The grail-quest is at an end.

My quest for that holy grail of urban Indian existence has finally borne fruit. Profane in its seeming ubiquity, yet sacred in its strange elusiveness...I speak of unlimited wi-fi access.
So many hoops to jump through...one passport sized photo, one address proof, one ID proof, moolah and the severed head of a bull-frog pickled in brine. Apparently, Bank statements don't count as address proofs anymore. And my passport has an American address (won't do). Only utility bills count; but all utility bills in India arrive under my man's name. So they said I could bring a marriage certificate to show that I'm with the man who pays the bills (hell yeah!). That sounded easy enough. Only, my better half's name has been chronically misspelt in all the bills. So who is to say that the man paying the bills is the same man I married?
So instead of a marriage certificate, I just brought along a mother-in-law. I got the account opened in her name.
End result: I will most likely have internet access any time of the day, every day, this year. Why "most likely"? Rumours have it that the wi-fi deities have been a little petulant off-late (as with most of our gods). The pickled bull-frogs only help so much.

A decidedly odd conversation

A conversation I had with a relative today:

Auntie X: Why are you going to Gulbarga? Gulbarga has so many Muslims!

Rachana: uh...that's sort of the point.

Auntie X: Baffled silence.

At base camp

So I'm in Bangalore now. I suppose Bangalore is my base-camp before I head out to the uncharted territories of small-town India. It's my equivalent of the Jesuit missionary shack on an island full of natives...except that my mother-in-law is making something yummy for me to eat in the kitchen as I write. (We "native anthropologists" are spoilt silly, aren't we?!)
I arrived here 3 days ago. I'm still horribly jetlagged, though. I tried to go to bed last night. Managed to fall asleep at around 1:00 AM. Then at 3:00 AM the neighbourhood mutts started howling and I couldn't go back to sleep. Then my allergies kicked in today with all the desi dust. But all said and done, it feels good to be in India. It's nice to turn on the TV and see men in blue pajamas running accross a strip of dirt; it's nice to open the newspaper and see that the Karnataka women's Kabaddi team is on a winning streak; it's nice to be able to eat Chickoo and wear jasmine in my hair. Things will be less comfy once I head out to Gulbarga next week. The weather is guaranteed to be terrible...goodbye gentle Bangalore breezes; hello heat.
In other news, a newly founded group, the Sri Ram Sene (right-wing Hindu moral policing club) has been overactive this month in Karnataka. The group allegedly kidnapped and harrassed this girl in Mangalore for being chummy with a Muslim boy. They're also getting super excited about the opportunities to moral police on Valentine's Day. I plan to keep a low profile and studiously avoid men who call me "sister".

A Vogon poem to mark my departure

As my plane took off from Raleigh-Durham International, I was drowned in a deluge of sentimentality. I thought back to the last poem I'd heard and remembered the godawful verses read at Obama's inauguration. Thus inspired, I penned these wholly unremarkable lines.
(To be recited in a stilted fashion...in the manner of a history teacher reading roll-call ...Bueller... Bueller...Bueller...)

Goodbye.
Goodbye fresh air.
Goodbye my wide expanses of green.
Goodbye my quirky friends
Who come bearing scotch and baked brie.

Farewell my men.
Farewell my wenches.
Farewell my oracles, my God, my Godot.

Somewhere, Asad is mocked,
A post-processualist cursed, bones sexed,
Soroush probed--I am not with you.

Somewhere, someone unscrews a bottle,
Chops some celery,
Makes a Bloody Mary--I am not with you.

Somewhere, a party is missing its jester, it's bearded lady,
A man is missing a wife,
A cat has one lap less--I too am alone.

I must not say goodbye.
The dot and feather shall reunite,
And I will walk again with you.
--Feb 5, 2009

On the Yellow-Brick Road

Coursework: CHECK; Comps: CHECK; Dissertation Proposal: CHECK; Grant Proposals: CHECK; Funding: CHECK! Fieldwork: Almost there. So, I'm finally on the threshold of Anthropological initiation: fieldwork. I am not quite packed, but I am ready to head out to India to start what I hope will be a year's worth of productive research. Will be starting off in the South, then heading due North in August.
I've decided to use this blog to write of my adventures as a novice anthropologist. I will name no names and will keep details of "data" out of my posting. I'd just like to use this space to talk about the little things that I might encounter in these the salad days of my anthropological career. (Lions and tigers and bears! Oh My!)

Ok...Let's get down to the business of democracy.

It's day One of the Obama administration, and it's time to return to our democratic duties in earnest. I speak of critique, lampooning and mockery . And I am serious. To be able to make fun of those in power is a keystone of a healthy democracy--it keeps them honest, it keeps us sane (or at least that's the intention).

Obama may be the darling of the masses right now, the hopes of us left-wing liberal sorts pinned on him. We wait, our tongues lolling, for him to enter a phone booth and emerge with a flowing red cape and a spandex suit. But let's not ride too long on this sentimental hobbyhorse. There will be mistakes and foibles and not-so-sound intentions, and it is not for us who voted for him and supported him to now also defend him. Foibles must be pilloried, mistakes speared and intentions prodded. To do any less would be to renege on the social contract of democracy that for centuries has rested on the expectation that those in power must be held accountable.

So it was with great joy that I welcomed the Daily Show's scathing remarks on the Obama inauguration. Bush may be gone, but hey! we have someone else to mock now!

My gut reacts pleasantly to the elections

So, after an excruciatingly long campaign, America has elected its first African-American president. We've heard all the adjectives by now: "historic", "seminal", "inspirational", "thrilling" etc. But I did not anticipate feeling the way I did the day after the elections. I woke up on the 5th of November feeling inexplicably good about being in America. And the first thing I thought to myself was, "I don't think I'd mind being an American citizen now."
For many years now I've been decidedly unenthusiastic about applying for citizenship here. The idea of putting my hand to my heart and pledging allegiance to the United States made me very uncomfortable. Sure, I love my American friends, I love the academic institutions I've been affiliated with, I love my Midwestern cat, I love my home, my garden with its view of pine trees and maples, now turning vermilion and gold. But feeling a sense of belonging to a place, a land, a people is vastly different from feeling any affinity for everything a nation stands for...and for the past eight years, this nation has seemed to stand for all the wrong things.
But on November 5th, it seemed like America came closer to its ideal than it had ever before. Sure there are still inequities here, there is still corruption of the highest order, and domestic and foreign policies that sicken the soul; but there is also that sense within me that here, now, we have a chance for redemption. I think to myself, "If this country can elect a person called Barack Hussein Obama to the nation's highest office, if the majority of its people are capable of growing past the basest of xenophobic reactions, then this is a country I would like to be a part of."
If someone had asked me a few days ago if an Obama presidency would make me reconsider my stance on citizenship, I would have shrugged and said 'no'. But, unexpectedly, his victory has given me a sense of optimism not only about America, but about the nature of humanity and its capacity to see difference, accept it and think beyond it.