Sketches

Before coming to India, Julia got me a great little moleskine notebook that fits right in my pocket. I promised myself with this new handy-dandy book that I would do a lot more drawing, something I've always loved to do, but haven't done enough.

So since we've been in India I've taken several opportunities to sketch the people and places around me (and some dinosaurs). The following are those sketches. I'll try to provide brief descriptions of each. Enjoy!

Our first day in India. This was a man sitting outside the airport.

The Streets of McLeod

Two words:” Jaldi” and “Chalo”.

These are the two Hindi words that I hear most frequently as I walk through the streets of McLeod Ganj. I didn’t know their meanings the first several times I heard them, but I have since looked them up. These two most common words mean “Hurry” and “Move”. 

And how fitting that these would be the two words to describe the streets of McLeod. The streets are about wide enough for one and a half cars or perhaps one car and one motorcycle, two motorcycles and one cow, or two cows and three people. And all of these, with exception of the cows, are trying to get somewhere. Thus, anytime someone gets in the way or slow things down, the words “jaldi” and “chalo” can be heard all around. Although many times a honk can be substituted for either of these.

Did you see the Dalai Lama?

We missed out on it, but we heard yesterday that His Holiness The Dalai Lama walked from his house to the temple and that lots and lots of people gathered to see him. Most of the time The Dalai Lama is very busy traveling and teaching in different parts of the world or working out business or in meditation so it’s actually not that often that people can see him even in his current hometown. Thus, any chance people do get, they are very eager to see him, even if it’s just for a moment or two. It just goes to show how highly the Tibetan people hold their spiritual leader and how important he is to their lives.

This is all leading up to a story by the way. Julia and I are trying to learn some of the Tibetan language so we have been practicing. Last night during dinner I asked our host mother if she saw the Dalai Lama that day, “Te-ring kay-rang His Holiness Tong-gi-yin?” I was very proud of myself for figuring out the whole sentence by myself and for remembering the verb “Tong” for “to see.” Our host parents on the other hand did not congratulate me, but instead reacted somewhat in shock, telling me not to use “Tong” but a different word (which i have now forgotten), which is the honorific form of “to see.” In Tibetan there is both a regular version and an honorific version of every verb and noun. However, the little Tibetan phrasebook we have does not include these honorific versions of these words, so I only knew “Tong”. I was really happy just to have remembered that, but for our host parents it seemed offensive to speak of His Holiness in that way. Again, it just shows how much they truly respect and love The Dalai Lama, and it taught me a valuable cultural and linguistic lesson. Needless to say, I think I’ll ask for the honorific version of a word next time I want to say something about The Dalai Lama or any important leader for that matter.

First Impressions of India

We've made it to India. Julia and I arrived one week ago. We stayed a few days in New Delhi and then traveled up to McLeod Ganj where we will be staying for the next three months.

In this blog I will make posts about the development of my short documentary film, responses to articles, books, or parts of books I have read, and thoughts about cultural experiences or activities I have participated in.

To kick things off, I would simply like to share some thoughts of my first impressions of India.

1. India is hot
During our time in Delhi the temperature was well above 100 F every day. Now that we're up in the mountains in McLeod Ganj things have cooled off a little, but if we had come straight to McLeod without stopping in Delhi first, it would probably feel just as hot.

2. India is beautiful
Although it may be considered a developing country, the land, architecture, city structure, and parks of India are very beautiful. Some things such as the large temples and political buildings could be considered obviously beautiful whereas the back roads and the stacked puzzle-piece houses are more subtly beautiful like an abstract painting. Everything has some degree of beauty to it, and I hope I continue to see India in this way.

3. India has a lot of people in it
India seems to be packed full of people. Even in the "small" town of McLeod Ganj the streets are full of Tibetans, Indians, and foreigners from all over the world. I think this diversity may be one of my favorite things about McLeod. It makes things complicated at times, with English, Hindi, and Tibetan all being main languages, but I am studying Hindi and Tibetan in hope to be able to communicate with more of the population, and the difficulty just may be worth it to get to experience so much culture in one place.

4. India has a lot of animals in it
Cows, dogs, goats, birds, monkeys, camels, elephants, and more. I have seen all of these since we have arrived (some more than others). What I find most interesting about the animals of India is there relationship with the people. Animals are respected and cared for in India. In return they are mostly very calm and gentle around people. They are not afraid of humans, and then humans are not afraid of them. One day in Delhi, we were riding in a taxi when all of a sudden, the driver pulled over, jumped out of the car, bought some bird food and threw it to a crowd of pigeons. Then, a favorite sight from a few days ago, as we were walking around the Buddhist temple path we saw a cow, a dog, and several monkeys all walking around on the path, with people walking right by them. This relationship between people and animals fascinates me, and is something I would like to learn more about.

There are a lot of other things I could say about India. Already I have had so many wonderful experiences, but I know there are still so many more out there, so I need to get out of this internet cafe and back into the world.