On Immersion

Dr. Leela Prasad, Faculty Director, Duke INtense Global-Hyderabad
Associate Professor, Department of Religion, Duke University

It was just past 1 AM when we came out of the Yusufain darga in Nampally. I was still wrapped in the magic of the qawwali performance, still steeped in the intensity of the women who had emoted—in gesture and through dance—with the cadences and the words that had made the partition between the men’s side and women’s side melt. Back in our van, we tumbled into a discussion of language, of how Hindi and Urdu wrapped themselves in each other on such occasions. We tried conversing in Hindi during the quick ride home. But the music kept reverberating in my mind. It still is, three days after.

I finally had found the word: awake.

I want us—six committed Duke students and me—to be awake in India, to India. Not to India’s usual gateway images—deadly dull by sheer cliché—which don’t ask one to be in India at all. They provide only remote understanding: eyes of hunger, cheap plastic chairs, oozing kindness, cattle on city roads. India by Surfing.

But Duke INtense Global [DIG] – India is an experiment about depth. Immersion. A year-long study about India and its availability to the world, in the past and at present, through coursework, field research, travel, and civic work. Five months of the year spent in India straddling across the Fall and Spring semesters to provide a sense of learning that is not bound to the frame of one single semester or geography or medium of learning. We will turn to technology to shape this flow.

E-chatting with a Religion professor in Duke and separately with a History professor at the University of Minnesota, experts in areas we’ve wandered into: Islamic practice, Gandhian neighborliness. Conversation with a professor in neighboring IIIT about ahimsa and everyday life in Gandhi’s ashram. Deepavali at home, Guru Nanak jayanti (birthday) in a gurdwara. Field-based exploration of the ethos of sacred spaces in Hi-Tech city. Visiting Gandhi’s ashram (Sevagram) near Wardha, Maharashtra.

Navigating the complexities of working at a school for children of migrant construction workers: how to build a curriculum? How to have a bathroom built? How to build partnerships with parents of the children, with construction management, with an NGO partner, and with university student groups? What approach would a Gandhian practicum suggest to overcome the challenges of education in the midst of migrancy and ethnic differences and institutional indifferences?

There is structure, spontaneity and sensitivity to immersion. It is my ambition that DIG-India discover this and live it.

Unlucky with Money

The Indian Rupee (INR) hit an all time low against the Dollar (USD) during our time here. We arrived in early October, now oh so long ago, and shortly thereafter, the dollar peaked at nearly 20% of what it had been just a month before we arrived. Nothing like some currency rates in your favor to help ease the budget! But as we scramble to buy gifts and all those things we won’t be able to get back home, it looks like our lucks run out. While the rate has returned to around 50 rupees for a dollar, at least that makes for simple math.

Visit to Aksharavani

Sonam and I visited the Aksharavani School for about half an hour today during lunch and met with the teachers to discuss student progress, needs, and to introduce our curriculum model.

The school itself has made visible progress, in organization, supplies, and general schooliness. A tall cabinet stands against the far wall, neatly full of slates, chalk, lesson and storybooks, next to a low platform stowed with pots and pans, plates and spoons, and some dry foodstuffs. The corrugated metal walls are brightly lit with posters, diagrams and vocabulary charts in English, Hindi and Telugu.

The school community is also growing livelier. When we entered, a mother was sitting with and watching over a group of about six young children. Mothers’ cooking for the school has become a routine, lifting the burden off the teachers and Bhavani-ji, who already work so much.

The older children are 11: 4 Hindi students and 7 Telugu students. They’ve memorized the multiplication tables, but conceptually are mastering addition. Telugu students formally learn Telugu and Hindi students, Hindi, but overlap and exchange occur informally and socially.

We’re looking forward to integrating our curriculum into their lessons, making adjustments towards a comprehensive and adaptable academic framework for the school.

Cooking for Hindi Class

We prepared Badum Milk and Chai for one of our Friday Experiential Hindi Classes!

Glimpses of Campus

It’s an ironic twist of circumstance that as I settle at last into a regular place in the fabric of these two campuses, we’re getting ready to uproot and relocate “home”: Duke.

The geographies of these places have been site to my transformation from circumspect outsider to quietly thrilled enthusiast. The people I’ve meet—in classes, and through varied transactions from posting letters to buying cashews in the family grocery down the road from Tagore House—have been very open, indulging and jovial. What an incredible reward for reaching a little outside of oneself to get to know another in a new place.

On the hot days in the beginning, campus was a far-stretching wasteland before I realized I was expecting its life in pretty much the wrong places. Duke had led me to depend on concentrated pods of important places right outside my door or a 10 minute busride away from said door. (This year campus has been trending towards even further shrinkage with non-stop bus routes and a GPS bus-tracking map). At HCU, commuting is a window for alternating strategy and reflection. Auto-rickshaw, biking, walking, will I catch the campus shuttle, or a combination thereof? Meanwhile, I can’t really believe that I’m India, that when I look up I’m less than a speck on the opposite side of the planet from everything I’ve known. Such thoughts are punctuated by, “Wait, what time is it? Who has water? What’s the Hindi homework again, Rachel?”

This campus has entered out conversations often. On car rides down the main road, our professor Leela Prasad would tell us her memories of it from childhood and post-grad school. One day after class, we chatted with our fellow Community Media students at Gop’s canteen and shared our opinions of it–that conversation first articulated for me the candid joys that unhurriedly walking places could present during our time here. Although of course these people don’t live all the way back at south campus. (Target of resentment was another form the campus has taken in our talking.)

In my experience, the architecture has subtle and enduring charm. Almost every building has a courtyard with grass, benches, flowers and light. Canteens and chai stands bring causal delights: steaming treats, people-watching (plus snippets of Hindi when we’re lucky), and cool shade.

I’m really going to miss this place.

(The bulk of this post was written in a basket-rooved gazebo outside the canteen on III-T campus at about tea time.)

Oh, Irony.

Today we had a ‘verb test’ in Hindi that was based off of a 55-word list that our professor had given us last week. The task was to name 55 verbs (any of them, although they could/should mostly be from the list given to us). Leading up to the test, I wasn’t that nervous — I had known all of 55 verbs from the list she had given us for quite a while, now.

So, my plan was to wait until shortly before the test (it turned out to be ~1 hour beforehand), take the time to arrange them in a mnemonically-pleasing fashion, go, take the test, and be done with it. And, that was more or less what happened.

Over breakfast, I re-arranged the list, went and took the test ~1 hour later and all was well.

Well, until I numbered my list, that is.

There were supposed to be 55.

I had 53.

WHAT.

I filtered my way back through the list and found the logical gap in my list.
I knew where the two verbs I should have remembered should have gone.

Except … for the life of me, I couldn’t remember them.

I strained my brain for a couple minutes, decided it wasn’t worth it, and filled in two other arbitrary verbs (which counted, thankfully).

Later, when I pulled out my list to check the verbs I had forgotten, the irony almost killed me:

याद करना (yaad karna) — to remember
भूलना (bhoolna) — to forget

Once again, irony gains victory in my life.

Well, at least it was worth a good laugh.

<3

-Rachel

Sifting for answers

On a Thursday-Sunday trip to Bangalore and Mysore we took this week with Lalitha, we were incredibly lucky enough to spend a day in and around a Tibetan Buddhist monastery (actually several: one for each school of Buddhism) located in Bylakuppe in Karnataka. Much of the population is Tibetan, and storefronts call out to keep the streets clean through messages from the local government with quotes from Buddhist leaders about the purity of the environment and the spiritual importance of clean surroundings. Store salesman had no interest in bargaining, and seemed completely content to let you walk out of the store without even shaving the price. These disparate and indirectly related factors together contributed to an atmosphere of tranquility that was validated by the comings and goings of maroon-robed monks and the various signs of the monastery. Lalitha had spent more than a few weeks here doing field research, and shared a lot of insight with us about the traditions, articles and symbols in Buddhism.

We entered so many beautiful scenes, simultaneously thrilling and serene. At one moment, we were seated cross-legged on a shining marble floor that stretched out like an ocean speckled by clumps of other visitors. The ceiling lorded over us and pulled our eyes to three tall statues of Buddha figures with wildly distinct facial expressions. Pillars flanked their brilliantly colored figures where dragons coiled with their tongues sticking out and colored shells in their claws.

There were information placards in English and Telugu. As we padded around the large room, squinted at the incredible detail of artwork on the wall, I spontaneously jotted down two quotes from these placards that I felt resonate.

The first was in reference to the angry or unhappy expressions portrayed in some of the many faces: “Just as the shape, size and color of the reflection of the moon differs in dependence with the type of water and container, likewise Buddhas appear wrathful to ferocious beings who inflict harm on others in order to tame them.”

The second was in description of the late Guru Padmasambhava, which said he “concealed many treasures for the benefit of future generations.” This was offered as an example of his credible divinity.

I sit struggling to settle these pieces of meaning into some rightful thought-place. Recently, a series of experiences have pushed my mind into a transmutable zone where I feel I could be anything and where my surroundings offer clues to questions like, what is valuable? What is true? How stable are things really? What lasts and what is the value to lasting?

These were among the disjoined ideas I took back with me on the long night-bus from Bangalore to Hyderabad, along with my bags and a sack from Lalitha’s incredibly generous mother filled with snacks for the group.

Frames of India: Golden Spirit (अमृतसर)