India is Growing and Shrinking

So many people have asked my why I come to India, what is it that draws me here. I usually give a pat answer. But really, I believe that India will be at the forefront of the minds of the world’s citizens as this century progresses; there is change afoot here, there is motion. But I think it at least partially the job of the world not only to bear witness, but also to play a role in what will happen here. India is where poverty, real poverty, is smashing into great wealth and new wealth. I don’t anticipate some sort of massive class uprising, but I do anticipate the way that India develops itself in the next decade will tell us all a great deal about the ways that the 21st century will look.

This poverty is important to remember in the face of the flurry of media coverage on India's growth. Western companies are looking to outsource as much as possible in deference to the bottom line, to the point that Obama people have started the chant of "Buffalo not Bangalore." India's own government has begun to promise its citizens growth in the next year.

But this growth is critical. Unicef just issued a new report that South Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan) has 100 million new cases of chronic hunger in the past year. This is what recession looks like in a global world. That brings the total of chronically hungry people in South Asia to around 400million. For context -- the population of the United States, the 3rd most populous nation in the world, is just over 300 million. There are more people in South Asia that regularly do not have enough to eat than there are people in the United States.

Of course, it is difficult to keep this in mind, when I am surrounded by daily beauty. Visthar is an oasis, where we work on positive change and empowerment in an environment that could not be more bucolic if we tried. Think of it – Visthar is six acres, where the buildings are built to match the land, where fruit trees are various and heavy with produce, the offices are open air with a lotus pool at the center, where flowers sprout from every available nook and women are as well employed as men and adorable girls run around shouting, “Hi Aunty!” and singing. How do you think of food security in all of this? But it is lurking at the gate. And really, in a "flat" world, it is lurking at every gate.

http://www.unicef.org/photoessays/49854.html

Book to Read: White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. Winner of the 2008 Booker Prize - discusses both the desperation of poverty, as well as the opportunity for advancement.

Opus

I went out the other night to a nightclub called "Opus" with the son of Visthar's director -- he is from Bangalore, but going to college in the US. Opus was, by and large, one of those very striking “globalized” sorts of places. Of course, Opus' only claim to actually being an opus was the extensive tribute it seemed to be making towards western culture. It was lovely, and weirdly familiar. There was supposed to have been an acoustic band playing, but when we got there, “Smack That” was on the loudspeakers and the place was full with girls in impossibly tights jeans and tank tops and poofy hair and makeup and looking very much like they were sitting down at Cabaret West in Des Moines, Iowa. The place was designed as a courtyard, white rocks on the ground shown off by white rope lights and tables built low, so the under-25 crowd could drape themselves over the cushions on the floor. It was gorgeous; it was mood lit; the band was singing “Free Falling” and drinking Red Bull. Incidentally, one of the guys we were with is employed by Red Bull to go around to parties with cute girls (this is key) and to hand out Red Bull to revelers. I had to laugh… the whole thing felt totally natural, in the sort of way that I only felt uncomfortable in that a) I was the only one wearing a kurthi top, and b) I was skewing the age demographic, up.

But on the way home, I started to find myself frustrated by the evening, this most American of evenings—why didn’t we just stop at Perkins on the way home and get it over with? What is the worth in coming halfway around the world just to revel in the things that are most familiar? I was working myself into the rant about why we of the West immediately cling to those things most Western... But then, a realization: Can I really lay claim to the Opus experience as “Western” anymore? At what point does culture leave the confines of its origin and become global? The kids there were certainly not dabbling in a foreign experience, and just because we arrived at the door in an autorickshaw does not mean that Tom Petty was inaccessible to them. Honestly, there was more in common between me and the kids at Opus than the kids at Opus and the people who grew up in the slums nearby. I was reminded of dinner, only a few weeks ago in West Des Moines—a few girls were sitting around at Simo’s, the Cajun restaurant, drinking margaritas and complimenting each other. One girl had on a kurthi, not unlike the one I wore to Opus – she got it at TJ Maxx, the discount chain, because “Indian clothes are all over right now, they’re really popular.” I have never been a fashion maven (which is why I have Kathleen vet so many of my outfits), but, really? Think about the confusion of a system when you can wear a kurthi to a West Des Moines bar but not to a bar in Bangalore.

So, today’s thoughts: Is this “global culture” merely an exchange of ideas by the rich? And is this global culture actually global, or rather a process of dominant societies impressing their own traditions and culture upon another while co-opting the “pretties” of the culture they are assimilating?

Settled.

Vegan friends are the best! I have already done some looking, and found nice things... as a vegetarian myself, I am always on the hunt for tasty stuff online :) Thankfully, David has deemed that eggs may be used in the kitchen, but that they were being improperly mixed in the current recipes, and could only be introduced if they were done well. This adds a certain pressure, but I think we can rise to the challenge :)

The girls at Bandhavi remember me better than I had anticipated, and they are so aggressively friendly that it feels like the past two years were more like a few weeks. Jyothi has taken upon herself the task of teaching me Kannada – she asserts, with four or five other girls, that she received top marks in English this year :) Thank goodness for it, of course, because my “teach yourself Kannada in 30 days” book seems to be over-optimistic in my abilities. Alice, a girl from England working here, is reputed to have very good Kannada, and it’s not that I hate her for it, I just resent her :) But the girls love this Alice person, and she seems very nice. They say, “Aunty Lindsay, Aunty Alice, you are aka and tenge!” (older and younger sister). They test me on their names, of which I do not remember enough– I must work on that sooner rather than later. Thankfully, I have left myself a bit of a breadcrumb trail from the last time – a few photos with a few of the girls names- at least a study guide to start.

Last night was my first monsoon storm. It rained a bit the first night,, and I though to myself what a letdown it was. Well, then, last night really showed itself up. I skipped lunch yesterday because I wasn’t hungry, and while I wasn’t particularly hungry in the evening, I thought that Rathi would come find me if I missed another meal. It has just started to threaten rain, so I hit the road over there- taking my flashlight but leaving my umbrella (the banyan and the palm trees cover most of the way, how much do I really need an umbrella?). It would seems that I needed it a great deal, and I only avoided the real downpour by a few precious moments. But my did it storm! The water rushed over the roofs, flooding the central courtyard by several inches; the power went out almost immediately and stayed out for several hours; and the girls just danced and danced. Akshaya has the grace of a dancer, and the talent—it was beautiful, watching her teach the younger girls in the candle light, in the flashlight, though the rain drops splashing in under the roof. The lightening was hardly visible through all the rain, and the thunder became another person in the room, rumbling just out of sight.

Oh, and, my roof leaks.