Tues. May 22, 2012

Finally the day of my departure is here. It’s been a hard year, but also a very rewarding one. Horace Mann the middle school that I have worked at for the past two years is now completely taken over by Buena Vista elementary school. The district has turned it into a K-8 Spanish immersion school which means most of the middle school staff have to be let go because all or most of the classes are taught in Spanish. I was pretty much forced to sub elsewhere and I found a long-time subbing position at James Denman MS which is near the Balboa Bart station. For the past three months, I had to bike 5 miles to get there from Zen Center which pubt me in very good shape but the bike ride in the morning was a little dangerous at first. Even though there are barriers on San Jose Ave. to divide cyclists from cars, I didn’t feel safe biking next to cars that are going at 40-50 mph. Instead I chose to climb up the hills of Arlington St. which is exhausting work.

Aileen and Eva both accompanied me to the SFO airport where I waited for an hour and a half before I could check my bags. I decided to wait for another 45 minutes when I saw how long the line was. It only died down a bit, I finally gave up after the 45 minute mark, when I saw that people were still slowly trickling in so I went ahead and waited in line. It didn’t take that long though. From what I can tell, a lot of the ppl were tourists and were heading back home to Asia.

The flight was quite nice even though it was brutally long! I thought it was a straight shot to Singapore but that was not the case. It took 12 hours to get to Hong Kong and then another 3 hours to Singapore. I was probably on that plane for a good 16-17 hours. But I got a really good seat right next to the exit doors, which guaranteed that I have a lot of leg room. I should have brought more snacks with me or at least I should have eaten a big meal or something before I boarded that plane so that I did not have to wait around for dinner at 3 o’clock in the morning. I guess if I had done that, I could have had more sleep. Right now as I am blogging this at the Singapore airport, all I desire right now is to doze off when I’m on the plane heading for Mumbai. It’s a five hour flight and I really desperately need to get some shut eye time.

Singapore is a nice airline to fly on. Their food is good and I like the fact that they use small tupperware and they are quite conscientious about the use of plastic. They use silverware unlike other airlines. The flight attendants are very friendly and young...there’s a kind of exuberance and enthusiasm about how they do their work. The airport is very nice, it’s quite a hub for a lot of flights all over Asia. Despite the fact that there should be a lot of foot traffic, the ambience in the airport is very quiet and calm.

A year of changes!

Since I got back from my last trip in late August, there have been many changes in the lives of my housemates in Pune. Bhavesh got married in November--the wedding took place in Chandigarh all the way up north in the state of Punjab. They went on a really nice honeymoon afterwards to an island resort (maybe the Maldives...not sure). Vaibhav moved to Delhi for work and hasn’t been back to the flat since October. I believe he is living with his relatives and he doesn’t mind that at all. As a matter of fact, I think he enjoys it! The last time I talked to Vikas, he was getting very excited about his upcoming trip to London for work. Bhavesh also moved to New Zealand for work. His contract will be six months to one year.

Of all the people I have met on my trip, I have kept in touch with Neel Kulkarni, who taught me Sanskrit in the last nine months via Skype. Neel is a yoga teacher in Pune and I met him through Aradhana, whom I took Sanskrit lessons from when I was in Pune. She referred me to Neel when I was complaining to her that I needed someone who can help me with my lower back pain. Neel not only has fixed the pain in my lower back, he has been a really good friend and my guru. I have learned so much Sanskrit from him. Much of what I learn from him is not grammar per se but being able to read simple Sanskrit stories. In the last nine months we have read many simple stories to help me improve on my syntax and increase my vocabulary. Despite four years of studies, my vocabulary still is quite insufficient. Sanskrit is truly a difficult language for any westerner to master because there are hardly any words that are cognates to our western languages. For Indians, however, Sanskrit is not so hard because they can draw many relevant connections from their language i.e., Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, etc. It’s not farfetched to say that Sanskrit is three times harder for a westerner than it is for Indian people. If it takes Indian people ten years to master this language, it probably will take a westerner thirty years. I came to this conclusion because of my experience of how it took me three months to be familiar with the devanagari (hindi) script alone, while most of my indian classmates at that time already had some familiarity with it.

And to address a further point whether Sanskrit is a living or dead language. I am always puzzled when previous Sanskrit teachers asked me what exactly do I want to do with this language. Do I want to read, write, or speak in this language? How can anyone write or speak if it's already a dead language? All I can tell them was that I want to be able to read texts or any texts for that matter and be able to understand what is being written whether it’s philosophy or literature. But for an Indian who is studying Sanskrit, reading dead texts alone is not the only goal, one must also be able to compose and converse in Sanskrit. Neel himself can speak Sanskrit to me and he’s been training me in the past several months to at least learn how to listen to fairly simple conversations. Even then it is still hella hard! There are many scholars who are still writing novels in Sanskrit! So I’ll let you decide whether you think Sanskrit is a living or dead language.

Wed. Aug. 10, 2011

I did not sleep at all last night...instead Vaibhav and I stayed up to talk about what was on our minds. I think ever since I have lived in the flat, I have had some really good talk with Vai, as I liked to call him. So last night we were just talking about what I’ve learned from my trip. While I tried to forget Avanti since it didn’t work out between us, Vaibhav brought up the subject again...with a different twist. I told Vaibhav that I got an email from Avanti after I sent her an email expressing my interest for her, and that she emailed me back within a couple of days saying that she did not share the same feeling that I had for her b/c she’s currently in a relationship of five years and that things seem to be going pretty well.

Vai didn’t buy that, and believed that she probably made that up because she might have thought that things were going a little too fast. Vai reassured me that it could have been a flirting game too that Avanti was probably playing with me. He suggested that instead of saying that I was really into her, I should have said that we should keep in touch and be friends...given that Avanti already has some feelings for me. Vai, however, admitted that that would have taken about a year. But Vai also said that my approach wasn’t wrong given how she offered me to stay with her and her parents when I was coming to Chennai...but only to make up some kind of strange excuse that her parents can’t accommodate me because they have guests at the house. I gave Vaibhav my rationale for taking it pretty straightforward because I felt like we got off to a pretty good start and since I was about to leave India, I just needed to know if she was interested...

My flight to Varanasi from Mumbai was a total disaster. First, I hardly slept at all at night. The cab came to pick me up at 5 in the morning and we should have reached the airport at about 8:30 but instead we got there at about 10. I shouldn’t blame the guy though...thank god we got there before 11:20 for my flight...the driver had to deal with a puncture in the tire. When we were heading to Mumbai, I got a call from Spice Jet that the flight that I was on was cancelled. I was pretty stressed out by now. I thought about staying in Mumbai for the night and book it tomorrow. But fortunately, when I reached the airport, the attendants told me that while the flight was cancelled, they were gonna get another plane in Pune and it has been rebooked for two hours. I think I’ve waited for 3 hours at the airport and we didn’t fly until 1 pm. I didn’t get to Varanasi until 6 pm when I should have gotten there at 3:30.

Tired and exhausted, the cab to Varanasi proper took about 40 minutes, but I was delayed because Aradhana’s sister-in-law wanted to find me a hotel near where she lived. Her sister-in-law is also a Sanskrit professor at the Gandhi College. There are about three universities that have Sanskrit in Varanasi. First, the BHU (Benaras Hindu University) which is a very nice campus, second is the Sampurna Sanskrit University, and the other one is the Gandhi University which also offers courses in Sanskrit.

the famous Sanskrit University.

BHU

 Aradhana’s sister-in-law wanted me to stay close to her but I decided against that since I wanted to be near the Ganges river and the ghats where all the tourists were. It took us another hour or so to find me a place. I ended up staying pretty close to the Ghat.

view of the Ganges from my hotel.

Mon-Tue, Aug. 8-9, 2011

I was really tired when I got back from Bangalore and decided to stay home for the rest of the day instead of going to Bandarkar Institute. Part of the day was spent packing up my clothes for the trip to Varanasi on Wednesday. Aradhana also arranged home-made dinner at her apartment with her mother, sister-in-law, and children. Her husband is usually away for work in and around Maharastra. My housemates also arranged a chicken dinner at our flat on Tuesday and I had to decide whether I was going to take the bus on Tuesday evening and stay at a hotel in Mumbai or pay for a cab and leave Pune at 5 in the morning for my 11:20 am flight from Mumbai. I decided to leave early Wednesday morning because I wanted to hang out with the guys some more.

This was Tuesday night. Some memorable pictures of Aradhana and husband, Vinay.

Tanu, Aradhana's daughter.

On Tuesday, I had lunch with Neel Kulkarn, a yoga teacher who Aradhana introduced me to. He’s a really a good guy and has some pretty interesting perspectives on Indian culture and American culture since he lived in Virginia for over 20 years and 30 something odd years in India. He’s a great guy and very funny.

My buddy Neel Kulkarn...a really good dude...we had some nice dosas at this wonderful restaurant in Pune...probably the best dosas in Pune. It's always packed with college students and workers.

I’m a little unhappy to inform you guys that things between me and Avanti didn’t really work out...and I didn’t really expect it to. I told Vaibhav what happened between us and he gave me a lot of insights into the psyche of Indian girls and I have to say that it is dramatically different from western girls. Neel also gave me a lot of information as well. Here is what Neel had to say about Hindu girls: In general, Indian girls are very conservative....meaning if you are interested in the girl: you need to seek the parent’s permission. He gave me an example of a french guy who was in his mid ‘50s studying classical music with a single Hindu woman who was also in her ‘50s and was never married (a woman who is not married by the time she’s in her mid ‘30s will almost never get married). They probably had studied together for a period of 6 months. One day after they finished the lesson, the man asked the woman that in this period of their lives, he wanted to know if she wanted to marry him and live with him. She kept a perfect silence, and then the next day, her dad called the french guy and told him that he was not welcomed to take lessons under his daughter again.

Neel also suggested that I looked into Indian girls who are Buddhist because there is no caste problem...he said it would improve my chances than going for Hindus, because believe it or not caste is extremely important when it comes to marriage. I guess from the orthodox tradition, buddhists are considered from low-caste who converted so as to side-stepped all caste impediments. Personally, I think the caste system is one of the drawbacks that keep India from realizing its great potential. Gandhi was very much against the caste system as well as Buddha. Furthermore in most cases, Indian girls are not all that independent than I thought they were. According to Neel, if relatives say that they don’t like the boy the girl wants to see, she will usually follow her relatives preference.

Anyways, Neel and I had a good chat about a lot of things. He reminded me of a graduate student instructor, Timothy Doran, I once had when I was still at Berkeley. He was a really nice, open, and honest dude who loves to share whatever he knows with you.

These are some last pictures that I took of some of the guys on my last day.

Me and Renjeet.

 

Bhavesh studying for his MBA exams. He works really hard....and he's getting married in November. His wife is from Punjab...and the wedding is going to be hella fun. Lots of drinking, dancing, and merriment.

After lunch with Neel, I went to Bhandarkar to say goodbye to the folks there, and then decided to walk from Bhandarkar to my apartment flat which is almost a 7 km walk. It was a nice stroll since I knew that I probably won’t have that chance again when I come back to India. I don’t think I will spend my summer again in Pune but will opt for Varanasi which I will be heading to this Wednesday. However, a lot of ppl have warned me that Varanasi is one of the hottest place on earth...I don’t doubt them.

Vaibhav lying around watching TV.

That night, I also went to Aradhana’s house to say my last goodbyes..she, her husband, and I had a good chat for about an hour and I headed back to the flat at 9 pm to have dinner with Bhavesh, Vaibhav, Sunil (a new resident of the flat who moved from Delhi). Vikas came in about half an hour later.

This trip has been an incredible journey for me. I have learned something about myself and I have met some really cool ppl who really made this trip so much more enjoyable. Had I live by myself, I wouldn’t have met Vaibhav, whom I consider now as a really good friend, and the rest of the gang. Hopefully, some of the guys will be able to come to America later in the spring. If they do, I told them that I would be more than honored to show them around the states.

safe back home in SF (Tue. Aug. 23)

Alrighty folks, I finally came back on Saturday in San Francisco at 8 pm and didn't get to Zen Center until 9. I booked a shuttle when I was at Chicago airport and the cool thing was even though I gave them the wrong time that I would arrive at SFO, I was still able to get a ride.

The entire flight was really long. I flew from Varanasi to Delhi...and I seriously thought I was gonna miss that flight. It was pretty nerve racking. I checked out of my hotel in Varanasi at about 1 pm for a 4:15 flight...but the ride to the airport was quite hairy. First, the cab that I booked decided that they didn't want to drive to the airport because of the bad traffic...(I heard that there was some kind of protest going on for Anna Hazare who was arrested for his stance against corruption). Now that I'm back in SF, there is still a lot of protest going on in India at the moment for Anna (you be forgiven to think that it is a name of a female...but it is not...the title simply means "big brother" in the southern part of India).

Well anyways, I had to take an auto-rickshaw...and boy I was literally on the edge of my seat the entire journey. Traffic was horrible in Varanasi....which is not really a city like Delhi or Mumbai...but man traffic was hella bad for some reason. It took us almost an hour to get to the outskirt of the city and then all of sudden there was a traffic jam that was about a kilometer long. I swear to you...I was literally going out of my mind...thinking that I would surely miss my flight. It was roughly about 2:20 at this point and there were scores of school buses going in the opposite direction and whichever I turned...the traffic was horrendous. I thought it was gonna be like that the entire way...but to my relief...it only lasted for about half an hour before we got free from all that chaos. I think I arrived at Varanasi airport at about 3:10 and since it was a very small airport, was able to do all the check in before 3:30.

The flight to Delhi was smooth and I got there around 6 pm for my 12:30 am flight back to Chicago. They didn't allow us to check in until 8:30 pm...so I had to hang out in the airport for a few hours.

The flight from Delhi to Chicago proved to be another long journey. We had to land in Heathrow to refuel b/c the Russians for some reason did not allow the aircraft to enter their airspace and there was not enough fuel for a direct flight to Chicago. I was supposed to be in Chicago at about 6 am instead I didn't get there until noon. There was also a slight delay because of the bad weather and the plane was flying around in circle waiting for the airport to open and let us land. Since I got there late, I missed my 1:15 flight and had to wait there for 3 hours for a 4:45 flight back to SFO. I thought that the flight from Chicago to SFO would take roughly about 4 hours but it was more like 6. By now, I was pretty much exhausted and really can't wait to get off the plane for good.

It was nice to finally land in SFO, but I was pretty much disappointed to learn that despite our whole liberalism here in San Francisco, I really don't understand why in the world the airport charges $5 to rent an airport cart so that we don't have to carry all of our heavy luggage. WTF! I haven't seen such lameness anywhere in my life.

Well anyways folks, later in the week I will give you guys all the things that I've done during my last ten days in India. My pilgrimage and all the ppl that I met....but right now even though it's been three days since I've landed...I'm still a little jet lagged. But I will hopefully entertain you guys, now that I'm back home and with a faster internet speed, I will try and upload some videos too.

Sat-Mon. Aug. 6-8, 2011

Even though I was extremely tired when I got back, I decided to book a tour to Ooty, a kinda hill station, like Mahabaleswar. I thought I should might as well check it out after the couples who I was with on the drive back from Udaipur to Ahmedabad said that they spent their honeymoon. The guide book said that the tour to Ooty is not all that great if you want to spend at least 7-8 hours on the bus...and it was true. The entire journey we drove through two state parks...one was a tiger park where I didn’t see any tigers other than some peacocks and monkeys. The other park we saw bison. But it was nice to see green things and breathe in fresh air for a change.

Ooty was alright. I didn’t see anything so special about it other than the pedal-boat ride that I took with a couple of girls and their mother. It was kinda scary but I decided to do it anyways not knowing a darn thing about swimming whatsoever. I swear when I get back from this trip...I need to learn some basic survival skills (i.e., swimming, driving, riding a bike).

We had lunch did some minor shopping, and then went to this garden. Again, nothing too spectacular, and then we left at about 5 pm. I think we got to Ooty at 1 pm and so the trip was really short in duration. I didn’t get back to Mysore until 9:20 pm. But seeing some parts of the country on the cramped tour bus was pretty nice. I didn’t mind it at all.

Because I booked a really lame flight (Pune-Bangalore and back), and the flight back to Pune is on Monday at 6 in the morning. I decided to take a bus to Bangalore from Mysore on Sunday. The cool thing about the state of Karnataka is that it seemed to be well-managed than most of the other states. The AC buses were really some of the best that I’ve seen and the local buses remind me of the buses that we have in the Bay Area...which is quite huge here in India. Most of the time, all the local buses are all beat up and everything...and they’re also so crowded. It was nice to see that locals also ride on nice buses.

I left Mysore on the bus to Bangalore and the nice thing about it was that it was non-stop and there were buses every 15 minutes. Non-AC was every 5 minutes...and they didn’t even bother to wait for the bus to become full before take-off. I’m sure if there was only one person on the bus, they would leave as well.

I got to Bangalore before noon and it was kinda of a bitch to find a hotel...but I finally did and finally was able to check email and update my blog. So sorry folks if anyone was worried for my safety. My trip is about to be over when I fly back home on Aug. 20th. Right now I’m flying back from Bangalore to Pune and will be there in about 30 mins.

On Wednesday, I will fly from Mumbai to Varanasi to do a Buddhist pilgrimage. It will be a ten day pilgrimage and I will try to keep you guys up-to-date because it is in fact the most important pilgrimage that I will have done here in India. I will fly to Varanasi, visit Sarnath (where I believe Buddhist gave his first sermon), and go to Bodhgaya. That’s about it....unless I’m missing out on something...so please folks if you know of other places that I should go...email me at gobluff@gmail.com and if it’s not too far from Varnasi, I’ll probably go as well. I’m probably not going to Kushinagara...it’s too far.

Getting to Bangalore airport was not cool. The airport was like 40 km outside of Bangalore....other airports are around 15-20 km...and when I have to be there for a 6 am flight, it was not pleasant. I must have slept 3 hours last night. Had to wake up at 3 am and get ready for my 4 am taxi...which again cost me a fortune. The ppl here in India really work hard even the guy who drives the taxi. He had to sleep in the car...parked outside of my hotel...probably to wait for me. He must have lived really far from the hotel and so it didn’t make much sense for him to go home and then drive back to my hotel for a 4 am pick up. The drive was half an hour because there was hardly any traffic, but usually takes 1 hour on taxi and 2 hours by bus. I think if I had waited to go to Bangalore Sunday night from Mysore, I would have been quite screwed...because I would have guessed that the airport was close to the city when it was not....and no auto-rickshaws are allowed to make that trip to the airport. Anyways, I’m glad to be back in Pune.

Monday-Thursday, Aug. 1-4, 2011

It came pretty unexpected that I booked a flight for Chennai on Monday night. I was feeling a little under the weather last Thursday and didn’t do much. I emailed one of my long time friend, Muthu Kumar whom I met when during my last year at Berkeley. We both took first year Sanskrit together and I haven’t seen him since ever since I graduated. One word to describe Muthu is that he is, like most Indian that I know, is an overachiever. The guy has a PhD in physics and mathematics and was a lecturer at Princeton University for five years I think. When I met him, he was pursuing a second PhD in something related to Indian studies. Well anyways, I was glad that he returned my email saying to call him so that we can meet up. I actually didn’t plan to travel to Chennai. My flight on Wednesday midnight was to Bangalore...and I wanted to hang out with Pratap, Shilpa’s brother in and around Bangalore. Then again, when Muthu replied,  I thought that I actually know three ppl there: Muthu, Prasanna, and Avanti. I booked my flight at the last minute which cost me quite a bit but was well worth it.

It was a 11:10 pm flight and I got to Chennai by 1 am...spent a fortune for a private taxi to take me to my hotel. But the most important thing was I got there safely. The weather in Chennai was pretty bad and I think it’s kinda like that year round. It was hella humid and the temperature hovers around 34 degrees which is like in the top 80s and low 90s. You add that with bad humidity and everyone sweat, Indians and especially me.

Even though I know three ppl there, I didn’t want to spend my entire trip in Chennai only. I was thinking of leaving by Friday the latest...because I had to catch a flight in Bangalore on Monday at 6 am. I also wanted to go to Mysore and see what ppl were raving about the sandalwood carving that the place is famous for.

I hung out with Prasanna on Tuesday evening..we had dinner and went to a shopping mall because really that is the best place to cool down. The place is too hot and humid to do anything else really. I learned from Prasanna that he was getting closed to finishing up his studies and that he was thinking of going to business school but he worries about his grades. Otherwise, he would find a job...he studied computer science and his sister is married...dad works in Kanpur and mom lives in Chennai. What really is amazing about him is that he knows like four languages. We had a great time.

Prasanna and I having a little bit of a snack in a very nice mall

Some really magnificent temples in Chennai.

It's very different from the north.

On Wednesday, I hung out with Muthu for several hours in the afternoon. Muthu maintains a strict routine schedule every day. I had lunch with him at about 12:30 and I met his beautiful mom and dad. His mom is 75 and dad is 81...Muthu resembles more like his mom...while his elder brother who works as a professor in Texas looks more like the dad. Now that Muthu is almost finished with his dissertation, I’m not sure what he has in terms of future plans. He lives in Chennai for over two years and I guess as a dutiful son, his plan is to take good care of his aging parents.
 

Muthu's mom.

His house with aunts and uncles.

 After hanging out with Muthu for about three hours, I went back home took a shower and met up with Avanti at a cafe at 6:30 where we talked for a few hours and grabbed a little bit of a bite. She didn’t feel so good after traveling for a month and eating so much greasy food, so she didn’t want to have too much. We just shared a small pizza and I gorged down a couple of sandwiches. We talked for about two hours and I learned a lot about her. I was just so happy to see her you know; she was so beautiful and sweet. I only wished that I could hang out with her more. I thought she would be back in Chennai by Monday night because I thought she was taking a flight from Delhi to Chennai but instead she was there Tuesday night. I flirted with her of course and I just felt that we both have some feelings for each other. I tried to convince her to at least come to Varanasi with me, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. On Saturday she’s going to Aurangabad to attend one of her cousin’s wedding which is a low affair kinda marriage. Unlike many ppl, I don’t think Avanti believes in going broke for marriage ceremony. She believes in the sanctity of marriage and that it should be fun and all but it shouldn’t be too lavish and wasteful. I was really glad to hear that. This wedding of her cousin will be a low key kinda thing...signing of a marriage contract and then there will be a two day trek to the Ajanta & Ellora caves, I think. I also flirted with the idea that she should at least travel to California in December where I would have two weeks winter break. She seems to like the idea but told me that she’s been traveling too much and now that she is finished with school she needed to start thinking about finding a job. She’s only 22 years old and I am already 27. She told me earlier that she wanted to work for a few years and then probably go back to school...she never said she wanted to get married anytime soon....which is totally understandable. God, I luv this girl. I think it was pretty clear to her that I have some feelings for her...and it’s pretty clear to me that she also has some feelings for me.

We parted, both taking different auto-rickshaws because we were going in different directions. It was kinda awkward because I forgot to hug her and then she reminded me when she tried to hug me or at least came close to me and put her face close to mine, not sure what she was trying to do. But when I saw that, I gave her a nice big hug and a little smooch on the cheeks which is very very uncommon here in India. There is no public display of affection here in India. I think she was a little surprised when I hug her so closed to me. But it felt so good, knowing that it might be the last time we’ll see each other.

On Thursday, I went to Mamallapuram which is about an hour and half drive from Chennai but with traffic about two and a half. At first I almost couldn’t go because no one signed up for the tour except for me. I had to convince the tourism office to let me at least buy 5 tickets so that I could go on the tour knowing that it would be my last day in Chennai. There’s a saying in India that one ought to treat guests like a god and so I was able to book a tour to Mamallapuram on an empty AC tour bus all by myself. I only had to pay the price of 3 tickets but I gave the guide and driver a nice tip. I mean it was quite a bargain...there were some beautiful stone carvings and a huge boulder.

The sea-shore temple

I also wanted to get some souvenirs but since I’m a tourist they really tried to rip me off quite a bit so I didn’t bother. Most of the red stoneware were priced five times higher for foreigners than it is for locals. If I could have bought it for about 1000-2000 rupees I would be pretty happy to haul back a 5-7 lbs statue...but they really didn’t want to bargain. Those guys wanted to sell it for 6000, so I didn’t bother.

After I got back to Chennai at about 6:30, I wanted to hang out with Avanti one last time, but she was busy shopping for the upcoming wedding so I ended up having dinner by myself before I headed to the train station for the trip to Mysore. I was a little torn inside; however, this trip really clarified a few things for me. Yolanda was right all along. She said that when I go to India, I will probably change my mind and will eventually decide to get married despite my protest and skepticism about marriage in general. But one thing is clear to me now. I would like to get married in the next couple of years--whether it’s to an Indian woman or someone else, let fate decide on that one.