (it's impossible to resist a Kashmiri salesman) and a traditional Kullu shawl. My salwar kameez wardrobe now totals 10--but none are stitched (you buy sets of fabric). I really need to find a good tailor!

On my last day in Manali, I visited a Hindu temple, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, and a Tibetan Buddhist temple. The Hindu temple, Hadimba Mandir, was very different from the temples I've seen on the northern plains and Deccan plateau. The temple was wooden and set in a very nice park setting with huge pine trees and boulders. There were some basic wooden carvings and hanging yak horns, but overall it was pretty simple (whereas temples in Tamil Nadu are quite elaborate). Inside the temple, there was a mini cave that you had to bend down to go into (really just a rock with an overhang that you could squat under) and the idol was very small. The temple was crawling with Punjabi school children in uniforms; I guess the school was taking advantage of the long weekend for an extended field trip.

Hadimba Mandir

I saw some signs pointing to another temple, so I decided to go check it out. To get to this temple, one has to walk through a mini-amusement park, complete with a small ferris wheel, a few bungee-trampoline contraptions, yak rides, and an area where people can dress up in traditional Kullu clothing and take a picture. A surprising number of Indian tourists actually did put on the Kullu clothing and take pictures, but the yaks were less popular.

mini-amusement park immediately outside Hadimba Mandir. notice the yaks and the girl in the air

girl dressing up in traditional Kullu clothing for a photo op

After passing through the mini-amusement park, I could not find the temple. I asked someone in Hindi where the temple was, and they pointed at a decorated tree. Well, I had seen the tree! The "temple," apparently, was this tree.

a "temple"

I expected the Tibetan Buddhist monastery to be pretty much the same as the monasteries in Bhutan. Most of the imagery and architecture were the same or very similar, but there was a helluva lot of political stuff that is, of course, completely absent from Bhutanese monasteries.

At the entrance to the monastery, there is a huge billboard with the Dalai Lama's smiling face on it that says in Hindi and English: "Thank you India! 50 years of Tibet in Exile." When you walk in, you see a big sign by the prayer wheels that explains in English how the Chinese are carrying out cultural genocide and all these horrible human rights atrocities. After the prayer wheels, you pass another sign with a painted version of the photo of the Panchen Lama (you know, the one of the kid in the orange sweater) and a long explanation in English and Tibetan about how the Chinese captured him and he hasn't been seen since. Inside the lhakhang (or at least that's what it's called in Bhutan; is it the same word in Tibetan? basically the temple room) there were several pictures of the Dalai Lama, including one mounted on the same type of fabric thing as a thangka (painting) with his autograph on it (very sports star-style) and another huge one that was framed and placed in the throne-like chair in front of the Buddha statue that the head lama usually sits in.

looking inside the lhakhang

But my favorite thing in the whole monastery was a picture of the Panchen Lama's face superimposed onto the body of an actual lama, obviously photoshopped. I thought it was hilarious--I mean, a child's face superimposed onto an adult body! I actually giggled aloud. ...but then a monk gave me a dirty look and I realized it is actually kinda sad and I'm the most disrespectful person ever. Because this photo was inside the lhakhang, I wasn't allowed to take a picture of it. Otherwise I totally would have so I could show you.

Tibetan women take part in a puja with prayer wheels

Despite the dirty look I got from the monk, a nun invited me to drink butter tea with her on the roof. I actually managed to drink the entire cup of butter tea, and I do not like butter tea (it's like drinking liquid butter). The mugs of course had a political message on it: "Peace can only exist where human rights are respected." The most exciting part of this spontaneous tea-on-the-roof get-together was that my conversation with the nun was entirely in Hindi. My first-ever conversation (excluding those with autowallahs) in which I didn't switch into English at some point! I am very proud of myself.

The nun who gave me butter tea watches the puja below.

Tibetan Buddhist temple. I love prayer flags.

chorten - you circumambulate this a minimum of 3 times in order to acquire merit for your karma

Then I ate delicious momos. Yum.

My supposed-to-be-14-but-ended-up-being-16-hour bus ride was awful. The first two hours were fine because no one was sitting next to me. However, when we reached Kullu, a 50-something French hippie boarded and sat next to me. And she smelled like she hadn't showered in weeks. She came on the bus with this super sketchy Indian man, who looked sort of like a sadhu but fully clothed (possibly due to the cold). About an hour later, as I was falling asleep, I felt her fingering my jacket, looking for the pockets. Luckily nothing was in my pockets, but then I stayed awake the entire night thinking she was going to steal from me. Damn smelly French hippie! Because my bus arrived in Delhi two hours late, by the time I got home I literally less than 5 minutes to change into work clothes before I had to leave for work. I really hope I didn't smell like that hippie.

And now for "your moment of Zen":

if you want to pay full-price, this is the shop for you!

Taj Take 2 and 50,000 Camels (a very belated post about Agra and Pushkar)

Sareeta and I ride a camel at the Pushkar Camel Fair

Three weeks ago Sareeta, Sophie (PiA bridge year girl--she's between high school and college), and I went to Agra and Pushkar. We went to Agra for the Taj Mahal (duh) and Pushkar for the annual Pushkar Camel Fair, where 50,000 camels plus thousands of horses and cattle are traded. Because Sareeta and I were taking Sophie, PiA completely paid for the trip!

This was my second time to the Taj, and it was MUCH more successful than my first time. This is best demonstrated with pictures:

First visit, December 2007

This visit, October 2009, soon after sunrise

This visit, October 2009, 9:30ish with Sareeta

After visiting the Taj, we had planned to go to Agra Fort. Unfortunately, Sophie got sick and we had to cancel those plans (I've been there before and Sareeta is going back to Agra when her parents visit, so neither of us were particularly disappointed).

Due to some circumstances I still don't really understand, we ended up going to a marble shop (though we were told we were going to this guy's house). I was really annoyed because I thought the driver was doing that whole commission thing. Well, it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The most amazing thing happened!

I said something in Hindi, and then the salesman said that another white girl from California (I said I studied in California) visited his shop the previous week and was learning Hindi in Rishikesh, which is where he had lived. Sareeta then exclaimed that her family was from near Rishikesh, in Dehradun. This man said that he too was from Dehradun! After some name-dropping, it turned out that this man had grown up in the same housing compound as Sareeta's mother and was her uncle's best friend!! Sareeta recognized his name (she heard his name in a bunch of her mother's and uncle's childhood stories). This man had lost touch with Sareeta's family when they moved to the US, and he had been trying to reconnect with them for over 30 years. And now they are reconnected, because we walked into the right marble shop, one of dozens in Agra. Even in a country of over a billion people, it's a small world. Unbelievable.

After this astounding coincidence, we headed to Pushkar, where we met up with Katrina and Kris (Katrina also works at TERI, and Kris is her fiance). On the way we saw many camels on the road, presumably also going to the camel fair:

Camels take the highway to Pushkar, apparently. (blurry because I was in a moving car)

This was my first time to Rajasthan, which I had skipped during my backpacking trip two years ago. Even though I didn't go to any major sights (Rajasthan is famous for its forts and palaces), I can see why it is so firmly on the tourist track. Despite the desert backdrop, Rajasthan is insanely colorful. Women's saris, salwar kameezes, and traditional Rajasthani dresses are extremely vibrant, more than most other places in India, and the men wear vivid turbans--I swear I even saw highlighter yellow!

Rajasthani women in bright clothing

Pushkar has a lake that is considered sacred by Hindus, and on the last day of the camel fair hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims take a dip (we went on the first day of the fair, because we had heard that there is a huge increase in tourists toward the end and by then most of the camel traders and their livestock leave). Well, we didn't get to see this holy lake, because it was drained for a construction project only a few days earlier. They (not clear who "they" are) set up a swimming pool for daily bathing and the festival immersion. Why they didn't wait ten days until the festival was over is beyond my comprehension. ...Lots of things in India are beyond my comprehension.

drained Pushkar lake--notice the swimming pool in the lower left corner

We spent most our time walking around the fairgrounds, but we also rode in a camel-pulled cart and on camel humps (see first picture, above)! Here are pictures:

the fairgrounds with camels as far as the eye can see

butthead!

Camel traders chill under their camel carts. They all did this, and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Note the curious camel face on the left.

A lot of the camels had messages and Hindu symbols shaved into their fur. Many also had flowers on their noses.

A Rajasthani camel trader leads his proud camels. Check out his wicked 'stache.

Camel accessories

Did I mention there were 50,000 camels?

And now I will end this post with a WTF?! picture, or as John Stewart would call it, "your moment of Zen":

old white women wearing Rajasthani men's turbans

Take that, autowallah!

I made a bet with an autowallah today when I went to my Hindi lesson. It went down as follows:

मैं: ईस्ट ऑफ़ कैलाश।
ऑटोवाला: अस्सी रुपये।
मैं: क्या?! अस्सी बहुत महंगे हैं! मीटर के साथ तीस रुपये हैं!
ऑटोवाला: तीस रुपये? नहीं!
मैं: हाँ! तीस रुपये!
ऑटोवाला: नहीं!
मैं: हाँ!
ऑटोवाला: ठीक है। अगर मीटर तीस रुपये या उससे कम कहता है, मुझे मीटर का मूल्य दीजिये। लेकिन अगर मीटर तीस से ज़्यादा कहता है, मुझे अस्सी दीजिये।
मैं: अच्छा। चलो।

Me: East of Kailash.
Autowallah: 80 rupees.
Me: What?! 80 is very expensive! With the meter it's 30 rupees!
Autowallah: 30 rupees? No!
Me: Yes! 30 rupees!
Autowallah: No!
Me: Yes!
Autowallah: Ok. If the meter says 30 rupees or less, give me the meter price. But if the meter says more than 30, give me 80.
Me: Alright. Let's go.

And when we arrived, what did the meter say? 27 rupees. Put that in your paan leaf and chew it!

It's not just me.

The pollution is so much worse than usual that it's all over the news:

Delhi Air Thick With Pollution

Smog Envelops City

Cars, Construction Polluting Air

Current Weather Forecast

Yes, SMOKE is in the official weather forecast. And don't you love Weather.com's lovely smoke graphic? The pollution has become significantly worse in the past few days. And I hear this is nothing compared to the winter, when everyone is burning wood to heat their homes. I swear I'm going to develop all sorts of lung diseases.

The Cheese Ball

The Cheese Ball is my new happy place in Delhi. It is a store near my office that, you guessed it, sells cheese. REAL, unprocessed cheese! And so many different types! Cheddar, mozzarella, gouda, smoked gouda, gouda with cumin, gouda with black pepper (lots of gouda), ricotta, brie, scamorza, smoked scamorza, muenster, feta, blue, Dutch edam, and my personal favorite, cream cheese. They have other variety of cheeses too but I can't remember them all off the top of my head. And I bought a bunch, and the cheese is actually GOOD. My "where am I supposed to get real, good cheese?" dilemma is now resolved.

I am awkward.

I finally met Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Director General of TERI, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, today. It was super awkward:

I was meeting Dr. Leena Srivastava (executive director of TERI, second only to Pachauri, and PiA's contact with TERI) when Pachauri walked by and Leena said, "Have you met Dr. Pachauri? Introduce yourself. Go! Now!!" so I left her "cabin" (as they call glass offices) and awkwardly ran up to him to say hello. Super awkward. I was like "um Dr. Leena told me I should introduce myself before you get away, sorry if you're busy and I'm disturbing you." Because it was clear that I had run up to him and I felt I needed to explain myself. I of course should have said that I wanted to introduce myself, not that Dr. Leena wanted me to introduce myself, but it all happened so fast and I was flustered.

...I am the most awkward person on the planet.

In other news, the Prime Minister of Sweden visited TERI today (see this article about his visit). This meant that the Delhi Police was securing the building with a walk-through metal detector that no one actually pays attention to, a woman who giggles when her handheld metal detector makes a noise over my bra's underwire, and a man with a big gun and camouflage vest. Also, lunch was delayed by half an hour. Unclear to me why lunch was delayed. But everyone was pretty hungry.

This is where I am.

and I am really happy to be here, despite the below-freezing wind turning my face pink:


More images and some stories to come upon my return to Delhi. Now I'm going to go eat some momos and drink chai while gazing upon mountains.

Pyrotechnic Fun (Diwali in Bangalore)

Two weeks ago I went to Bangalore to celebrate Diwali with Angela, a friend from Pondicherry University and hang out with Pema, a friend from Thimphu, Bhutan. The whole weekend was awesome, and Diwali was amazing. We lit fireworks on Angie's roof while watching a 360-degree show of fireworks, both in the air and on the streets. Photos and videos can express this spectacle better than my words:

special fireworks booth set up for Diwali in Angela's neighborhood

fireworks on the street and in the air, viewed from Angela's roof


Angela and I play with sparklers

Angela lighting "flowerpot" fireworks

[video unable to upload]

360-view of fireworks (note: this video does not do the scene justice! unfortunately I was not videotaping during the best parts)


(I will add more pictures to my Picasa page soon.)

And of course we ate lots and lots of sweets, which is what one does on Diwali.

The day after Diwali I hung out with Pema, who is studying and working in Bangalore. He works at a call center overnight and gets home from work at 5am. Painful. We went to Lal Bagh, a big park with botanical gardens, and hung out in a giant tree (Pema said it was the biggest tree he'd ever seen, if you discount banyan trees):

super awkward sitting-in-a-tree picture. I almost want to submit this awkwardness to awkwardfamilyphotos.com, even though we aren't family. I swear our day wasn't as awkward as this picture may suggest.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to Kullu and Manali in the Himalayas for the long weekend (we have Monday off for the birthday of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism). I am psyched for hiking, mountain vistas, cold temperatures (-5 degrees C at night) and, most importantly, CLEAN AIR!!

...I'm only getting more and more behind on my blog.

Oh, and I must end this post with the greatest picture of all:

the best masala dosa in all of India, in Hotel Janatha in Malleshwaram