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Aarti in the Rain
This post goes with John Rudisill’s “Immersion in Ritual” above. Essentially, it is a narration to accompany the 5-minute video below (“Haridwar-Aarti”), taken in Haridwar on the late afternoon and evening of 19 May. One guide took us from our hotel in Haridwar to the ghat (landing) where we had reserved places. When we arrived…
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Caste
On May 16th we were fortunate to have Professor Dipankar Gupta of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) present a stimulating talk to us on the caste system in India. Caste, it is said, developed as an occupational social hierarchy. Roughly, priests were placed at the top, with rulers and warriors, farmers and traders, and servants and…
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Sights and Smells
You will have to excuse us. We have been thrown into a country and culture jarringly different from our own, and we are still adapting, still forming our considered impressions, as thoughtful people do. But, you want first impressions, don’t you? Okay, here are a few first impressions. We landed in Delhi in the evening.…
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Globalization: Dale Carnegie in Bangalore
Colleagues, Transnational tips on winning friends and influencing people. Grant Thursday, Apr. 24, 2008 Postcard: Bangalore By Madhur Singh Remember to touch a personal chord,” the instructor tells the class. “Make the other person feel important.” Thus advised, the first graduating class of Bangalore’s new Dale Carnegie Training center splits into pairs, each earnestly practicing…
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Discovery of India – and Positionality
Trailer for sale or rent / Rooms to rent fifty cents I’m reminded of one of my undergraduate professors of poetry, Richard Tillinghast, who advised us to only read one book at a time. He said he couldn’t think of Huck and Jim without hearing the tremor of far-off drums and feeling the heat of…
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Exotic Creature
I’ve had interesting experiences as a member of a minority while traveling to India–someone who fully admits that she often thinks and speaks of “otherness” in an intellectual setting, but who rarely has an opportunity to experience minority status as a real, lived experience. That’s why I’m here. To have a hands-on experience in a…
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Jawaharlal Nehru University
In the photo above you see the members of our group around a table at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, India during the afternoon of Friday, May 16, 2008. The speaker (at the end of the table) is Dipanker Gupta who is a Professor in the Center for the Study of Social Systems at JNU.…
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Discovery of India (Redux)
The history of colonialism is replete with examples of discoveries of people and places who were already there…and doing quite well, thank you very much. Most often when Europeans went on their voyages of discovery it meant very bad things for a very long time for those who were “discovered”. I have found it to…
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Traveling
We all arrived safely. After fourteen hours on the plane, we are sitting in the Hotel bar, drinking Indian beer, eating Japanese snacks, and listening to American 80’s music. We are also watching a cricket match on the TV and trying to understand the game! The appetizers are excellent. We are having Kati rolls (Indian…
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Trepidation
In 1889, Rudyard Kipling wrote to his friends in Allahabad that Londoners knew nothing of Life as it was lived, always in peril, in India. Amazingly, Londoners were shocked when an old man died in bed, his family round him. In India, they would see their friends “of thirty-five die at two days’ notice not…