Indian Religions 101

Note:  I am no expert, these are simply my observations after two months...

There are three main Indian religions (although you can find everything else here too, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.) Hindus, Jains & Sikhs. Hinduism started first.  Then Jainism and Sikhism arose out of Hinduism. Jainism was founded in the 6^th century BC as a reaction against caste restraints and the rituals of Hinduism.  Then, in the 15^th century Sikhism was founded again as a reaction against the caste system and Brahmin domination.

Jainism is closer to Hinduism than Sikhism; a comparison I have heard is Catholics and Protestants.  Similarly a comparison I have heard for Hindus and Sikhs is Jews and Christians.

Jains believe in nonviolence.  This has a huge presence in the foods they eat… They will eat and drink dairy because it is seen as life-giving, but will eat no other animal product and will not wear leather.  Additionally, they will not eat any fruit or vegetable that grows underground (potatoes, onions, garlic, etc.) because they cannot determine when it has actually died.  They’ll only eat fruits and veggies that have already fallen from the tree. They will not kill any living creature, including insects.  Some even go to the extreme of wearing a mask over their mouths so as not to kill particles in the air while breathing.

Sikhs differ from Hindus in that they only believe in one god, but they do follow10 gurus. They believe in the equality of all beings.  This can be seen in the practice of langar where people from all walks of life sit together and share a meal together. There are communal kitchens in every temple and volunteers prepare and serve a meal for whoever comes. The Golden Temple in Amritsar is their Mecca.

Ode to the bucket shower.

I'm glad you are no more!

Sorry for the delay!

I know I promised posts and then never followed through, but I had a good reason...  The Delhi belly finally caught me.  I got sick just hours after I posted that blog and couldn't work up the energy to get my butt to a computer.

My sickness, along with monsoon rains in Goa prompted D and me to come home 5 days early. So I am back state-side, but I plan to finish what I started.  In the next couple of days I will take you through my last three weeks in India.  It was a whirlwind tour of northwestern India at the end, so enjoy!

FYI, I am back-dating my posts. The earliest will be from July 5th.

Keep reading...

I'm still here. 

It was a busy last week of my internship as we frantically worked to finish our report, and now we are in the midst of our whirl-wind tour... But I'll still be posting... So keep checking in!

Our Final Report for PVS

 

It was a very long last week.  We worked frantically, day and night, to finish our final report, but I am pleased to say that our finished product is something we are very happy to be turning over to PVS.  It provides them with hard data that they have never had before and that will prove very useful moving forward.

There is still a little tweaking that needs to be done, but that can wait for our return to the states.  Then we’ll have access to multiple computers and all the right programs and we can fix it up perfectly. When it’s all done, I’ll post it up here.  Until then, here’s one of my favorite graphs…

Percentage of school-aged children not in school (by settlement and sex)

So for example.... 59 percent of all school-aged girls in Kali Beri are not in school.  Of that 59 percent, 71 percent have never been to school.

Blech...

There is a drink here that I have really come to like... The Fresh Lime Soda consists of soda water, fresh lime juice, sugar and salt.  At first I thought the salt would be gross, but it mellows out the sweetness and make for a tasty drink.  Plus it's a great alternative to gatorade or the Indian version - rehydration salts, which are as bad as they sound.

Today I ordered a fresh lime soda for lunch and was very excited to take my first sip, but I was sorely disappointed... Instead of regular salt, they used black salt.

(This is the brand my host family has.)


Anyone know what black salt tastes like? Anyone? Anyone?  Bueller? Bueller?
Well, I'll tell you...


A Hard Boiled Egg!

So my lovely Fresh Lime Soda tasted like the juice of a hard boiled egg with a splash of lime.

:P

National Strike

It’s hard to believe that an entire country could organize a national strike, especially one the size of India… But that they did.  On July 5^th from 6am to 6pm the entire country shut down to protest rising prices, particularly of food and petrol.

It was a political move.  All the opposition parties put it on together against the ruling party… They got all shops to close, buses and rickshaws to stop running; the whole country was at a standstill.  And everyone was too afraid to do anything else.  People were saying if shops opened they might be stoned or vandalized in some way. It was pretty incredible to see, the city was in slow motion for the first and only time I was there.

The sad thing is that nothing will come of it; it was purely political. And millions of people lost out on a day of wages. 

Ranakpur Temple

Our next stop on our way back from Udaipur (after Kumbalgarh Fort) was an incredible Jain temple. The main temple was built in 1439, and now the total complex comprises 29 halls with 1444 unique pillars.  It’s carved entirely out of white marble and is one of the most important Jain temples in the country.

This is wet-dog Anna - the security guard insisted on taking my photo. 

Kumbalgarh Fort

On Sunday morning we left Udaipur for Jodhpur, but on our way back we made two stops.  The first was to Kumbalgarh Fort, a truly impressive structure built in the 15^th century.  The fort walls stretch over 36km and enclose around 360 temples, as well as palaces, gardens and 700 cannon bunkers.

Udaipur

Let’s start back where I left off…  While you were all eating BBQ and enjoying the fireworks, I was on a retreat with FSD. Basically it’s just a chance for all the interns to get together; there are no real retreat-like activities.

We headed south to the city of Udaipur, which is still in the state of Rajasthan, but completely different from Jodhpur.  It’s bigger, and more liberal… And hilly and green. It rained every night we were there and was sunny during the day.  It was still hot, but the rain was amazing! 

There is supposed to be a lake (Lake Pichola) in the middle of the city, but because of years of draught and water shortages, it is virtually gone. Now you can walk across it, minus a few larger puddles.  So a few of us headed out in an attempt to make it to the Lake Palace, which is now a supposedly amazing hotel.  I say supposedly, cause we never made it out there, a guard stopped us and told us we had to take a boat across. That’s right… There is no water in the lake except for a small strip leading from the main land to the hotel entrance.

 The "lake" and the Lake Palace (the white building in the background... the building on the right is a temple).

Kids playing in the lake.

Cows grazing in the lake.

Nevermind the hoity-toity hotel, we headed to the City Palace instead.  It was beautiful and huge and while all the rooms are empty, it’s still easy to see how amazing it was back in its prime. It was an on-going project that was initially started by Maharana Udai Singh II, the founder of the city, in the late 1500s and then added onto by subsequent leaders.  Here are my favorite photos from the City Palace...

Children 3

On the street in the Old City of Jodhpur

Children 2

Two children eating their lunch on the ground outside our restaurant.

Dali Bai

This was the second settlement that we visited.  Here, a number of homes have electricity; there is a legitimate waterspout in the center of the settlement; and most homes or clusters of homes have outhouses.  Additionally, there are a number of families that are managing to make semi-decent wages.  But on the down-side, few people have citizenship and access to government services, and the only school in the area is private, which means not many children are in school.

A home in Dali Bai.

A bathroom.

The water spout.

A young man with his "shop."

The people of Dali Bai:

Kali Beri

We are conducting our assessment with three settlements. They each have distinct differences, so I thought I would put up a few photos and tell you a little about each.

The first settlement that we visited was Kali Beri. In terms of physical needs—electricity, water, sewage/sanitation, etc.—this settlement is the least equipped.  No home has electricity, they entire community gets their water from a hole in the water line running through the settlement, and there are no bathrooms or even outhouses. It’s a pretty stark place.  But on the other hand, most of the families have citizenship, which means they supposedly have access to more government services.

Goats on the road into the settlement.

   

A house in Kali Beri.

Children getting water at the makeshift water spout.

Carrying the water back to the house.

The people of Kali Beri:

Household Report Cards

To be able to accurately serve and represent the settlements PVS needed to better understand the demographics of the communities.  Therefore, as I mentioned before, we were asked to conduct a large-scale needs assessment of three of the five settlements surrounding Jodhpur. There are upwards of 300 people in each settlement, so we needed a fast and efficient way to gather this information, while also keeping in mind that the majority of these families are illiterate. We researched and used the Participatory Rural Appraisal approach, which relies heavily on visual cues in order to reach as many people as possible. 

From our research we created a Household Report Card that used mostly pictures and checkboxes to gather information from a variety of categories. We then held a training session for two community leaders from each settlement, and taught them how to conduct the survey in their respective communities.

We now have all the cards back and are in the process of analyzing them… And it’s been interesting.  The understanding varied greatly across the volunteers, so each settlement has a few questions that will not be very useful for us. It’s too bad that we didn’t get all the information that we wanted, but really more than anything I think this was an amazing learning experience for us. The International Education program at NYU is great, but very theoretical, so this experience has been the missing practical component, and I am learning so much from my time here.

I’m sure you’re all wondering what our card ended up looking like, so here it is:


Front (dealing specifically with individual information)















 Back (dealing with household information)

My worlds collide...

I have been having some pretty crazy, vivid dreams lately... The other night's dream was too good not to share. 

I dreamt that Steve did not have citizenship and was being deported to Reno, Nevada.

Colors of India

At an old Jain temple near Jaisalmer

In the Old City of Jodhpur

A light fixture at a restaurant in Jaisalmer

A light fixture from a hotel in Jodhpur

Children's dresses in the Old City

A ceiling from a home in Jaisalmer

My shirt :)

From a restaurant in the Old City



This last photo is thanks to D...