Hello again!
Sorry it has been awhile since my last update – I had to get some adventures under my belt to tell you all about! Early Monday morning I got back from a trip to Ranikhet, where I lived for a week with a village family. I stepped into a land of pine forests and butterflies, a place where you live in the shadow of the Himalaya, and my breath was taken. I woke up every morning of the past week to the sound of village life – to the rattling of pots and pans and doors slamming, to giggling children, to dogs barking, to the smell of fire smoke, I woke up in a world that once again felt like home while also being on the other side of the world.
We spent the majority of our time living and learning in the village of Kalika, a peripheral village to the town of Ranikhet. When the British were here, Ranikhet was one of their major military bases (because the climate was more similar to what they were used to back home) and still functions under a strong military influence. The cantonment holds a relatively central location, and is also the force behind the inspirational road signs regarding driving responsibly. To my western eyes, they were very friendly and quite humorous (one of them was along the lines of: Speed thrills but kills, and the way they were written just made us chuckle). Ranikhet is surrounded now by pine forests that were planted by the Raj. They wanted a variety of fast growing, straight trees, to use for their railroads. The trees they grew in India were exported to British colonies all around the world. Now though, these pine trees have grown out of control and actually create an unhealthy forest that is made up of one species. Pine needles make the ground acidic and make it hard for anything else to grow. Many people are doing quite a bit of work to reinterpret the forests and grow species that were here before and will allow for more percolation which will allow the ground water reserves to refill. The trees the British planted had many unforeseen consequences on the local ecosystems of India.
The village of Kalika is populated with foot paths, and you must descend from the road down into the houses. My house was a little yellow one, with a cactus adorning the roof to keep the bad and evil things out of the house, and was filled with two families – totaling six children, four adult women, and two men. There were five little girls, and the youngest child was the boy – he was three years old. The house had concrete floors and was four rooms and a kitchen – the bathroom was separate and was connected to a washroom. I am proud to say I got better at using an Indian toilet by the end of the week, but I am unsure whether or not I will ever stop missing toilet paper. My friend and I were given our own room to sleep in, and I am still in puzzled by how many people fit in one bed! I can’t imagine what it would be like to never have privacy, to not have any of your own space.
I have never lived in a house quite like this one, and I loved walking outside to go from room to room – but the weather was fantastic while I was there, and I can’t imagine what it’s like when winter comes having to walk outside all the time to go to the toilet or to the other room (there were internal doors, but the furniture was situated in such a way that you couldn’t use them). This house was built with concrete in the more modern style. It has a flat roof, unlike the traditional houses of the Kumaon region. Which were made of dry stonework that have pointed roofs. The traditional houses are not rigid like the modern ones and are much better suited to the seismic environment in the hills. However, these houses are not being constructed anymore because the modern houses are faster and cheaper to build. The modern houses are often single story while the traditional houses were typically two stories – the bottom story is where the cows would stay and the families would live in the upper story. I found it really interesting that proteins such as egg or lentils would be mixed into the material used to plaster the walls, and when they decomposed they produce carbon dioxide which is important because it would convert the calcium oxide in the wall into calcium carbonate, making the walls water proof and cemented. I loved being invited into someone’s home, and being able to watch as as the week continued to progress, how I was more and more incorporated into the everyday dance of this family.
Something that I was not exactly prepared for and consistently and consciously had to remind myself of was how the people I was staying with would not let me help with anything – this was because in India, the guest is god, and you are supposed to take absolute care of them. This was contrary to how I have been taught to be a good guest – taking care of my own dishes and helping my host clean up etc, but here that was not even an option. I spent the week being unsure of how to show my gratitude, and tried really hard to communicate it through heartfelt smiles and eye contact.
For the week I was able to step into my role as older sister once more. The kids here called me “didi” which is Hindi for older sister. I was so happy to shift into my sister mode, and I honestly thrived this last week. The little girl I bonded with the most was named Depangelie, nicknamed Depu, and I swear her and Allison are soul sisters- they have the same spunk, and I felt so blessed to be able to develop a relationship with her. Connecting with my adoptive family was a little different that how I usually connect with people, because we didn’t have a common language. I don’t speak Hindi beyond a few words, and the kids at the house could understand a little, so it was a new experience for me to live with people but not be able to communicate vocally. Another relationship that I was very grateful for was my relationship with my host mom. Her name was Neha, and she has four kids (a fact that allowed me to identify with her and her family). I am doing a project on what wellbeing looks like in India, and she agreed to do an interview with me (Nandini, our RA, translated for me). The interview was so great, and Neha really opened up. After the interview, even though we still couldn’t speak the same language, I felt like we had developed this mutual respect and the rest of the week was so enjoyable. She was such a super woman, a total badass mom, and I really loved it. She reminded me a lot of Logan’s mom and it was great to find another piece of home here.
Ranikhet was also the first place I experienced anything that I could recognize in regards to the caste system, and it was difficult for me to understand. My family was from a lower castes, and I looked into the faces of these little girls – what beautiful potential and light they have! – and was phased when trying to understand what hardships and discrimination they may face as they grow up. More and more I am recognizing the privilege I was able to grow up with, the fact that I was even able to come on this program speaks to it greatly, and I don’t quite know what I am supposed to do with it. I showed these girls my butterfly field guide, saw their eyes light up, and wished greatly to open as many doors as I can for them. I feel like if I spent the rest of my life opening doors and helping to create opportunities for others that I would have spent a life well.
One of my highlights was being able to read a novel about the place I was in – I felt a particular closeness that I don’t think I would have achieved without The Folded Earth. It was actually an accident that I ended up reading this particular book while I was there – I was planning to read it this semester, but I had forgotten that it was set in Ranikhet when I packed it for this trip. I woke up in the morning to see Trishul (the mountain with three peaks, referred to as Shiva’s Trident), and because of the book I knew the lake of Roopkund was at its base. Roopkund is a lake filled with the bones of around 600 people, and no one knows why. I was able to recognize the trident of Shiva in a way that imparted its majesty and sacredness in a way I could understand. This was my first time truly seeing the Himalaya, and I was utterly stunned. I understand now why the people in the rest of the Himalayas say they are in the hills when there are these massive mountains on the horizon. Being there, in their shadow, showed me something beyond words. I read this book, and one the day we went to Akshay’s house for lunch, he had actually invited to author to come meet me! She was so great, and she was also very surprised that I was reading Folded Earth because it is actually her most obscure book. I only had the library’s copy with me, so I had her sign a postcard of Trishul and promptly ordered the book when I got back to wifi. The novel was so serendipitous for me it was kind of ridiculous. There is a part in the book where the narrative shifts from Ranikhet to Nainital, and I happened to read this part on Sunday, after we had left Ranikhet to spend the day in the town with the lake of the goddess Naini. So I have hopes to find novels set in the places of my travels to read while I am there in the future.
Nainital was absolutely gorgeous as well. It didn’t feel like we were in India, felt a lot like Europe, and I was able to spend the day reconnecting with my normal roommate Audrey who I didn’t get to see most of the week during our home stays. We found a bookstore and a candle store and I am so excited about the book I found – it’s called The Speaking Tree and is a collection of the Column in the Times of India newspaper that is a series of nondenominational writings on spirituality. They post topics and people write about them. Audrey and I also joined up with two of the guys on our program and took a boat ride across the lake. If I come back to India, this is a place I want to spend more time in.
I was enamored by how I was accepted into this place, this family, and I loved the way it allowed me to create space within myself to evaluate more of what I am learning and becoming in this world.
Love from the land of folded earth,
Regina
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