The foreign travelling (mobile) circus
I have been spending time with YF this week, who is a French student studying in Geneva, and currently working on a project for AKI. It is interesting to see how another foreigner absorbs India.

Y. is reading the Mahabaratha, a Hindu epic, and scooping up as many classical Indian CDs as his sinewy European hands can hold. I, on the other hand, am reading recent fiction and political/economic commentary on India (Naipaul, Narayan, Sen, Tully), and am currently compiling a 'best of Bollywood' CD. I think Y. will have a good understanding of Indian history and the foundations of Indian customs, but I will hopefully take away a better understanding of politics and modern Indian culture. Y. has also been more sick in his two weeks here than I have been in my two months, so he will also have a better grasp of the various methods for suppressing explosive diarrhea, and a more intimate knowledge of the various types of Indian toilets.

It is also interesting to see how India absorbs us foreigners. I do still get the occasional stare while walking alone, but I feel like part of a travelling circus while walking down the street with Y.. People laugh at him, point, smile kindly, shake his hands and pull his ears. Beggars tug at him more persistently than they do me and dogs sniff him more closely. A. pointed out, quite rightly, that I love having a white man with me because it helps me blend in. Y. has also been good fun to hang out with, and has been allowing me to practice my french.

I haggled with a mobile phone-wallah (ok, they're not really called mobile-phone wallahs, but i think appending 'wallah' to any profession is pretty hilarious. try it: banker-wallah, hearing aid-wallah, doctor-wallah) yesterday for half an hour, only to find out, at the end of our negotiations, that he did not actually have any mobiles in stock. I was reminded of the monty python cheese skit ('do you have ANY cheese?!'). It seems that mobile dealers here keep only one phone in stock at a time. Nevertheless, i did purchase one today. The best feature is that the display reads your location, and quite precisely. For example, I am at an intersection called Panchvati circle, and that is exactly what my mobile says.

I had the salespeople in stitches when i asked them if their mobiles had told them who would win the election. If only i was this funny in Canada...
- posted by aziz @ 11:10 a.m.

 
Spending quality time
Yesterday afternoon, after work, V. took me to the IIM-A (Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad) to play badminton. V. graduated from IIM last year, and unlike 99% of the grads, he decided to pursue a career with an NGO. Most graduates of IIM-A, India's best business school, go on to 100K jobs in the UK and US.

The IIM campus was designed by Louis Khan (sp?), and is incredible; brick and concrete buildings built into lush gardens. It is quite clearly different from the rest of the city--the air is still and quiet behind its enclosing walls.

V. was clearly proud of having graduated from such an elite institution--admission is 1 out of 100. While reflecting on Vinay's thinly-veiled pride, and an earlier conversation at lunchtime with other AKIers during which V.'s Brahmin pedigree was raised, I began to understand V.'s place in the Indian hierarchy. He would be, to use his own words, part of the "creamy layer" of Indian society. Although he seems like a regular guy to me, he is indeed a part of the creamiest of layers. A brahim graduate of the country's best business school. I realised it is important for me not to assume that the people I'm spending time with are typical Indians--it is only the priviledged who can afford the luxury of a career in development.

After badminton, we had dinner at a local restaurant that caters to the late-eating bachelor crowd (wifeless and at the mercy of restaurants for food), and then had ice-cream in a new, yuppy part of Ahmedabad. Unlike other cities, where you might have to consciously seek out the poor neighbourhoods to see the underpriviledged, in Ahmedabad you have to leave the city and travel to the suburbs to see the non-poor parts of the city. That said, Ahmedabad has a rapidly growing middle-class, who eat designer thalis, wear designer saris, eat organic ice-cream and watch their bollywood movies in air-conditioned multiplexes. New housing compounds are shooting up in a circle around, but not in, the old city.

The BJP, who have recently lost the election, had coined the catchy term 'India shining' to describe the emergence of the middle class. Most people here will tell you that the BJP has, through economic liberalisation and tax cuts, contributed to this phenomenon. As I rode back from V.'s neighbourhood, I was thinking about the middle-class, and how good it is that people have money and can live with the basic amenities that we in the west take for granted. But how many are benefitting? In a country where most people are poor and live in rural areas, has the BJP's loss been a signal that the poor are being left behind? The suburbs may be shining, but I think the real Ahmedabad is still in the shadows of the old city, where poverty is on permanent display.

I had lunch today with A. and her husband. They are both architects, and their compound is close to Vinay's. Their apartment is beautifully designed, as are all acrhitect's homes. A.'s husband is hilarious, and had me laughing at his crazy stories about being interrogated by border guards while concussed, waiting in line for hours to catch a bus that leaves once a day only to have his sweater get snagged on the door and be bypassed by the line, and falling off a motorcycle and temporarily losing his vision. He's quite a clutz, I guess, but has managed to put a funny spin on his sometimes painful experiences.
- posted by aziz @ 9:56 a.m.