She is loud. She is a constant barrage of noise. India honks her car horn constantly and often for no apparent reason. I’ve seen her lay on her horn on an empty road in the middle of the night – not in some juvenile, “look at me, woo!” kind of way, but just because it is such an engrained habit, like checking the rear-view mirror. And the yelling. Always yelling. “Buy this, buy that!” As you walk down the street she assaults you with her sales bark and drone.

India has little to no regard for shared spaces. Inside her house it is immaculate. Her room will always be organized, gleaming clean – but the shared living room? the front yard? absolutely disgusting. Trash everywhere, shit (at least 5 different varieties), paan spit, all dropped about without a second thought. On trains there are no trash cans. Everyone tosses their trash out the window. It’s really a tragedy sometimes, to be going through a beautiful forest over a tiny a stream, only to have the gorgeous view spoiled by the layers of plastic and paper littering the ground for twenty feet in either direction of the tracks.

India and I fight about the thermostat. Air-conditioning is often used as a selling point for buses, taxis, trains – but it’s really more of a warning. The warning reads, “AC bus: even though it’s 110 degrees outside, you will spend the next 8 hour shivering uncontrollably with your arms pulled into your shirt trying to wrap yourself in the window curtain.” This is true in almost any place that has air-conditioning. It’s as if India has to emphatically prove that the AC is in fact on. Not only will you not be hot, you will be begging for heat.

If you have ever met someone from a really big family, you might have noticed how they tend to eat really quickly as if to swallow as much as possible before someone snatches it off their plate. Well – India has one of the biggest families in the world. She often lives by an “every person for themselves” mentality. It manifests itself in a variety of ways. India will not wait politely in line behind you. If you don’t storm the counter and block competitors with your body, she will definitely cut you in line. I once waited for twenty minutes at a lunch counter in an airport trying to get a bottle of water. I refused to stoop to elbowing people out, waving money at the cashier and shouting my order over someone else’s head. As a result, everyone and their aunty went right around me. I’ve since changed my policy. A quick step and lateral hip thrust works pretty well. Same principle applies in traffic – if you don’t shoot into that perilously narrow gap, someone else will. When you are but one in a country of 1.3 billion, if you don’t push, shove, haggle and hustle to get yours, you will be trampled.

India isn’t much for personal space – again, not surprising when you have such a massive family. India is very touchy-feely. She doesn’t mind sitting 5 deep on a three person bench. She doesn’t mind fully pressing up on a total stranger if there is something over their shoulder she wants to see. India will talk to anyone, take their picture, and get their phone number within five minutes of meeting them (but this is really just with foreigners). Everything is everyone’s business. When India first meets someone she asks, “What is your good name? Where are you from? Are you married? Why not? What do you do? How much do you earn?” If there is an argument on the street, you can guarantee that India will stop and unabashedly watch the drama unfold, maybe even tossing a slap of her own into the stranger’s dispute.

Now that I’ve concluded my cathartic rant about India being an obnoxious roommate I should probably elaborate on the positives I mentioned in the first paragraph, but I can’t be bothered. But I will say this – even for all the loud, dirty, inconvenient, uncomfortable, bothersome and sometimes depressing aspects of India, there is more than enough good to balance it out.

Ironically, David Headley is both the reason for the Pune blast and the reason that I wasn’t a potential victim.  After the rule change I had two options – either come back to the States for two months and give speeches in churches about the two months I was India or go to Sri Lanka and work with my friend and professional mentor Hans.  Fortunately I was able to do the latter.

I first met Hans last time I was in Pune in 2006.  He had just started Wake Up Pune, the campaign which I’ll now be coordinating in Pune when I return.  Last year he moved back to Sri Lanka (where he is from).  Hans is setting up a consulting agency called “grassroots – South Asian Development Consultants.”  The range of services that grassroots will eventually offer but includes but is not limited to: monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, program design, campaign coordination/design, media and public relations, training, etc.  The consultants for grassroots will be all the good people Hans has met along the way, including a lot of people who have come through Wake Up Pune.  The only requirement for working for grassroots is that a portion of whatever you’re paid goes back to the grassroots.

So to build a name for himself he’s been doing work with all the big NGO, INGO, IO (non-gov org, international NGO, International org), i.e. CARE, ILO, UN, World Vision.  Over the last month I’ve been working on developing a program for UNDP which will be used to train peer-educators in Adolescent Sexual Health and Rights across Sri Lanka.  Also, worked with Sri Lanka branch of AIESAC (honestly don’t know how it’s spelled or what it stands for, some college corporate club that’s all over the place) to help develop their HIV awareness program.

When I arrived in Sri Lanka it was just a week or two before their presidential election.  Fascinating time to be here.  The election was between Mahindra Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka.  Rajapaksa is the sitting president and was responsible for ending the 30-year civil war despite international condemnation of his strategy (surround and bomb to oblivion despite massive civilian human shields) this summer.  Fonseka was the general responsible for ending the war.  Riding high on public elation at the war’s end, Rajapaksa decided to call for an early election, thinking he could easily coast into another six year term.  Rajapaksa, despite the near unanimous relief that the war is over, is not a very widely liked guy.  Nepotism, extreme corruption, and human rights abuses, he ticks all the boxes.  After Rajapaksa announced the early election, Fonseka resigned from the military and united usually disparate opposition parties behind his candidacy.  Rajapaksa did not get the easy victory lap he had hoped for.

Around tables with bottles of Arrack I got filled in on the political situation and heard the stories of people who had lived through thirty years of suicide bombs, a genocide, constant warfare and government terror.  In Sri Lanka, the past is present.  The military and police checkpoints on every block, the young uniformed men with AKs milling about on the streets, are constant reminders.  When I heard them talk about seeing neighbors burned alive in front of their house and other atrocities, I felt horror but mostly a stunned disbelief – a bewilderment at the depths of human depravity.  This seems to be a common reaction.  Even having been there and experienced it, he asked, “How?!  How?!  How did it happen?”

No one was sure how the election would go.  Schools and many businesses were closed the day before, of and after the election in anticipation of potential violence.  A week before the election there was a grenade attack on a candidate’s office.  Posters of Rajapaksa’s slightly cross-eyed, shit-eating grin plastered every available space on walls and telephone poles. Just as an aside, google image this guy.  Look at that face.  Now imagine having to see that face all day everywhere you go.  He looks like a cartoon villain – not the strong, brutal kind, but more like the greasy, conniving villain who curls his mustache and then rubs his hands together as he laughs like a witch. Every government controlled media outlet (which are most) were blaring 24/7 Rajapaksa propaganda and proclaimed absolute confidence that he would win.  The other media outlets were merely neutral (journalists get assassinated all the time).  While Rajapaksa was very popular in the villages and among Sinhalese nationalists, Fonseka had the support of the Muslims, Tamils, and educated Sinhalese who were all hoping for a fresh start.  It was going to be close, if it was fair.

But it wasn’t.  Rajapaksa rigged it.  Fortunately there was very little violence.  The day after the election Fonseka was arrested and is facing charges for crimes supposedly committed while a general.  There were non-violent protests which were cracked down on.  And now everyone is resigned though bitter toward having a dictator for another 8 years (two years of the current term, followed by six years of the next).

Back to this David Headley bugger . . . (The English slang in Sri Lanka is old British, they say “bugger” a lot, also “birds” for the ladies.)  After he was arrested in the States it was revealed that he had spent a while in Pune; staying at the Osho Ashram (as Paul called it, “A pseudo-spiritual Disneyland for over-privledged, disillusioned foreigners”) and the Chabad house before moving on to Mumbai.  Both of these are in the heart of Koregaon Park.  Koregaon Park is where all the clubs, bars, and restaurants are.  It is also a wealthy Indian and foreigner saturated residential area: students from Africa, Iran, and the UAE, backpackers, and wealthy foreigners at the Ashram.  This is also where I live.

After this came out, sandbag bunkers were set up in front of the O Hotel, a five-star in Koregao, and the Chabad House.  There were occasionally military guys with big guns there.  The Ashram, the Chabad House, and the O Hotel are all within a five minute walk of each other.  Across the street from the O Hotel is the German Bakery, an iconic café that is very popular among foreigners and Pune’s wealthy youth.  It was simple place: bamboo walls, bare tables, posters and tapestries, with cheap and delicious food.

This all happened around mid-December.  I knew that David Headley had been in Pune and I noticed the increased security, so I assumed there must have been evidence that there was something planned for Pune.  I thought to myself as I walked home after having dinner at GB that GB was the obvious target.  People are constantly moving in and out so it would be easy to go unnoticed.  There is zero security.  And you’re guaranteed to hit foreigners.  It was also a symbol, a historical chill spot for foreigners, much like Leopold’s in Mumbai.

The saying was that Pune would never get attacked because it was where the terrorists hid out, in our massive slums.  Which makes sense actually.  If you’re target is Mumbai, why wouldn’t you hang out and do your planning in a smaller nearby major city.  Also, I don’t think Pune had ever been attacked before, whereas almost every major Indian city already had been.  I asked my friends if they would stop going to German Bakery if they thought it was a major target.  The consensus seemed to be, “Fuck terrorists.  If I don’t have delicious pastries and fresh juice, they win.”  So I kept going.

Then I got the word as I was sitting at a party in Sri Lanka.  A text, “There’s been a blast at German Bakery.  Nobody we know was hurt.”  If you have to give news like that to somebody, follow this model, say straight away if anyone close was hurt.  Makes it easier to swallow.  My first reaction was “I fucking called it.”  Part of me takes a sort of sick pride in having seen it coming.  But it’s not like I stopped going.  So I’m also feeling my mortality.

They say bad things come in three’s.  First, Ann, my big-sister from DG, was in Haiti during the earth-quake.  Her story is miraculous.  She escaped unharmed, thanks be to God, but after a harrowing ordeal.  Then the Pune blast.  Then my good friend Erin Larsen, who was also a Global Missions Intern, was in Chile during the earthquake.  Thanks be to God that she is also alright.

I’m very curious to return and see how Pune has reacted to the attack.  Every place bears its scars differently.

Two months into my time in Pune, I’ve found myself happily busy and fully engaged.  I’ve been able to utilize a lot of different skills with a diverse set of responsibilities and tasks.

First, I’m learning a lot about fundraising.  I’ve been working on grant proposals, which is totally new for me, and an absolutely necessary skill for anyone working in the NGO field.  The other part of the fundraising is organizing events. This weekend will be the first of several fundraisers we’re putting on for Wake Up Pune in the build up to World AIDS Day.

Wake Up Pune is a coalition of NGOs working to promote HIV awareness, prevention, and de-stigmatization across the city.  I’ve come at a challenging time and a time rife with opportunity for WUP.  The coalition was started by the team leader of Deep Griha’s Integrated Services for HIV/AIDS (DISHA).  He was very charismatic and was able to get a lot of different NGOs on board.  It was a wildly successful campaign for a few years, securing significant grants from the World AIDS Campaign and had a huge presence across the city.  He recently moved back to Sri Lanka to start a similar campaign there.  In his absence, WUP has struggled to maintain the vision and many of the partners have drifted off.

Maintaining the coalition is extremely important to the fight against HIV and discrimination in Pune and is a high priority for Deep Griha.  For many years all the various HIV organizations kept to themselves and worked only in their own limited areas.  DISHA, for instance, does nearly all of its work in three particular slums, as well as awareness sessions for high-risk groups such as truck drivers and men who have sex with men.  Saheli, a Wake Up Pune partner, works only in the red-light district.  While working in these particular communities is very important, if we are to have a significant impact on the cycle of stigma and discrimination in Pune, we must have a much wider audience.

I have stepped into WUP at this pivotal cross-road.  The challenge is stepping in as a foreign volunteer and trying to bring some new life to a coalition that has become lethargic and disorganized, in a city and culture I don’t fully understand.  But the opportunities are great.  Since many of the partners have not been taking an active role, volunteers have a lot of freedom to bring their own fresh ideas to the table.  I’m currently working with the Wake Up Pune coordinator to pull together the “Join the Fight Fortnight” which will be from November 18 until December 1, World AIDS Day.  We’ve been visiting colleges, malls, and restaurants to arrange times when we can set up our kiosk and talk to people.  In those two weeks we’ll be all over the city; doing disruptive theater, handing out educational materials and condoms, having marches, doing fundraisers, and talking to people.  In February, I’ll be taking over as Wake Up Pune coordinator, unless they are able to find a local, full-time volunteer.

I have also begun to write Deep Griha’s monthly newsletter.  I feel honored to have written the very first monthly newsletter Deep Griha has done.  The response has been tremendous.  The many supporters and former volunteers are still keen on keeping up with Deep Griha’s activities.  It has also been a great way to re-familiarize myself with all that Deep Griha is doing and to meet all the team leaders.

After this very busy month, I look forward to becoming involved in several local churches for two reasons.  The first reason is to learn.  Every incarnation of the body has something to teach us.  The second reason is to build bridges between the churches and the work we are doing.  From what Dr. Onawale has told me, outreach and charitable giving have not been part of the Christian culture in Pune.  They have been very inwardly focused.  They have also been very reticent when it comes to talking about HIV.  They have not been immune to the unfair and inaccurate judgments regarding HIV and people living with it that are so common.  It is still a virus associated with promiscuity and drug use.  Hopefully, after first building strong relationships, we can slowly change that.

*Also, it looks as though I’ll be taking over as Volunteer Coordinator in the next few weeks.

I keep finding that the more you learn about other cultures, the more you learn about your own.  As I witnessed all the ancient rituals, I realized how little loyalty Americans have to tradition.  Perhaps it’s because we’re from such a young nation.  Americans almost take pleasure in abandoning and changing rituals.  Sure, we have traditions: turkey at Thanksgiving, carving pumpkins at Halloween, the national anthem at sporting events, but it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine any of these fading out within a generation or two.  This is true even of religious traditions.  Is it so hard to imagine people celebrating Christmas without a tree?  The tree was a co-opted pagan ritual anyway, I could imagine people abandoning it without anyone raising much of a fuss.  Of course, this is also because there isn’t as much social enforcement of tradition in the States.  As a vigorously individualistic society, we’re not as susceptible to the judgment of neighbors.  I should probably add the disclaimer that the “American culture” I’m familiar with is white, Protestant, educated, suburban (my p.c. indoctrination has taught me I shouldn’t presume to speak on behalf of any other “American culture”).   This lack of fealty to tradition is even more pronounced in my generation.  I don’t point this out with any hint of moaning.  I’m all for abandoning tradition.  Traditions can be tedious and sometimes they hinder, rather than enrich, a culture.  Take, for instance, the tradition of only marrying within one’s caste or race.

What wedding traditions do Americans have?  White dress; bachelor/bachelorette party; something old, new, borrowed, blue; throwing the flowers; vows; reception; rings; dancing.  It isn’t so difficult to imagine a wedding without any of these, somebody’s hippy aunt, without anyone getting too worked up about it.  The many, many traditions at Indian wedding have been around for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.  Further, these complex sets of traditions are specific to castes, and even more specifically, these ancient traditions are particular to the different castes of different regions.

This wedding was a Punjabi wedding.  Punjabi weddings have a well-known reputation for excess, for drinking and boisterous dancing.  When I told people I had been at a Punjabi they just gave me a knowing look, “Oh . . .” my haggard look explained.

Alright, so now to the functions.  They were as follows: gift ceremony, ring ceremony, bride’s cocktail night, groom’s cocktail night, mahendi night, wedding, reception.  I really wish I had sort of live-blogged this as it had been going on, because, to be perfectly honest, some of those nights have blurred together.  There was a day off between most of those, but even on the days off I was with about 8 friends from college, so you know we weren’t going to rest.  It was ten days that put even my wildest weekends at OU to shame.  I should also add that part of the non-stop debauchery was the tradition of a friendly rivalry between the groom’s and bride’s side, where the young men try to get the other young men embarrassingly drunk – a competition of tolerances.  For the record, the Americans held it down in terms of capacity and composure (USA! USA!).

By the time I finish writing about all these events you’ll understand why it took me so long to get around to it.  It was just so much.  So, instead of spending pages laying out every bit, I think I’ll just give a general idea of how things went down and then include particularly interesting details.

First was the gift ceremony.  At this point it was just me and Brian.  Brian was Kunal’s roommate from a study-abroad in London and he happened to be living in Bangalore for work.  He was the first fellow American I had met in India this time, a proud Chicagoan.  The event was held at Kunal’s house.  There were caterers, a full-bar, a buffet.  Here’s how it went down: Kunal and his family were seated on a big white cushion in the middle of the living room.  One by one, members of the bride’s family would come up, give him a basket and the basket would be handed off to an aunt who would carry it to another room.  Then the bride’s family member would put a string of flowers around his neck and feed him half of a ladoo (a dessert ball made of sugar and fat, I think).  Remember how I said I thought the feeding of each other was a really sweet tradition?  Well it is, but sometimes it just gets to be too much.  The process of gift giving lasted about 2 ½, 3 hours.  By the end of it, Kunal had eaten nearly 20 ladoos.  You can’t refuse.  I felt terrible for him.  Or at least I would have if I hadn’t been privy to what was inside those gift baskets.  Armani suit, Versace suit, colognes, watches, a Mac Airbook.  It was sick.  After Kunal finished getting his dozens of gifts, his parents got gifts, his sisters got gifts, and then everybody ate (except Kunal, of course, who wouldn’t eat much besides ladoos for the next week).  The bride wasn’t at this event.

The next event was the ring ceremony.  It was really nice but there isn’t a lot to say about it.  With the exception of some important details, the next three events are all pretty similar.  So I’ll just paint you a general picture then fill in the differences.

You pull up to a five-star hotel.  A large Sikh (turban, beard) lets you out of the car.  You walk into the lobby and directly ahead you see an arch of flowers leading into the ballroom.  Just behind the entrance of the ballroom is a video man and camera man recording everyone who come in.  Just behind them are Kunal’s family: his parents, sisters, and grandparents.  For the next fifteen minutes, everyone in the group of about 10 guys you’ve showed up with touch the feet of the parents and grandparents.  I finally got the hang of this tradition.  Most of the time you don’t actually touch the feet, you just do a sort of token reach, a half-bow, and then the dad/grandfather shakes your hand, or the mom/grandmother says “God bless you.”  Then you meander into the room, or more like, b-line to the bar.  Order a Jonny Walker black however you take it (I prefer on the rocks) and then go to greet the bride’s cousins and friends.  Chat with them for a bit and then find the rest of group and stand around drinking for a while.  Every few minutes a man in a black vest comes up to you with a different fried snack.  You probably won’t be sitting down for a proper meal until the groom finally does sometime around 1 am, so you eat a lot of these.  You check out the crowd of a few hundred and see mostly middle aged to senior citizen Indians, all of them completely decked out.  The men are in suits with bling watches, pinky rings, maybe even a chain here and there.  Women are in saris, completely smothered in gold and diamonds.  Eventually the music starts and all the young people are pushed onto the floor.  You hear the same 15 bollywood songs every night for the next week.  You also utilize the same moves; hands in the air, shoulder pumping, maybe jump a little bit, maybe some hip action, and if you’re really hardcore you do the crouching shoulder pumping.  This move is sort of a competitive/bonding thing so far as I gathered.  One guy, Harjee was a boss at this move.  You pick out one person and a circle forms around you and you crouch, your butt almost on the ground, hands up shoulder pumping, and then you’re sort of hopping around, circling the person, without ever coming up.  The other person would usually try to do what Harjee was doing but just didn’t have the staying power.  Give it a shot, it’s damn hard.

The ring ceremony: the actual exchanging of the rings, I’m ashamed to say, happened before we arrived.  Trying to get ten Indian guys out of the house on time is impossible.  But I can tell you that it happened on a big stage, that afterward there was about an hour of pictures, and that the rings were baller.  Even Kunal’s ring had a huge rock.

The next two events were the cocktail nights.  They were back to back which was rough. They both followed the pattern described above with the exception of the choreographed Bollywood dances.  First was the bride’s night.  The cousins and siblings did about a ten minute routine to a montage of Bollywood songs and then the friends jumped in for a song or two.  It was pretty good, which made me nervous since we were the following day.  They had the advantage of being able to rehearse for more than a month.  The next night was Kunal’s cocktail night.  During the day we had the final dance practice.  Our first practice was only three days before.  We went over the full routine a half dozen times and by the time we finished it was actually good.  It was about six minutes, two minutes of three songs.  We arrived at the hotel and quickly got to work since we knew we’d be up soon.  By work, I mean lifting glasses.  After twenty minutes the siblings and cousins did their dance.  Then we did ours.  It was not good.  In the few hours and drinks between practice and performance we completely lost the dance.  But we were enthusiastic and the crowd humored us with applause.

The next day was horrible.  Sometime around 3 pm we all woke up and by four we had crawled to a local eatery.  It was the most painfully hung over I’ve even been.  One of those hangovers that you manage to keep putting off for a  while by just starting again in the late afternoon, but that eventually just hits even harder.

Next event was the Mahendi night, the night before the wedding.  Mahendi is when all the women in the family get henna (the brown paste that stains skin which they use to make intricate designs on the hands).  This was also kind of a formal event with catering, a bar, a band, but only the groom’s side and at Kunal’s house.  The bride’s side had their own.

One of the Punjabi traditions for Mahendi night is that the groom has henna piled onto his hands by his family and friends and then, standing with his back against the house, he slaps it all back over his shoulders onto the house, leaving his handprints.  This is how it works: starts with the most immediate family who spoon it onto his palms, playfully smear some on his face (which is quickly wiped off before it stains) then wave some money around his head and put it in a basket.  Everyone (in descending order of importance) does this and then he slaps it.  I wasn’t directly told, but I think the idea is that the family is giving him blessings and then he returns the blessings upon his family.

The money thing is a weird tradition.  This happened at, and throughout, every event.  Usually an uncle or an aunty (these terms aren’t used literally, but are a respectful way of addressing any older Indian person) would pull out a 100 or 500 rupee note, wave it in a circle around someone’s head and then pass it off to the help.  Apparently the money takes away bad omens or bad luck and then you give it to someone else who apparently takes the bad omens with it.  I don’t know if this related or just some uncle having a good time, but there was more than one instance where an uncle would start making it rain (“making it rain” – to slide bills off a large stack into the air).

Another interesting little detail for Mahendi night is that the groom has to give away every item of clothing he wears that day, down to jewelry, underpants, everything.

The following day is the wedding.  Most of the same details as the generic event described above except 3x larger.  There were about 1200 people and several massive ball-rooms.

Before the wedding, the groom’s party showed up to the house for the procession around eight.  We pulled up, went into the living room, and immediately had drinks thrust in our hands by the cousin and uncle.  No booze at the wedding itself, it’s “pooja” or a holy ritual.  Then we had turbins wrapped around our heads.  This was painful.  They are extremely tight and you have to keep them on for hours.  Then we went outside for the beginning of the procession.  Kunal is placed on top a white horse with his 3 year old nephew and then the groom’s family and friends dance in front of the horse to drums and bass band.  You can probably youtube “Indian wedding procession” to get an idea of what that sounds like.  I loved the drums.  Pulsing, primal, infectious.

Then the procession took an intermission as we all piled into cars and headed to the final destination where the dancing and horse would take us into the hotel.  Again we showed up late (this time I can blame the driver) and missed the finale of the dancing bit, which was actually a relief.  You can only maintain your enthusiasm when dancing to the same drums with the same motions for so many days.

So we showed up to the hotel when he was off the horse already and walking into the hotel.  There a big procession of people following him and he walked straight to the back of the ball room to a big stage where he stood with Divya and huge line formed to come by shake hands and have their picture taken with the bride and groom.  At this point we wandered around a bit, talked to people, and took occasional trips to the “carro-barro” which was just the bottles we kept in the trunk of the car parked out front.  I should mention that the “carro-barro” isn’t just us being alkies but is in fact a tradition, or so I was lead to believe.

Eventually we ate – in the ballroom assigned just for eating.  There was probably 15-20 dishes, but there were at least three stations with those 15-20 dishes.  It was pretty sweet.

Then around 12 am the actual wedding ceremony started.  Most people had left by then, only the close friends and family remained.  And understandably so.  The actual wedding ceremony itself is terribly boring and long.

It was outside under a little pavilion.  Kunal and Divya were seated on a big cushion in front of a priest.  The families were on either side of the big mattress.  In the middle, between Kunal and Divya and the priest were candles and oils and some other stuff.  To be honest, I didn’t really pay attention to what was going on.  In fact no one was, except, presumably, the immediate families.  The actual ceremony was about 4 hours long.  The priest was chant/singing some ancient scriptures in Sanskrit, I think, if it wasn’t Sanskrit it was some other language that no one understood.  Every now and then Kunal and Divya would have to throw some oil or smear some red stuff or eat something.  I thought the most interesting part was a tradition of the bride and grooms cousins teasing each other across the ceremony.  The bride’s side would all say something in unison, in a kind of rhyme, and then the groom’s side would take a few minutes and respond in unison.  Apparently it was funny stuff, but of course I couldn’t really understand.

Finally at 4 am they tied Divya to Kunal with his scarf and she followed him around the candles a few times, and then bada boom – married.

After this we all went back to the bride’s house.  This is the part where she officially leaves her parents house, never to live there again.  This part was actually really depressing.  The end of the wedding was jubilant, everyone clapping, a band playing us out to the cars.  Then we showed up to the bride’s house and it was totally somber.  Everyone was silent and the band was playing sad music.  The women from her family and her best friends were all crying and the men were all looking really morose.  As part of the groom’s side I felt like I should apologize or something.  It was bizarre.

Then we headed back to Kunal’s house.  By the time we arrive there it was about 5 am.  We hung out for a while and I observed some more rituals.  In one of them, the bride is sitting on a couch with a bowl of uncooked rice in front of her.  The women of the Kunal’s family were sitting on the couch facing her.  One by one, the women would take turns scooping the rice into the bride’s hands and then she would let the rice fall back into the bowl.  This would happen a few times and then the mother or aunt would toss some of the rice into Divya’s lap.  I was told that the scooping of the rice into the hands is giving her blessing and she is then returning the blessings to the family and then they throw the rice into her lap for fertility.

We left after that but I was told there were at least 4 more rituals that Divya had to go through before she could finally retire to her room with Kunal.  It was a very long day.

Then there was a day off and then the reception.  The reception was about the same as the wedding, but without the long, boring ceremony.  Just lots of food and drinks and dancing and even more people than were at the wedding.  It was fun.

The End.

All of this to say, today I will not be posting about the last three weeks or so. A longer than expected stay in Goa and several other events have lead me to leave you with just this: the highlight from the Goa trip.

We spent a full day thoroughly enjoying the beach and decided to do a bit of exploring, by which I mean finding another beach. So the ten of us rented five scooters and set out. The traffic in Goa is pretty tame, especially at this time of year, but when you do encounter traffic, it can be a bit scary.

On the way to Turtle Beach I was pretty cautious, following the leader and only breaking away a few times on long open stretches where I knew I could fall back. We did pass a bus on a narrow road, within the first ten minutes, which was a good way to gain confidence on the scooter. We were probably within a foot of the bus when it passed; the draft made me swerve a bit as it went by.

We got to Turtle beach and were disappointed to see that there was no swimming allowed, but on the plus side, also almost no people. We decided since we were already there to do a bit of exploring and walked down to the far end. As we approached some big rocks we discovered that just around the bend was a beautiful cove. It was about a mile diameter with a palm forest on one side and mangroves on the other and small island in the middle. The deepest the water got was about shoulder height. The water was bath water warm anywhere near the beach and refreshingly cool in the center.

We spent the whole afternoon there: swimming, tossing a frisbee, listening to music (thanks Dad,) laying out, eating cashews – totally alone on what seemed like our own private island. It was wonderful.

On the way home we let the B team drivers give it a shot on the empty forest roads and putted around for an hour or so. When we were ready to get back on the main roads and head home, I got to start driving again. We sat on the edge of a busy road waiting for someone to give us directions. Finally someone told us that Palolem was about 8 km. left. I took off.

Indian traffic is a bit difficult to break into, but I definitely didn’t need to take off as aggressively as I did. I shot into traffic and didn’t look back for the rest of the party. After about twenty minutes of zipping around I decided we should stop and let the rest of the group catch up. So we waited. They didn’t show. We turned around headed back in the direction we came from hoping to catch them. We didn’t. We turned back around, drove for a while, and stopped for directions. “Strrraight,” he said. So I kept going straight. Eventually the road made a heavy right so I followed it, the only option straight was a dusty looking undeveloped road and that couldn’t be it, I thought.

We continued on that road for about half an hour. The sun was going down, traffic was picking up, and we were running out of fuel. When I realized that we were headed up the mountains on one bar of fuel in the pitch black, I decided it was best to turn around and get directions again.

At this point, I’m starting to get frustrated and a bit worried – which only caused me to drive faster; honking as I went around trucks, other scooters, motorcycles; cars doing the same to me as they passed with the narrowest of margins. Did I mention we didn’t have a phone? Or much money between us. I felt justified (and exhilarated) driving a little recklessly. Kerri, who was on back, did not feel the same. At the beginning of the journey she was chilled out on the back, barely touching me. By the end her nails were deep into my shoulders.

Finally we reached someone who gave us more detailed directions than pointing and wagging his head.  Turns out the dusty road was in fact the right way.  By the time we got home it was about about an hour and half later than the twenty minute ride should have taken. After stretching my legs and taking a shower, the frustration wore off and I was glad we got lost.

Check back this weekend, at the latest, for the long promised big update.

Check back soon for the full skinny on the big, fat Punjabi wedding.

My stomach is still adjusting to India.  Any semi-solid movement is a minor victory.  I’m an hourly faucet at the moment and am beginning to suspect I’ve got dysentery already.  Don’t pity me though, I haven’t been very careful: brushing my teeth with tap water, even taking sips of it here and there, eating street food, not carrying my anti-bacterial religiously, etc.  Illness is inevitable here.

The upside of the stomach issues is that it should help me to get back to my former India weight.  I’ve been told, in some subtle and other not so subtle ways, that I’ve put on some pounds.  I blame the two months of sitting around waiting to leave – eating hot pockets and watching Arrested Development.  First was Ashlesha who gave me a hug and then said, “Wow, you’ve . . .(looking at my belly) really grown up.”  Next was Kunal who immediately upon seeing me said, “You’ve grown fat, man.”  Followed yesterday by Niharika, a good friend from OSU who lives in Pune, who said “You’ve put on some healthy weight.”  And finally, today I stepped into the DMAV (Deep Griha Mobile Awareness Vehicle) with the ladies of the DISHA team and Maya said, “Ryan, you’re fat.”   So I’m going to have to get on that.  I kind of hope I catch a non-life threatening parasite – get proper skinny before Goa in December.

I wasn’t sure if I would have to readjust to some of the more disturbing street sights*: horribly mutilated beggars, extremely young beggars, and stray animals with rotting wounds.  Turns out I’m still desensitized.  Though it sounds cold, this is for the best – to a point.  There are certainly those who, having spent their whole lives seeing these kinds of things, couldn’t give a shit and are quite content behind their air-conditioned car window.  However, the other extreme is also counter-productive.  I could be the doe-eyed foreigner, weeping daily about the injustice of it all, but it’s not going to help.  Further, by not allowing yourself some emotional distance you’re guaranteed to burn out.  In the long run, not being desensitized will keep you from doing the most you can to alleviate suffering.

Last time it took at least a month or two before traffic stopped being a white knuckle experience.  Every time I got on the back of a bike or in the passenger side of someone’s car (rickshaws aren’t very scary because they don’t go fast,) my heart rate would accelerate and relief would rush over me when the ride ended.  This time – no sweat.  To give you an idea of what Indian traffic is like: imagine a huge school of fish squeezing through a narrow pass of sharp rocks.  Each fish is maneuvering to get into any available space.  Now imagine that these fish are motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, cars and trucks.  The closest thing to a turn signal in regular use is the horn which you honk to let someone know you’re passing so they don’t switch lanes and kill you.  It’s really quite amazing that there aren’t more accidents.

That being said, I saw my first real accident about a week back.  I was on the way back from the airport in a rickshaw when all of sudden the driver swerved left.  On our right were two young guys on a scooter shooting down the lane at top speed.  Right after the rick driver swerved to avoid them, they went head on into a car that was trying to turn right.  Neither was wearing a helmet.  We didn’t stop, but it didn’t look fatal.  The scooter crunched into the back right door of the car and then went into the ground.  Probably bumps and scrapes, fortunately.  With all that in mind, something I don’t think I’ll ever adjust to seeing is a family of four on a motorcycle – father driving, then two small children, then the mother on the back sitting sideways because she’s wearing a sari.  Even worse is when the kid is in front, surprisingly common actually, sitting on the gas tank, hands between the father’s.  You can’t help but imagine that tiny body hurdling through the air.

Finally, my job description got fixed this week.  In the last post I mentioned that half my time would be working with youth and teaching English.  I was trying to be optimistic in case I got stuck with it, but it was bit of a personal nightmare.  The two things I didn’t want to do were work with kids and teach English.  The idea of spending 2 years playing board games and going over the alphabet was terrifying.  It looks now as if my time will be split between fundraising/grant writing and working with DISHA and Wake Up Pune.  DISHA is Deep Griha’s Integrated Services for HIV/AIDS.  It consists of about 9 field workers and Avinash the team leader.  They do awareness sessions – street theatre, condom demonstrations, and general HIV education – throughout the city.  Today we were at a truck stop, an infamously high-risk group of men.  They also do HIV boot-camps for volunteers, monitor the nutrition, medication, and health of clients, and do outreach in their impoverished communities.  Wake Up Pune is a coalition of NGO’s who collaborate for city-wide HIV awareness events.  In exactly what respect I’ll be working with the two groups isn’t clear and I imagine will continue to change as different needs and events come up.  The first month or two will be spent just following everyone around, learning as much as I can.

For this post I’ll be mentioning on FB that I’ve updated but probably not again after that.  It’s a bit self-important and blogs tend to be so already, without the self-promotion.  So just check in weekly if you’re still interested.

*I don’t want to give the impression that this is any every day thing, that Indian streets are a freakish carnival of horrors.  It’s not totally uncommon, but more like a bi-weekly kind of thing.

            Deep Griha, like everyone, is feeling the effects of the global recession.  However, they are making the most out of the resources they have and haven’t yet had to make any significant cuts to their programs.  Meanwhile, Rujuta is working hard to secure grants and funding.  As to how I’ll be involved, it isn’t fully clear yet.  Tentatively, I’m working with Rujuta two days a week and spending the rest of my time at Ramtekidi working with DIYA (Deep Griha Integrated Youth Resources and Activities) teaching English and organizing some fun activities.  In the next week I’ll be meeting with Dr. Onawale to work out a long term plan for what I’ll be doing – we’ve generally discussed some ideas I have, but haven’t worked out the details.

I’m living in the volunteer house which is a decently comfortable two story building with about 10 bedrooms.  Right now there are three other volunteers:  Roshni and Katie are both recent grads here with a British program called Development in Action, Beatrice is a German doctor here for only another week, and Jane is an empty-nester from England who is beginning a new chapter in her life.  Two more volunteers are coming in next week.

The upside of the house is that is run by several wonderful Indian women who cook and clean and generally mother us.  Also, it’s nice to live with the other volunteers (at least right now.)  The downside is that, erring on the side of precaution, we have a 1030 curfew every night, though we can get an hour extension on the weekends if we ask nicely (wooo!)  So I’ll be getting an apartment at some point, I haven’t quite decided when – by Jan. for sure.

 And now for the interesting stuff:  this weekend I flew to New Delhi for one of Kunal’s first wedding functions.  Kunal was my roommate freshman year and has remained a close friend.

Kunal’s marriage is an arranged one.  The idea of an arranged marriage is horrifying to most westerners, but it’s not quite like we tend to imagine.  Kunal knew from a very young age that eventually he would have an arranged marriage and was at peace with it.  He never dated and has saved himself for his wife.  About a year ago, around this time, his family put out the word that their son was ready and the phone calls started coming in.  Most of the prospects are ruled out by family reputation, class, caste, or astrological alignment.  Very few make it to the point of an actual meeting.  After meeting the marriage prospect, you may have a few more chances to talk before there has to be a decision.

Here’s why I think arranged marriage isn’t as backwards as westerners tend to think.  First, westerners have an over-inflated view of the importance of romantic love.  Yes, it’s wonderful.  Yes, I’d like to be head over heels some day.  But romance isn’t everything.  In crude terms, a marriage is a contract, a (hopefully) mutually beneficial agreement to support each other’s aims and needs.  It’s our over-emphasis on romantic love that has lead to such an absurdly high divorce rate.  When the swoon and fireworks pass, when the realities of life and our partner’s faults corrupt our idyllic love, we’re ready to bail. 

Second, arranged marriage acknowledges that marriage is a lot bigger than two people.  It is a marriage of families, the future of two blood-lines meeting.  This is especially true in India where the joint-family system (several generations in the same house) is still common.  Good parents tend to produce good children.  Our upbringing shapes who we are as people; our parents can often be blamed or praised for our gifts, our fears, our habits.  Think of it this way: wouldn’t you trust best friend to raise a kid good enough for your kid?  If you know the parents, their values, beliefs, expectations, then you can generally expect that these are instilled in the kid.  It is these fundamentals of functionality that I think are often swept away by our notion of the all important romance.

All that said, I’m still glad I won’t have an arranged marriage even though Kunal is really happy with his – I can already tell that Divya and Kunal will work out beautifully.

Anyway, on to the spectacular wedding function.  This function was the official invitation of the bride’s family to the wedding.  It’s usually a pretty small affair, just the groom’s family and hers, invitations are exchanged, there’ll be some food, bada boom bada bing.  But Kunal’s family does it big.

So Kunal’s family and three of us friends gathered about two blocks from Divya’s house.  We stood around for about twenty minutes, waiting for everything to get into place.  Then we started the procession.  Immediately fireworks shot high into the air to announce that we’re coming.  Ahead of us were six drummers leading the way, beating a frenetic and wild rhythm.  About every twenty feet we would stop and more fireworks would go off, these were smaller than the first, short fat tubes that would shoot green and white sparks about 15 ft into the air.  This probably happened about 6 times in total.  Finally we stop just in front of the house.  The groom’s family take turns dancing in a circle, smiling and smacking wooden sticks (the wood sticks part has something to do with Navrati, a Hindu holiday) while a cameraman snaps pictures.

Then the families greet one another and I meet Divya for the first time.  I’ve been thinking about the proper way to greet her, I mean, she’s basically a stranger so a handshake seems appropriate, but she’s about to marry my best friend so maybe a hug?  Is a hug culturally appropriate?  Depends.  So I haven’t come to any conclusion, I’m just going to do what I usually do which is watch everyone else and look out for social cues.  So I’m standing with Kunal’s two other friends, the dude on my left, Akshun, touches her feet.  She smiles and laughs a bit and then turns to me and extends her hand.  At this point, I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, which is exactly what Akshun just did and I notice her extended hand as I’m already going in for the foot touch.  Quick note:  touching the feet is a gesture of respect and reverence usually reserved for people’s parents and elders – you touch the feet then touch your chest then your lips.  So I touch her foot and she bursts out laughing.  Apparently Akshun touching her feet is some kind of running joke, he does it to annoy her.  Wow, I feel foolish.  By the next day, everyone has heard about the silly gora touching Divya’s feet.

            So then everyone files into the basement for the formal exchange of invitations.  The two immediate families, parents and grandparents, are standing in the middle and the other two hundred people are either crowded around or milling about as caterers carry around appetizers.  Kunal’s family handed the official invitations to Divya’s as everyone cheered.  Then the two families fed each other sweets – which I think is one of the sweetest and most affectionate traditions.  Everyone would break off half of a gulab jammu and gingerly place it in someone else’s mouth usually while being fed one from someone else, until each family member had fed each of the other side.

            Then everyone moved outside and the music started (a traditional Hindi band) and the dancing and later we all ate from the buffet of about 25 dishes.  It was an absolutely fantastic night, one of those weekends I’ll remember forever.  Though I know that it will pale in comparison to the weeks of functions, each bigger than the last, to come.  Apparently, the wedding on Oct. 14^th will be attended by over 1,000 people.

 If you’ve made it this far – I’ll try to add a post at least once a week, and I promise they will very rarely be this long.  Also, I like comments, especially if they spark a discussion.