Experiential Learning at its Best

I’ve been trying to drive down the point of The Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming and Sustainability with the notorious class 7 boys for weeks now. And it all just happened in one day on our field trip to Nang Village in collaboration with Ladakh Environment and Health Organization. LEHO is an NGO run by Dr. Deen and his wife with an idea to integrate age old traditions with modern sustainable practices and taking them to villages and teaching them various other such techniques, to make them self-sufficient.

Most of the students who study at the Mahabhodhi residential school hostel come from villages in and around Ladakh and take trips back to their villages during the winter and summer vacation. Through this trip they were inspired enough say that they will take back these technologies to their own villages, far and wide. I believe for them to just have this thought in their formative years is half the job done to ensure that one day they will give back to their communities, with the education they receive.

Our entire field trip was a five phase process where the First Phase involved taking the wrong route for an hour and a half along the Indus River, through the beautiful landscapes only to find ourselves lost. We however, finally managed to retrace our steps halfway to the Nang village which was tucked away behind a mountain, reachable only through steep sloped hills and extremely narrow semi pakka roads, not made keeping school buses in mind. 

As we arrived closer, the terrain became greener. We saw small houses with Yaks and neighbors harvesting their crops together, trees changing color from greens to yellows and stone bricked fences lined between houses. We were soon received and briefed by Mr. Ajaz from LEHO who was just excellent with the kids and really probed them to think with his thoughtfully framed questions. We then took a short kilometer hike to the Second Phase of our trip; which was to see and learn about Artificial Glaciers. The hike was my personal favorite part of the whole trip, with green grass, pebbles, boulders and rocks; crossing crystal clear water streams and stopping to drink melted glacier water straight from the mini falls every now and then. They say bottled water is most expensive if packed at the source and here we were drinking it for free.

When we finally got up there, all we saw was what looked like parts of the Great Wall of China, misplaced its way to the wrong side of the border; which could’ve been possible- given were only a few hundred kilometers away from it. But when we were told that those walls were indeed the structures of the artificial glaciers, we were quite surprised by the simplicity and effectiveness of the theory behind a technology with such a complicated name.

The Third Phase involved hopping on to the bus again and visiting some local households with Green houses growing Strawberries! The extremely harsh cold conditions in Ladakh make it impossible to grow crops during winter; which lasts 7 months of the year.  The kids learnt everything about greenhouses; from the direction they should face to the best angle to trap the sun’s heat and grow food during winter.

Phase Four helped make these greenhouses more productive with the heat generated through the Exothermic Reactions in the Compost Pits. The students learnt the A to Z of Composting- from the optimum temperatures needed for the bacteria to act upon the organic waste to the ideal moisture levels. To my surprise class 7 boys were well behaved and I think I even saw some of them take notes (unless they were pretending). Either way it was a great learning for each one of us. I included. It’ll be interesting to see the how the students fair at their follow up challenge. Stay tuned to know more.

Oh! I almost forgot. The Fifth Phase was when our field trip turned into a picnic as we stopped on our way back to eat lunch right by a mini water tank reservoir with snow clad mountains as the back ground. Need I say more? I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. 

 

My Experiments with Racism

Caught your attention didn't I? It might be a taboo topic in most countries, not in India it isn't! Its no coincidence that my title is inspired by M.K. Gandhi's autobiography, My Experiments with Truth. While his book spoke about the apartheid faced by the Black natives in South Africa and how the way he was treated by the White South Africans changed his strongly ingrained ideas about racial superiority, my post is going to be more about the blunt bias against brown Indian girls in India.

India is obsessed with Fair skin. Turn on TV, youtube advertisements or street hoardings-  fairness is the USP for every beauty product(clearly with nothing unique about it). Anti-aging cream? Here! And you get to become fairer too. The task of buying a moisturizing cream at a super market is made arduous with a million options all claiming to make you fair, even if all I really want is a regular moisturizer to keep my skin from becoming dry! And as if that's not enough the new fad is Deodorants for Fairer underarms! The ridiculousness of the statement does not hit you initially when you see women flashing their under arms at the screen until you realize that's a body part you can't even see most of the time!

I distinctly remember this one incident as an IDEX fellow at my placement school. While I was taking a class I saw a group of students at the back distracted. when I walked up to them I found the girl on the last bench crying and the boys on the last two benches giggling. Turns out the most notorious(brahmin and by extension fair skinned)boy of the class had called Lakshmi, a demure 8th-grade girl, a nasty name. The Telugu equivalent of a "black witch". I was furious when I found out and I also had a sudden dejavu moment. It reminded me of my childhood where I myself was called names of all imaginable permutations with the word black in it. I thought a South Indian girl growing up in North, East and West of India had it tough but here was Lakshmi with tears flowing down hear cheeks, and I realized it's never easy, no matter where you are from. This is why counseling against incidents shattering the self-confidence of teenage girls at their prime of building their personalities, becomes important.

At the risk of sounding condescending, I find how staying so cut out from the world can make someone so narrow-minded, very bemusing. I recently went to a funeral and one of the ladies walked up to my mother and asked her if I was the younger one? My mom smiled and nodded and her immediate reaction was to shout out loud "What happen to her? She used to be much fairer!" #Ishoutback-Iplaysports. Social etiquette aside it's for garrulous, senseless comments like this one, that I do not like to attend family functions and this is not even the worse I've heard. What tops the list is the sarcastic "Oh! you have two daughters?" #pityface Or "you have two negatives?" The code name for daughter is "negative" as "positive" refers to boys (like we are a set of batteries)! This one time my mom was even advised to save up a lot of dowry since both my sister and I are so dark! I feel like I am not doing enough justice by translating these comments to English because they sound so much ruder in Telugu with the tone in which they are said. Also, it goes without saying not all my relatives are like that, but this would be an apt generalization of most of the Andhra population mentality and that of most Indians as well (and by most I mean 90%).

Well, to be fair (pun intended) there is racism in every country. Just like there exist Black jokes, Jew jokes, Blonde jokes, we have our share of Mallu jokes, Gulti jokes(that's me) and the timeless Sardar jokes. It's like we cannot coexist without constantly offending each other. Sure that one funny forward text message makes our day more lively but at what cost? What is funny about a north eastern boy being publicly murdered in the capital city for the way he looked or a certain cast being denied of relief work supplies post an earth quake or holding someone not guilty in-charge of a crime only because of their skin color? Where does one draw the line?

Indians are not prone to Xenophobia being the diverse mix we are. Yet we are very selective about whom we extend our celebrated hospitality towards. I personally encountered instances where organization leaders preferred to have white exchange volunteers instead of black, only because they believe there will get more "positive publicity" for their organization with white volunteers! It sounds appalling, doesn't it? But I don't see how this is any different from when we jokingly tease a friend in the friends group with origin rooted nicknames? Maybe it's fine because your friend is laughing along, but by doing so are we subconsciously making our minds immune to the idea of demeaning others based on race and thus making us more tolerant of racism?

#beingbrown 

Feminism - Starts at home!

As I was greeted by my Google Doodle today on the 215th birthday of Mary Anning, I couldn't help but wonder, would she have been taken as seriously or given the credit she deserves if she was not so conservatively dressed in the 17th century?

I am clearly NOT a Fashionista, if you have caught anything from my blog so far (I have my sister to thank, for all the lovely pieces I own in my wardrobe). So what made me talk about clothes all of a sudden?

Times are changing and the middle class Indian women today are top notch executives, bearing the title of the most beautiful women at the global/universal level, Statesmen in other nations, career oriented single mothers(and doing an excellent job at it), motorbike club owners, single female backpackers, living alone in the big city, doing as good if not better than men in every aspect, blah blah blah...... I've been hearing this all for over two decades now! The REVOLUTION! The FEMINIST movement! Yet after about a 100 dozen rape cases in the past 3 years(both accounted and unaccounted), mothers are still scared to send their daughters out, not with the fear of the lecherous men who pose the main threat out there but the garrulous old women who cannot stop with their caustic comments, which thunder twitter around in the family circuit before you can say the word "Cosmopolitan"! (with a lemon swirl on top).

Why is being loquacious, a gossiper and just plain bitter a side effect of being wrinkly, old and jobless?
Is targeting the younger lot her way of lamenting her bygone youth. Am I going to become the same 40 years from now? :O I don't think so. I think I will be more like my own grand mother. Angelic, kind and extremely tolerant with the most broad minded perceptive of things and ever so considerate of people's feeling. What makes her so different from her contemporaries? Maybe its because of her travels around the world in her youth or maybe she is just nice because she is!

The problem, though one of the biggest assets of Indian culture, is we are taught to respect our elders even if sometimes some elders take undue advantage of that while being absolutely wrong in doing so.

So while an adolescent boy hanging from the bus, staring into my car window, as I drive back in my sports shorts, from Sailing session makes me indigent and infuriated; it is nothing compared to the gamut of feelings I felt that same day, when I went to a older family relatives's house to deliver some home grown fruits and pleasantries.

I write today because of her one in the series of abrasive comments, about my NOT-SO-SHORT-AT-ALL shorts, that my mother approved of before I stepped out of the house BTW, that left me feeling embarrassed, lachrymose, guilty, naked to my-eureka-moment to angry and enraged, yet held back by my deep instilled value of respect towards elders (all in that order). I shouted out (in my head of course) 'Wait A Minute! Didn't you just see me less than a month ago at a family function fully clad in the traditional Indian Salwar?' Humbug!

So this piece is specially dedicated to all the Aunty-jis who are capable of shattering the confidence of even the most over achieving, independent and self assured young girls with their one critical statement on the way you dress when you go to visit them.

Its so funny! When I was in Colombia people always thought I dressed too fully covered all the time and much like a boy with my over-sized sports wear and here in India even that is less. :/ Oh dear High Heels! *Sigh*

The fact is we are far from feminism, when there is so much women on women attack on the she-dressed-to-invite-it-argument, we can definitely expect far less from men.

In retrospect this post was written in sheer rage and I never wanted to make my blog my personal diary for penning down my frustrations, so in a more objective view, the real problem is that there is a tiny percent of Indian youth influenced by all that we watch on TV(guilty, me included), who feel we live in New York and not New Delhi, where as the majority of India: made by our archaic generations and rural India, are alien to the concepts of feminism and metro-sexuality, let alone homosexuality. There comes the great divide! Someone needs to be adjusting. So with my deep instilled value of respect towards elders I am gonna ignore the fact that I am ten times more caring, virtuous and productive to the society in the casual-dress-i-wear-to-meet-friends than she is with her pretensions whiskey chugged insinuating acetic words and her Saree on!

Don't judge a book by its cover goes both ways! 

Do the Doodle!

I met a girl on this train journey I took across India, who was just amazing at drawing! She would just set ground any where on the platform or under a tree and doodle away.

Inspired by her I decided to do the same. So from then on, for my every travel trip my back pack always has three things. My tiny pink book, a black waterproof pen and my chotu water color set. I am no artist but I love how holding a brush makes me feel like a kid again. I love doodling every special moment into my sketch pad. 

Cotopaxi - Ecuador

15000 mts above sea level while on the 2nd highest active volcano in the world!  

Its like a picture but instead of clicking it, I scribble it in less than 5 mins with my 20 rupee water color set and hold it very close to my heart. :) Its like my version of the memory and every time I look at it again, it makes me feel the exact same way I felt when I was there.

Here are some of my favorite memories: 

Tiger Temple - Thailand

The thrill of hugging these majestic creatures.

Phuket - Thailand

The turquoise oceans that made me almost run outta blue.

Red Fort - Delhi

The impossible task of capturing the architectural details of 

the Shah Jahaan era, in less than 5 mins. So I took 10. 

London - U.K.

The piping hot Telephone booths of London.

La Casa del Arbol - Ecuador

My very own wall paper moment. 

What's your travel idiosyncrasy? :)  

Every thing from Indian Stereotypes to the Indian Super power

As an Indian abroad, your initial amusement at the world perception of India soon turns into peevishness with an over dose of Indian stereotypes and at times blatant exaggerations of partial facts.

As a self proclaimed ambassador of sorts representing my country (which I believe every citizen abroad is) I obliged to clearing all doubts about India I was asked; some of my favorites being about the sacred cow, the significance of wearing a Bindi, the elephant god, why our gods had so many heads and the need for 330 million gods. Also of the eclectic mix of over 8 prominent religions we have in India and how one is essentially different from another. As a beef eating, athletic, non Bindi wearing tomboy, I probably was not the best example of a Traditional Hindu Indian girl. But I most definitely did justice to portraying the varied shades of India by giving an unbiased picture of things, sporting a Kurta to work everyday, having Bollywood movie and dance sessions, engaging in countless debates on broad issues from women safety on the streets to why arranged marriages work for us to racism and also as the delivery boy of local news(Homosexuality was made illegal in India while I was in Colombia). Objectively talking about all these problems brings to it fresh light and you learn more about your self in order to take the right stance.

All this made me think of The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone, an eloquently written book by Shashi Tharoor about India covering a myriad of topics from politics to pizzas and our country's innate Soft Power capacity. Its one of the few books I've read and if you can't get your hands on a paper back copy of the book, I strongly suggest you catch the two chapter extract of it in the form of his TED talk here.

In this globalized age, our soft power is fast spreading, since chicken Tikka masala is known as Britain's national dish today. There are Bollywood movies with Spanish subtitles played in domestic transit buses in Argentina. My host brother's university has Yoga as a part of his Physical Education class  in Colombia. I was most surprised when I came across two travelers from LATAM, completely unrelated to each other, both with Lakshmi tattoos on their arms, ending up together with an Indian girl in an Ecuadorian hostel. The whole thing was like a bizarre yet serendipitous play by gods telling me to learn the Laxmi Strotra again from childhood while the two strangers were so excitedly talking about the Goddess of Opulence and her Indubitable beauty. And while all this is being made popular out there I believe the real credit goes to Apu from The Simpson's and Rajesh Kutrapally of The Big Bang Theory for doing such a great job in bringing about awareness about Indian culture abroad. (On a side note: Simpsons in Español, Hilarious!)

In spite of all this we have the other ignorant bunch, who still confuse the middle east with India. If you walk the streets of Ecuador you ratify the abundance of Indian Population with the countless Indian restaurants all around.We Indians are in every corner of the world and obviously more so in the country with the most liberal visa laws in the world. But with big posters of Bollywood actresses and Shawarma places with signs of Indian food you start to question the Indian-ness of it all. Mainly because Shawarma is not Indian food! Its Lebanese. It is only recently becoming popular in India. But I don't blame them since we do have heavy influences of Turkish culture due to the Persian conquest thus, inducing Mughalai food. Still it is heart warming to see our Pakistani and Bangladeshi Brothers running Indian restaurants and grateful for being Invited in by their families, to my first real Indian food in months. Bliss.

One of the other annoying assumptions about India that got me indignant was every time some assumed we all know magic and can make our selves float. I was asked a couple of other absurd stuff but let me sum it up for you. "No I do not ride to school on an elephant. Belly dancing is not from India, only Kartina kaif does it. India is not in the middle east, try south east Asia! It's closer". Here is a mnemonic that might help: Arabian nights? No! Jungle book? YES!" And the clarifier for the most annoying one of them all! "Yes, we speak English! We were a British colony for about a 100 years and English happens to be our second official and business language." Thank you!

Is there any thing cuter than a bunch of 2nd graders doing Yoga? :) 

Link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/shashi_tharoor#t-596800