We're Not in Delhi Anymore

My Fulbright grant officially ended yesterday.

It literally seems like I was just in my college dorm room, sitting at my desk, trying to figure out who my fellow ETAs would be during these nine months.  I knew this year would pass by quickly, but I guess I didn’t realize kitna quickly, how much quickly.   Now all of my Fulbright bhai-bahin are starting to fly home.  Or to Korea.  A few are hanging around for a while longer, to dance in a final kathak performance.  Or to travel the subcontinent.

Straight ahead is the guest house, temple on the left.

I presently find myself in the holy Hindu city of Mathura, the birthplace of the blue-skinned, flute-playing, peacock-feather-wearing deity, Lord Krishna.  My husband has recently taken a teaching position at a university here.  And get this, he’s teaching Spoken English of all things!  Actually we are staying in Vrindavan, Mathura’s next door neighbor, and the city where Lord Krishna actually spent his childhood.  But don’t get the wrong impression when I say “city,” we are actually staying in a relatively rural part of the city.

Make that very rural.

In our previous visits to my sasooral (literally: my father-in-law’s house), it always left me befuddled when my husband would tell me in the morning, “I am going to the field,” and then not return for another hour.  Or I would wake up to find that he was not there and, upon his return, I would ask frantically of his whereabouts.  He would then inform me, casually, “Oh, I was in field,” as if this should have been obvious.

I didn’t completely understand then what all went down in the field, but I sure do now.

Early each morning while I make our two cups of ginger-cardamom chai, I can look out the window above our gas stove and see the local villagers, usually men, pooping in the field behind our guest house.  When I open the front door and look over the balcony, in the brush field to my left there are people pooping too.  There are usually smaller children in this field, but all poop the same way.  First, carry either a plastic bottle or tin can of water to the field.  Then, find a good place to squat (one that’s free from briars and other poop, I imagine).  Next, drop your drawers (if you’re a man) or raise your sari (if you’re the occasional woman), squat, and do your business.  When the business is finished, use the right hand to poor the water into the left hand, which does the wiping.  Rinse left hand with water, raise your drawers (or drop your sari), and walk nonchalantly back in the direction from which you came.

In all seriousness, it is so peaceful here.   It's much quieter than Delhi, which is nice for the absence of honking, but that also makes it more difficult to get our daily needs, like milk and vegetables.   And our refrigerator is no longer with us, so they really are needs that have to be acquired daily.  Fortunately it is not too far out of the way to stop at the vegetable market on the way to guest house from the university, and we have a milkman who brings us fresh milk from the local village each evening.

A better shot of the temple under construction.  Almost seems like something from Candyland, hai na?

I’m pretty sure we are currently the only ones staying in this guest house next to Ma Gita Mandir, aside from Ma Gita Ji herself, and the occasional Indian family visiting this hallowed ground.  Mata Ji, as she said I could call her, is a pleasant woman whom I suppose to be in her early-to-mid thirties.  She designed the temple, Ma Gita Mandir, that is being built in front of the guest house rooms.  Construction on the temple started seven years ago, and it should be completed two months from now.  It is an impressive work of beautifully molded concrete, and carved marble and stone.

Wild parrots on the temple ledge!

My favorite part of this temple, though, has to be the colours.  Later in the morning (after the pooping people have vacated the fields), lustrous green parrots, two to nine at a time, fancy to perch on one of the temple ledges that we can see from our balcony.  There vibrant green feathers are the most beautiful contrast against the salmon and tangerine temple.  If I was a skeptic of color therapy before, India has definitely made me a believer.

The view from our balcony, with parrots!

(And I do realize I spelled “color” two different ways in the previous paragraph.  I thought that the first one merited the British “u.”  It kind of grows on you after you’ve been here for a while.)

In the mornings, instead of roosters, we wake to the sounds of peacocks.  On our last visit to thevillage, with some of the ETAs, we came to the consensus that a peacock sounds like a human trying to imitate the sound of a cat’s meow.  Indeed, it does.  But trust me when I say that it’s a much more peaceful alarm clock than it may seem.  By the way, have you ever seen a peacock sitting in a tree?  It is one of the most awkward things I have ever seen.  They are beautiful, yes they are.  But it is a mystery to me how those turkey-size birds can sit so gracefully on a twig-like branch.  Talented fellas, they are.

One afternoon I was studying in our room and heard a kind of swishing sound through the window screen behind me.  I got up and looked down from our second floor window to find two horses wading through the little river running behind our guest house.  I guess they thought the greens looked greener on the other side.  Sure enough, the horses come every day around the same time, like clockwork.

Lots of things run like clockwork here.

If you’re awake before 7 AM you can likely find people squatting in the fields.  At the same time you can hear the peacocks mewing from the trees, as well as the morning readings from the loudspeaker of a nearby temple.  A little later in the morning, the chubby green parrots will land and hop on the salmon and tangerine ledge of the mandir.  Between 11 and 11:30 AM, the horses will come to cross the river for grazing, and the white heron-type birds will look on from their perch on the brick wall above the river bank.  Between three and four in the afternoon a few stragglers may come to the field to complete late “business” transactions.  At this time of year the afternoons in north India tend to be rather quiet as it’s too hot to do anything besides rest.

In the evening, the peacocks will again sing while we wait for the milkman.

Eventually everything quiets down, the stars come out, and sleep arrives.

Then the sun rises, and another day in India begins.