A Tandoori Thanksgiving

Last week I got several emails from the States asking, "What was I doing to celebrate Thanksgiving?"

I had no intention of skipping the holiday, despite being 8,000 miles from home, but with our apartment still lacking a gas connection for cooking, I was indeed thankful to be invited over to an early Thanksgiving dinner the Sunday prior by a fellow Washington D.C.-Area native. My friend Ananthy from Maryland (posing here with our roasted bird) gathered roughly a dozen ex-pats from around the world at her Delhi guest home - a small house for people in her organization, the PATH Campaign for Microbicides, which works on AIDS and STD prevention and other reproductive health issues here. In case you were unaware, India, along with South Africa, has one of the largest AIDS-infected populations in the world.

Besides your microfinance-venture capitalist narrator, our eclectic group of guests included a freelance photographer, a business journalist, a jazz singer, several IT consultants, a French restaurateur, and our host, the Hopkins graduate and reproductive health specialist. These people hailed from locales as diverse as L.A., Bangalore and Paris, so in a symbolic gesture to those for whom the Thanksgiving holiday was new, we took turns briefly explaining what we were most thankful for. I was of course just thankful to be in India and yet still enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner.

The food was delicious. Two French guests provided significant quantities of imported wine and cheese to get things started. While the meal included some creative improvisations, tandoori chicken instead of turkey and cranberry jelly instead of sauce, heaps of homemade mashed potatoes and Stove-Top stuffing cooked up by the photographer from L.A. ensured that the dinner tasted like Thanksgiving should.

We found out subsequently that the U.S. embassy here (a 20 minute cab ride from my apartment) was actually selling turkeys during the week. Unfortunately news here doesn't travel quite as fast as the auto rickshaws. Its starting to get cold in Delhi as winter is setting in, so I'm heading south to the beach this weekend. Next stop, the old Portuguese colony of Goa.

Rooftop Diplomacy

I'm trying to do my small part to keep up foreign relations...recently I headed to several rooftop parties held by Europeans working and studying here in Delhi. One night we went to a gathering near the main University here (JNU). Our host had cooked up some decent Indian food and was playing the sitar when we got there, and there was a very relaxed, college-like atmosphere to the place. People were on the terrace drinking beer, quietly conversing. I was the only American there, and soon after arriving I walked over to the cooler to grab a Kingfisher (India's Bud Light) and was introduced to a young Iranian couple sitting nearby. "Where are you from?" they asked. It took me a second to reply, an involuntary smile creeping over my face at the tension I knew was about to arise when I answered. Slurping up the foam dripping off my beer, I grinned, "The United States, have you heard of Virginia?" Like taking cues from a script, we immediately had to start talking, as if not to would be avoiding the obvious....."Wow, you're from the States? What are you doing in Delhi? What city are you from? What do the American people think of Iran, have you heard of my home, Isfahan, yes?"

I explained my background, the work I was doing with microfinance, how yes, I knew where Isfahan was, I had been lucky enough to have a Middle East politics class back in school (by the way, Isfahan also happens to be the site of one of Iran's experimental nuclear power plants). They had plenty of questions about the U.S., the elections of course, who Barak Obama was and what Americans thought of Iran. I tried to give the most impartial explanation I could of the U.S. Congress, how the three branches of government work, and I did my best to diplomatically answer their question about where the average American's concerns and fear of Iran stem from - "Hmm, yeah, you're probably right, axis of evil was not the best choice of words, although to be fair, I don't think he had a thesaurus nearby, and to be honest, he's not much of a wordsmith...but you see, on the other hand, we get more than a little concerned when your president disputes the Holocaust and mentions wanting to push Israel into the sea...see...?"

They seemed surprised and very pleased that I knew enough about Iran and Middle East politics to have a fairly detailed conversation and we were able to agree on a few things: spicy food is good, the story of Alexander the Great chasing Darius through ancient Iran is really interesting, they should try and come visit America and I should try and come to Iran sometime (I think I'll wait a few years, thanks). Although they certainly had a different perspective than I did on Hamas and Hezbollah, we had a good exchange which ranged from the oh-so-subtle nuclear issue to what a tour of Alcatraz in San Francisco is like. Apparently the movie "The Rock" was a big hit in Tehran. Note to the White House - take a lesson from the Cold War - we might be better off trying to influence Iran with McDonald's and MTV than our current cold shoulder policy. American pop culture and free trade usually do a better job of furthering our interests than political blustering and empty sanctions.

Though they were proud of their country, their culture, and very passionate about the Palestinian cause, they also expressed clear frustration with their own government (they're not the only ones...). They suggested that a few years ago when the reformer and popular President Khatamei was elected, there was great hope that things would change and Iran would begin normalizing relations with the U.S. When the ruling Supreme Council in Iran (a group of religious leaders put in place by Ayatollah Khomeini back in 1979) blocked all of his reforms and banned progressive candidates from running for office there was great disappointment and disillusionment with the political process. Apparently the populace, tired of political fomentation and revolution, didn't respond with protests to ratchet up the pressure on the government and subsequently they lost their momentum instead of forcing a conflict, and potentially, getting change. As a result, the conservatives in Iran took over and the progressive movement waned for a time. While the U.S. invasion of Iraq and world opposition to the Iranian nuclear program are not helping the reformers win support in Tehran, despite this, the couple suggested that there is continued frustration with the limits on political freedom, and in their words, the current regime there will have to open up the political process or face very serious popular unrest within the next five to ten years. They suggested that the events in Iraq and the nuclear issue have simply given cover to President Ahmedinejad for the time being. And as is widely reported, they confirmed that there are thousands of political prisoners currently in jail in Iran, that some have been there for as long as 10 - 15 years for such subversive crimes as leading student protests and waving controversial political banners.

I have some good pictures of us, and they were a very photogenic couple, but given the political opinions they shared with me, and given that one of them is a journalist who goes back to Iran regularly, I didn't feel comfortable putting their photos up on the web. I'm probably being unnecessarily cautious but I have no desire to test the prowess of the Iranian Internet police.

The photo at the top is of our host that night jamming on the sitar. On the right is my Danish flatmate and partner in crime here in India, Peter. Next blog to appear shortly (hopefully tomorrow). I'll be writing about my first Indian Thanksgiving and celebrating my 25th birthday overseas. And did you notice? I finally managed to insert paragraphs. Sincere thanks to my sister-in-law in San Francisco for her help.

Elvis in Camp Guru

As my first few tumultuous weeks turned into more stable and predictable days I started worrying I wouldn't have enough material to keep up the writing - it only took an election back in the States, and a trip to a Samagam (a Sikh guru festival) on the outskirts of Delhi to come up with all sorts of material and pics... The U.S. Elections - I managed to link up with a group of politically-active U.S. expats who were watching the returns real-time last Wednesday morning here (Tues. night back home). I will save my personal opinions on the outcomes for personal conversations, though I really wished I could have been back home in Virginia that night. The question people here were immediately asking was, "What does this mean for India?" (re: Visas & the U.S Nuclear deal). The day after the election the U.S. State Dept. made an announcement here that they were speeding up the issuing of visas for Indians trying to visit the States from the current 4-6 month slog to a 1-2 week process. I got several questions from people excitedly wondering how the Democrats were so effective at speeding up government. I informed them that this probably didn't have anything to do with the election, just a timing coincidence, which was later confirmed for me by a close friend at the State Dept. The other question was whether or not a Democratic Senate would approve the U.S. Nuclear agreement with India (a basic explanation of the agreement here ). The Indian government should be relieved that Bush repeated immediately following the elections that this was a top legislative priority. I also heard from the same "neighborly" U.S. State Dept. official with whom I shared some diplomatic drinks at the very classy Imperial Hotel this weekend, that Sen. Reid and the Democrats plan to work with Bush on this one. So at least for India, the elections simply confirmed that regardless of the party in power, the U.S. wishes to move forward with closer political and economic ties here. Camp Guru - Several weeks ago on Diwali while hunting for a bed in the furniture market, I met a young Indian (17 or 18) who spoke English fairly well and overheard me trying to negotiate with one of the vendors. Anxious to make a Western friend so he could practice his English, he stepped in and used some Hindi to help me negotiate. After saving me roughly $25 from what I was about to pay, I obliged his request that we share a tea and some food nearby. He called up a friend of his (similar age) and over chai, curry and naan they finally told me where to get a refrigerator and how I could avoid getting overcharged by the rickshaw drivers. We traded cell phone numbers, and for a while, I left it at that. But on Sunday I was getting sick of South Delhi and felt the need to get outside of the ex-pat, party-centric world in GK-1, so I took up an invitation to visit his home and join him and his friends at a Sikh outdoor festival up in North Delhi. After an hour-long rickshaw ride I made it up to Rohini, a very poor community on the distant edges of town, probably the poorest place I've ever seen in my life, with open sewers, trash mounds covered with flies and energetic little kids with no shoes playing cricket and riding around on rusty old bicycles. His home was a plain concrete apartment building, painted in pink and yellow hues that were slowly fading away, with small rooms and a central dirt field where I met his brothers and sisters. Unlike their precocious older brother, clearly the young pride of the family, they didn't speak any English. Looking for a way to overcome the language barrier I pulled out a couple pair of cheap sunglasses I had picked up in one of the markets. They turned out to be the perfect ice breaker, and once I got out the camera the kids were hamming it up like Bollywood stars, just for the 2-second pleasure of seeing their smiling mugs on the LCD screen after I snapped a shot. After a few glamour shots (at the top) we were off again in a rickshaw, eventually reaching a huge fairgrounds where supposedly a million people (I asked one of the organizers for an estimate) assembled to hear this Sikh guru and his followers speak about the earth, the sun and the moon, universal peace and harmony and all other sorts of Guru-type things. While I was less interested in the ideology of the whole thing than some of the members of the welcoming committee at the gate might have hoped - I had to politely tell two very friendly organizers who saw the only white person in a million and wanted to impart their enlightenment on him, "Thank you for sharing your views, I appreciate them, I am a Christian, just here to observe, Namaskar," - it was truly a amazing and incredible sight to see that many people, very respectful of each other, greeting each other, touching each other's feet, cooking up food and sharing it, all while songs and prayers were read in Hindi and English from a distant stage somewhere on the horizon and piped out to the masses from old WWII era speakers. I followed my friend to one of the huge open-air tents where his friends and family were eating, sleeping, singing, praying and living huddled all together for the three day event. I could tell I was a source of curiosity to people as we walked from field to field, to the washing station, then the mess tent, standing in line to buy bread for 4 rupees, water for 2, but it wasn't until I entered the canvas enclave where everyone was living that I felt like Elvis in Vegas. Without having done more than walk in and sit down, I was an instant celebrity among the children and their mothers. I got cheers and smiles from the kids for simply saying "Hello" and "Peace be With You," in Hindi. I'm sure the explanation for my rockstar status was the fact that a foreigner "ferengi," (an American no less!) was here in their midst, trying to speak their language, sharing bread with them, listening to their songs and happy to snap photos of them, without thought of caste, without fear or hesitation. But with a smile and a handshake it seemed I could tap a limitless reserve of goodwill. I'm speculating, but given the attention that my hair, skin and voice received from a few kids I'm fairly certain I was the first white person that they had ever gotten to speak with or see up close. I'm also fairly certain that while the broader group that was leading the organization claimed it was a very mixed society, with both rich and poor followers, it seemed to be more of a magnet for the downtrodden, the uneducated, and the lower castes of both Hindus and Muslims. To that effect, the group of onlookers was incredibly excited and roared with laughter when my Indian friend helped me piece together enough words in Hindi to joke that "I too was a member of their caste," (which I don't think was Brahmin by the way). I took as many pictures as I could though I'm not sure even they do justice to the experience, the grins, laughs and songs were difficult to capture in words or film. On another note, thanks for the emails and notes some people have sent in response. I'm glad to hear people are reading and remain interested in what I'm seeing over here. I added a map to the site on the right hand side. If you click on it you can see where people are viewing the blog from, how many hits so far, etc. The hits in Vietnam are coming from a friend and former co-worker of mine whom I used to commiserate with about cash-burning technology companies and insufferable i-banking hours back in the day. He too has moved abroad to work as a VC in emerging markets, albeit with a more traditional investment focus. He also has a blog, Check it out if you like technology, venture capital and Pho Noodles. Several people have asked whether I have ever heard of paragraphs. Yes, I would prefer to use paragraphs, and sorry if reading this has made you dyslexic. My limited C++ / java coding abilities have prevented me from figuring out how to change the template to insert returns. I should have studied harder in computer science but my friend Curtis and I were convinced we would never actually write a single line of code and used to fall asleep in the back. That was 5 years before I moved to India and decided to start blogging. Like some sin from the past coming back to haunt, computer science was the only U.Va. class I ever got a C in. It's just as well, there is too much to say about India to justify taking a grammatical breath.