On November

PART I. Monsoon Blues

November began with rain. Monsoon season was upon us.

Since we arrived, we’d been warned about monsoon season. Unpredictable in its comings and goings. Lingering somewhere between August and December. Questionable whether it would even arrive at all. When it came to accurate predictions, we were told that the best way to get a weather report was not from the government forecast, but rather an amateur meteorologist and local legend, Prakreet John. Beloved and bordering celebrity, Tamil Nadu Weatherman John operates off of Facebook posts that are both informative and cheeky. He will playfully mock the children waiting for school delay announcements and post words of commiserate encouragement for parents who must now keep their school-aged children at home all day. I’m told he has a non-meteorology day job but tracks weather, specifically monsoon cycles, for fun. He’s often far more accurate than the professionals. Icon.   

The word monsoon sounds menacing and isn’t used often in North America so I was honestly not quite sure what to expect. Essentially, it’s an extremely heavy rain storm that can last several days or weeks. Sometimes there are heavy winds, but I only experienced horror-movie howling gusts once or twice. When I arrived and was warned of monsoon, I was surprised to hear that rain alone could cancel school for days or possibly weeks at a time. I even had a laugh to myself, the way New Englanders laugh when a southern state cancels school for a week due to an inch of snow. That is, until I got to know the terrain better and like those New Englanders, realized that it’s rarely ever about the character of the disaster, but rather the community’s resources and infrastructure to survive it.

See, the most common mode of transportation for the average person in Chennai is a motor scooter (or vespa or scootie or bike or whatever your part of the world calls them). For many families, that is their only type of vehicle that they own. It’s typical to see families of three or four stacked onto one like a precarious game of moving Jenga. The next most common, in no particular order, are bicycles and auto rickshaws (completely open to the elements, no doors— think golf cart). If it’s raining for days on end, all of these types of transportation— to school, to work, to the hospital, to the market— become exceptionally more difficult to operate, even with ponchos and umbrellas. The already congested roads become treacherous when rain is whipping against every drivers’ face. Water can fill an autos engine, rendering it useless (I speak from experience). Also, the roads here are not made to withstand water like that. Waterlogged streets are common even during very short rain spells. Even a little bit of rain completely upends regular life in Chennai, which is hot and dry for 10-11 months out of the year. I had times during the monsoon while in an auto where the water came right onto the floor of the vehicles and covered my toes. It could get really high, really fast. I tried not to venture out if I didn’t have to.

This, of course, meant that I spent a ton of time indoors. I don’t do exceptionally well with being locked inside and usually start melting into the couch after a few days. I need to leave the apartment in order to be productive. So days went by when the novelty of school cancelations fizzled quickly when faced with hours and hours of uninterrupted rainfall, water accumulating on our street to the point where traveling anywhere was inadvisable. We ate everything in the freezer, fridge, and pantry, waiting as long as we could before going out to the market or forcing a delivery man to bring us take-out in such terrible conditions. I watched the few Christmas movies available on Netflix and Disney Hotstar, the Indian equivalent to of a Disney+/Hulu/HBOMax conglomerate, a recent purchase to endure the holidays.

Anyways, enough weather talk! Most of what I’ll remember from November occurred within one week: the Fulbright Midyear Conference. Hosted in Delhi, it was the first academic conference of my life and basically a free vacation at a 5-star hotel to learn about all of the Fulbright research being pursued in our cycle. The ETAs were also scheduled to present on our experience as well. A few months earlier, a few of us had also resolved to turn this trip into a chance to see some of the bigger sites in Northern India. The Golden Triangle, to be exact: Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur. Thankfully, the rains subsided the day we left for the north and we were off to see the India of every postcard and American textbook.

PART II. The Golden Triangle

On Agra:

Our first stop.  Intense, overwhelming, magnificent. We were low on sleep, taking a 5 AM train from Delhi, where we’d flown in late the night before. We reached Agra by late morning (tangent: you would think that Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, would be an easily accessible city or at least very close to one based on its tourist magnetism— this is not the case, plan accordingly). My neck ached from the exhaustion of balancing a sleepy head against nothing but a hard, 90 degree train headrest. We limped onto the station platform with bloodshot eyes, little energy for conversation, and bought some breakfast at the canteen: for me, a paper cup of chai, a KitKat bar, and a bag of Aloo Bhujia (a cousin of the potato chip). Breakfast of champions.

Until Agra, I realized that I had been spared most of the main Indian tourist displeasures. Chennai, it became clear during this trip, is so unfazed by foreigners in comparison. In true laid-back, beach city fashion, people are simply not that concerned about you. Dear, sweet Chennai, and I thought I couldn’t love you more.

It’s hard looking back whether it was my exterior or interior state that was wearing on me more. I hold space for the possibility that I was simply exhausted and therefore saw everything through an irritable lens. That is no one’s fault but my own. But Agra was certainly more than I was prepared for in some respects. Vendors and auto drivers were relentless towards us, a group of obviously foreign young women, sometimes incessantly following us and yelling for several blocks to convince us to buy one thing or another. I suppose I should have been better prepared— no place in India gets more foreign foot traffic than the Taj Mahal. Foreigners who can afford the multi-thousand dollar flight to India from wherever they’re coming from can usually dole out a lot of cash for little trinkets and cab rides. And I don’t blame anyone for making a buck off of foreign ignorance or ambivalence. God knows there’s some vengeance to be found there.

These kinds of places— I think not only of the Taj but places like Manchu Pichu, the Pyramids, etcetera— that hold larger-than-life real estate in the imaginations of American and European foreigners as wonders of the world, emblems of rich cultural histories, are rarely considered in their modern circumstances. Their historical significance seems to be properly observed, yet their role in the contemporary social and political landscape is overlooked entirely, often willingly. And as one walks around Agra, even on the streets closest to the Taj Mahal, the decadence of the Taj and the looming 5-star hotel corporations that feed off of it sits in stark and startling contrast to the rest of the city’s infrastructure and standard of living. It was in hindsight that I remembered that situations where someone feels compelled to follow groups of young and (hopefully) naive tourists down the street in order to make a sale that day are not created in a vacuum. They don’t happen because its a fun or dignified pastime. It’s a tough dichotomy to sit with, your feeling unsafe against the understanding that there is most likely policy failings and injustice at play here, but a necessary one nonetheless.

Because there is, of course, a reason why people come anyways, for better or worse. We rose before the sun the next morning to get to the Taj Mahal before the crowds, a tip we’d heard from nearly anyone who’d been. And despite an exhausting and frustrating past 24-hours, when I did finally see it through the archway entrance, glowing purple and blue in predawn light, I was breathless. It was everything everyone says it is: majestic, imposing, ethereal, evocative, unlike anything I’d seen before. I feel almost silly writing this now but I really did feel windswept by the magnificence of the Taj Mahal, by its beauty as well as its mystique. A symbol of love, built for Mumtaz by Shah Jahan after her death. What depth of grief must’ve been necessary to conceive of such a structure. We stayed for over 3 hours, exploring the grounds and simply sitting in the shadow of its glory, watching the sun rise over the trees, making the river to the north glitter and lighting the white marble of the edifice so that it became nearly blinding. It was quiet and calm. It was all worth it. Sometimes all you need is a little awe.

On Delhi:

I always arrive in Delhi with great intentions. I tell myself I’m going to seize the day, see the city. But for some reason, being in Delhi always kicks my ass. I’ve come to the conclusion that it has nothing to do with the city’s character but rather to do with my synergy with it. The last time I’d been there had been my first week in India, Fulbright orientation. Arguably the most difficult time I’ve had here, the cultural adjustment was happening so rapidly and intensely. I never feel more homesick than when I’m there.

But first, a comedic scene: Rina, Rania, and myself late for our train from Agra to Delhi. Our Fulbright advisors, whom we adore but will rip us a new one, have warned us: do not be late for the opening dinner tonight. To our misfortune, we manage to find the only auto driver on the subcontinent who diligently follows all traffic laws and speed limits, making the drive to the train station unbearable. We toss him his fare and sprint for the station, which has a long line snaking slowly towards the security check-point. But there was no time, our train was pulling out that very minute according to our watches. We sprint past security, in a moment of true cinematic exhilaration, and miraculously no police follow us. We get all the way to our platform, sweaty and aching from our thrashing backpacks. The train is delayed. We were late to opening dinner.   

The conference itself was really interesting. I’d never attended an academic conference before and I oscillated between the delight of learning from cool, passionate people and the irritation of posturing that is inevitable it seems in academia. But the former certainly outweighed the latter, in my experience. People are so heartwarming in their insatiable curiosities; dedicated wholeheartedly to the study of sound pollution or the rise of birth doulas or organic print-making. I enjoyed the energy and learned a lot. Most of my conference, however, was already scheduled with ETA sessions to hone our teaching skills and share ideas with each other. We hadn’t all been together as a group since orientation in July and it was nice to reconnect and hear about our wide variety of experiences. The nine of us gave our own presentation for the conference; my segment being dedicated to creative writing pedagogy for intermediate learners.

We had more free time to explore the city than we’d had in July and I had every intention of doing such. But like I said, this didn’t end up transpiring. News of the shooting at UVA came while I was finishing up presentation slides with my roommates on Monday morning. And after that, as more news slowly trickled in and phone calls were made, I lost all interest in where I was and ached for home. Charlottesville, to be exact. I had a moment in-between sessions where I felt my emotions welling up and went to excuse myself to Shinu, my Chennai advisor and beloved stand-in Amma as she calls herself. I had to explain it a couple times before she understood. This was embarrassing and horrifying in itself; realizing there are people, entire societies, that don’t hear the term “shooting” enough to know immediately what it means, who don’t go through every stage of grief in about 30 seconds before having to get back to business. She kept asking why. I realized how infrequently Americans ask why anymore. It was an interaction I’ll remember for the rest of my life. The fresh look of horror that was so un-American and so heartbreaking, for I could no longer access that kind of innocent dismay. I skipped a lot of the outings after that, only making it to the Red Fort and Chandni Chowk, but mostly wanting time alone in my room. I sat in bed and watched the rectangles of light travel across my wall as the sun set outside my window.

On Jaipur:

Our last leg of the trip, and my favorite. This time, just Rina and myself. A lot of stars aligned for us in Jaipur. Most notably, we found an excellent auto driver, Salim, who offered to spend the entire two days we were there driving us around the city. It would’ve been a very different trip without Salim, probably.

Rajasthan (the state of Jaipur) is dry and hazy, reminding me of southern California. We were surrounded by sandy mountains, which stood between us and the vast Rajasthani desert (sadly we weren’t able to make it to the dunes). Something about Jaipur struck me as a bit magical, to be honest. Something about the fresh air, the nature, the remarkable Mughal architecture. The Pink City, simmering in the midday heat. The Jal Mahal, a stunning palace floating on a lake. The expansive and extraordinary Amber Fort, which we reached around dusk and whose gardens we got lost in until well after darkness had set in. Simply put, great vibes. We were bashing around Jaipur.

Famous for its gems and textiles (among many other things), a lot of shopping took place here as well. Too much, to be frank, but I justify it only by saying 90% of my purchases are gifts for you people. Each region of India sports its own unique cuisine (a fact I feel is devastatingly misunderstood and which I will write about more in future posts!) and the Rajasthani thali was something out of my dreams. We got to hang out with some rescued elephants, ride a camel, visit the Monkey Temple, get our palms read. We saw the very auspicious six-legged cow and held a cobra for a few moments (before panicking). Every few hours, we’d observe how different Jaipur felt from any other place we’d visited in India. For the first time on this trip, I felt like I could finally hear myself think and let myself breathe. I think it has something to do with my yearning for and reunification with the mountains. Nevertheless, we returned to our sweet, slower Chennai with fresh juice and sea breezes very grateful and exhausted.

December and January coming soon!