AFGHANISTAN
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
Let me begin with a cricket story from the mid-to-late 1980s! Mark Waugh, later to become one of the pillars of the Australian batting line-up, was languishing in first division cricket while his twin brother Steve was already a Test star. Some local wag cruelly nicknamed Mark ‘Afghan’ (and the name stuck) – because he was the forgotten Waugh. This was with reference to a time when the Russians were still in Afghanistan and fighting it out with the US backed Mujahedin in a vicious but then out of sight (and out of mind) war.
Afghanistan and war are synonymous. Land based invasions of India have either passed through (Greeks and Moghuls) or originated from here (Ghazni and Ghori are Afghan provinces). It features in British military folklore (there were three Anglo-Afghan wars between 1838 and 1919, including a British retreat from Kabul and massacre in the Khyber). It features in Russian military history as well, also including a retreat that culminated in the end of the Soviet Union and the breakup of the bi-polar world. The American war is still on, and there is little to suggest that it won’t result in Afghanistan’s reputation as a graveyard of superpowers remaining intact – the debate has changed from ‘when do we win’ to ‘how do we get out with dignity intact’ and NATO is feeling the strain of members’ conflict between the need for American protection and the reality of sending young men to die in this faraway land.
What is it about Afghanistan that makes for this? That makes that one step across the Khyber, or that one crossing of the Oxus, a journey too far? And what is Afghanistan actually like? I spent a week there in March 2009, visiting Kabul and Bamiyan, and this paper is my own take on some of these matters.
Afghanistan is a difficult country! It is mountainous, dry, rocky, and extreme in climate, with the only bountiful crop being opium. Its people are divided across different ethnic groups, with Pashtuns having more in common with Pathans in Pakistan than with their fellow countrymen of different ethnicity, and similarly with Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and Turkmen. And yet, there are some differences between Afghan Pushtoons, Tajiks, Uzbeks, etc., and their ethnic compatriots across borders. An Afghan colleague summarized these for me as, one, Afghans tend to be what they show (unlike others who project one thing and are in reality another). And two, if there is even a minor difference of opinion between two viewpoints there will never be a convergence – no amount of conflict resolution will bring this about. Nation building is thus an onerous task, more so because none of the current crop of leaders are able to rise above and display Nehru-esque or even Jinnah-esque qualities.
Afghanistan has been at war for a long, long time and this is obvious. Physically obvious in the large number of ruins and shelled buildings, including the Amanullah Palace in Kabul, and the rusting tanks and armored cars that are just lying around all over the place. And in the minds of people as well, in that everyone has been a refugee, everyone has lost family members, and every single individual you see there has a story of guts, survival and hardship. And yet, you only see smiling faces all over, and people looking for any excuse to laugh, enjoy and be happy.
How is the current war going? The fact that it is still on – almost eight years after it was supposedly won – is not a good sign. The ISAF forces are a battle-hardened lot, and move around in tense formations with fingers on the trigger – even in the more peaceful regions. I was subject to a checking in the central highland region along with a vanload of locals (leave the vehicle, line up, get body searched, the vehicle is searched, get back in and move on) – standard procedure but pissing off for a foreigner like me and incensing for locals when being done by foreign soldiers. There were mutters of the need to do to this lot what they had done to others, and counter mutters of remembering the Mujahedin times and that at least these guys were merely checking, and not looting and pillaging as well. I was irritated enough to tell the New Zealanders, who made up the ISAF force in the region, checking me that I hoped our cricket team (who were touring New Zealand at the time) would give them a sound thrashing and I am happy to note that they duly did.
Kabul itself reminds one of a mix of Srinagar and Leh. The surrounding areas are dry, mountainous desert a la Leh and the city itself is a bit like Srinagar in ruins, with police and army pickets all over (one of which had ‘Chick Point’ written across it) but with happier faces. As a foreigner, I was supposed to travel only between designated safe areas (guest house, office, specific restaurants – my hosts had a seven page manual on these matters) in designated safe vehicles. Thankfully I had a like-minded vis-à-vis what-one-is-supposed-to-do batchmate in town, and we went to restaurants where ordinary Afghans ate and relished the Naan and the Kebabs. The highlight of my visit to Kabul was visiting the Bagh-e-Babur (also off the safe list), the gardens that include Babur’s mausoleum, on Pharsi New Year. Sanjeev Gupta and I were the only foreigners there, and we were made to feel very welcome by the huge festive crowd. Kabul is everything that they say about it! There is almost no conventional crime, but Taliban attacks, bomb blasts and occasional bouts of misbehavior by warlords who forget that they are now part of the administration keep happening. And yes, within 15 minutes of an attack ending the place is cleared up, the bodies removed, and life goes on.
The shortest road between Kabul and Bamiyan goes through the ‘restive’ Wardat province – a euphemism for Taliban elements being operational within. I had to take a longer route – about 80 km north on the highway connecting Kabul to the old Soviet border, and then about 140 km southwest on kuchha road through the mountains (and two snow covered passes) into Bamiyan. This was done in some comfort in a muscular Toyota Land Cruiser in which my driver was constantly relaying our position back to a central security unit via satellite phone, he used the words durast, durast a lot. We were together four days, the only common language we had was a smattering of Russian, but we discovered a common love for eating kebabs and we did a lot of that in places with large numbers of bearded shawl clad men where I had to keep quiet to ensure that I was not identified as a foreigner.
Bamiyan itself is a beautiful town situated in a valley at an altitude of about 9,000 feet. It was still under snow at the time, and the mountains around in every direction provided a stunning backdrop. This is a Hazara dominated area (the region is called Hazarajat) and is slightly more liberal than other parts of Afghanistan in that women wear the headscarf but not the mask. As there are no Taliban elements in the area, one is able to walk around freely and I did so. Must visits include the hundreds of caves in the mountainside that housed a major Buddhist centre of learning in the 4th century. We all know that the Taliban destroyed the world’s largest carvings of Buddha, dating back to that time, because they symbolized the idolatry that is anathema to Islam. The caves, however, and the wonderful wall paintings within, were destroyed over a longer term as they served as barracks for Mujahedin and Taliban. Ironically, the only cave that still has a semblance of paintings intact is the one that housed the commander. Sadly, nobody in Bamiyan gives a crap about the heritage site that is ‘just there’ to them.
The outskirts of Bamiyan house the Shahar-e-Golgola, a city that was razed to the ground by Genghis Khan and remains intactly razed even today. I also visited Dragon Valley, a large rock formation in the mountains that has a deep and narrow cleft running across the middle, where legend has it Ali killed a dragon with one sword strike down the middle of its back. Sadly, I was unable to visit the Bandh-e-Amir, a series of natural blue water lakes high up in the mountains, because the road was still under heavy snow. The other must-do in Bamiyan (and I therefore did not do it) is to visit the airport, get into the remnants of a crashed plane that it still, many years after the crash, lying around near the runway, and be photographed waving from the window.
All very nice for me, you would say, but what is Afghanistan like for women. Pretty tough! Kabul is said to be comparatively liberal, and always has been. In all other places, the dress code is that your contours should not be discernable. And Afghan women who work need to be accompanied by a mehrab or male companion, be it husband or younger brother or whatever. This creates havoc for any employer’s HR policy. Having said this, I was also told about how gender specialists, many of whom inversely relate women’s empowerment with the extent to which they are veiled, are confounded by the freedom and say an Afghan woman has inside that tent-like exterior.
And what about Indians? Are we as welcome as Feroz Khan in ‘Dharmatma’? Being Watan-e-Hind is a double-edged sword. The Taliban do not like us (to put it mildly), and we are in danger in all areas controlled by them. Others generally find Pakistanis and Arabs distasteful as they controlled the Taliban administration pre-9/11, and see India and Iran as acting in Afghanistan’s interest. India’s low key but critical development aid is popular and seen as effective. Many Afghans were refugees in Peshawar and speak Urdu, and communicating with them is easy. It is more difficult with those who were refugees in Iran. Those who were/are refugees in the west have generally not returned – their children have greater difficulty adjusting back. Nor are they particularly welcome, their earlier attempts to act superior because of having made it to the west did not go down well and they are termed as ‘dog walkers’ in recognition of the menial jobs that most of them do in Paris, Berlin, LA, etc.
To conclude – Afghanistan is everything that is said about it, and much more. Would I return? If I get an opportunity, a qualified yes! The good experiences far outnumbered the bad. And there are unseen areas that beckon, such as the Wakhan Corridor, the Oxus River and Mazhar-e-Sharif. Not to mention the fleshpots in Dushanbe and Khorag across the Tajik border. Inshallah!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
CANADA
CANADA
Visited in June/July in 2003 and 2006
My family has a strange relationship with Canada. My Grandfather went there as the Indian Ambassador, and it was there that he married for the second time. Aunt Helen, as we called our Step-Grandma, came back to India with him – returning to Canada 13 or so years later, after he died. The highlight of my two visits to Canada was meeting her again. My Father’s Brother too settled in Canada, leaving India in the late 1960s to set up a successful car dealership in Toronto – I have met him only once, on his only visit back to India in the late 1970s. Another Uncle, a con man who had been cashiered from the Army for having it off with a (female) CIA agent in Paris, dumped his second wife to move there in the 1980s with a young lady and apparently just a step ahead of the law – he now has children younger than his grandchildren. My Father too made (ultimately unsuccessful) plans to emigrate in the early 1980s, but I remember being clear that I would not go with him.
And so, when my organization enrolled me in a course on development evaluation at the Carleton University in Ottawa in the summer of 2003, I set off with a sense of wonderment. This was my first visit to the western world outside of the UK and Europe.
The most pleasant thing about Canada was discovered even before reaching there. I had taken a Gulf Air flight from Delhi to Muscat, changed for another to London, from where I flew on Air Canada to Toronto. By London, some of us passengers had become friends – including one guy from Delhi who was emigrating there, and was going for the first time. At every Canadian passport check, they would see his passport and burst into smiles and words of welcome to the country. Unlike the UK and Europe, the word ‘immigrant’ is not a pejorative in Canada. Right through the visit, people I met would ask whether I was here to stay and on discovering I was not would ask why not, that Canada was a great place to live in.
I arrived in Toronto at 0005 hours – not a good time to arrive on a strange continent with plans only to get a bus onward to Ottawa. Where should I spend the night? After pumping the fellow who hailed cabs outside the airport, who turned out to be from Pune, for information, I decided to sleep off on a couch at the airport itself and catch the first bus from the airport to the bus stand (what they call the Greyhound Station) in the morning. The plan went perfectly, and I soon found myself on an early morning Greyhound bus making the six-hour journey to Ottawa. And here was the second discovery – of Canada’s size. A six-hour road journey in Europe takes you from one end of a country to another, but in Canada it is a journey between neighbouring cities.
Canada is the largest country in the world after Russia, but has a population of only about 30 million (two Delhis) most of whom live in a small belt running along its southern border with the USA. The most famous Canadian (for my generation of men) is Pamela Anderson. Most Americans, with some justification, think of it as a giant refrigerator – but my experience in June and July was of a pleasantly warm and sunny climate with long days and lightly cool evenings. I’m told that things are a little different at other times of the year. Canada’s size makes it a difficult country to really see, except in patches. I managed to take in Ottawa and Montreal.
Ottawa itself is a nice but limited city – a seat of government, straddling the divide between French and English speakers by virtue of its location across both Ontario and Quebec provinces. People are relaxed and friendly – if you don’t have correct change for a bus ticket the driver just waves you in anyway and says to just forget paying. The height of excitement is Canada Day, when you have a series of public events. The highlight is the musical ride, a horse event performed to music by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There is also a rock concert with singers from all provinces of Canada, and an impressive fireworks display. The youth are all drunk out of their minds, in a pleasant and unaggressive way, and the smell of dope is also heavy in the air. The meanest thing I saw in Canada was the police finding very drunk kids and pouring their remaining beer supplies into the drain. And someone had photographed a kid taking a piss on a monument to Canadian war casualties, and there was a public outcry after this was published in the papers. The poor kid was identified a few days later and said that he was so drunk that he had no idea of where he was pissing, and there was no malicious intent. I sympathised – the queues for the public toilets were miles long and, as they say, ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go’.
I used Montreal as my point of entry and exit the second time I visited Canada (this was to attend the advanced course of the same programme), and ensured that I arrived at a civilised hour. There was a bus from Montreal airport to Ottawa, for which many people had pre-booked tickets so I had to smarm up to the driver to let me on. This was done by helping her with the luggage – she not only had to drive, she also had to load and unload all the luggage of all the passengers, unpleasant when you have over 40 passengers all of whom have heavy luggage. No coolies, no khalasis here – it was her job and she had to do it, and none of the passengers lifted a finger to help.
Montreal is unique in North America as a city with a European feel, cobbled stone city centre and all. This is not particularly exciting when one has been to many European cities, as I have, but as it counts among its residents my Step-Grandma it was a must-visit for me. I hadn’t seen her since 1984, and had not had any contact, and so had to locate her in 2003 using phone books and searches on the Internet. The phone number that I finally got was for that of her Mother, and thereby contact was re-established. I spent a very enjoyable two days with her in 2003, regressing back to my college days when I used to go over to her house in Delhi and just eat, sleep and read. I also met members of her family, some of whom I had met as a child (Aunt Anne and Aunt Lovey) and some who were just names to me (Aunt Helen Sr., my Aunt Helen’s Mother, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Helen’s Brother Glenn – who like me has very bossy sisters and two sons). In 2006, with the advantage of knowing where she was and with better planning, I spent a few days with her and we did the sights – a visit to the casino, a visit to a lake in the north along upon which Uncle Glenn had a cottage, a fair bit of wining and dining, etc. Montreal provided me with my third discovery – that language chauvinism was a first-world phenomenon as well. The signs were all in French, and when there were signs in English they were below the French ones and smaller, and there were laws in place about how much below and how much smaller an English sign should be to the French one. French speakers have a strong feeling of losing out in Canada, and this has resulted in a movement for secession that remains despite umpteen referendums, some ridiculous laws to accommodate French sentiments, and an anti-English sentiment that is obvious even to new visitors. There were also signs of a backlash from other parts of Canada, especially in the west, of ‘let’s not accommodate them any more – if they want out let them get out’ and even among non-French speakers in Quebec ‘if they have a right to secede from Canada, we too would like the right to secede from Quebec’. Quite a khichdee here!
I would have liked, given the opportunity, to see more of Canada’s North – such as the newly formed province of Nunavut and its headquarters Ikaluit (formerly Frobisher’s Bay), Baffin Bay, and the Mackenzie Delta in the northwest. The Canadian North is still the preserve of groups such as Indigenous Canadians (formerly Red Indians, now called the First Nations) and the Inuit. Canadian policy towards them is fairly familiar – keep them happy with lollipops in the form of subsidised services, good unemployment benefits, et al, while extracting gas, oil, minerals and electricity from their regions. The result is a thoroughly emasculated indigenous population with low education and high unemployment, drunkenness and domestic violence levels and an attitude of ‘they are just a bunch of moronic tribals living off the taxes we pay’ among others. Discovery no. 4 – it doesn’t happen only in India.
Are you looking to emigrate to Canada? I spent some time with first generation Canadians and spoke to them about what it was actually like. Canada welcomes immigrants and is comfortable about people having dual identities – their Canadian one and the one of the country from which they came. This was obvious and visible to me as well. But life is tough here. Getting a job is difficult, especially if you are well educated and used to a certain station. Being unemployed is difficult, because the cost of living is high. The winters are long and severe. The main advantage is for your children, who will come up through a world-class education system and will reap the benefits of being Canadian.
Visited in June/July in 2003 and 2006
My family has a strange relationship with Canada. My Grandfather went there as the Indian Ambassador, and it was there that he married for the second time. Aunt Helen, as we called our Step-Grandma, came back to India with him – returning to Canada 13 or so years later, after he died. The highlight of my two visits to Canada was meeting her again. My Father’s Brother too settled in Canada, leaving India in the late 1960s to set up a successful car dealership in Toronto – I have met him only once, on his only visit back to India in the late 1970s. Another Uncle, a con man who had been cashiered from the Army for having it off with a (female) CIA agent in Paris, dumped his second wife to move there in the 1980s with a young lady and apparently just a step ahead of the law – he now has children younger than his grandchildren. My Father too made (ultimately unsuccessful) plans to emigrate in the early 1980s, but I remember being clear that I would not go with him.
And so, when my organization enrolled me in a course on development evaluation at the Carleton University in Ottawa in the summer of 2003, I set off with a sense of wonderment. This was my first visit to the western world outside of the UK and Europe.
The most pleasant thing about Canada was discovered even before reaching there. I had taken a Gulf Air flight from Delhi to Muscat, changed for another to London, from where I flew on Air Canada to Toronto. By London, some of us passengers had become friends – including one guy from Delhi who was emigrating there, and was going for the first time. At every Canadian passport check, they would see his passport and burst into smiles and words of welcome to the country. Unlike the UK and Europe, the word ‘immigrant’ is not a pejorative in Canada. Right through the visit, people I met would ask whether I was here to stay and on discovering I was not would ask why not, that Canada was a great place to live in.
I arrived in Toronto at 0005 hours – not a good time to arrive on a strange continent with plans only to get a bus onward to Ottawa. Where should I spend the night? After pumping the fellow who hailed cabs outside the airport, who turned out to be from Pune, for information, I decided to sleep off on a couch at the airport itself and catch the first bus from the airport to the bus stand (what they call the Greyhound Station) in the morning. The plan went perfectly, and I soon found myself on an early morning Greyhound bus making the six-hour journey to Ottawa. And here was the second discovery – of Canada’s size. A six-hour road journey in Europe takes you from one end of a country to another, but in Canada it is a journey between neighbouring cities.
Canada is the largest country in the world after Russia, but has a population of only about 30 million (two Delhis) most of whom live in a small belt running along its southern border with the USA. The most famous Canadian (for my generation of men) is Pamela Anderson. Most Americans, with some justification, think of it as a giant refrigerator – but my experience in June and July was of a pleasantly warm and sunny climate with long days and lightly cool evenings. I’m told that things are a little different at other times of the year. Canada’s size makes it a difficult country to really see, except in patches. I managed to take in Ottawa and Montreal.
Ottawa itself is a nice but limited city – a seat of government, straddling the divide between French and English speakers by virtue of its location across both Ontario and Quebec provinces. People are relaxed and friendly – if you don’t have correct change for a bus ticket the driver just waves you in anyway and says to just forget paying. The height of excitement is Canada Day, when you have a series of public events. The highlight is the musical ride, a horse event performed to music by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. There is also a rock concert with singers from all provinces of Canada, and an impressive fireworks display. The youth are all drunk out of their minds, in a pleasant and unaggressive way, and the smell of dope is also heavy in the air. The meanest thing I saw in Canada was the police finding very drunk kids and pouring their remaining beer supplies into the drain. And someone had photographed a kid taking a piss on a monument to Canadian war casualties, and there was a public outcry after this was published in the papers. The poor kid was identified a few days later and said that he was so drunk that he had no idea of where he was pissing, and there was no malicious intent. I sympathised – the queues for the public toilets were miles long and, as they say, ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go’.
I used Montreal as my point of entry and exit the second time I visited Canada (this was to attend the advanced course of the same programme), and ensured that I arrived at a civilised hour. There was a bus from Montreal airport to Ottawa, for which many people had pre-booked tickets so I had to smarm up to the driver to let me on. This was done by helping her with the luggage – she not only had to drive, she also had to load and unload all the luggage of all the passengers, unpleasant when you have over 40 passengers all of whom have heavy luggage. No coolies, no khalasis here – it was her job and she had to do it, and none of the passengers lifted a finger to help.
Montreal is unique in North America as a city with a European feel, cobbled stone city centre and all. This is not particularly exciting when one has been to many European cities, as I have, but as it counts among its residents my Step-Grandma it was a must-visit for me. I hadn’t seen her since 1984, and had not had any contact, and so had to locate her in 2003 using phone books and searches on the Internet. The phone number that I finally got was for that of her Mother, and thereby contact was re-established. I spent a very enjoyable two days with her in 2003, regressing back to my college days when I used to go over to her house in Delhi and just eat, sleep and read. I also met members of her family, some of whom I had met as a child (Aunt Anne and Aunt Lovey) and some who were just names to me (Aunt Helen Sr., my Aunt Helen’s Mother, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Helen’s Brother Glenn – who like me has very bossy sisters and two sons). In 2006, with the advantage of knowing where she was and with better planning, I spent a few days with her and we did the sights – a visit to the casino, a visit to a lake in the north along upon which Uncle Glenn had a cottage, a fair bit of wining and dining, etc. Montreal provided me with my third discovery – that language chauvinism was a first-world phenomenon as well. The signs were all in French, and when there were signs in English they were below the French ones and smaller, and there were laws in place about how much below and how much smaller an English sign should be to the French one. French speakers have a strong feeling of losing out in Canada, and this has resulted in a movement for secession that remains despite umpteen referendums, some ridiculous laws to accommodate French sentiments, and an anti-English sentiment that is obvious even to new visitors. There were also signs of a backlash from other parts of Canada, especially in the west, of ‘let’s not accommodate them any more – if they want out let them get out’ and even among non-French speakers in Quebec ‘if they have a right to secede from Canada, we too would like the right to secede from Quebec’. Quite a khichdee here!
I would have liked, given the opportunity, to see more of Canada’s North – such as the newly formed province of Nunavut and its headquarters Ikaluit (formerly Frobisher’s Bay), Baffin Bay, and the Mackenzie Delta in the northwest. The Canadian North is still the preserve of groups such as Indigenous Canadians (formerly Red Indians, now called the First Nations) and the Inuit. Canadian policy towards them is fairly familiar – keep them happy with lollipops in the form of subsidised services, good unemployment benefits, et al, while extracting gas, oil, minerals and electricity from their regions. The result is a thoroughly emasculated indigenous population with low education and high unemployment, drunkenness and domestic violence levels and an attitude of ‘they are just a bunch of moronic tribals living off the taxes we pay’ among others. Discovery no. 4 – it doesn’t happen only in India.
Are you looking to emigrate to Canada? I spent some time with first generation Canadians and spoke to them about what it was actually like. Canada welcomes immigrants and is comfortable about people having dual identities – their Canadian one and the one of the country from which they came. This was obvious and visible to me as well. But life is tough here. Getting a job is difficult, especially if you are well educated and used to a certain station. Being unemployed is difficult, because the cost of living is high. The winters are long and severe. The main advantage is for your children, who will come up through a world-class education system and will reap the benefits of being Canadian.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
It is fashionable to dislike Delhi! Conversations with Mumbaikars, Kolkatans, Madrasis and residents of other Indian cities invariably boil down to what a cesspool Delhi is. They have a point. Yes, we are brash, cold and unfriendly. Yes, it is unsafe to be out at night, especially if you are a woman. Yes, the auto-wallahs are rude and, like everyone else out here, try to cheat you. Yes, we have a bad attitude to women and if we pass one on the road we try to squeeze, grope or pinch or, at the least, subject her to a verbal assault. Yes, we drive badly and when we crash up we fight – unless someone has got hurt, in which case we run for it. Yes, we are a bunch of fixers, wheeler-dealers and middlemen. Yes, we put ourselves first, don’t have a sense of community, and think that rules are for fools. Yes, yes, yes!!!
I like Delhi! Let me list out why –
One – while we are rude, we are equally rude to everybody. Nobody escapes the rudeness, whether you stepped off the train yesterday or came ten generations ago. The auto-wallah tries the same stunts, the person on the street is just as unfriendly, the touts are just as persistent! You can see the same injustice you had just faced being inflicted on someone else. Some jerk has rudely cut into the lane of the jerk that rudely cut into your lane on the road. It’s not happening only to you – it’s happening to everyone! It’s Delhi!
Two – Delhi provides a combination of anonymity with opportunity. If you work hard, you will do well – and nobody cares which part of Bihar or Manipur or wherever you are from and what your baggage is. The concept of an outsider does not exist because everyone is an outsider. For young people from small places, this is like a breath of fresh air that many thrive upon.
Three – Delhi’s women are by far the most beautiful. Yes, many may not speak and dress fashionably, and I also heard recently that society ladies here are even more fake than other cities, but – who cares about that?
Four – contrary to the impression that we don’t know the difference between culture and agriculture, Delhi has plenty of art, music, and theatre and this is mostly accessible to ordinary people.
Five – Delhi has the Metro.
Six – Delhi is six hours away from the Himalayas. Going to the mountains does not require planning and detailing, you can just go.
Seven – Delhi has a vibrant football culture. The amateur leagues are of a high standard and embrace football lovers of all types including students, working people and (ahem!) veterans. My own group has played together every weekend for years and years and we know that, rain, shine, fog, whatever, twenty people will show up with their boots looking for their weekly fix. And we are just one of many out here.
Eight – the food here is great, for quality, variety and value for money. Delhi is a city that has been settled by people from many places, and they have brought their cuisines with them. Afghan, Russian, Andhra, Frontier, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Mallu, Bengali, all are available and affordable. The food lover would have only one complaint – that there are no good Gujarati thalis available.
Nine – Delhi is generally not extremist in its viewpoints. One doesn’t have to say one’s prayers in the direction of the Thakeray-types of any religion, caste or creed to survive. And if India loses a cricket match, nobody will riot.
And ten – the state government is answerable to the people of Delhi. And though vote bank politics are the norm and plenty of pork is doled out, middle class interests such as the state of roads, electricity and water, the price of milk and vegetables, and the quality of education remain a priority whichever the political party in power. And yes, we get cheap booze and petrol as well.
And so, dear readers, you will forgive me for glazing over when hearing opprobrium being heaped upon Delhi. I don’t think I could live anywhere else. However, I recognize your right to express yourselves. The following section is on identifying a Delhi-wallah upon whom to do so.
How do you recognize a true Delhi-wallah?
We use extreme pejoratives as terms of endearment and affection.
We may not have been on the Metro, but we’re damn proud of it anyway.
Our first sexual experience was in a DTC bus.
We never give way to any vehicle with flashing lights and sirens, ambulances included. If they don’t have the ability to have traffic stopped, they are nobody.
We love our cars from the inside – the outside is beyond our control.
When we drop a lady home at night, we wait until she is inside the house.
Our hands and our crotches have a magnetic attraction to each other – wherever, whenever!
We are on first name terms with the President, Prime Minister, at least seven Union Ministers and the local thanedaar.
What’s the difference between us and pigs? Pigs don’t turn into Delhi-wallahs when they’ve had a drink.
Our views on Mumbai are similar to others’ views on Delhi.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
It is fashionable to dislike Delhi! Conversations with Mumbaikars, Kolkatans, Madrasis and residents of other Indian cities invariably boil down to what a cesspool Delhi is. They have a point. Yes, we are brash, cold and unfriendly. Yes, it is unsafe to be out at night, especially if you are a woman. Yes, the auto-wallahs are rude and, like everyone else out here, try to cheat you. Yes, we have a bad attitude to women and if we pass one on the road we try to squeeze, grope or pinch or, at the least, subject her to a verbal assault. Yes, we drive badly and when we crash up we fight – unless someone has got hurt, in which case we run for it. Yes, we are a bunch of fixers, wheeler-dealers and middlemen. Yes, we put ourselves first, don’t have a sense of community, and think that rules are for fools. Yes, yes, yes!!!
I like Delhi! Let me list out why –
One – while we are rude, we are equally rude to everybody. Nobody escapes the rudeness, whether you stepped off the train yesterday or came ten generations ago. The auto-wallah tries the same stunts, the person on the street is just as unfriendly, the touts are just as persistent! You can see the same injustice you had just faced being inflicted on someone else. Some jerk has rudely cut into the lane of the jerk that rudely cut into your lane on the road. It’s not happening only to you – it’s happening to everyone! It’s Delhi!
Two – Delhi provides a combination of anonymity with opportunity. If you work hard, you will do well – and nobody cares which part of Bihar or Manipur or wherever you are from and what your baggage is. The concept of an outsider does not exist because everyone is an outsider. For young people from small places, this is like a breath of fresh air that many thrive upon.
Three – Delhi’s women are by far the most beautiful. Yes, many may not speak and dress fashionably, and I also heard recently that society ladies here are even more fake than other cities, but – who cares about that?
Four – contrary to the impression that we don’t know the difference between culture and agriculture, Delhi has plenty of art, music, and theatre and this is mostly accessible to ordinary people.
Five – Delhi has the Metro.
Six – Delhi is six hours away from the Himalayas. Going to the mountains does not require planning and detailing, you can just go.
Seven – Delhi has a vibrant football culture. The amateur leagues are of a high standard and embrace football lovers of all types including students, working people and (ahem!) veterans. My own group has played together every weekend for years and years and we know that, rain, shine, fog, whatever, twenty people will show up with their boots looking for their weekly fix. And we are just one of many out here.
Eight – the food here is great, for quality, variety and value for money. Delhi is a city that has been settled by people from many places, and they have brought their cuisines with them. Afghan, Russian, Andhra, Frontier, Kashmiri, Punjabi, Mallu, Bengali, all are available and affordable. The food lover would have only one complaint – that there are no good Gujarati thalis available.
Nine – Delhi is generally not extremist in its viewpoints. One doesn’t have to say one’s prayers in the direction of the Thakeray-types of any religion, caste or creed to survive. And if India loses a cricket match, nobody will riot.
And ten – the state government is answerable to the people of Delhi. And though vote bank politics are the norm and plenty of pork is doled out, middle class interests such as the state of roads, electricity and water, the price of milk and vegetables, and the quality of education remain a priority whichever the political party in power. And yes, we get cheap booze and petrol as well.
And so, dear readers, you will forgive me for glazing over when hearing opprobrium being heaped upon Delhi. I don’t think I could live anywhere else. However, I recognize your right to express yourselves. The following section is on identifying a Delhi-wallah upon whom to do so.
How do you recognize a true Delhi-wallah?
We use extreme pejoratives as terms of endearment and affection.
We may not have been on the Metro, but we’re damn proud of it anyway.
Our first sexual experience was in a DTC bus.
We never give way to any vehicle with flashing lights and sirens, ambulances included. If they don’t have the ability to have traffic stopped, they are nobody.
We love our cars from the inside – the outside is beyond our control.
When we drop a lady home at night, we wait until she is inside the house.
Our hands and our crotches have a magnetic attraction to each other – wherever, whenever!
We are on first name terms with the President, Prime Minister, at least seven Union Ministers and the local thanedaar.
What’s the difference between us and pigs? Pigs don’t turn into Delhi-wallahs when they’ve had a drink.
Our views on Mumbai are similar to others’ views on Delhi.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Getting Leh-ed in Mid-Life
GETTING LEH-ED IN MID-LIFE
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
“Pull up your sleeves – midlife is your best and last chance to become the real you.”
I have been off work from 1st July[1]. And I have just turned 45. What have I done with my time? Well, for one, I watched a lot of TV! And I learnt how to make an aaloo pyaaz exactly as I like to eat it, and will shortly graduate to mutton curry! I figured out how to butcher a few songs on the guitar! And yes, I went on a walkabout!
For those of you unfamiliar with the term ‘walkabout’ – it is an Australian Aboriginal concept relating to a journey undertaken in order to live a traditional life. The modern Ajit Chaudhuri method was to take off without a plan, without a destination, without a time frame and, last but not least, without my car and mobile phone. And to carry everything, including a tent and sleeping bag, on my back! The guiding principle was ‘if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there!’
So, a short paragraph on where I went and what I did. The first bus from ISBT was heading to Shimla, a cesspool of the highest order where I survived one night before heading off on the old Hindustan-Tibet road to Kalpa in Kinnaur. Two days were spent just walking around, the first in the Pangi valley and the second to the ridgelines where the alpine meadows were plentiful. I then went to Kaza in Spiti, and spent two days walking there, one along the Spiti valley and one up to Kibbar. Then on to Gramphoo across the Kumzum Pass, where I caught a vehicle to Leh! I spent a lovely few days in Leh, including a day trip to Alchi, before heading back to Delhi via Manali. Except for the Shimla to Kaza stretch, I had been on all these routes earlier.
I learnt a few things on the road! One, I can still be a bum (and look one and be treated like one), with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it, and enjoy it. Two, journeys can be fun when one doesn’t give a damn as to whether one reaches or not. There was a stretch between Nako and Chango on the Kinnaur – Kaza road that was under a landslide, and I was the only one on the bus unconcerned as to whether we would be proceeding to Kaza, returning to Rekong Peo, or spending the next few days next to the landslide. Three, women still treat me well! Forgotten pleasures from younger days were revisited, such as having a young woman sit next to me on a crowded last seat and lean into me during the curves on the road, and then continue to squeeze when space constraints on the seat had eased up. Four, Himachal Tourism has some really beautiful properties to stay in and, if one is not too particular about five-star service standards, offer great deals in terms of value for money.
Five, and a separate paragraph for this one, I am getting old! Except for the first (in Shimla) and last two (in Manali and on a bus to Delhi) nights of the journey, I was at an altitude of over 10,000 feet right through and, despite acclimatizing gradually and correctly, was in some discomfort while breathing. The worst was at Sarchu, just across the Baralacha and at about 14,000 feet, where I hardly got a wink at night. In contrast, the two Nepali drivers I was sharing a tent with were smiled at and offered booze by the dhaba owner’s daughter and subsequently disappeared until morning. And with age, my ability to take bad roads has deteriorated – I reached Leh in a terrible shape, bones creaking, back aching, ass sore, the works.
Leh itself continues to be pleasant. This may have had something to do with the fact that I was staying in a comfortable and cheap guesthouse[2], or that I was sentimental from returning after 10 years. Economic change has happened, people are better off, there are now one-way streets and traffic jams and yes, everyone is very, very busy. I am told that this changes in October, when the cold begins to set in and the tourists and the tourist traps head off to Goa and Pushkar, and Leh reverts to being a sleepy town where everyone is not desperately raking it in while the weather lasts. One of the most closely guarded secrets I have come across is how nice Leh is in winter, in dry cold, when the roads are snowed in and the locals revert to being themselves.
An article in Harvard Business Review[3] informs me that my entire generation[4] is in midlife and going off work at such a time may be a symptom of a crisis. The people around me, however, note the absence of the mandatory purchase of a motorcycle and/or the acquisition of a trophy girlfriend. They also note the (entirely coincidental) timing of the joblessness and of two major sporting events. Not a crisis, not a male menopause, they say, just a short and undoubtedly needed break that will recharge batteries and ensure longevity in the rat race. I sincerely hope they are right!
[1] No, this note is not going to develop into a request for loans and/or jobs, so please do read on. There is, of course, the possibility that my prospective employers do an “Ajit who?”
[2] This was Harmony Guest House on Fort Road and is owned and run by my colleague from SCF Tashi Cho, who is also the mother of my colleague Neelu in Care Today. So yes, if you are going to Leh and looking for a nice place to stay, do contact me for details.
[3] “The Existential Necessity of Mid-Life Change”, Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg, HBR of February 2008.
[4] The article says that those born between 1946 and 1964 constitute the baby boomer generation that is in mid-life. This means that I am in the same generation as my mother (yeeks!) and in a different one from my wife (that explains it!) and most of my brothers and sisters.
A 2-Pager by Ajit Chaudhuri
“Pull up your sleeves – midlife is your best and last chance to become the real you.”
I have been off work from 1st July[1]. And I have just turned 45. What have I done with my time? Well, for one, I watched a lot of TV! And I learnt how to make an aaloo pyaaz exactly as I like to eat it, and will shortly graduate to mutton curry! I figured out how to butcher a few songs on the guitar! And yes, I went on a walkabout!
For those of you unfamiliar with the term ‘walkabout’ – it is an Australian Aboriginal concept relating to a journey undertaken in order to live a traditional life. The modern Ajit Chaudhuri method was to take off without a plan, without a destination, without a time frame and, last but not least, without my car and mobile phone. And to carry everything, including a tent and sleeping bag, on my back! The guiding principle was ‘if you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there!’
So, a short paragraph on where I went and what I did. The first bus from ISBT was heading to Shimla, a cesspool of the highest order where I survived one night before heading off on the old Hindustan-Tibet road to Kalpa in Kinnaur. Two days were spent just walking around, the first in the Pangi valley and the second to the ridgelines where the alpine meadows were plentiful. I then went to Kaza in Spiti, and spent two days walking there, one along the Spiti valley and one up to Kibbar. Then on to Gramphoo across the Kumzum Pass, where I caught a vehicle to Leh! I spent a lovely few days in Leh, including a day trip to Alchi, before heading back to Delhi via Manali. Except for the Shimla to Kaza stretch, I had been on all these routes earlier.
I learnt a few things on the road! One, I can still be a bum (and look one and be treated like one), with nothing to do and all the time in the world to do it, and enjoy it. Two, journeys can be fun when one doesn’t give a damn as to whether one reaches or not. There was a stretch between Nako and Chango on the Kinnaur – Kaza road that was under a landslide, and I was the only one on the bus unconcerned as to whether we would be proceeding to Kaza, returning to Rekong Peo, or spending the next few days next to the landslide. Three, women still treat me well! Forgotten pleasures from younger days were revisited, such as having a young woman sit next to me on a crowded last seat and lean into me during the curves on the road, and then continue to squeeze when space constraints on the seat had eased up. Four, Himachal Tourism has some really beautiful properties to stay in and, if one is not too particular about five-star service standards, offer great deals in terms of value for money.
Five, and a separate paragraph for this one, I am getting old! Except for the first (in Shimla) and last two (in Manali and on a bus to Delhi) nights of the journey, I was at an altitude of over 10,000 feet right through and, despite acclimatizing gradually and correctly, was in some discomfort while breathing. The worst was at Sarchu, just across the Baralacha and at about 14,000 feet, where I hardly got a wink at night. In contrast, the two Nepali drivers I was sharing a tent with were smiled at and offered booze by the dhaba owner’s daughter and subsequently disappeared until morning. And with age, my ability to take bad roads has deteriorated – I reached Leh in a terrible shape, bones creaking, back aching, ass sore, the works.
Leh itself continues to be pleasant. This may have had something to do with the fact that I was staying in a comfortable and cheap guesthouse[2], or that I was sentimental from returning after 10 years. Economic change has happened, people are better off, there are now one-way streets and traffic jams and yes, everyone is very, very busy. I am told that this changes in October, when the cold begins to set in and the tourists and the tourist traps head off to Goa and Pushkar, and Leh reverts to being a sleepy town where everyone is not desperately raking it in while the weather lasts. One of the most closely guarded secrets I have come across is how nice Leh is in winter, in dry cold, when the roads are snowed in and the locals revert to being themselves.
An article in Harvard Business Review[3] informs me that my entire generation[4] is in midlife and going off work at such a time may be a symptom of a crisis. The people around me, however, note the absence of the mandatory purchase of a motorcycle and/or the acquisition of a trophy girlfriend. They also note the (entirely coincidental) timing of the joblessness and of two major sporting events. Not a crisis, not a male menopause, they say, just a short and undoubtedly needed break that will recharge batteries and ensure longevity in the rat race. I sincerely hope they are right!
[1] No, this note is not going to develop into a request for loans and/or jobs, so please do read on. There is, of course, the possibility that my prospective employers do an “Ajit who?”
[2] This was Harmony Guest House on Fort Road and is owned and run by my colleague from SCF Tashi Cho, who is also the mother of my colleague Neelu in Care Today. So yes, if you are going to Leh and looking for a nice place to stay, do contact me for details.
[3] “The Existential Necessity of Mid-Life Change”, Carlo Strenger and Arie Ruttenberg, HBR of February 2008.
[4] The article says that those born between 1946 and 1964 constitute the baby boomer generation that is in mid-life. This means that I am in the same generation as my mother (yeeks!) and in a different one from my wife (that explains it!) and most of my brothers and sisters.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Alive and Licking
ALIVE AND KICKING
By Ajit Chaudhuri
Written in December 2003
Published in Simply Delhi of January-March 2004
Are you one of those who is bleary eyed at work every four years in June with your body clock adjusted to the time in some faraway country? For whom the World Cup brings about images of men in yellow rather than blue? Who, if invited by Aishwarya Rai to her home for a cosy dinner for two, would check if she has ESPN before accepting? If you are, then join the growing tribe of football fans in Delhi.
A love affair with football used to be painful for the urbane Delhi-ite. Play in school, and get yelled at by your parents on the need to “focus your energy on your future”. Play on in college and watch the cricketers, basketballers, badminton players and even the chess players get the girls. Join a job and that used to be it.
Initially Delhi had only two football tournaments, the DCM and the Durand. Though it was fun to watch JCT Mills play a Bengali or Goan team, the football was mediocre. You had to skip work to watch the game. And there was always the risk of being tear-gassed if some local team lost by a contentious goal. The only real options were to switch to golf or some racquet game, or to give it up all together. Either way, there was a void in life.
But not any more! Football renaissance is evident everywhere. Quality football from around the world can be viewed week in and week out. There is also an abundance of playing options available to the recreational footballer. The football facilities at the Siri Fort sports complex and the practice grounds outside the Nehru Stadium are hotbeds of activity. Tournaments for children and working people have started to catch on. Informal teams have sprung up. Corporate firms too have begun supporting players.
What is it that makes grown men become willing to bear the aches and pains, the prospect of serious injury, early mornings and a nagging wife to play the game? To play, despite being too fat, too old or too slow, even if it is more impressive at cocktail parties to say “I play golf”. It may not be logical, but the only reason is that they love this game. It is a love that cuts through age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity and nationality. It is a love that you either have or you don’t, and if you don’t you will never understand.
If you share the obsession and venture out on to a football field, there are some fringe benefits. The first is that football has a certain therapeutic value. Much of the frustration of staying in Delhi – driving in traffic, dealing with rude people, struggling with power cuts and water scarcity – get drained out of you in that weekly hour on the football field.
Second, the game itself is physically demanding and playing regularly ensures a certain level of physical fitness. In addition, the realisation that some daily exercise can reduce the chances of you making a fool of yourself at the weekend inevitably dawns, and one begins to wake up early and do some jogging and toe touching.
Third, the football field is still a man’s space. In a world in which women are coming into bars, cricket stadiums and late-night movie shows, there is a dearth of places where a man can be a man without being politically incorrect. On the football field, there is no one to impress with your metrosexual sensitivity or your sweet nature.
Fourth, you make new friends. Delhi, as we all know, is a place where friends (as opposed to acquaintances and contacts) are not easily made. And the phrase ‘come over sometime’ means don’t come at all. But your football team is a group that you meet regularly. There is no pretence, and your mates know a side of you that even your family is unfamiliar with.
Fifth, you impress chicks. Telling beautiful women that your interests include football, and that you play over the weekend, conjures up images of a David Beckham-like character. They don’t need to know that you are part of a group of middle-aged beer-bellied men kicking a ball around. However, it is advisable not to be too generous with this information – requests to come and watch you play are not easy to refuse and can be euphemisms for ‘I want to marry you and make you go vegetable shopping on weekends for the rest of your life’.
Lastly, you impress your children and their friends. There is nothing like taking your children for your football game and letting them see their old man doing the same things that are on ESPN, albeit at a slightly different level. If they are a little older, they can even play along with you. It is these memories that they will carry of you into the long-term future, not the fact that you grouched about their results and were miserly with their pocket money.
If, by some chance, you are now convinced about making that move from the seat in front of your TV to the ground in front of your house, there are a few things you should know. The first is that football is a contact sport, and you will have severe aches and pains until your body is used to the strain. This takes time. You will also be injured occasionally in places that you won’t remember from your schoolboy playing days, and you will take longer to recover. Playing on Sunday will mean walking into office on Monday and probably Tuesday looking as if you have an exotic sexual disease. The second is that should you continue playing, there might be marital strife in the offing. Football takes up free time – the game itself, and then the time rendered immobile with injuries, time that could have been devoted to the family and to socialising.
So just focus on going out and doing it! Find a team, or form one, start playing, and fall in love again. You will never be the same.
By Ajit Chaudhuri
Written in December 2003
Published in Simply Delhi of January-March 2004
Are you one of those who is bleary eyed at work every four years in June with your body clock adjusted to the time in some faraway country? For whom the World Cup brings about images of men in yellow rather than blue? Who, if invited by Aishwarya Rai to her home for a cosy dinner for two, would check if she has ESPN before accepting? If you are, then join the growing tribe of football fans in Delhi.
A love affair with football used to be painful for the urbane Delhi-ite. Play in school, and get yelled at by your parents on the need to “focus your energy on your future”. Play on in college and watch the cricketers, basketballers, badminton players and even the chess players get the girls. Join a job and that used to be it.
Initially Delhi had only two football tournaments, the DCM and the Durand. Though it was fun to watch JCT Mills play a Bengali or Goan team, the football was mediocre. You had to skip work to watch the game. And there was always the risk of being tear-gassed if some local team lost by a contentious goal. The only real options were to switch to golf or some racquet game, or to give it up all together. Either way, there was a void in life.
But not any more! Football renaissance is evident everywhere. Quality football from around the world can be viewed week in and week out. There is also an abundance of playing options available to the recreational footballer. The football facilities at the Siri Fort sports complex and the practice grounds outside the Nehru Stadium are hotbeds of activity. Tournaments for children and working people have started to catch on. Informal teams have sprung up. Corporate firms too have begun supporting players.
What is it that makes grown men become willing to bear the aches and pains, the prospect of serious injury, early mornings and a nagging wife to play the game? To play, despite being too fat, too old or too slow, even if it is more impressive at cocktail parties to say “I play golf”. It may not be logical, but the only reason is that they love this game. It is a love that cuts through age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity and nationality. It is a love that you either have or you don’t, and if you don’t you will never understand.
If you share the obsession and venture out on to a football field, there are some fringe benefits. The first is that football has a certain therapeutic value. Much of the frustration of staying in Delhi – driving in traffic, dealing with rude people, struggling with power cuts and water scarcity – get drained out of you in that weekly hour on the football field.
Second, the game itself is physically demanding and playing regularly ensures a certain level of physical fitness. In addition, the realisation that some daily exercise can reduce the chances of you making a fool of yourself at the weekend inevitably dawns, and one begins to wake up early and do some jogging and toe touching.
Third, the football field is still a man’s space. In a world in which women are coming into bars, cricket stadiums and late-night movie shows, there is a dearth of places where a man can be a man without being politically incorrect. On the football field, there is no one to impress with your metrosexual sensitivity or your sweet nature.
Fourth, you make new friends. Delhi, as we all know, is a place where friends (as opposed to acquaintances and contacts) are not easily made. And the phrase ‘come over sometime’ means don’t come at all. But your football team is a group that you meet regularly. There is no pretence, and your mates know a side of you that even your family is unfamiliar with.
Fifth, you impress chicks. Telling beautiful women that your interests include football, and that you play over the weekend, conjures up images of a David Beckham-like character. They don’t need to know that you are part of a group of middle-aged beer-bellied men kicking a ball around. However, it is advisable not to be too generous with this information – requests to come and watch you play are not easy to refuse and can be euphemisms for ‘I want to marry you and make you go vegetable shopping on weekends for the rest of your life’.
Lastly, you impress your children and their friends. There is nothing like taking your children for your football game and letting them see their old man doing the same things that are on ESPN, albeit at a slightly different level. If they are a little older, they can even play along with you. It is these memories that they will carry of you into the long-term future, not the fact that you grouched about their results and were miserly with their pocket money.
If, by some chance, you are now convinced about making that move from the seat in front of your TV to the ground in front of your house, there are a few things you should know. The first is that football is a contact sport, and you will have severe aches and pains until your body is used to the strain. This takes time. You will also be injured occasionally in places that you won’t remember from your schoolboy playing days, and you will take longer to recover. Playing on Sunday will mean walking into office on Monday and probably Tuesday looking as if you have an exotic sexual disease. The second is that should you continue playing, there might be marital strife in the offing. Football takes up free time – the game itself, and then the time rendered immobile with injuries, time that could have been devoted to the family and to socialising.
So just focus on going out and doing it! Find a team, or form one, start playing, and fall in love again. You will never be the same.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Love and Life at the LSE
LOVE AND LIFE AT THE LSE
Many of us are familiar with the London School of Economics, or the LSE. Some have dreamt, or are dreaming, of entering its hallowed portals, and others are doing the same for their children. ‘What is it actually like?’ is a question that I have sometimes been asked by the dreamers, possibly on the basis of my two short spells there – the first at the economics summer school in 1997, the second as a Gurukul Scholar[1] in 2001.
LSE is among the world’s premier institutions for economics. It also teaches the other social sciences[2], but it is economics for which it is known – left of centre, hugely influential in economic policy circles in the UK, and truly international in its student intake. Unlike most premier institutions, it does not have a campus – it is just a series of buildings right in the centre of London, with easy access to all the (considerable) distractions of the city. The theatres, the riverfront, the shopping areas, the red light district, Stamford Bridge, Lords, the city centre, are all within walking distance. The students’ accommodations vary with price, from the flats at Butlers’ Wharf to the more basic International Students’ House, but all meet minimal comfort requirements.
What are the students like? First, a large number of Chinese and Indians – like the rest of the UK’s higher education system, LSE is dependent upon them[3] for survival. Indian girls have a particularly difficult first few weeks as their natural social constituency, Indian boys, are more interested in hitting on the white women during this period[4] - so if you have an inclination towards them this is the time to pounce. Second, though LSE touts its internationalism (students from 113 different nationalities in 2001-02), one sees very little diversity in that the students are mostly from that narrow percentile of the very rich, very elite, and will upon completion of their studies be off to the family business of running their countries or their corporate empires. Those out of this stratum have taken on a vast debt burden to be here, and the only realistic option available to them upon completion is to join one of the big consulting firms. Either way, there is nothing left of centre remaining in LSE except for a little rhetoric. Third, in repudiation of that old mathematical formula that goes ‘brains x beauty = constant’, the women here have that intimidating combination of stunning looks and extreme intelligence[5]. Unfortunately, they are also choosy and, if you are not very good-looking or very rich, you will be better advised to hunt within the narrower confines of your ethnic group.
A word about the library! This is one of the highlights of the institution, it is truly magnificent, and a great place to while away time even when you are not under academic pressure. The range of books is wide[6], the seating is comfortable, computer and Internet access is easy, and the eye exercise is marvellous. On the distaff side is that any photocopying and/or printing has to be paid for (and nothing is cheap in London). Also, the library expects you to know exactly what you are looking for – unlike others such as the Bodleian in Oxford that encourage you to browse in the belief that ‘the book you want is near the book you are looking for’.
For a leftish institution, the faculty were a market savvy lot – maybe breathing the London air has its effects. Those into the business of globalisation were rushing to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Osama bin Laden to publish new material on the subject. Others were ubiquitous on TV, providing punditry on a variety of matters. It was said that the good Profs were in the US of A or on their way there, where salaries are considerably higher. Having said that, we came across some very fine people there.
LSE also has important people coming to speak to the students. In the ten weeks that I was there in 2001, we had Bill Clinton come and give us a talk and saw first hand the way his presence had middle-aged ladies behaving like rock band groupies[7]. We also had the then PM of Denmark, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, giving us an excellent talk on the Danish way (and his bodyguards too raised considerable excitement among the female members of the audience). Douglas Hurd, the British Foreign Secretary at the time of the first Iraq war, gave us a talk on the intricacies of dealing with Americans[8].
What did I actually do in LSE? The Gurukul scholars spent a term there, where we participated in a series of seminars and visited institutions across Europe (in my year we went to Geneva – the WTO, Paris – the OECD, Edinburgh – the Scottish Parliament, and Brussels – the EU). We also wrote dissertations – mine was on the workings of the Barents Euro Arctic Region within the broader confines of the EU’s relationship with Russia – to my shock it was selected as reading material for a course at IRMA in 2007. We ensured that all our visits outside London were such that we had a weekend to see the sights. We also did some personal travel, me to the Lake District and to the southwest of England, and one exciting weekend across the Arctic Circle in Norway. We spent time in class, in the library, and in bars. For those interested, LSE has a swish bar that is shared by the faculty and the post-graduate students, with seating space, soft music, and you can hear yourself (and others) speak. It also has an under-graduate bar that is permanently like a rugby team celebrating a victory. I went only once to the former place.
Is LSE as good as it is made out to be? The opening day introduction speech had lots of hagiographic rhetoric that stopped upon one of us asking the speaker as to exactly how many Nobel Prize winners were working here. So maybe not, unless you are doing a post-graduate course in Economics! But it is an experience, time here does embellish one’s CV, and it leaves you with a good impression of itself, London and the UK[9]. Go only if Daddy has the money, or you get a full scholarship (including for stay), or you are both brilliant and willing to slave it out in some consulting firm for the next ten years.
[1] The British Council website has the details of this scholarship – it takes 12 Indians who are in the middle of their careers to LSE for a term, and subjects them to a variety of (very interesting) experiences.
[2] Including development studies. I attended some of the classes and was disappointed by the course’s colonial attitude and the huge distance by which it was behind practise.
[3] This is because of the reforms undertaken by Margaret Thatcher that reduced the dependence of institutions of higher education on the government and forced them to balance their books. They do so by charging foreigners, especially non-EU foreigners, three times the fees payable by a Brit. China and India are where even non-elite families are willing to stump obscene sums in pursuit of an education.
[4] They do gradually return to the fold of their female compatriots, usually because the enthusiasm is not reciprocated – most British women have had their fill of the exotic Indian seduction strategy from their brown countrymen.
[5] An informal listing of the best places in London to find beautiful women by the (male) Gurukul Scholars of 2001 had the LSE library right up there with the swish nightclubs in Chelsea.
[6] I even found an English translation of “Nomads and the Outside World” by Khazanov, something that I had been looking for for years.
[7] We also saw the dirty politics that people indulged in to get a seat on his table at dinner. The Bihar Vidhan Sabha could take a few pointers.
[8] He said three things that stay with me all these years later – one, that the American public is completely uninterested in anything outside the USA (this is reflected in the fact that only a quarter of US Senators and Congress members own a passport) and therefore foreign policy is the preserve of a small clique. Two, that Americans do not know how to be in a genuine coalition because their systems do not allow for non-American leadership. And three, that American decision chains are narrow and involve others only after a decision has been taken and only so that it is disseminated effectively.
[9] Including British humour. A student broke into the then new Director, Sir Anthony Giddens’, phone answering system and recorded the following words “hi, this is Tony, new director of the LSE, and if you need to speak to me, leave a message after pressing three’ sung in rap. Nobody told the Director, and he found out only months later when he phoned his office by mistake.
Many of us are familiar with the London School of Economics, or the LSE. Some have dreamt, or are dreaming, of entering its hallowed portals, and others are doing the same for their children. ‘What is it actually like?’ is a question that I have sometimes been asked by the dreamers, possibly on the basis of my two short spells there – the first at the economics summer school in 1997, the second as a Gurukul Scholar[1] in 2001.
LSE is among the world’s premier institutions for economics. It also teaches the other social sciences[2], but it is economics for which it is known – left of centre, hugely influential in economic policy circles in the UK, and truly international in its student intake. Unlike most premier institutions, it does not have a campus – it is just a series of buildings right in the centre of London, with easy access to all the (considerable) distractions of the city. The theatres, the riverfront, the shopping areas, the red light district, Stamford Bridge, Lords, the city centre, are all within walking distance. The students’ accommodations vary with price, from the flats at Butlers’ Wharf to the more basic International Students’ House, but all meet minimal comfort requirements.
What are the students like? First, a large number of Chinese and Indians – like the rest of the UK’s higher education system, LSE is dependent upon them[3] for survival. Indian girls have a particularly difficult first few weeks as their natural social constituency, Indian boys, are more interested in hitting on the white women during this period[4] - so if you have an inclination towards them this is the time to pounce. Second, though LSE touts its internationalism (students from 113 different nationalities in 2001-02), one sees very little diversity in that the students are mostly from that narrow percentile of the very rich, very elite, and will upon completion of their studies be off to the family business of running their countries or their corporate empires. Those out of this stratum have taken on a vast debt burden to be here, and the only realistic option available to them upon completion is to join one of the big consulting firms. Either way, there is nothing left of centre remaining in LSE except for a little rhetoric. Third, in repudiation of that old mathematical formula that goes ‘brains x beauty = constant’, the women here have that intimidating combination of stunning looks and extreme intelligence[5]. Unfortunately, they are also choosy and, if you are not very good-looking or very rich, you will be better advised to hunt within the narrower confines of your ethnic group.
A word about the library! This is one of the highlights of the institution, it is truly magnificent, and a great place to while away time even when you are not under academic pressure. The range of books is wide[6], the seating is comfortable, computer and Internet access is easy, and the eye exercise is marvellous. On the distaff side is that any photocopying and/or printing has to be paid for (and nothing is cheap in London). Also, the library expects you to know exactly what you are looking for – unlike others such as the Bodleian in Oxford that encourage you to browse in the belief that ‘the book you want is near the book you are looking for’.
For a leftish institution, the faculty were a market savvy lot – maybe breathing the London air has its effects. Those into the business of globalisation were rushing to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Osama bin Laden to publish new material on the subject. Others were ubiquitous on TV, providing punditry on a variety of matters. It was said that the good Profs were in the US of A or on their way there, where salaries are considerably higher. Having said that, we came across some very fine people there.
LSE also has important people coming to speak to the students. In the ten weeks that I was there in 2001, we had Bill Clinton come and give us a talk and saw first hand the way his presence had middle-aged ladies behaving like rock band groupies[7]. We also had the then PM of Denmark, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, giving us an excellent talk on the Danish way (and his bodyguards too raised considerable excitement among the female members of the audience). Douglas Hurd, the British Foreign Secretary at the time of the first Iraq war, gave us a talk on the intricacies of dealing with Americans[8].
What did I actually do in LSE? The Gurukul scholars spent a term there, where we participated in a series of seminars and visited institutions across Europe (in my year we went to Geneva – the WTO, Paris – the OECD, Edinburgh – the Scottish Parliament, and Brussels – the EU). We also wrote dissertations – mine was on the workings of the Barents Euro Arctic Region within the broader confines of the EU’s relationship with Russia – to my shock it was selected as reading material for a course at IRMA in 2007. We ensured that all our visits outside London were such that we had a weekend to see the sights. We also did some personal travel, me to the Lake District and to the southwest of England, and one exciting weekend across the Arctic Circle in Norway. We spent time in class, in the library, and in bars. For those interested, LSE has a swish bar that is shared by the faculty and the post-graduate students, with seating space, soft music, and you can hear yourself (and others) speak. It also has an under-graduate bar that is permanently like a rugby team celebrating a victory. I went only once to the former place.
Is LSE as good as it is made out to be? The opening day introduction speech had lots of hagiographic rhetoric that stopped upon one of us asking the speaker as to exactly how many Nobel Prize winners were working here. So maybe not, unless you are doing a post-graduate course in Economics! But it is an experience, time here does embellish one’s CV, and it leaves you with a good impression of itself, London and the UK[9]. Go only if Daddy has the money, or you get a full scholarship (including for stay), or you are both brilliant and willing to slave it out in some consulting firm for the next ten years.
[1] The British Council website has the details of this scholarship – it takes 12 Indians who are in the middle of their careers to LSE for a term, and subjects them to a variety of (very interesting) experiences.
[2] Including development studies. I attended some of the classes and was disappointed by the course’s colonial attitude and the huge distance by which it was behind practise.
[3] This is because of the reforms undertaken by Margaret Thatcher that reduced the dependence of institutions of higher education on the government and forced them to balance their books. They do so by charging foreigners, especially non-EU foreigners, three times the fees payable by a Brit. China and India are where even non-elite families are willing to stump obscene sums in pursuit of an education.
[4] They do gradually return to the fold of their female compatriots, usually because the enthusiasm is not reciprocated – most British women have had their fill of the exotic Indian seduction strategy from their brown countrymen.
[5] An informal listing of the best places in London to find beautiful women by the (male) Gurukul Scholars of 2001 had the LSE library right up there with the swish nightclubs in Chelsea.
[6] I even found an English translation of “Nomads and the Outside World” by Khazanov, something that I had been looking for for years.
[7] We also saw the dirty politics that people indulged in to get a seat on his table at dinner. The Bihar Vidhan Sabha could take a few pointers.
[8] He said three things that stay with me all these years later – one, that the American public is completely uninterested in anything outside the USA (this is reflected in the fact that only a quarter of US Senators and Congress members own a passport) and therefore foreign policy is the preserve of a small clique. Two, that Americans do not know how to be in a genuine coalition because their systems do not allow for non-American leadership. And three, that American decision chains are narrow and involve others only after a decision has been taken and only so that it is disseminated effectively.
[9] Including British humour. A student broke into the then new Director, Sir Anthony Giddens’, phone answering system and recorded the following words “hi, this is Tony, new director of the LSE, and if you need to speak to me, leave a message after pressing three’ sung in rap. Nobody told the Director, and he found out only months later when he phoned his office by mistake.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Changthang in Winter
THE CHANGTHANG IN WINTER
The Changthang is a forbidding place. Altitudes range from 14,000 to 18,500 feet above sea level - the air thus gives a person a little over half the oxygen that is available in the plains, making any form of activity, physical or mental, an ordeal. The sun's rays cut a swathe through the thin air in all seasons, burning any exposed skin with ultra-violet radiation. Temperatures drop to forty-five below in winter, and diurnal variation is high throughout the year. Temperature differences between sun and shade make it one of the few places in the world in which one can get chill blains and sun burn at the same time. The stark and barren landscape and the wide valleys provide little protection from the elements, especially the wind, which blows through at high speeds and enhances the cold with a wind chill factor that decreases the temperature by upto another forty degrees. The desert air is extremely dry, and soaks up body water content without the person realising it. Weather is unpredictable and snowfall or landslides can block roads for weeks at a time. The main road through the region, the Leh - Manali highway, is blocked due to snowfall for nine months a year, and communications within the region are particularly weak. Field work in the Changthang, for all these reasons, plays havoc with schedules, PERT charts, and other project planning tools. The region also provides conditions that test the motivation, commitment and endurance of any research team.
Most of this report is about the Changpas, and the means by which they eke out an existence in these conditions. In the process of compiling this information, a team of twenty people have spent a total of two hundred and fifty person days in the Changthang, working through the best and the worst the region has to offer, in winter and summer, through rain, snow, hail and shine and at altitudes of up to over 17,000 feet. Most of the team are from Leh and its surrounding villages, only four are from the plains of India. Six members of the team had been into the Changthang before the study, of which four (all from LNP) had previous experience of its winter. This chapter chronicles the experiences of the team in working in the Changthang, the difficulties faced and the realities of collecting information with the communities here. It is hoped that others planning similar exercises in harsh regions can gain some practical advice from the team's experience.
The team's first experience of the Changthang was in December 1997, when five of us gave our baseline methodology a trial. We chose the small and relatively accessible village of Sumdo for this. The trial itself went like a dream. We reached the village easily. The listing averaged between 10 and 15 minutes per household, and the detailed questionnaire between 40 and 50, within the targets. The questions were easily understood, people were willing to give the time, and most of the information was readily forthcoming. The only problem area was the household wealth ranking exercise - the community were not willing to say that one household was richer or poorer than another. This was adjusted for by obtaining from the community a basis for categorising households into economic slabs, which we then used along with our listing data to slot households into economic categories. Our methodology held out, and we got that first experience of what genuine cold is like. The trial visit to Sumdo gave our confidence a great boost.
Needless to add, the actual baseline survey in late February was not quite as smooth. The logistics of taking a (much larger) team into the interiors of the Changthang were quite different from that of reaching the small and accessible Sumdo. It was considerably colder, and the passes had more snow. Much time was spent in carving a route through the snow along the Polokhonkha pass to reach and leave Samad. The researchers were of diverse backgrounds, and, despite the training they underwent, initial problems with the questionnaire were experienced. For example, the listings were taking too long - from 30 to 60 minutes each - apparently because they were too small to cover what a people who had not been 'surveyed' before had to share. Respondents were also unhappy with the detailed questionaire because it began with household morbidity and mortality issues. The learning curve soon sorted these problems out.
Other problems relating to the baseline survey remained with us right through the study. It was decided to undertake baseline surveys in Kharnak and Korzok in the summer due to logistical difficulties - the road into Kharnak was completely blocked with snow and the Korzok Changpas were wintering in the remote and inaccessible location of Thagajung. This created three problems. The first was one of methodology, collating and equating data collected from different villages in different seasons. The second was that the same researchers were not available to us in summer, and we were unable to invest the same level of effort and resources in training the new researchers again. Our expectation that reduced training would be offset by the new researchers' higher qualifications and previous development experience in Ladakh (though not in Changthang) did not prove true. They brought stereotyped Ladakhi perceptions of the Changpas as being poor, miserable and pathetic with them, which were played up by those being surveyed to the detriment of the quality of information collected, especially on assets. The third was that about sixty of the Korzok Changpa households were away with their herds towards Manali, and therefore fell out of the ambit of the survey. For these reasons, we decided to abandon the baseline survey of Kharnak and take our Korzok information with a pinch of salt. Therefore, while our qualitative information has been evenly collected from all the villages except Angkung, we back it up with quantitative information only from the first baseline survey.
A word about the training. It was held for the baseline survey team in early February at Dharsiks village (Batalik region, Kargil district), thanks to the hospitality of Kargil Development Project, a local NGO. The Dak Bungalow in which we stayed overlooked the Indus, whose waters were tinged with blue and whose banks were lined with snow - a stunningly beautiful location. The training was to familiarize the team with the objectives of the study, the research tools and basic PRA techniques. The practical aspects of research were learnt in the adjoining villages of Dharsiks and Garkon, both of which were adversely effected by the war two years later. This was an interesting place to be in - along a hostile border where strangers are viewed with great suspicion. Discussions here often took a hilarious turn, such as one on the local community's pure Aryan antecedents and how neo-Nazi women from Europe come here to quote get crossed unquote. This was verified, to our surprise, by an article in an issue of The India Magazine around that time. Our heart goes out to the fine people we met at that time.
The baseline survey and a depth studies session were done in the worst of the winter, across February. The feedback session in the field was conducted in November, in the midst of an unprecedented cold wave. Dealing with the cold was thus an important component of our own survival strategies. More so because the Changthang has no staying facilities for outsiders - we stayed in open stone and mud huts, community tents or rebos which offered little protection from the elements.
The first aspect of this was preparation. Finding out what extreme cold is, and preparing oneself mentally and physically for it. It was difficult, in an office room in Delhi or even in the comfort of Leh town, to visualise what minus forty-five really meant. We located people who had experience of such temperatures, such as an ex-soldier who had done a stint at Siachen, a retired merchant navy man who used to do the Alaska Seattle run in winter and a Norwegian friend who had done his military service in the northern Finnmark region of his country. They gave us an idea of what extreme cold really is, how it effects one and what protection mechanisms are necessary. Physical fitness was also worked upon, and heavy multi-layer jackets and sleeping bags procured.
And yet, nothing can quite prepare one for the biting cold in the Changthang. For the abrupt changes, from -13c when it is snowing to -25c when it stops and the sun comes out, all in the matter of half an hour in February. Or when the evening sets in in November, and the temperature drops from -15c to -35 over one hour. For the bright sunny days, when the sun is sharp and yet the temperature reading is -25c. For having to perform your morning ablutions in the open in -28c temperature, squatting in the snow and minimising the surface area of the bum that is exposed without impeding free fall of the matter. For fine tuning your body's water content before sleeping such that you do not require to urinate at night, and yet do not let the dry air dehydrate you. And when you do have to urinate at night, to get out of three layers of sleeping bag, put on enough clothes and shoes to take on the -45c outside temperature, avoid the dogs, expose yourself, do the job, and then return and tuck yourself in once again. Experience is the only effective form of preparation.
In that, we were lucky. The LNP people knew the conditions well, and influenced us accordingly. Each field expedition was accompanied by a cook, whose sole job was to ensure that the team was fed in style and plenty and that hot tea, coffee and goodies flowed through the day. This may come across as a luxury to the reader but, we assure you, this man made life in difficult conditions much much easier and was worth his weight in gold. We also followed some basic principles, such as wearing as many layers of clothing as possible and tightening the ends so that air was trapped in between layers. These layers of air were most effective in keeping the cold out. A kerosene bukhari was used to bring warmth into the tent during crucial periods, such as when we got out of our sleeping bags in the morning (in February, it was -14c inside the tent when we woke up). Activities such as washing, brushing and changing clothes were minimised, and bathing did not even venture into our imagination.
Being there in winter had its rewards. The Changthang is a different experience in different seasons, and winter gives it its harshest hue. The landscape, when combined with the elements, is so beautiful at this time that it defies description. Just standing outside in the evening with three hundred and sixty degrees of white snow and clear blue sky, and taking in the cold, dry air with the sun going down, is an experience that makes one believe that God has to exist. The very exclusivity of the experience, the knowledge that few people from our world will ever be here at this time to take this in, enhances the reward considerably. Those of us who participated in the February field work walked taller upon our return, and peppered our conversation in Delhi with snippets like 'oh, you know, minus forty'. Despite the difficulties, we all agree that we would not have missed this for the world. In addition to the experience of it, our work in winter gave the study considerable credibility, especially with the local government and with the Changpas themselves.
May had minimum temperatures in the region of -10c, with sudden snowfalls on most nights we were there. After February, we found this positively pleasant, and the more hardened among us slept outside in these conditions. The weather and the staying conditions made the August field work feel like a holiday. It was bright, sunny and warm, requiring a little more than a T-shirt during the day. Being in the tourist season, a tent camp accommodation was available to us at Korzok with running water and showers. Our perfect record for not bathing was spoilt when Dr. Dhruv Mankad, one August morning, made use of the latter facility.
The general daily schedule followed by the team during field work was as follows. We were ready and breakfasted by 0930-1000 hours, and then broke up into smaller teams as pre-ordained in the team meeting of the night before to settle into allocated tasks for the pre-lunch session. Lunch would be taken between 1300 and 1400 hours, which was followed by undertaking tasks of the post lunch session. The evening programme involved a team meeting and dinner. The post-dinner period was reserved for non-work related discussions on various subjects, and rendering of flowery Urdu poetry.
Group discussions with the community required a fair amount of innovation. Getting people together was not difficult, especially in winter and spring when we had some curiosity value, but keeping them there was. Groups broke up for the usual reasons, people had work or they were getting bored, as well as some unusual ones, such as when a wolf attack had us all scurrying for cover. Maintaining the focus of the discussion was often a problem, usually caused by a divergence between what we the researchers wanted to talk about and what the people we were talking with wanted to talk about. For example, when we talked with a group of women at Tibra on their understanding of poverty and development in May, just after a long and arduous winter in which livestock losses had been high, all that was on the women’s minds was compensation from the government. We managed to change the focus of the discussion to responsibilities of the government to the community, and came out with an interesting analysis - that the important things the government should do were in the fields of education and health.
Map drawing with the community used to always be an interesting exercise, as they found this the best method by which to explain their migratory cycles. On one occasion in February, Mr. Nawang Skalzang, the then Goba of Samad, drew out his village's migratory routes with a stick on the few inches of snow that covered the ice on Tso Kar lake, out in the open during a snow storm and in temperatures of -13c. We managed to photograph the event - possibly one of the most exotic locations for a PRA exercise.
The field team's main assets were the members from LNP, who knew each and every household in the region by virtue of their ten years of work among the Changpas. Their rapport with the community had an immense benefit for the study, as contact and credibility were never an issue. Staying arrangements would be made for us by the community in all the villages we visited because LNP was with us. The goodwill LNP enjoys among the Changpas is despite the fact that they had pulled out from the Changthang in deference to funding shortages some years ago, and only maintain a basic community contact programme here. They must have done some incredible work here.
Thanks to them, discussions on issues such as love, courtship and marriage were possible with both men and women. One such discussion, between us and a group of young girls took place at Kharnak in August. This turned quite frank, so much so that the younger children hanging around had to be turfed out because the girls were afraid they would tattle to their parents. The girls managed to turn the interview around by asking us about our work, and then about which of the Changpa villages did we find the girls prettiest and about courtship practices in Delhi (neither of which was an area of expertise for us). Our diplomatic skills were put to considerable test by them. Another discussion, with a young boy of 20, had him reveal his love for a girl which he was sure was returned but not yet expressed by the girl. We met the girl later during a night jhabroo session and looked for signs as to whether this was the case, and did not discover any. Yet, when he asked us the next day what we thought (being from Delhi apparently makes one an expert on such issues) we told him that she seemed to like him, and that he should go ahead and take a positive step. Hope he's OK!
Working with women was quite easy. There were no social barriers to discussions with us, though free time was a problem. Their level of participation in mixed groups was at almost the same level as in women only groups, and age hierarchies appeared to be more constraining than those of gender. To those of us used to working in U.P and Rajasthan, where one has to meet the eyes only of the oldest women in group meetings, it was quite a new experience. In fact, in Changthang, there appeared to be few specific barriers to women in terms of mobility, economic participation or access to services. It was therefore a considerable surprise to us when we analyzed the listing data from three villages and found a sex ratio of Jaisalmeresque proportions, i.e. around 800 females per thousand males, which was even lower among children. Much time was spent searching for social practices which were female unfriendly, both in the field and during feedback sessions, but no serious explanations emerged. The most colourful one, offered by Frederic Drew in a book written in 1875, was that fewer women were born to the community and this is nature’s way of adjusting for extra women in polyandrous communities. Any takers?
Good information often came from unusual places, such as the old folks of Samad. The Samad Changpas are permanently nomadic and have an unusual system of retirement for those past the age of being peripatetic. The old all stay in one location, Thukshey, around the year, apart from the community except for 15 to 20 days in winter when this forms the village camp site. We stumbled upon them by accident, as we used Thukshey as a base for field work in Samad and generally chatted to them in the evenings until we discovered their potential as a source of information. They were a pleasure to work with, tuned in to the latest in village affairs, memories of past events crystal clear, untiring and thrilled at the prospect of having a captive as well as attentive audience. The enormity of the Indo-China war of 1962 and its effect on the Changpas, the turf wars with Tibetan refugees over pastures, the inter-village feuds, these wizened old men and women were decision makers at the time of these events and they brought in a perspective and level of detail which we would have missed completely.
There were instances when the differences between us, the settled city dudes, and them, the nomadic free spirits, came across quite starkly. It was felt the most when we were discussing health problems in Korzok, and touched upon the issue of mental health. We asked the group we were discussing this with whether anyone in the past ten years had committed suicide. They went into a discussion among themselves and then posed a counter question to us - do people actually die in such a manner? That sure gave us some food for thought.
While roaming around in August, we came across an Amchi on his rounds somewhere near Sumdo, along a stream with a fair amount of green grass. Dhruv Mankad, a medical doctor who was with us at the time, sat him down and they had a long discussion on the relative merits of the allopathic and Tibetan systems of medicine. As the two systems have a history of being conflicting and competitive in Ladakh, the rest of us were reminded of summit meetings between Reagan and Gorbachov in the eighties. Unlike them, mutual respect was achieved between Tsering Phuntsok and Dhruv at Sumdo.
As a topic of study, change was discussed in considerable detail by the project team and the advisory groups. We initially felt that we would study two changes in great detail for the Changpas, the first being the change from polyandrous to monogamous systems of marriage (a social change) and the second being the change from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle (an economic change). It was then decided that, in an attempt to be more participative in our approach, we would let the community define what they understood as change and study the processes involved in that change. This approach had interesting results - to the community change was the Indo-China War of 1962, the supply of subsidized rations, or (in the case of women) the introduction of smokeless chullas. Change was essentially events which unfolded on the community to which they had to adjust; they had little role in the decision making process that led to these events taking place. The processes by which adjustment took place and the effects on the community had immense learning value. On the other hand, we were not able to concentrate on processes which create change within the community. In a way, not thrusting our view of change on the study has been a loss as well as a gain.
Teamwork was an important factor in the field. The team for each field work session was made up of different people, with a core group who participated in every field work. The team would divide itself into several two or three person groups for the depth studies, with local language skills, extrovert personalities and greater knowledge of the project being shared across the groups. The same groups worked together for the duration of the field session, which led to each individual being able to make his or her own space within the group. The advantage of working with people experienced in the field of extension came to the fore during the field sessions, as a cheery and fun atmosphere was maintained throughout and team spirits were never low. No doubt hot and tasty food played an important role. The only time of worry was when a team member had difficulty in adjusting to the altitude and dryness in May, and had to be evacuated back to Leh.
A description of field work in the Changthang would not be complete without a mention of jhabroos and dogs. The jhabroo is a dance form wherein young people of both sexes get together, the males and females hold hands and form separate lines, and then move alternatively towards and away from each other, singing loudly right through. These happen at night and carry on till late, more often in summer, and quite spontaneously. Apparently married people have seperate jhabroo sessions to that of the unmarried. We outsiders were always invited to the jhabroos if we happened to be around, and also encouraged to participate. We found that the vigour required to jhabroo invariably helped us adjust to the altitude and the cold, and alway joined in whenever we could.
And the dogs, aah, the dogs! Large hairy dogs that are indispensable to the herders for controlling their livestock. They guard the village at night, and warn the community of the presence of wolves or snow leopards. Unfortunately, as a breed they do not like (to put it mildly) strangers, and are apt to tear them apart if they get a suitable opportunity, making simple activities like walking in the village, taking a leak or going for a crap a life-threatening exercise. Many close calls were had in the course of the field sessions.
Logistics was always a problem in the field, and we were often in difficult situations regarding mobility. In February, we spent considerable time clearing snow from the passes so that our vehicles could move onwards. In August, two researches got thrown into a stream they were crossing by their donkeys. In November, one of the vehicles packed up. Considering the conditions, maybe we do not have much to complain about.
A word of advice on logistics to those planning excursions into Rupshu-Kharnak in winter. Use petrol vehicles with drivers who are familiar with winter conditions in the area. Carry everything you will possibly need for at least three additional days to the time you have planned. Have a few extra spaces in the vehicles as there will be patients who need a lift back to Leh and you will be their only source of transport. When members of your team show signs of difficulty with altitude, evacuate them immediately.
On the whole, the field studies in this beautiful region have been fun, though arduous, strenuous and, at times, exhausting. We all learnt alot, including those who have been working in this region for over ten years. We take back a great deal of respect for the Changpas, for the great joy they derive out of a difficult life and for their dependence, for the important things, only upon themselves. We also take back some amount of respect for ourselves, that ordinary people like us have managed to go there, take the worst the region has to offer, and still be around in one piece to talk about it.
The Changthang is a forbidding place. Altitudes range from 14,000 to 18,500 feet above sea level - the air thus gives a person a little over half the oxygen that is available in the plains, making any form of activity, physical or mental, an ordeal. The sun's rays cut a swathe through the thin air in all seasons, burning any exposed skin with ultra-violet radiation. Temperatures drop to forty-five below in winter, and diurnal variation is high throughout the year. Temperature differences between sun and shade make it one of the few places in the world in which one can get chill blains and sun burn at the same time. The stark and barren landscape and the wide valleys provide little protection from the elements, especially the wind, which blows through at high speeds and enhances the cold with a wind chill factor that decreases the temperature by upto another forty degrees. The desert air is extremely dry, and soaks up body water content without the person realising it. Weather is unpredictable and snowfall or landslides can block roads for weeks at a time. The main road through the region, the Leh - Manali highway, is blocked due to snowfall for nine months a year, and communications within the region are particularly weak. Field work in the Changthang, for all these reasons, plays havoc with schedules, PERT charts, and other project planning tools. The region also provides conditions that test the motivation, commitment and endurance of any research team.
Most of this report is about the Changpas, and the means by which they eke out an existence in these conditions. In the process of compiling this information, a team of twenty people have spent a total of two hundred and fifty person days in the Changthang, working through the best and the worst the region has to offer, in winter and summer, through rain, snow, hail and shine and at altitudes of up to over 17,000 feet. Most of the team are from Leh and its surrounding villages, only four are from the plains of India. Six members of the team had been into the Changthang before the study, of which four (all from LNP) had previous experience of its winter. This chapter chronicles the experiences of the team in working in the Changthang, the difficulties faced and the realities of collecting information with the communities here. It is hoped that others planning similar exercises in harsh regions can gain some practical advice from the team's experience.
The team's first experience of the Changthang was in December 1997, when five of us gave our baseline methodology a trial. We chose the small and relatively accessible village of Sumdo for this. The trial itself went like a dream. We reached the village easily. The listing averaged between 10 and 15 minutes per household, and the detailed questionnaire between 40 and 50, within the targets. The questions were easily understood, people were willing to give the time, and most of the information was readily forthcoming. The only problem area was the household wealth ranking exercise - the community were not willing to say that one household was richer or poorer than another. This was adjusted for by obtaining from the community a basis for categorising households into economic slabs, which we then used along with our listing data to slot households into economic categories. Our methodology held out, and we got that first experience of what genuine cold is like. The trial visit to Sumdo gave our confidence a great boost.
Needless to add, the actual baseline survey in late February was not quite as smooth. The logistics of taking a (much larger) team into the interiors of the Changthang were quite different from that of reaching the small and accessible Sumdo. It was considerably colder, and the passes had more snow. Much time was spent in carving a route through the snow along the Polokhonkha pass to reach and leave Samad. The researchers were of diverse backgrounds, and, despite the training they underwent, initial problems with the questionnaire were experienced. For example, the listings were taking too long - from 30 to 60 minutes each - apparently because they were too small to cover what a people who had not been 'surveyed' before had to share. Respondents were also unhappy with the detailed questionaire because it began with household morbidity and mortality issues. The learning curve soon sorted these problems out.
Other problems relating to the baseline survey remained with us right through the study. It was decided to undertake baseline surveys in Kharnak and Korzok in the summer due to logistical difficulties - the road into Kharnak was completely blocked with snow and the Korzok Changpas were wintering in the remote and inaccessible location of Thagajung. This created three problems. The first was one of methodology, collating and equating data collected from different villages in different seasons. The second was that the same researchers were not available to us in summer, and we were unable to invest the same level of effort and resources in training the new researchers again. Our expectation that reduced training would be offset by the new researchers' higher qualifications and previous development experience in Ladakh (though not in Changthang) did not prove true. They brought stereotyped Ladakhi perceptions of the Changpas as being poor, miserable and pathetic with them, which were played up by those being surveyed to the detriment of the quality of information collected, especially on assets. The third was that about sixty of the Korzok Changpa households were away with their herds towards Manali, and therefore fell out of the ambit of the survey. For these reasons, we decided to abandon the baseline survey of Kharnak and take our Korzok information with a pinch of salt. Therefore, while our qualitative information has been evenly collected from all the villages except Angkung, we back it up with quantitative information only from the first baseline survey.
A word about the training. It was held for the baseline survey team in early February at Dharsiks village (Batalik region, Kargil district), thanks to the hospitality of Kargil Development Project, a local NGO. The Dak Bungalow in which we stayed overlooked the Indus, whose waters were tinged with blue and whose banks were lined with snow - a stunningly beautiful location. The training was to familiarize the team with the objectives of the study, the research tools and basic PRA techniques. The practical aspects of research were learnt in the adjoining villages of Dharsiks and Garkon, both of which were adversely effected by the war two years later. This was an interesting place to be in - along a hostile border where strangers are viewed with great suspicion. Discussions here often took a hilarious turn, such as one on the local community's pure Aryan antecedents and how neo-Nazi women from Europe come here to quote get crossed unquote. This was verified, to our surprise, by an article in an issue of The India Magazine around that time. Our heart goes out to the fine people we met at that time.
The baseline survey and a depth studies session were done in the worst of the winter, across February. The feedback session in the field was conducted in November, in the midst of an unprecedented cold wave. Dealing with the cold was thus an important component of our own survival strategies. More so because the Changthang has no staying facilities for outsiders - we stayed in open stone and mud huts, community tents or rebos which offered little protection from the elements.
The first aspect of this was preparation. Finding out what extreme cold is, and preparing oneself mentally and physically for it. It was difficult, in an office room in Delhi or even in the comfort of Leh town, to visualise what minus forty-five really meant. We located people who had experience of such temperatures, such as an ex-soldier who had done a stint at Siachen, a retired merchant navy man who used to do the Alaska Seattle run in winter and a Norwegian friend who had done his military service in the northern Finnmark region of his country. They gave us an idea of what extreme cold really is, how it effects one and what protection mechanisms are necessary. Physical fitness was also worked upon, and heavy multi-layer jackets and sleeping bags procured.
And yet, nothing can quite prepare one for the biting cold in the Changthang. For the abrupt changes, from -13c when it is snowing to -25c when it stops and the sun comes out, all in the matter of half an hour in February. Or when the evening sets in in November, and the temperature drops from -15c to -35 over one hour. For the bright sunny days, when the sun is sharp and yet the temperature reading is -25c. For having to perform your morning ablutions in the open in -28c temperature, squatting in the snow and minimising the surface area of the bum that is exposed without impeding free fall of the matter. For fine tuning your body's water content before sleeping such that you do not require to urinate at night, and yet do not let the dry air dehydrate you. And when you do have to urinate at night, to get out of three layers of sleeping bag, put on enough clothes and shoes to take on the -45c outside temperature, avoid the dogs, expose yourself, do the job, and then return and tuck yourself in once again. Experience is the only effective form of preparation.
In that, we were lucky. The LNP people knew the conditions well, and influenced us accordingly. Each field expedition was accompanied by a cook, whose sole job was to ensure that the team was fed in style and plenty and that hot tea, coffee and goodies flowed through the day. This may come across as a luxury to the reader but, we assure you, this man made life in difficult conditions much much easier and was worth his weight in gold. We also followed some basic principles, such as wearing as many layers of clothing as possible and tightening the ends so that air was trapped in between layers. These layers of air were most effective in keeping the cold out. A kerosene bukhari was used to bring warmth into the tent during crucial periods, such as when we got out of our sleeping bags in the morning (in February, it was -14c inside the tent when we woke up). Activities such as washing, brushing and changing clothes were minimised, and bathing did not even venture into our imagination.
Being there in winter had its rewards. The Changthang is a different experience in different seasons, and winter gives it its harshest hue. The landscape, when combined with the elements, is so beautiful at this time that it defies description. Just standing outside in the evening with three hundred and sixty degrees of white snow and clear blue sky, and taking in the cold, dry air with the sun going down, is an experience that makes one believe that God has to exist. The very exclusivity of the experience, the knowledge that few people from our world will ever be here at this time to take this in, enhances the reward considerably. Those of us who participated in the February field work walked taller upon our return, and peppered our conversation in Delhi with snippets like 'oh, you know, minus forty'. Despite the difficulties, we all agree that we would not have missed this for the world. In addition to the experience of it, our work in winter gave the study considerable credibility, especially with the local government and with the Changpas themselves.
May had minimum temperatures in the region of -10c, with sudden snowfalls on most nights we were there. After February, we found this positively pleasant, and the more hardened among us slept outside in these conditions. The weather and the staying conditions made the August field work feel like a holiday. It was bright, sunny and warm, requiring a little more than a T-shirt during the day. Being in the tourist season, a tent camp accommodation was available to us at Korzok with running water and showers. Our perfect record for not bathing was spoilt when Dr. Dhruv Mankad, one August morning, made use of the latter facility.
The general daily schedule followed by the team during field work was as follows. We were ready and breakfasted by 0930-1000 hours, and then broke up into smaller teams as pre-ordained in the team meeting of the night before to settle into allocated tasks for the pre-lunch session. Lunch would be taken between 1300 and 1400 hours, which was followed by undertaking tasks of the post lunch session. The evening programme involved a team meeting and dinner. The post-dinner period was reserved for non-work related discussions on various subjects, and rendering of flowery Urdu poetry.
Group discussions with the community required a fair amount of innovation. Getting people together was not difficult, especially in winter and spring when we had some curiosity value, but keeping them there was. Groups broke up for the usual reasons, people had work or they were getting bored, as well as some unusual ones, such as when a wolf attack had us all scurrying for cover. Maintaining the focus of the discussion was often a problem, usually caused by a divergence between what we the researchers wanted to talk about and what the people we were talking with wanted to talk about. For example, when we talked with a group of women at Tibra on their understanding of poverty and development in May, just after a long and arduous winter in which livestock losses had been high, all that was on the women’s minds was compensation from the government. We managed to change the focus of the discussion to responsibilities of the government to the community, and came out with an interesting analysis - that the important things the government should do were in the fields of education and health.
Map drawing with the community used to always be an interesting exercise, as they found this the best method by which to explain their migratory cycles. On one occasion in February, Mr. Nawang Skalzang, the then Goba of Samad, drew out his village's migratory routes with a stick on the few inches of snow that covered the ice on Tso Kar lake, out in the open during a snow storm and in temperatures of -13c. We managed to photograph the event - possibly one of the most exotic locations for a PRA exercise.
The field team's main assets were the members from LNP, who knew each and every household in the region by virtue of their ten years of work among the Changpas. Their rapport with the community had an immense benefit for the study, as contact and credibility were never an issue. Staying arrangements would be made for us by the community in all the villages we visited because LNP was with us. The goodwill LNP enjoys among the Changpas is despite the fact that they had pulled out from the Changthang in deference to funding shortages some years ago, and only maintain a basic community contact programme here. They must have done some incredible work here.
Thanks to them, discussions on issues such as love, courtship and marriage were possible with both men and women. One such discussion, between us and a group of young girls took place at Kharnak in August. This turned quite frank, so much so that the younger children hanging around had to be turfed out because the girls were afraid they would tattle to their parents. The girls managed to turn the interview around by asking us about our work, and then about which of the Changpa villages did we find the girls prettiest and about courtship practices in Delhi (neither of which was an area of expertise for us). Our diplomatic skills were put to considerable test by them. Another discussion, with a young boy of 20, had him reveal his love for a girl which he was sure was returned but not yet expressed by the girl. We met the girl later during a night jhabroo session and looked for signs as to whether this was the case, and did not discover any. Yet, when he asked us the next day what we thought (being from Delhi apparently makes one an expert on such issues) we told him that she seemed to like him, and that he should go ahead and take a positive step. Hope he's OK!
Working with women was quite easy. There were no social barriers to discussions with us, though free time was a problem. Their level of participation in mixed groups was at almost the same level as in women only groups, and age hierarchies appeared to be more constraining than those of gender. To those of us used to working in U.P and Rajasthan, where one has to meet the eyes only of the oldest women in group meetings, it was quite a new experience. In fact, in Changthang, there appeared to be few specific barriers to women in terms of mobility, economic participation or access to services. It was therefore a considerable surprise to us when we analyzed the listing data from three villages and found a sex ratio of Jaisalmeresque proportions, i.e. around 800 females per thousand males, which was even lower among children. Much time was spent searching for social practices which were female unfriendly, both in the field and during feedback sessions, but no serious explanations emerged. The most colourful one, offered by Frederic Drew in a book written in 1875, was that fewer women were born to the community and this is nature’s way of adjusting for extra women in polyandrous communities. Any takers?
Good information often came from unusual places, such as the old folks of Samad. The Samad Changpas are permanently nomadic and have an unusual system of retirement for those past the age of being peripatetic. The old all stay in one location, Thukshey, around the year, apart from the community except for 15 to 20 days in winter when this forms the village camp site. We stumbled upon them by accident, as we used Thukshey as a base for field work in Samad and generally chatted to them in the evenings until we discovered their potential as a source of information. They were a pleasure to work with, tuned in to the latest in village affairs, memories of past events crystal clear, untiring and thrilled at the prospect of having a captive as well as attentive audience. The enormity of the Indo-China war of 1962 and its effect on the Changpas, the turf wars with Tibetan refugees over pastures, the inter-village feuds, these wizened old men and women were decision makers at the time of these events and they brought in a perspective and level of detail which we would have missed completely.
There were instances when the differences between us, the settled city dudes, and them, the nomadic free spirits, came across quite starkly. It was felt the most when we were discussing health problems in Korzok, and touched upon the issue of mental health. We asked the group we were discussing this with whether anyone in the past ten years had committed suicide. They went into a discussion among themselves and then posed a counter question to us - do people actually die in such a manner? That sure gave us some food for thought.
While roaming around in August, we came across an Amchi on his rounds somewhere near Sumdo, along a stream with a fair amount of green grass. Dhruv Mankad, a medical doctor who was with us at the time, sat him down and they had a long discussion on the relative merits of the allopathic and Tibetan systems of medicine. As the two systems have a history of being conflicting and competitive in Ladakh, the rest of us were reminded of summit meetings between Reagan and Gorbachov in the eighties. Unlike them, mutual respect was achieved between Tsering Phuntsok and Dhruv at Sumdo.
As a topic of study, change was discussed in considerable detail by the project team and the advisory groups. We initially felt that we would study two changes in great detail for the Changpas, the first being the change from polyandrous to monogamous systems of marriage (a social change) and the second being the change from a nomadic to a settled lifestyle (an economic change). It was then decided that, in an attempt to be more participative in our approach, we would let the community define what they understood as change and study the processes involved in that change. This approach had interesting results - to the community change was the Indo-China War of 1962, the supply of subsidized rations, or (in the case of women) the introduction of smokeless chullas. Change was essentially events which unfolded on the community to which they had to adjust; they had little role in the decision making process that led to these events taking place. The processes by which adjustment took place and the effects on the community had immense learning value. On the other hand, we were not able to concentrate on processes which create change within the community. In a way, not thrusting our view of change on the study has been a loss as well as a gain.
Teamwork was an important factor in the field. The team for each field work session was made up of different people, with a core group who participated in every field work. The team would divide itself into several two or three person groups for the depth studies, with local language skills, extrovert personalities and greater knowledge of the project being shared across the groups. The same groups worked together for the duration of the field session, which led to each individual being able to make his or her own space within the group. The advantage of working with people experienced in the field of extension came to the fore during the field sessions, as a cheery and fun atmosphere was maintained throughout and team spirits were never low. No doubt hot and tasty food played an important role. The only time of worry was when a team member had difficulty in adjusting to the altitude and dryness in May, and had to be evacuated back to Leh.
A description of field work in the Changthang would not be complete without a mention of jhabroos and dogs. The jhabroo is a dance form wherein young people of both sexes get together, the males and females hold hands and form separate lines, and then move alternatively towards and away from each other, singing loudly right through. These happen at night and carry on till late, more often in summer, and quite spontaneously. Apparently married people have seperate jhabroo sessions to that of the unmarried. We outsiders were always invited to the jhabroos if we happened to be around, and also encouraged to participate. We found that the vigour required to jhabroo invariably helped us adjust to the altitude and the cold, and alway joined in whenever we could.
And the dogs, aah, the dogs! Large hairy dogs that are indispensable to the herders for controlling their livestock. They guard the village at night, and warn the community of the presence of wolves or snow leopards. Unfortunately, as a breed they do not like (to put it mildly) strangers, and are apt to tear them apart if they get a suitable opportunity, making simple activities like walking in the village, taking a leak or going for a crap a life-threatening exercise. Many close calls were had in the course of the field sessions.
Logistics was always a problem in the field, and we were often in difficult situations regarding mobility. In February, we spent considerable time clearing snow from the passes so that our vehicles could move onwards. In August, two researches got thrown into a stream they were crossing by their donkeys. In November, one of the vehicles packed up. Considering the conditions, maybe we do not have much to complain about.
A word of advice on logistics to those planning excursions into Rupshu-Kharnak in winter. Use petrol vehicles with drivers who are familiar with winter conditions in the area. Carry everything you will possibly need for at least three additional days to the time you have planned. Have a few extra spaces in the vehicles as there will be patients who need a lift back to Leh and you will be their only source of transport. When members of your team show signs of difficulty with altitude, evacuate them immediately.
On the whole, the field studies in this beautiful region have been fun, though arduous, strenuous and, at times, exhausting. We all learnt alot, including those who have been working in this region for over ten years. We take back a great deal of respect for the Changpas, for the great joy they derive out of a difficult life and for their dependence, for the important things, only upon themselves. We also take back some amount of respect for ourselves, that ordinary people like us have managed to go there, take the worst the region has to offer, and still be around in one piece to talk about it.
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