Death in the City of Light – 4/6/15

                When I came to India, I never been to a wedding nor a funeral. I was excited to go to an Indian wedding (and fully expected to) and never really gave any thought to the possibility of going to a funeral. Living in Banaras, a place where people come to die, I’d seen funeral processions and bodies burning on the ghats, but it was not so sad because I did not know those people. The only other time I can think of someone who I knew who died was my friend’s mom in preschool. Even then, the only memory of her that I have is at Sunday school she taught us the song that goes “I see London. I see France. I see _______’s underpants!” and we thought it was hilarious. I don’t remember finding out that she died, but I do remember asking my parents, dressed all in black, if I could go to her funeral with them. When you’re three, though, death doesn’t hit you the same way as when you’re older and can understand it.

Stephen’s homestay father passed away early Monday morning. To say that it was totally unexpected would be untrue. After all, he had been undergoing dialysis treatment for some time and was so weak he could barely walk to the bathroom from is bed. That being said, it also was very much a surprise. We hadn’t really thought of death as something that could actually be an immediate result of is sickness. Just last Thursday we were at their house for Stephen’s birthday with him, singing songs, eating cake, and dancing (he sat in a chair and looked on). We helped carry him up the stairs to his bedroom after the party and said goodbye without giving it a second thought.

Most people found out via a text from Caleb-ji on Monday morning. I was showering when Caleb sent the text and then didn’t check my phone when I got out and left for the program house. When I walked in and Caleb told me the news, I didn’t know what to feel. It was sort of a sad numbness. I didn’t know Mr. Sachdeva that well, but of the people in our group I knew him best next to Stephen. He volunteered at Nirman before he got sick and would joint teach the 6^th graders math with me. I had snacks and water at is house a few times and bonded with him over the University of California Berkeley (where he received his master’s degree and where my older brother studies now). It didn’t feel real when Caleb told me. Ben P and Jenny were sitting quietly at the program house in a sort of gloomy silence. We heard the plan for the day – no work, meeting at 11:15 at Stephen’s house for a short ceremony, and then the boys would accompany the procession to Manikarnika, the big burning ghat where open fire cremations take place (girls are not supposed to go). More people trickled in to the program house and joined us as we sat in a cloud of melancholy. In the kitchen Muni-ji (the woman who cooks breakfast for us) was blasting cheery Bollywood music that was eerily out of place, but none of us bothered to ask her to change it.

Upon finding out about Mr. Sachdeva’s death, many of us suddenly felt the need to contact our family and make sure they were still okay. Death seems so unreal sometimes. You sort of get double think knowing that you’re going to die someday, but at the same time not actually expecting it to ever happen. When someone does pass away, however, reality gives you a punch and all of the sudden everyone becomes so mortal. It seems like anyone you know and love could just be gone in an instant. The worst scenarios jump into your mind and you just want the comfort of knowing that the people you love are still alright.

Hemant-ji showed up for our yoga class, but we told him to cancel. He sat with us for hours, though, first talking about culturally what you’re supposed to do when someone dies (since all of us were clueless on the matter) and then about other things, occupying our minds so we would not have to dwell on the sad news until eleven. At an Indian funeral you are supposed to wear brightly colored or white clothing (anything dark is considered inauspicious). You bring malas (flower garlands) to place on the body and once you arrive are not supposed to leave until after the body as left the house on the procession to the burning ghat. The procession consists of close friends and family members and typically involves carrying the deceased, wrapped in colorful cloth and covered in garlands, on a stretcher to one of the two burning ghats in Banaras, Manikarnika (the bigger one closer to the old city) or Harishchandra (the smaller one closer to Assi). During the procession the family/friends chant “Ram nam satye hai!” (Ram’s name is truth – Ram is a warrior king in Hindu mythology). After visiting the home with the dead body, Hindus believe that you have become impure and must bathe/wash your clothes before touching anyone/thing or going into the house. More of my thoughts on this practice in another blog. As it got later in the morning, our group split up to change clothes, tell our host families, etc. before coming to meet Stephen and is family at their house.

I didn’t expect to cry at the funeral. I’m not usually an extremely emotional person and very few of even my close friends have seen me cry. But while at Stephen’s house, I couldn’t stop the tears from creeping into my eyes and falling down my cheeks. In fact, I started crying on the bike ride over as I mentally prepared myself for the funeral. Sure, I wasn’t extremely close to Mr. Sachdeva, but I still felt immense pain thinking about what his family must be going through. Just thinking of my own father dying sent tears to my eyes and when I put myself in Stephen’s host sister’s shoes I couldn’t help but cry in earnest. When I arrived and saw Kushi and Pari (Stephen’s host nieces), I cried more because they had just lost their wonderful grandfather. What sent me bawling, though, was talking to Stephen’s host mom. I had visited her just on Wednesday to tell her about Stephen’s surprise birthday party and even then she had cried at the thought of Stephen leaving Banaras. Now, she was hysterical with grief, sobbing in garbled Hindi and English, asking what she will do when Stephen leaves in a few weeks and she will be all alone. To say it was an intense emotional experience would be a vast understatement.

What was perhaps even more disconcerting for me, though, was seeing the corpse. Only his head was visible (everything else was wrapped in colorful cloth and malas) and while I was placing the garland over is legs I simultaneously wanted to stare indefinitely at him and also shut my eyes and bolt out of the room as fast as possible. You read in books that people look peaceful in death, that they look like they’re just sleeping, but I did not find that to be the case. He certainly did not look like someone peacefully sleeping. Something was gone, was missing that made him now almost inhuman.

This funeral procession was a less traditional and orthodox than the practices that Hemant-ji had explained to us. The body was taken to Manikarnika Ghat in a hearse rather than carried by men on a stretcher and most people traveled behind it in either cars or rickshaws. Even though in Hindu orthodoxy it is believed that the soul cannot be properly released from the body unless the funeral rites are performed by the eldest son, the funeral rites were performed by Stephen’s host sister (Stephen’s host brother lives in America and could not arrive in time for the funeral).

                As weird as this might sound, I feel like this has overall been a healthy growing experience for me. I still fight back tears every time I write/edit this blog and think about what happened. I still wish that he were here and I could ask him for tips on how to manage the unruly sixth graders or talk to him about his days at Berkeley. But I can also find some consolation in the knowledge that he is no longer in pain. That he is in heaven or reincarnated into a body who will be taken care of and loved by his family (following whichever faith). His passage (or expiration as an Indian might say) has pushed me to really ponder life and death and made my experience in India more grounded and whole. I can now say without a shadow of a doubt that I have experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my life while here. Rest in peace, Ashok Sachdeva.

The Festival of the Egg – 4/5/15

                My mom sent me a package that included an egg dying kit for Easter and when I brought it home, Deep (my host brother) was very interested. The funny thing is that Deep doesn’t even eat eggs since he’s a Hindu vegetarian. He was curious to know about why I had been sent egg dye and I tried explaining Easter to him. The main problem being that Easter egg dying and what Easter celebrates have very little in similar. Deep could never remember the name of Easter and instead just started calling it the Festival of the Egg. “Indu, what day is the Festival of the Egg?” “Indu, you will take me to color eggs, nah?” “Indu, will Chini and Shiv and Anandi be there?”  

                The day before Easter we ad group masti (group fun) at the local university’s sports fields where we played cricket and Frisbee. Afterwards, we headed to Caleb’s apartment for the actual Easter egg dying. We had 30 eggs and Deep probably dyed about 10 of them he was so excited. We ate macaroni and cheese and potato chips and drank “cold drink” (what people here call soda). Ben P was at Dolly-ji’s house leading a Jewish Seder (I also hear that this was very impromptu. They had to make many substitutions for the Seder platter like mutton for lamb, cilantro for parsley, papad for matza, and water wit oral rehydration salts for salt water, just to name a few. Additionally, Ben P accidentally printed out a Jews for Jesus version of the Seder service), but everyone else besides him made an appearance. Jenny, of course, made some of the most artistic and beautiful eggs including the Scream and Spongebob Squarepants, but there were plenty of other good ones. Stephen’s host nieces came as well and added even more energy to the room. Once we finished dying eggs, we decided to make an Easter egg hunt for Deep and Stephen’s host nieces. We hid twenty-four of the eggs around Caleb’s apartment and had the kids search for them. I think Pari (the older of Stephen’s two host nieces) found the most number of eggs, followed by Deep, and then Kushi (the younger of Stephen’s host nieces). Also at the party, Ben T, Alex, and I filled golgappa shells (sort of an edible hollow bread sphere thing) with candies for an “egg” hunt that we planned for the boys at Bal Ashram the next morning on actual Easter.

                Easter Day was also interesting. We started off by hiding the filled golgappa shells for the Ashram boys, but monkeys kept stealing the candy! Alex and I walked around with big sticks to try to discourage them, but they would always manage to sneak a few golgappa “eggs” while we weren’t looking. The Ashram boys absolutely loved it (the Little Stars Hostel girls were also supposed to be there, but they were being punished for not doing their chores. Later in the day, Ben T came back and hid more golgappa for them). Later, we learned how to make gulab jamun (an Indian sweet) with Ben T’s host sister-in-law (I ate wayyyy too many) and then went to a church service at St. Thomas Church. The service was all in Hindi and the hymns sounded nothing like the ones in the US, but it was cool to see how the two cultures mixed. You still had to take off your shoes before entering the church (a very Hindu tradition) and most of the church goers were in saris (one woman was even in a sari decorated with pictures of marijuana leaves). Afterwards, there was a dance party to Indian Cristian rock music and some mildly sketchy free food. When I arrived back home, the Hindu temple outside of my house was also having some sort of party (not for Easter) and I ate even more free food in the form of Prasad.

Stephen’s Birthday – 4/2/15

                Stephen’s birthday was very fun, if not a little disorderly.  We had a series of surprises for him that all sort of failed, but it was exciting nonetheless. The first surprise that we tried to pull off was a scavenger hunt. Ben T orchestrated it and made it a good mix of hard and funny. I guess this one didn’t fail, per say, since Ben T did succeed in making a good scavenger hunt, but Stephen never ended up finishing it. This was mostly because Stephen ran out of time to follow the clues since he wanted to be on time for Hindi class. The ironic thing is that Ben T purposefully designed it that way (trying to make Stephen late) so that our group could get prepared for surprise number 3.

The second surprise gone wrong was making brownies. I started making brownies at the program house and made it through the first batch alright. Unfortunately, the electricity went out before the second batch had even baked for a few minutes, so I biked to our Hindi class with a pan full of brownie batter strapped to the back of my bike (the cooked brownies were also in my possession).  Luckily, our Hindi guru-ji has a stovetop oven. Unluckily, it is virtually impossible to control its heat. We did end up making semi-decent brownies, even if they were a little burnt on the outside and gooey on the inside.

                The third failed attempt at a surprise was at Hindi. The original plan was to have everyone get to class early and be waiting for Stephen to come in at which point we would surprise him with brownies and tell him class was actually canceled so that we could take him out to dinner. In classic BYP India 6.0 fashion, however, everyone except me, Alex, and Jenny were late (i.e. came after Stephen arrived). Plus, we couldn’t go into the classroom since the class before us was running late, and the second batch of brownies wasn’t ready yet. In any event, we took him to Ming Garden for dinner and ate some really good (and equally inauthentic) Chinese food.

                Our last try to properly surprise Stephen also ended up not working. At the end of dinner we each left in a few minute intervals, telling Stephen we had to go home for one reason or another. In reality, we all biked to his homestay and set up the cake and present that we got for him. That part of the plan went beautifully and we even remembered to park our bikes around the corner so that he wouldn’t see them. The catch this time, though, was that Stephen’s host father had just come home from dialysis and was too weak to get out of the car. Some of the boys had to help carry him out of the car and into the room where the party was going to be. It was during this time that Stephen came home and saw us all before we could surprise him.

                The party itself was really fun. We danced and sang to music, ate a lot of cake (we accidentally ended up with two cakes because both we and his host family bought cakes), and drank mango juice and soda.  Stephen fed his host family and us cake as per Indian custom and Kushi and Pari (his host nieces) smeared cake on his face. The party had to end a little early because his host dad was getting tired and all of the loud music was quite jarring for his delicate state. He was so weak that the boys had to carry him upstairs to his room afterwards.

                As a present we gave Stephen nice fabric to make a new kurta along with matching thread and fancy buttons. In the end, we had a really enjoyable time and I think Stephen still liked all of the surprises, even if none of them were particularly good.

Monkeys at School – 4/1/15

                I’ve been here for so long that the animals in inappropriate places barely even cross my radar. I bike past cows in the middle of the road without even blinking (although I do sometimes curse the traffic jams that they cause). I don’t think it’s funny or strange when Stephen tells me that he prefers to wash his clothes in the morning so that the monkeys don’t steal his clothes when they’re more active in the evening. I lazily watch the mice in my host family’s kitchen and gaze at the geckos in my room. The pigs eating trash on the corner of the road by the Assi River are mundane and the sweater-donning goats sauntering down the ghats are commonplace. I wouldn’t even think to blog about them if not for talking to my family in the US.  Banaras is the about the closest you can get to an actual concrete jungle. This blog is about a hilariously scary run-in with the dubious monkeys who inhabit Varanasi.

                After school one day I was working in the library when I heard the terrified shrieks of some teachers in a classroom nearby. “BUNDER UNDER AH GAYE!!!” “MONKEYS HAVE COME INSIDE!!!” It was the sort of high frequency squeal that can shatter glass and burst eardrums. Sure enough, when I peered into the room through a window there was a monkey perched on a desk and just hanging out. A few feet away, two teachers were cowering under desks. I, not wanting to suffer the same fate as Stephen, retrieved the bat that Ben P keeps in the cupboard that we share (he futilely hopes that one day his ninth graders will memorize the poem “Casey at the Bat” and he will reward them with a period of playing baseball out in the field). Ben had already left school to go to Urdu class and I decided that someone might as well be protected from the monkeys (they leave you alone if they think you can hurt them i.e. by wielding a bat). I camped out in a corner and brandished the bat whenever a monkey started getting too close for comfort. It was from this vantage point that I watched the monkeys climb inside the library through the open windows and start scaling bookshelves, grabbing books at random and throwing them on the floor.  A few monkeys even stole books and ran and still others chucked some books at onlookers on the lower story. Finally, some of the groundskeepers arrived with long bamboo sticks and started whacking any monkeys that didn’t leave.

                As the monkeys left, I took a look around to assess the damage. A couple of chairs had been turned over and 30 or so books were not in their right places, but I think it could have been worse. Many of the teachers were still under desks as I walked around and asked me if the monkeys had finally left.

I don’t think monkeys have often been near the top of my list of favorite animals, but if they were before, they certainly are not now.