(The link for pictures is at the end of this post.)
Dehradun has it rough, I know. It’s trying to get me to have a good time here, but I’ve already been up to the mountains, so Dehradun has less appeal in comparison. It is a very livable city. But it is in an awkward adolescent phase. Uttarakhand only became a state about 10 years ago; before then Dehradun was a relatively small city. Now that it is the capital, it is consistently growing. But it lacks many of the cultural and social opportunities that a long term city can offer. So in some ways, it’s a lot of the bad without a ton of the good. It gets crowded, there’s a lot of traffic, and there’s not a lot to actually go to or to see.
I will say that Dehradun is a very nice North Indian city. This cannot be said for most North Indian cities. Many are very intense and in-your-face. Dehradun is not like that. It is clearly still very much a mountain city, even though it is being transformed. An example is Chakrata Road. Chakrata Road branches off from the main bazaar. It had some of my favorite shops. Like a chemist shop that had been in the family for three generation, and which was run by the most intelligent and elderly chemist that I’ve ever met. I say this all in the past tense, because all of these shops have been demolished to make room for a bigger and better Chakrata Road. I get it; the city needs to grow. But I can relate to locals who hate the fact that Dehradun has become a capital city and therefore must terminate so much of what made the city charming.
While I originally planned on spending as much time in Joshimath as possible, the bad snows have cut off even low-elevation field sites. I might go out next week; but it will be a short trip, because Peter is coming to India on February 19th! In lieu of the mountains; I’m trying to embrace Dehradun and enjoy the city while I’m here.
My quest to like Dehradun began with me throwing a birthday party for myself. This might sound pretty lame; but it was a good opportunity to spend more time with the PhD students here. Being around a lot of Indians who are my age is one of the perks of living in Dehradun these days. I ended up making ravioli from scratch. I made the dough, the ricotta, and everything. It was a lot of work, but my friends seemed to enjoy it. I also made Italian-style chickpeas, which they appreciated as a divergence from the very spicy food that they get every day on campus. I’m going to post some pictures of the party. It was a lot of fun. My parents sent me a cake and my friend Ridhima bought me one. Apparently, in India you cut the cake before you eat dinner. Also, you’re supposed to put frosting on the birthday person’s face. I explained that we really only do that for weddings.
The next day, I went to a dinner for “Lady Scientists.” All the female researchers at the institute were invited. It was at a hotel and we got a ton of free food, so that was already worth it. There were also “cultural events,” which is essentially a talent show. The Indian perception of dance is strange to me. It is overall a very sexually repressed culture. But my friends performed some extremely sexual dances and all these old lady scientists came up to them afterwards and hugged them, telling them what amazing dancers they are. There was a lot of “first class, first class!” being yelled. After the talent show, there was time for everyone to dance. All of my friends were impressed that I could dance “Hindi Dancing” so well. I tried explaining that shaking your ass is pretty much universal, but they didn’t seem to get the point. I think I also waved my hands around in a generally Bollywood manner. Now that I think of it, all the white women in Bollywood videos are there to fill the role of the Western whore who is sexually open enough to allow the male actors to grind on her. Maya and I watched a lot of Bollywood when we were travelling, and literally every time an actor got hot-and-heavy with a woman, she was white. I don’t mean that they don’t portray Indian women as sexual. It’s that white women are perceived as sexually loose. So maybe my friends were just impressed that I didn’t dry hump anyone. It was a challenge. Us American women are extremely promiscuous.
The photos of all of this are included in this post. I think that you’ll enjoy seeing me with my friends here. You’re probably going to be surprised that so many people in the photos look very distinct from one another. India is perhaps the most ethnically and linguistically diverse country in the world. My friend Malem is from Manipur and looks Burmese or Chinese. She speaks Hindi pretty well, but not fluently and she much prefers using English for important conversations. It’s almost as hard for her to go home as it is for me, because Manipur is constantly undergoing riots due to the ethnic clashes between the different tribes there. It is easier for her brother in Thailand to get home than it is for Malem. I don’t have photos of all of my other friends, but there are also students here from Nagaland (near Manipur,) Ladhak (higher up and west than Uttarakhand,) Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Ladhakis are Buddhist, a lot of people from Nagaland and Manipur are Christian, Kerala also as many Christians, as does Tamil Nadu. Nevertheless, Malem is Buddhist and all of my friends from Kerala are Hindu. My Ladhaki friend doesn’t eat meat because of Buddhism. Malem will eat anything with a pulse. Sam, a friend from Nagaland, told me that she also is a meat eater. I didn’t mention that Nagaland is home to the formerly “head hunting” tribes of India. But I’m sure if head hunting is not unheard of, then it’s a bit dramatic to be a vegetarian. Many of my North Indian Hindu friends are vegetarian. The South Indians could seem to care less. But then there are exceptions to those generalizations as well. It gets very complicated.
The great thing about all of this diversity is that it shows me that I am not alone here. While I am not Indian, I am not the only one who looks different or struggles with Hindi. Of course, my Hindi is the worst of the bunch; but it’s still a relief to know that conversations aren’t in English just for my benefit. English is very much a common ground language here.
Also, Dehradun has a very large Tibetan population. Therefore, I’m an outsider in a city that is used to outsiders settling here. Today I went to the bazaar to buy some camera batteries, get some photos printed out, and to buy something delicious (I chose butter cake.) When I got to the bazaar, there was a huge procession of Tibetans. They were protesting India’s lack of political pressure on China. This I completely understand. On the one hand, India has given refuge to any Tibetan that can get across the border. On the other hand, the Indian government doesn’t have a strong political stance on Tibet. As the Tibetan New Year gets closer, I’ve been reading about more and more Tibetans being killed in Tibet. They’re trying to celebrate their own New Year rather than the Chinese New Year. It’s disgusting what China is doing in Tibet. If I were Tibetan, I’d be angry at India too. It’s hypocritical to absorb an entire nation, but not to do anything with regards to that nation’s status. Of course, I understand why India is hesitant to do so. China and India have an uncertain future, but it will certainly be a rivalry. The question is, how serious will that rivalry get?
China has never attacked India through the northwest Himalayas. Regardless, every other town near my field site is home to an army base. The only reason that anyone can move around at all during the winter is that the army clears the roads in case they need to bring tanks up to the Tibetan plateau. There is an uneasiness that cannot be ignored. While I sympathize with Tibet, seeing Indian troops ready at the Chinese border makes me hypersensitive to the severity of what an Indo-Chinese war would mean for the world. But even with these serious thoughts, I want you all to know that butter cake is as delicious as it sounds.
Here are pictures:
https://plus.google.com/photos/101737615291512796999/albums/5707397646360437601
More butter cake, I say!
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