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.