Yeah, it's been a while again. Sorr about the absence. (And sorr about the absence of y in "sorry.") I've been really busy traveling around with Ben and then Maria and Nadeen, which means limited Internet access. I check my email and update Facebook regularly, I just don't spend enough time at a computer to actually write a blogpost. So here's a short one.
I visited my good friend Prashanth a few days ago. He has moved from the adivasi (tribal) villages of Narmada Valley, Madhya Pradesh to the elephant-infested area around Katur village, Karnataka. Yes, elephant-infested. He now works for the Wildlife Research and Conservation Society (WRCS) in man-elephant conflict. Elephants are lured from the forest by the delicious scent of man's agricultural livelihood and devour vast swaths of rice paddies. So the humans respond as they usually do when under attack: shooting the enemy. Clearly all this is no good for either side of the war. Prashanth's job is to draft a peace treaty and get both parties to ratify. Inter-species conflict resolution, if you will.
How does one resolve an inter-species conflict? Well, Prashanth researches various eco-friendly elephant deterrents, and he disseminates information to the farmers about the deterrents that work. For example, elephants hate chilies. Can't take the heat, I suppose. So one plan would be to plant a field of chilies in between the rice paddies and forest to create a buffer zone (or to continue the metaphor, a DMZ). Prashanth's organization will provide a particularly potent variety of chilies for the farmers to plant. Another thing elephants hate are bees, so farmers could start beekeeping. Not only would honey bring them an additional source of income, they'd have an entire army of stinging soldiers to defend the crops from intruding elephant marauders. And the benefit for the elephants is, of course, not getting shot. The elephants have plenty to eat in the forest anyway, so it's not like they're really getting the stiff end of the deal.
Prashanth's work is particularly important because this problem exists all over India, not only in Karnataka. Assam sees the highest number of man-elephant conflict incidents--many of which end in deaths of humans, not only elephants--but it is difficult to experiment with deterrents there simply because the elephant population is way too large. North Karnataka provides a good, small sample size. If Prashanth's techniques work here, then they can be tested in areas with a denser population of elephants.
Plus Prashanth gets to track elephants in the wild as part of his job. Which is effing awesome. ...I just hope he never gets killed by an elephant in musth.
While I visited Prashanth, we drove on his motorcycle into the Western Ghats to Jog Falls, the highest uninterrupted plunge falls in India. The primary forests of the Ghats were so unbelievably, beautifully lush, as they always are during monsoon, and the mountain air was refreshing and cool! A great, much-needed break from the heat and humidity of the plains. Despite a minor spill (that felt oddly slow-motion; I was able to tuck my knees into my chest before the motorcycle fell on top of me), we survived the day almost intact (I scratched up my elbow when I fell off the bike) (thank god for helmets!). Here are some pictures:
a self-portrait at Jog Falls. Prashanth doesn't know how to smile.
At the hydropower viewpoint, men admire the wonder that is electricity generation. They did not understand how a river could generate electricity, so Prashanth and I explained it to them. Ok fine, maybe Prashanth did most of the explaining--I don't speak Kannada! In any case, these guys were in awe, and I loved it. It's true, electricity really is an amazing thing! I need to be in awe of infrastructure more often.
We scrambled over slippery rocks in the rain to the top of the waterfalls. This is the vertigo-inducing view over the falls. This picture doesn't really do it justice because I was too nervous about dropping my camera to actually position it correctly.
Prashanth at the top of Jog Falls. (from where the previous photo was taken)
just chillin'. with a 1000-foot drop only inches away.
walking trash bags, as viewed from Prashanth's motorcycle
Today I started taking tabla lessons from a guy who makes tablas for Zakir Hussein! Being a good tabla maker doesn't necessarily translate into being a good tabla player/teacher, but I think the photos of him jamming with Zakir on his wall are pretty friggin' sweet.
How did this happen? I had free time yesterday and was aimlessly wandering through some galiyaan (tiny alleyways). (Varanasi has a whole web of these galiyaan and it's fun to get lost in the maze.) As I was walking back toward the main road, I randomly stumbled upon a tabla-making workshop.
Unexpectedly, I ended up spending two hours in the tiny shop. We sat on the floor among half-made tablas and assorted tabla parts as the owner explained, in a mix of Hindi and English, the process of making a tabla. His two apprentices showed me how it's done, and then we all chatted some more about the shopowner's tabla-playing and -making history over chai. The owner's family has been in the tabla-making business for generations, since his father's father's father's father's father's father's to-the-infinitieth-power father's father. After chai, they let me hit the drums a bit!
applying ground iron ore to the center of the tabla
I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the workshop and have always secretly wanted to learn to play some percussion instrument. So, despite my utter lack of musical talent, I signed up for tabla lessons! And here we are.
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Today I was supposed to go to Ramnagar Fort, across the Ganges from Varanasi, with Surabhi, one of my new Benaras Hindu University (BHU) friends. However, she had to cancel because all the students are protesting the mess (cafeteria) food and obviously she had to be there.
Aaahh, deja vu. When I spent a semester at Pondicherry University, the students there protested the mess food as well. Guess that's pretty common here in India! But I'm fairly certain the administration ignored them and nothing came of the protests. Fun times. Hopefully the BHU students will have better luck.
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A few more reasons to love Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani, or PKYEK, as it is affectionally called:
11. The sound effects that accompany facial expressions. For example, when someone has an epiphany, the "ah-ha!" face is supplemented with a spring-like "boing!" sound. And crushing disappointment, such as when the boy you like asks out your worst enemy to prom, comes with a car crash noise. Each face has its own distinct sound, of course.
12. The echoing voiceover when characters are thinking. When the characters are thinking, not only do their faces contort in all sorts of strange ways I didn't previously know were humanly possible, the thought voiceover echoes. "Mujhe-jhe-jhe asha-sha-sha hai-hai-hai ki-ki-ki voh-voh-voh mujhe-jhe-jhe prom-prom-prom le-le-le jaaega-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga-ga." ("I hope that he will take me to prom.")
13. The occurrence of prom during college. That's just... incorrect. I would say it's an Indian thing to have prom in college instead of high school, but I've actually never heard of a prom happening at all in India. And I would find it surprising if a college administration allowed such an event. The show is trying to adopt a classic element of American teenage dramas, but it's all wrong! But it almost doesn't matter, because they do it so much better than those American shows and movies.
14. The 70's theme of prom night. It is unfortunate that the PKYEK website doesn't have any good pictures of this episode, because I want to show you the boys' bitchin' costumes. Only three words can describe their attire: stereotypical flaming homosexual. One character actually is gay, and he was the one who chose the 70's costumes for the others (who do not know that he's समलैंगिक ("samalaingik"/gay); I think they must be blind and deaf). And he did excellent work, because my god do these people come off as overly-flamboyant caricatures of gay disco men (and their little dance number at prom only reinforces this image). Also, one was dressed up as Elvis.
PKYEK is the best thing to happen to television. Ever. In the entire history of television.
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Geckos are my newest enemy. Not only did one of them face-plant me (in that he planted himself on my face, not that he fell onto his own face), they are all over my room and bathroom and always in the way. One hasn't removed himself from my mirror for the past two days so I can't examine the post-Holi damage (my pores are so clogged with Holi colors that I now have purple- and greenheads).
Sushma and I clog each other's pores during Holi.
I think the entire animal kingdom is conspiring against me. Except the elephants. They still love me.
Look at this elephant's happy face! If this isn't unadulterated love, then I don't know what is. But I'll tell you which creatures don't know how to love: monkeys and geckos. Heartless bastards.
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It is possible for women to pee standing up. I know because my thighs were sore from going to the gym for the first time in.... uh, I'm too embarrassed to say.... and I really didn't want to squat (the family with whom I'm staying doesn't have a Western toilet). The trick is to spread your legs far apart (warning: remove your pants). TMI? Too bad. You should expect this kind of talk on my blog by now.
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Speaking of women, here are two interesting articles about women in India:
Minding Their Gaps, about Western women on their gap year in India being exploited for the sexual and status-raising appeal of their white skin. Courtesy of Alice.
This song has been stuck in my head for the past week, and I love it:
"Darling" is a Hindi take on a Russian folk song. WIN. Also, you should see 7 Khoon Maaf (7 Murders Forgiven). It's based on a book by Ruskin Bond and is a very unusual movie for Bollywood, in a good way.
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This song has been playing repeatedly on the filmi songs channel, and I swear it's copying an (or multiple) English song(s):
Does anyone know what song(s) it's copying? I've Googled it and people seem to disagree about whether it's copying Flo Rida's "Low," Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps," and/or Lady Gaga's "Pokerface." When I first heard it I thought elements were from "Low," and I suppose I can hear remnants of Black Eyed Peas, but I don't know see "Pokerface." But I'm not so sure. Thoughts?
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ZOMG A MONKEY JUST INFILTRATED THIS CAFE. ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG! YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE, MONKEY DEVIL!!! THIS IS MY HAPPY PLACE AND I WILL NOT LET YOU TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME!!!!
Er, or maybe I will, for now. I'm outta here before the monkey ends me and all I love.
This is a picture of my landlord's living room (taken on my cell phone, hence the poor quality):
I was, of course, nothing less than shocked to see a University of Maryland rug on his floor. Of all the universities in the world and on sports-themed rugs, he chose the one from my home state! That's just crazy. It turns out he did not know what "Maryland" meant (he thought it was a word, not a place or university) and thought the terrapin was actually an elephant. Yes, he thought a turtle was an elephant. Fear the Pachyderm?
Warning: this is a long one. Like, really long. Mostly because I was on the train for seven hours with nothing to do. Just skip ahead to the photos and videos (I apologize for the shoddy cinematography; I'm no Jhanvi!) if you don't want to read it all.
Another note: Blogspot has been weird about uploading pictures again lately. Even though I chose pictures for this post, I have not been able to upload them. I've tried for a few days now, but I realized I would never post this if I didn't do it now. So here ya go!
I’m on my way back to Thiruvananthapuram from Thrissur right now. I had brought my laptop with me because the hotel promised WiFi. Well, the WiFi wasn’t working, but at least I can do something productive during these seven hours: write a blog post! [Well, ok, I didn’t finish it, obviously, since I’m posting this several weeks late.]
I went to Thrissur with Manju thisweekend [actually who knows how many weekends ago it was? April 23-25] for the Thrissur Pooram. I have to be honest, I still do not know the significance of this festival. No one could explain it to me, so I think perhaps people just like elephants. (I sure do!) Maybe Wikipedia can explain this festival to you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrissur_Pooram
People in Thrissur love to say that the Pooram is not a Hindu festival (seemed pretty Hindu to me… I mean, it took place at a Hindu temple and the elephants were carrying Hindu gods) because Muslims and Christians participate in the preparations for the event (someone told me that Christians make the gold caparisons and Muslims make the silk umbrellas, but I don’t know if this is true or not) and people of all religions come to watch the spectacle unfold.
Yesterday [Saturday April 24] morning we arrived at the Vadakkunnathan Temple to find three caparisoned elephants lined up outside. I went picture-crazy, obviously unaware of the many more elephants to come. We then went inside the temple to find three more elephants, accompanied by a band. Someone told us the real action was on the west side of the temple—and they were right. There was a line of elephants in front of the temple entrance and another line of elephants approaching from the western gate. We didn’t know which line to watch first! We soon discovered that several more lines of elephants, accompanied by great fanfare, would come to the temple. Four lines (if not more that we had already missed??), in fact. We watched these elephant processions and the dancing crowd for a few hours. A video can explain this better than words:
elephant procession (if you have a short attention span, stop watching at 1:10; the video pretty much repeats itself after that)
Later in the afternoon, we decided to go inside the temple to see the famed 300-drummer band. Well, everyone else wanted to go inside too, so the line was ridiculously long. We didn’t particularly want to wait in this line, so we snuck around to the backdoor entrance—to find an “Elephant-Related Emergencies” vehicle, an ambulance, and a bunch of Western tourists taking pictures of these vehicles and generally getting in the way of emergency personnel. As Manju and I quickly backed away from the scene, I said a little too loudly “what the hell is wrong with these tourists that they want to take pictures of emergency vehicles? Don’t they know they’re getting in the way during a serious situation?” and received several Stares of Death from those very tourists. (Since we escaped the situation as fast as we could, we didn’t find out until later what happened. Apparently one “tusker,” as the newspaper called the elephant, collapsed from heat exhaustion, and then the elephants on either side of him got spooked. The three elephants were immediately replaced [several elephants are held in reserve] and no human was injured.)
We decided it was probably a bad idea to enter the temple, because we didn’t know what this “elephant-related emergency” was, and if an elephant freaked out, it could be an ugly situation with so many people in a small enclosed area. We wanted to see a band though, and someone told us there was another big band on the south side of the temple. So we rounded the corner and saw a band—in front of yet another elephant procession (seriously, I lost count). We joined the crowd to watch.
As the crowd became increasingly condensed (as the line of elephants approaches the temple, there becomes less and less space between the temple and the elephants for the crowd to stand), people started getting pretty rowdy. Manju and I wanted to get out of this crowd, and fast. We tried to head toward the west gate via an empty field below the elevated walkway on which the crowd was standing, but someone told us fireworks were being set up. Then we tried to go toward the elephants and around them, to exit via the north gate. There were too many people—a tall person next to us counted the heads in front of him and said the crowd ahead was 16-people deep—and we couldn’t manage to get through. The only other direction was toward the temple, but there was a huge queue to enter and we couldn’t even figure out how to get to the queue from where we stood (er, line. I’ve started using Indian English sometimes). Finally we found a policeman and asked him for help, pulling the “we’re women and need protection” line (actually, it was true that the vast majority of people in this crowd were men, and someone had grabbed my ass). Instead of escorting us or creating a corridor for us to pass through or doing anything else policeman-like, he told us to jump down to the empty field to get to the west gate. “But someone told us they are setting up fireworks there,” I protested. “No, no, fireworks later. Safe now.” So, we fought our way through the crowd and jumped.
…into a field of exploding fireworks.
Mid-air I realized that someone was lighting the fireworks. When my feet hit the ground, three fireworks rockets went off about a meter away from me. I don’t know what scared me more, the deafening BOOM!s or the tails of fire in the rockets’ wakes. We quickly realized that more than just this set of fireworks would be lit, and we were now in this field. As we ran out, fireworks went off right behind our heels—it almost felt like being in a movie or something. [Ok, fine, I’m dramatizing a bit. We were running along the edge of the field and the fireworks were going off about a meter to our left—but milliseconds after we passed them—and this entire episode probably lasted less than 10 seconds.] When we reached the end of the field and entered the watching crowd, I was shaking. And everyone around me was laughing at the stupid foreigner and her Indian friend who ran through [er, actually, next to] the fireworks. I blame the policeman. (They really need to do a better job cordoning off unsafe areas, especially with a crowd like this. Why was there no rope or other barrier? Oh wait... this is India.) (As a side note, we would later find out that these rockets were actually more similar to dynamite than fireworks, and were meant only to create really loud noises. How does this not scare the elephants?)
After barely escaping the crowd and fireworks, we headed to what we didn’t realize was an even bigger crowd. We wanted to get a good position for kudamattam, the main event of Thrissur Pooram, so we decided to head there about an hour and a half early. Apparently a lot of other people had this idea too. Manju then came up with the brilliant idea: head to the “Welcome Foreign Guests to Thrissur Pooram!” section. This foreigners’ section was on an elevated platform pretty close to the temple and, more importantly, above the crazy crowd. Normally I despise special treatment for foreigners, but in this case I was grateful. Unfortunately, the foreigners’ section was on the opposite side of this crowd. We burrowed our way through the crowd like prairie dogs (or some other animal that burrows) and emerged, miraculously unscathed, at the stairwell to the foreigners’ platform. When we walked up, a policeman wanted to see our pass. We didn’t even know we needed a pass! I just pointed at my white skin. We got a laugh out of the policeman but no permission to enter; we should have picked up a pass at a Kerala Tourism office days ago, he explained. (As a side note, the Chief Minister of Kerala and his posse sat in the front row of the foreigners’ section. So I guess it was more like a VIP section?)
We went back down and stood in front of the platform, because that area was roped off and other people weren’t permitted to enter. We had plenty of room and a good view. But alas, the crowd was big, real big, and there was limited space. Soon enough the uncontrollable crowd kept growing and had extended to this area. A policeman who was supposedly ensuring this area remained roped off and free of insane numbers of people got scared and squeezed between the bars holding up the platform to hide underneath the platform. Coward. (And Manju couldn’t stop laughing. She thought this was the most hilarious part of our entire insane day.)
As the crowd got, well, more crowded, we were pressed up against the platform bars. We knew we wouldn’t be able to see anything, besides the fact that it was really sweaty and slightly painful. That’s when we realized the scaredy-cat policeman’s move wasn’t a bad one. I looked back under the platform and saw that we could climb onto the stairwell from underneath. So we squeezed through the bars, stopped for a second underneath the platform to breathe and enjoy not touching any other sweaty bodies, and climbed onto the stairs from behind. No one stopped us from standing in the stairwell, as long as we didn’t enter the platform. The stairs actually gave us an amazing unobstructed view of both the elephants and the crowd! (I found the crowd just as interesting as, if not more interesting than, the elephants. There were even crowd surfers!)
This is what 500,000 people look like.
So what was this crowd so excited to see? Priests on elephants holding umbrellas. Yes, umbrellas. Two lines of caparisoned elephants, each line from a rival temple in Thrissur, faced each other in an epic Umbrella Off (to use Zoolander terminology). Basically, each temple’s priests alternated switching umbrellas. Every time new umbrellas were hoisted on the elephants, the crowd went wild. Putting their hands in the air and yelling at the top of their lungs, people cheered like their favorite cricket player just scored a 6 to win the match in the last over (or to use a more American analogy, like their favorite football player just scored a touchdown when the team was down by 6 with only a few seconds left to win the game). …but for pretty silk umbrellas. I found this hilarious. This “exchanging of umbrellas,” as people called it, went on for almost 2 hours. A bit long for just umbrellas, in my opinion.
Umbrella exchange
The Umbrella Off
That night, or really morning (at 3am), a massive number of fireworks were scheduled to go off. Seats on rooftops were sold out days in advance to witness this spectacle. The other option would be to watch from the street, with another huge crowd. We decided that, since we’d seen fireworks before, it wasn’t worth getting up at a ridiculous hour just to stand in a huge crowd. I don’t know if the fireworks started late or just weren’t that loud yet, but at 4:45am the ridiculously loud fireworks woke me up. And continued until 6am. It sounded like the city was under siege, like hundreds of bombs were going off.
When we woke up for the morning (only about an hour and a half later), we decided to go to the temple to see what it’s like on a quieter day. Well, actually, the pooram was still going on. When we arrived at the temple, we saw a line of elephants approaching again. As awesome as elephant processions are, we had had enough of big crowds. So we entered the temple via the backdoor, and it was surprisingly empty. Afterwards, we headed to the Thrissur Pooram Exhibition. Silly me, I can never throw away my American expectations. I thought “exhibition” would mean an exhibit, perhaps about the history of Thrissur Pooram, how the elephants are trained, how the temple and priests prepare, etc. Well, I was totally off the mark. Instead of learning more about the festival, I found dozens of booths selling everything from clothes to kitchenware to solar water heaters, rides (ferris wheel, swinging pirate ship, spinning tea cups, etc), and random exhibits/propaganda by government agencies such as the space agency and the military. My favorite “ride” was a tiny tank with a small motor boat driving in circles. Manju was quick to point out that we’re in the state of backwaters—don’t a lot of these people ply the waters every day? Aren’t there plentiful opportunities to ride in a boat? Very silly.
When we finished laughing our way through the exhibition, we headed to Paramekkavu Temple, one of the two rival temples. Manju went inside to pray, but I wasn’t allowed to go with her. Instead, I took a picture of this funny sign:
so, what am I allowed to wear? (by the way, the Hindi says the same thing, though I can't speak for the Malayalam and Tamil)
We left the temple to find the elephants returning from the day’s events. It was time, finally, to remove all the ornaments (but not all the chains. sad), take a bath, and eat some food! Here are some pictures of the newly-naked, and probably relieved, elephants:
Er, image upload fail.
After watching the elephants enjoy their relative freedom, we headed for lunch at the Indian Coffee House, a chain that is unfortunately not as good in Kerala as in Madhya Pradesh (Mom and Dad: we went there in Bhopal, the restaurant with the guys in funny white hats, remember?). At the end of our lunch, we heard what sounded like bombs (again). The pooram ends with one last pyrotechnic display, but because it’s during the day, it is more a sound than light show. And boy, did this sound actually show! The windows were rattling like mad with each BOOM. We went outside to see the spectacle (Indian Coffee House is across the street from the temple)—and we could feel the sound waves hitting us. The sound waves almost hurt, actually, especially in my chest. They were quite forceful! This of course totally freaked me out, so we went back inside the restaurant. But the windows were shaking so much I thought they were going to pop out!
After the first round of sound bombs, we ran to a line of autorickshaws to go back to our hotel, as it was almost time for our train. But no one wanted to go because a second round was about to start—unclear if they didn’t think it was safe (the visibility was pretty poor, as the pyrotechnics had turned the air into smoke) or if they wanted to watch the show. So we walked halfway back before finding an auto willing to take us, took showers, and headed to the train station.
And now here I am, sitting on the train, typing away.
One last note on the elephants: I felt really bad for these creatures. It’s already sweat-your-balls-off hot and humid (mid- to high-90s F and 90% humidity), then you throw really heavy gold caparisons and other ornaments on them. Plus the umbrellas are huge and putting a lot of pressure in one small spot where the pole rests on their head. On top of all this, three people are standing and dancing on top of them. Meanwhile, a band with loud drums and horns is playing right in front of them and a crowd of 500,000 people is screaming and cheering. All this noise not scary enough for them yet? Let’s add the physical sound wave-inducing bomb fireworks. It’s a miracle only one elephant collapsed and zero elephants freaked out. Seriously, these elephants are damn well trained. I have a lot of respect for these animals and their mahouts.
I wrote an entire (very long) post about Thrissur Pooram, Kerala's elephantastic extravaganza. But I haven't posted it yet because it would be unfair to post so much text without pictures. ...but I'm waaaayy too lazy to select the top 10 -15 pictures from 797 (and most of the 797 pictures are the same: elephants. Why do I love these strange long-nosed creatures so?). Fail.
