The Patriots

August 15th is India's Independence Day, and the preparations are already beginning at Visthar for quite the fest. The girls at Bandhavi, in their usual expressions of adorableness, are planning a play to perform. From my spot in the window seat in the library (with the windows open, I can just hear the cows bawling in the distant pasture), I have the perfect vantage to spy on them as they practice. From the polish to their performance, they seem to have already talked through what they wanted to perform -- mostly vignettes, with lots of saluting and "Vande Mataram"-ing (Vande mataram is "hail to the motherland").

I looked out of my idyllic window just in time to see sweet Sunita (Sunita of the chubby cheeks, versus Sunita of the high voice) picking up an air machine gun, taking a stance and sounding out her actions as she "gunned down" Akshaya, Nagaratna, Shruthi, Deepa, Ganga, Sheshikila and others. (ironically, they are practicing in a structure called, "Priety Mane" - house of love) They hopped up a moment later, moving into the next statement of nationality.

It would be impossible to talk about India as a nation without talking about violence. This Independence Day will be only their 62nd; a young nation of an ancient culture. Though borne out of a nonviolence movement against the Raj, India's national history has thus far been punctuated by violence. There is the incalculable violence of the Partition as India and Pakistan West and East were split. Several wars have been fought with Pakistan over land and primacy, and India's border areas remain ragged with hostilities. Then, there are the daily violences brought on by crushing poverty, caste, gender... the list goes on.

By the way, I am not picking on India here; violence seems imbued in the identity of a new state. Look at US history as comparison - in our first 62 years, we tried the Articles of Confederation and had to scratch them because of insurrections (one of the more successful over the taxation of whiskey), fought a rather nasty war with the British, and seriously thought about trying it with the French, too. In the mean time, we quite nearly annihilated an entire indigenous population, enslaved a decent proportion of another, and laid the seeds for civil war.

So, in celebrating our respective Independence(s), how do we celebrate a nation without celebrating violence? How to we honor sacrifice without creating a culture of war? In the US, we are as likely to have a barbecue on the 4th as we are to have a program -- perhaps we are further removed from the realities of our independence-- but still we talk about war.

At my own personal stance, I think we have to realize that being a citizen of a nation is negotiating the border between just national pride and the insidious influence of violent nationalism. How do you celebrate independence justly without turning into a, "'Merica for 'mericans." How do children talk about India's history without machine gunning each other in a field? Does the celebration of institutionalized violence lead to those same trends and themes in political and social thought?

Arrival

I have arrived. I am not tired; I am not sore; I have come back.

The journey from Des Moines to Chicago to Frankfurt to Delhi to Bangalore was long and uneventful-- long enough that you forget to be antsy after hour 30 because it seems as though the transit itself will never end. Of course, once I started to get close, excitement set in-- coming back to a place you love, wherever it is, feels like shaking off dust off a favorite novel; it feels like the first surya namaskar after a long time away from practice; it is finding the muscles that have been left dormant, feeling out how much you can still do. As I watched the ground approach from several thousand feet, I could not help that every inch down was lightening my steps. Even the landscape itself excited—There are no rolling hills to speak of, but rather oddly randomized rock outcroppings, sprinkled over the landscape, surrounded by entirely flat farms and developments. It looks nothing so much like an artist’s depiction of the sea on a still day, a fish’s back arcing out of the water – rendered in stone. So uniquely Bangalore.

There was a great deal I did not recognize upon my arrival – the driver sent to pick me up – the ultra modern buses that took us through the “New Airport” part of the city—the New Airport part of the city itself. There is a great deal of bustle, a great deal of construction, all of it focused on an area significantly outside the heart of the city. This new Bangalore will take some getting used to, especially as it has also changed Guddilahalli, Kothanur, Dodda Gubbi, all of these haunts that I just got to know the last time I was here. They are sleeker now, more full with cars and Maruthis and Qualises and Fords than bullock carts or handcarts or even rickshaws. (This is a bit of concern, actually – the traffic on the outer ring road has sped up, to a point now that I could see it being rather dangerous – riding along in the bus from the airport reminded me a great deal of The Knight Bus, in Harry Potter) with it's high speed weaving.

But pulling into Visthar was a coming home. The campus is little changed; they have added a bakery unit for the girls to learn to make delectable things to go along with their cooking (speaking of -- does anyone have a good eggless cookie recipe? Is there such a thing?) I am staying in a gorgeous second story one bedroom flat, that I will be sharing with another girl in the relatively near future. My Bandhavi girls were startled to see me -- I think they have been told that I was coming, but only in passing -- I am remembering their names as well as I can, and several girls are already happy to inform me that my Kannada is still terrible but their English is better so they will translate for me. The mosquitoes are still pestilential, and the campus is completely laden with fruit: guava, mango, jackfruit (in the running for weirdest looking fruit ever: http://s3.amazonaws.com/picable/2007/07/27/45430_Jackfruit-Tree_620.jpg), coconut, banana. I think everyone needs to know that I can pick guava from my balcony! Not that they are quite ripe, but it's the proximity that counts!

Tomorrow being Sunday, I will probably sleep a bit late to account for the many hours of sleep I didn't get while sitting in the Delhi airport. After that -- exploring and wandering and unpacking and making myself a general nuisance :) I then begin work on Monday, as Visthar's Program Associate for International Education. I will be here for at least 6months (a visa requirement will have me home in November), and the excitement of it all is breathtaking!

More soon!

Lindsay