It is a very sad and terrifying situation, and the events unfolded so quickly that I could barely keep up with the rolling news stories. It is quite surreal, but definitely not unheard of in the recent history of the UK. I absolutely do not justify or condone what has happened in the past four days, and the deaths and injuries are horrific, but the underlying social and economic issues were bound to cause a ripple in British society at some point. The exclusion and the deprivation in these areas has gone on for too long. I don’t need to harp on about the London riots because David Lammy (Labour MP) has said it all pitch-perfectly:

 ”Those lashing out – randomly, cruelly and violently – feel they have nothing to lose. They do not feel bound by the moral code of the rest of society because they do not feel part of the rest of society. We cannot live in a society where the banks are ‘too big to fail’ but whole neighbourhoods are allowed to sink without a trace. The polarisation is not between black and white. It is between those who have a stake in society and those who do not.”

While I am highly apprehensive of the Conservative government and their general approach to social matters, I hope these riots can help government and society to make a concerted effort to address some of the underlying issues at hand here.

Well, for a start, I’ve been in living and working in New Delhi for 6 1/2 months now. To be fairly frank, it’s been a challenging 6 1/2 months, with fighting with the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office, adjusting to working at the National Office, as well as dealing with the general chaos of Delhi. Thankfully, I get to unwind in my relatively peaceful flat with the only noises coming from a vegetable-wallah (vendor) shouting something that sounds a lot like “STEEEEEWWWW” (if someone could enlighten me as to what the hell he’s saying, that would be great. I assume he’s saying ‘vegetables’ but in what language? It doesn’t sound like Hindi…), and a crazy old lady across the road who unleashes a torrent of verbal abuse at a cat for 10-15 minutes at least once a week.

I endeavour to update this blog more often from now on. I will probably focus less on the details of my work because I talk about it enough at work. I  also probably won’t mention much about the aid sector or development because everything that should be said about development and aid work can already be found on this great blog called Tales from the Hood (see my blog roll on the right hand corner).

To live up to the blog title, upcoming posts may not be in chronological order. They may not even make much sense. There’s a lot of stuff I would like to share, such as my trip to Srinagar and Leh (Leh and Ladakh is hands down, the best place I’ve ever visited in India), and talk about life here in Delhi in general. Especially food.

a) I have lost/broken my iPhone by [insert careless manner of destruction]

Seriously, why fork out so much fucking money for a frivolous piece of kit when you cannot even look after it for more than a few months at a time? I still don’t understand how people can drop their phones down a toilet bowl. Why are you carrying your phone with you into the washroom? Why have you got your phone with you when you’re water-skiing?

b) My children won’t shut up/are driving me crazy/are ungrateful little shits

No-one made you have children. Ever heard of birth control? Your constant complaints about your kids merely reflect badly on you.

Specific Facebook feeds promptedly hidden. Rant over.

Late January and February

I flew back home to chilly and snowy old England at the end of January as my visa had expired. I had approximately one day of actual downtime at home before commencing my two-week battle with the Indian visa authorities, and my travels around the country to visit friends. My train journey on the way home from London to Manchester on the day I returned to Blighty rendered me somewhat numb from reverse culture shock: automatic sliding doors? Automated toilet facilities? Radio and wi-fi on the train? Ergonomic seating? Speeds of over 120mph? Profuse apologies from the train manager for being a mere 15 minutes late? WTF?

Being back in my adopted home country provoked a mixture of conflicting emotions, all of which vied for dominance. I was comforted by the abundance of modern conveniences but felt oddly out of place. I observed my friends going about their daily routine, discussing how they would redecorate their homes, work on their gardens, and talk about adding to their array of kitchen equipment. I envied their routine, stability, even their plans to paint redecorate their house, but I also felt as though I could no longer really relate. As much I would one day like to spend £150 on a set of kitchen knives, there was no immediate desire to have a fixed abode and acquire stuff. Although, it must be said that I’m not at all hardcore in my rejection of creature comforts – I take my hairdryer everywhere.

Moreover, my lack of stability and possessions did bother me but not enough to put a stop to my currently transient lifestyle, and I was elated that (after much squabbling with the visa authorities) I was granted an extra 6 months in India.

March

My five weeks back in the UK seemed somewhat like a whirlwind, and I felt for India again feeling as though I hadn’t seen enough of my family or my friends. Moreover, by the end of my stay, I became so comfortable being at home again that I was a little bit reluctant to spend another 5 months in India (hello power cuts and general inefficiency!). I was greeted by two good friends at Delhi airport, holding a placard saying, “Katie-ji, thank you come again!” and a ring of flowers around my neck. Slightly embarrassing, but quite amusing. I did find it difficult being back for about half a day, which wasn’t helped by an incident with a leaking jar of pesto in my backpack. A 20 minute hissy fit ensued, and then I was fine.

The rest of the month entailed a weekend trip to Varanasi (again) and a five days in rural Bihar, travelling to Samastipur, Khagaria and Araria to interview children, parents and Child Protection Committees about child trafficking. Since these are meant to be brief updates, I will discuss the field trip in greater detail at a later point.

April

I was seconded to Delhi for most of this month to work on a proposal for the European Commission. The proposed action was the capacity building of law enforcement agencies in the state of Orissa to better enforce child labour laws and to promote child rights. I was utterly daunted by the task of writing my first ever funding proposal worth €300,000 for an institutional donor and having basically been told, “Go on, off you go – write the damn thing”, it was a steep learning curve. It was tough work and at one point, terribly frustrating because a small cyclone had hit Bihar and I really wanted to be in my state office to get involved in emergency response instead of working on dull logical frameworks. However, it was fantastic experience and I was very grateful for the opportunity.

My month in Delhi also afforded me the luxury of a social life. Going for a drink after work? Doing anything at all after work? Getting unceremoniously drunk at the weekend? Going to the cinema? Having lazy afternoons at the weekends in a café? What novel activities for the isolated Bihar-wallah.

May

I returned to Bihar after submitting the proposal and editing a bunch of terribly written donor reports. Not much to report during this month, except that I dozed off twice during a consultation for the child trafficking study, partly because I hadn’t slept much on the train journey back to Bihar the night before, and it was conducted mostly in Hindi. There was also emergency preparedness planning workshop for the Bihar and West Bengal state offices held in Bodhgaya, which offered some much needed peace and quiet from the chaotic cities of Patna and Delhi.

June

I gallivanted around Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai for three weeks, probably unwisely scheduled in the penultimate month of my internship. The order and cleanliness was a a refreshing respite from the usual sights of India, but there was something sterile about Beijing and to a lesser extent, Shanghai. The polished newness of everything and the relentless urban development at the expense of an ever-diminishing hutong culture was a sad sight. Alternatively, where hutongs have been preserved in Beijing, they have been filled with quirky and hip little boutiques selling the type of souvenirs that affluent Western tourists with Arts degrees (guilty as charged) would approve of: handmade leather notebooks, minimalist ceramics, tea, ironically cool printed t-shirts, silk cheongsam and related garments, and framed photo prints.In Xidi, Anhui Province, there stands a beautifully preserved village first built in the 11th century, offering a glimpse what village life may have been like in centuries past. The only catch is that you have to pay Y80 (around £8) for said glimpse.

Aside from catching up with an old friend in Beijing, dragging my pathetically unfit self along the unrestored Huanghua section of the Great Wall which was breathtaking, and with the traipse around Xidi – all real highlights, the rest of my trip was merely pleasant. I think I will need to venture further beyond the modern comforts of Eastern China to evoke stronger feelings.

On an unrelated note, the following thought would pop into my head almost every other day in China: “Oh god, it’s so hot today. I hope the power doesn’t cut out because I’ll bloody need that air conditioner tonight”. Then I would have to remind myself that power cuts don’t really happen in China. I have clearly been in India for too long, and have evidently been scarred by the almost daily power outages of varying lengths in Patna.

The race to the bottom is irrelevant to those jammed against the floor of destitution.

In other trivial news, I was alerted to a great blog today – Wronging Rights – which looks at international development, human rights, international politics and all things related through a very satirical lens. Very black humour (the best kind of humour!), very good. Check it out here.

Across a small lake in the interiors of rural Bihar, October 2009

2009 surpassed all my expectations. A year ago I would not have dreamed of being in Bihar and interning for Save the Children. A year ago I had no idea where Bihar even was. This time last year I was slowly organising things in order to come to India, and I was trying my hardest to maintain my hope and optimism for the coming year. The year before had essentially been a series of setbacks and disappointments, and for myriad reasons I had an extremely difficult time coping with it all.

I left for India on 2nd March 2009 pretty much on a wing and a prayer. The only things I had was an internship organised at a local NGO in Dehradun and £900 to spend for the next 9 months (notwithstanding the £600 worth of debt in my current account and £50 remaining in my savings account).

Reyaz and his friends, and Melanie and her family provided me with the softest landing possible with their generosity and hospitality. From March onwards, I slowly regained my confidence and met numerous characters on the way. From March to June, I worked in perhaps the worst NGO in Uttarakhand. The chairman talked only about food and past glories. The secretary hated me from the moment I incorrectly assumed she was married. Her sidekick was a useless administrator with short-term memory loss, who spent most of her time playing solitaire and scouting for husbands on shaadi.com, and had a tendency to ask questions  at random moments such as, “Can women get gonorrhoea?” The NGO also embezzled funds like nobody’s business.

I have fond memories of Dehradun though. I made good friends, and met interesting people, from journalists/photographers, teachers to handsome hippies with organic cabbages for brains. Staying up late practically every night with fellow interns and getting up again 5 hours later for work, evening drives in the office 4×4 half-way up a hill station, and aloo tikis were the staple activities in Dehradun. Also, from Dehradun I travelled to Amritsar with Sarah, my friend from university, where we melted in the 40C heat while watching the Indo-Pakistani border ceremony and marvelled at the Golden Temple.

Receiving an email from Save the Children India in late May changed everything. I left Dehradun for Patna – 1300km away – in early June and have not returned since. Living in Patna has been rather odd experience: four months of an unbearably humid and stifling summer and a poor monsoon, the same time spent with very little human contact beyond office hours, and with almost nothing to do except read, cook or watch television. Working with Save the Children, on the other hand, has been wonderful. While some things have not progressed as quickly as I had hoped, I have learnt a lot, and seen so much that I need time to process it all. I am so in love with Save the Children, and I could not be more proud to be an intern at the Bihar state programme office.

From Patna, I took trips to Varanasi and to Gangtok. Both presented very different sides of India, and the contrast and variety embodies what is fascinating and astounding about this country. I have travelled to several districts of Bihar – Sitamarhi, Araria, Purnia, Madhepura, Khagaria, Gaya, Nalanda, and Vaishali. Some were for work, some were not. The countryside in Bihar is beautiful, and the people are friendly. In Patna I continued to meet more interesting people – more journalists, neighbours, and colleagues from other state offices.

I’ve also developed a certain fondness for Delhi during my time in India, even if it does look like a post-apocalyptic version of Beijing.

To round off the year, I gallavanted around Rajasthan and Delhi with Melanie. We met several more characters on our travels – some intriguing, some weird, some hilarious or all of the above. 2010 started pretty much the way 2009 did – pleasantly low-key (if slightly random), and with no indication at all of what the coming year will bring.

In two weeks’ time I will be back in the UK to visit family and friends, thus ending my current chapter of my time in India. (The new year also brings one major source of concern: visa application.) I made a fantastic decision by coming here. Even though I landed in India with no real idea of what would happen, I somehow never doubted that things would work out.

The Aravalli hills from the Kumbhalgarh Fort

The marvellous Melanie (abandoned by her family who jetted off to North America) and I (abandoning my family by effing off to India) embarked on a week-long tour of Rajasthan to celebrate the Christmas period together. Our first destination was Udaipur, to which we travelled by a rather luxurious sleeper bus, in a double bunk complete with a TV screen, pillows and blacked-out screens for privacy (a slight shame I was travelling with a girl!).

Udaipur

I had never spent Christmas away from home before, and I had actually always wanted to spend the occasion in a country where Christmas was not the main event, as I have never been overly fond of it. It was a little strange whenever I realised it was Christmas and felt the occasional pang of guilt for not being at home, but for the most part, I enjoyed being able to treat it like any other normal day. Udaipur seemed less clean and serene as it did when I visited the place back in September 2007, but this could be easily attributed to it being slap-bang in the middle of the tourist season. Nevertheless, Udaipur was a lot of fun, and quickly became the scenic backdrop to a surreal encounter that was seemingly lifted out of a Mills and Boon novel.

Jodhpur

Our next stop was Jodhpur. After a rather cold journey on a dirty local service bus (our sleeping compartment smelled of vomit so we opted for seats), we arrived in the Blue City in the middle of night. Our visit to Jodhpur didn’t get off to the best start; the streets were filthy with litter and we had to sleep in the luggage room of our hostel, with the attendant staring incredulously at us when we asked for clean sheets. We saw the humorous side, however, and giggled ourselves to sleep.

Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Our next day in the Blue City improved considerably. The hostel had an amazing hot shower which more than made up for all the kerfuffle with the luggage room the previous night, and our trip to the Meherengarh Fort was outstanding. Recommended by the Bible Lonely Planet guide, we took the audio tour which turned out to be a fantastic decision and helped to bring the history of the Fort to life. The people in Jodhpur were friendlier and far less predatory on tourists than in Udaipur, the lassis were delicious, and the grubby chaos of the city centre had a certain charm.

Jaisalmer

The next leg of our travels around Rajasthan was Jaisalmer. For 3 out of 5 hours of our bus journey, we shared our two seats with a fine specimen of a woman. Her breath was as pungent as an open sewer, she had bristly hairs over her upper lip which partially covered her jutting teeth, and she sat with her legs widely parted throughout her entire ride. I also had the privilege of being squashed next to her clammy and ample torso. Oddily enough, that turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip to Jaisalmer as the fort itself was actually rather strange. We arrived late in the afternoon and the fort complex seemed to have a lethargic air about it. There were more shopkeepers than tourists, as well as a perplexing abundance of Italian restaurants (I asked a local why this was and he said it was because Italian food was easier to prepare than Indian food, with less waste).

Melanie and I were clearly affected by the lifeless atmosphere of the Jaisalmer fort as our main activities there included checking our emails and watching the sunset from a rooftop restaurant. We saw children run around the narrow lanes, and families sitting on their doorsteps in the late afternoon lull. Isolated from the rest of the town, life in the fort complex seemed bizarre since the entire place was geared towards tourism.

Jaisalmer Fort

We returned to Jodhpur that very same evening. Our last day in Jodhpur ended our Rajasthani adventures on a somewhat sombre note. On our way to the bus stand, we passed by four children begging by traffic lights, including a pregnant girl who looked no older than 14. One particular little boy with a grubby little woollen hat and shorts – no more than 3 or 4 years old – clasped the railing of our auto and stared at Melanie and I . After a minute or so, I relented and handed him a packet of crisps. As I did so, the other children tried to snatch the packet from the little boy. We tried to shoo them away from him, we looked on with heavy hearts as the boy retreated to the side of a lamp post and hugged the bag of crisps with all the strength his little body could gather.

16th October: Diwali in Patna

My first Diwali (the Hindu festival of lights, marking the start of the Hindu New Year) was spent in Patna with my friends Veronica and Gargi, and the latter’s middle-aged friends. The fireworks were lit with fantastic disregard for health and safety by small children and adults alike, and the firecrackers exploded with ear-piercing bang (I was ready to wring the neck of anyone I saw detonating firecrackers by the end of the night). To cut a long story short, the fireworks were pretty but some of the company was rather lousy (namely, Gargi’s middle-aged friends). I don’t have the patience or the time for haughty people who like to flaunt their wealth and treat anyone younger than themselves as if they are small children.

21st – 25th October: A long weekend in Delhi

That weekend marked my first visit to the Save the Children India headquarters in Delhi. It was lovely to meet senior management, especially the Director of Programmes (who gave me the opportunity to work for Save the Children), and some of the interns there. Thursday was spent in a meeting on the upcoming child trafficking study with the National Child Protection Manager, the Policy and Research Manager, my State Programme Manager and myself. It was during this meeting where I decided I really wanted to come back to India to help do this study, even if it meant going through visa hassle and spending another sweltering summer in Patna.

The rest of the weekend was spent partly catching up with my friend Reyaz, who I hadn’t seen for 8 months as he went to the UK just before I left for India, and spending time with newer friends. Lal Qila was explored with a fellow intern on the Saturday afternoon and the very same evening was spent with Reyaz at the opening night of the annual Osian’s Cinefan film festival (posh art dealers). Distinguished guests included the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, and Gulzar, the legendary Oscar-winning Indian lyricist to many Bollywood soundtracks (to us ignorant Westerners, he wrote the lyrics for many of the songs on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack). The opening film was a meandering Romanian film named Pescuit Sportiv (Hooked), and introduced by the director and his shapely leading lady.

Gulzar peering in the crowd at the Osian's Cinefan festival

Since Reyaz is pretty much part of the cultural elite in Delhi, he scored me an invitation to the dinner after the opening ceremony, held at the Taj Mahal/Taj Mansingh hotel. I am not at all used to swank events, so when I arrived in the lobby of the world-class Taj Mansingh, I think I may have elicited a squeal of excitement and gawped all the way down to the garden where the dinner was held. Refined middle-aged women with their perfectly ironed and draped saris, and gleaming jewellery sat around the dinner table discussing serviced penthouse apartments in the capital. Dressed in well-worn plain top from Topshop and my jeans, I felt out of place. The splodge of tomato salsa that landed on my top while taking full advantage of the free canapés did nothing to dispel my image as an uncouth commoner.

Tucking into stuffed chicken breast and vegetable lasagna and eavesdropping on the conversations of my fellow diners, I reflected on the stark contrast between the rich and the poor in India. Just a month previously, I was sitting on a plastic chair in a village in Bihar, drinking chai offered by one of the beneficiaries of Save the Children’s livelihood support programme. While the novelty of the glitz and glamour that the Taj Mansingh had to offer was exciting (partly because I really miss being able to dine out in nice places while being in Patna), I was left with a slightly sour taste in my mouth. At the risk of sounding sanctimonious, I find it difficult to reconcile the severe poverty that so many millions of people (especially in the rural areas) live in with the life of the affluent urban population. The gap between the rich and the poor is stomach-churning. The government routinely fails the poor, and the affluent are equally culpable by being blissfully ignorant of the socio-economic conditions of the majority of their fellow Indians. I would personally like to see more of my peers in India study for a Masters in Social Work than another bloody MBA – a qualification, it seems, that many Indians my age seem to pursue. That would make far more sense than having some well-meaning but ultimately less useful (language barriers, lacking specific cultural insights etc.) foreigner working in Indian development.

A few days after I returned to Gangtok, I was off travelling again – this time in Bihar. To take advantage of having the Monday off for Eid, George (a colleague from the West Bengal office who was in Bihar for a week) and I went to Bodhgaya, Nalanda and Rajgir. Bodhgaya was relatively peaceful compared to Patna and the Mahabodhi temple was truly a stunning sight – very worthy of its Word Heritage Site status. However, I wondered why, out of the thousands of places to attain enlightenment, had the Buddha done so in Bihar? Triumph over adversity, perhaps? Buddhist temples opened and maintained by monks from countries such as Thailand, Bhutan, Burma, Japan, Tibet and China were scattered all over the town. Each had their own distinctive designs which reflected the different ways they celebrated the Buddha, from the ostentatious glamour of the Thai temple (complete with a chandelier!) to the sparse and simple Japanese Daijokyo temple.

The following day, we headed for Ragjir for its main attraction – a flimsy looking ski-lift up a steep hill, on top of which yet another Buddhist temple was located. Sadly, the ski-lift was out of order so we headed for Nalanda after a drinks break from the heat – another 30 minutes away by car. There lay the ruins of one of first universities in the world and an important ancient centre for Buddhist learning. The ruins themselves were interesting and impressive. It was a huge place and some parts of it were well-preserved. However, we didn’t stay for long as the forceful afternoon sun in the late September heatwave got the better of us.

22nd – 26th September: Araria

The following day I set off to rural Bihar as part of a field visit for work with my colleagues Altaf and Pranab. Over the course of the 9 hour drive there, we passed by the flooded fields in the district of Khagaria. The fields on the left side of the road heading towards Araria were flooded for as far as the eye could see. Pylons and telephone poles leaned and stand crooked under the weight of the water, and for a moment I pretended that a passage to the sea had to created in otherwise landlocked state.

Over the three full days in Araria, I spoke, through Altaf and Pranab, to over 40 beneficiaries of our ongoing projects, including children, parents, education committee members, teachers, and adults who received new work equipment as part of our livelihood support scheme. SC Bihar have also been reconstructing five schools, and when I was last there about 2 months ago, construction had barely started in some of the schools. This time, all the schools had almost been completed. It was so exciting to see the stark improvements made in two short months.

The magnitude of child trafficking in Bihar remains unknown, but such cases are never few or far between. I was interviewing a man, Patlu Rishidev, in a Musahar tola, who received housing materials as part of our shelter support programme. It turned out that he and his family had been affected by trafficking. Twelve years ago, they unwittingly sold their 8 year old son, Bholan Rishidev, to a trafficker. Patlu Rishidev said Bholan was being naughty so he wanted to teach him a lesson by sending him to work. The trafficker paid Rs. 1100 (less than £15) for his son. “We tried to search for him, but we haven’t seen him for twelve years,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t sent him away.”