Indoors/Outdoors

The boundary between inside and outside is more porous than in the US, where everything is hermetically sealed. Hallways are open to the air, sometimes uncovered, so it rains inside. There are little holes at the base of walls where dust from sweeping is pushed outside, and where chipmunks enter and exit. Ants, frogs, small lizards, and mice all live in the ashram. Once I was sitting in the main hall and a pigeon was repeatedly swooping in a wide arc in and out of the main door. It was building a nest inside. No one has tried to take the nest down. Yesterday in the stairwell there were all these tiny crickets chirping and jumping around.

They do have bars on the windows to keep out the monkeys, but a few days ago, three monkeys somehow got into the kitchen. This 100 year old woman chased them out:

Photos

This is Krishna in the form of Radharaman, in a temple just behind the ashram. This figure is about 500 years old and self-manifested out of a shaligram (a stone that's flat on the bottom and round on top). The same family has been caring for him that whole time.


Outside a 16th century temple - last night.
I am usually too shy to take a photo when there are a lot of people around. This is one of the only photos where you can see how bustling/chaotic it usually is on the street. It's also very loud.


The ramp that FOV built to speed the unloading of trash






bolts of fabric and a cow

Champ Chimps Chomp Chump.

This morning I went for a walk to take pictures of this ancient-looking tree near the ashram. It’s the Kadamb tree where, according to legend, Krishna mischievously hid the clothes of the gopis, his cowherd girlfriends, while they bathed in the Yamuna River.




I got this from Wikipedia. That's Krishna in the yellow and his wife, Radha, next to him. Those are Kadamb trees.

While there, someone advised me not to take my shoes off or else monkeys would steal them. Sure enough, I saw a woman take off her shoes, and a monkey stole one immediately. I took my camera out to take some pictures, and while I was taking some, a monkey bit my foot! He was trying to steal my sandal with my foot still inside! People around there asked a boy to take me to a local doctor. The doctor turned out to be an older dude in a yellow waistcloth and no shirt who has his own little informal storefront clinic. The man cleaned my wound and put iodine and a bandage on it, secured with black electrical tape.



Then I went back to the ashram and found Robyn in her office. I told her what happened, and that I should get a Rabies shot. She made some calls, and we went to a more western-style clinic where I was given the first of a course of five shots that I will take over the next month.

After that, Robyn was telling me how surprised she was at the boldness of the monkey. She had never heard of a monkey attacking someone’s shoe with their foot still inside. She said she was scared of them, and she recommended that I walk around with a stick to fend them off. She stopped to look at canes, to buy one for each of us, and at that moment, a monkey emerged from the gutter and bit my other foot! We purchased the canes, and warily walked back to the ashram. The medicine I’m taking will conveniently work for both bites at once!

What I'm doing here

I am here in Vrindavan for three reasons: (1) To help out Friends of Vrindavan, a local, environmental NGO; (2) to learn about Vrindavan’s religious and cultural life; and (3) to make a community art project.

I will be here for four months. I am bouncing ideas for a project around in my mind, but the most useful thing for me to do right now is to focus on steps 1 and 2. Hopefully the project will come directly out of what I learn.

Mr. Poddar, the head of the organization, has been a great host so far. Most mornings he arranges for me to observe some aspect of FoV’s activities, and then we’ll usually just talk about the organization – goals, difficulties, etc. (The FoV administrative staff is basically Mr. Poddar plus Monmon the accountant and Ravindra the field agent. It’s really small.)


Monmon and Mr. Poddar


This is what they are up to and how I might be able to contribute:

FoV is facilitating proper disposal of biomedical waste from the area’s 80 hospitals. Otherwise it would be dumped, untreated, into the river! I may be going around to some hospitals and getting doctors to answer questions and give suggestions on how to make that service run better.

One morning recently I went to observe a trash collector do his thing, house to house. The trash collectors are untouchables. In the photo you can see that people don’t hand him their trash directly – they avoid touching him by placing it in his bucket. FoV is also trying to help them improve their lives, higher pay and a few more opportunities than what they’d have otherwise.




FoV trash collection rickshaw. Different compartments for organic and inorganic waste.


I am going to help them design a brochure.


I might get trained on this paper press. Eventually they want poor widows and rag-pickers to be able to make recycled paper products from old rags and scraps, which they could then sell, either locally or to fair-trade stores abroad.




They also have a program where women weave colorful baskets out of plastic bags. I met a woman who does this, and hopefully there will be a training workshop sometime soon. I’d like to learn too.








I also got to see how they are making organic compost and fertilizer from the massive amounts of flower waste generated from religious activities. They make the fertilizer using the flowers plus cow urine and other natural ingredients. The compost is broken down by worms.




This is Mr. Poddar holding a bottle of organic fertilizer


compost and worms


Anyway, I am excited to be working with FoV because their focus, at least according to their mission statement on their website, links environmentalism with Hindu values. I am really interested in how culture affects how we act towards nature. Also, I mainly use found materials for my own sculpture. Some of the people FoV is working with – trash collectors, rag pickers, women who make crafts out of recycled materials – are very knowledgeable, resourceful, and skilled at finding uses for things others have discarded. I think I could learn a lot from them.

Lunch!

Prakash, the director of the ashram, called me a couple of hours ago to tell me that lunch wasn't going to be served today because everyone was going to a nearby temple for a meal. I went with them. There was a ceremony which consisted of singing, bells, clapping hands, some jumping near the end. It was festive. Then everyone sat down in rows for lunch. Some Indians in western dress served everyone food. I think they were sponsoring the meal as a kind of religious community service. There was more variety than what we usually have at the ashram. (Usually we just have dal (lentils), a potato curry dish, naan, and rice. Sometimes yogurt or sweets as well.)

More Photos - Vrindavan

Camel!

I'm here!

I arrived in Delhi and stayed at a hotel near the train station, intending to catch a train to Vrindavan the next day. In the morning I hired a rickshaw to take me and my suitcase there, and the kid driving it told me to ask the policeman to help me buy a ticket. I walked in the direction he pointed, and the man asked me where I was going. I told him, and he said to come with him. He brought me to a nearby office with a sign that said “international tourist bureau”, where he did some computer searches and told me that unfortunately all the trains to Vrindavan were booked for three days. He said I could hire a taxi. I asked how much. He made some calls, and said it would be $149 USD. I said no way, that’s way out of my price range. He made some more calls and offers, which I rejected, eventually finding that 3300 rupees (about $79) was the best price that could be found for a non-air conditioned car. I said that was still too expensive and I might just stay in Delhi for three days. I said I wanted to call my contact, Mr. Poddar, the head of the NGO I’m working with, and get his advice. I gave him the number and he dialed, and handed me the phone. Mr. Poddar suggested I take the cab, so I took the one for 3300.

It was about a two hour drive. When I arrived, I met Mr. Poddar, and he asked how I got to Vrindavan from Delhi. Turns out we had never spoken – the guy on the phone was a fake! He said one could get air conditioned taxis, round trip from Delhi, for less than $50. This tourist trap was so convincing and clever that I don’t even feel bad for having fallen into it. But really, I think there isn't any way to avoid being cheated at first. You don't know what the standard prices are for things, so it's easy for people to take advantage of you.

Vrindavan is great – it’s a pilgrimage town. It’s part of an area called Braj, which is where Krishna spent his childhood, according to Hindu mythology. It’s really beautiful – lots of temples, old architecture, the Yamuna river. I am staying in an ashram, which from what I can gather is a religious/community center. Foreign research scholars have stayed here, including my main contact, Robyn, an Australian photographer. She is away now but will be back on the tenth. The ashram is really nice. Everyone has been very accommodating and helpful. They provide me with all my meals.

I have some of my bearings now, but I have a long way to go before I feel in control. I feel like a child, learning basic things and dependent on my hosts. I am getting used to eating with only my right hand while sitting on the floor. I'm at the baby talk stage of the language. The differences between American English and Indian English are not always intuitive - I have to learn their version of it. My goal for today is to go to the market by myself and purchase toilet paper.

Next time I’ll write about the NGO I’ll be working with, called Friends of Vrindavan. After learning more about what they do here, I am really excited to be working with them. Until then…..



This is the ashram.


Looking across the Yamuna River from the roof of one of the ashram buildings.






Panoramic view of Vrindavan


Inside the ashram - main performance hall / common space. I like this ladder on wheels.