A visit to the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort (January 25)

            Today we experienced the Majestic Taj Mahal. Although the weather was foggy and cold, we made the most of the experience and took lots of pictures and some of us even wore our saris. The fog gave the Taj Mahal a dreamlike quality that was truly unique.

            The Taj Mahal is the burial site of the Mumtaz Mahal, a queen of the Mogul empire and took 22 years to complete. The Taj Mahal is a stunning white because white is the color of mourning in Indian culture. The perfection and detail in the construction of the structure is amazing. Each tiny piece of inset stone is perfectly flush and individually shaped.

            Throughout our trip we have learned that India is a place of religious diversity, where many religions such as Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity coexist. Monuments such as the Taj Mahal and the Agra fort are examples of this coexistence. The Taj Mahal was built by a Muslim king, and even though this is a predominantly Hindu society, all Indians are proud of this world wonder.

            The Agra fort is the palace of the King Shah Jahan, and was built together with the Taj Mahal. Even though the Agra fort was built together with the Taj Mahal, many of us had not heard of the Agra fort before coming to India. We believe that the Agra fort is underrated and enjoyed our time exploring the different sections of palaces.

            We learned that the king wanted the different religions in his empire to live in harmony, and in order to establish this he had three wives. One was Hindu, one Christian and one Muslim. This example shows that India has a long history of different religions living in peace. 

Visiting Hosekote Village

Today's visit to Hosekote village was quite different than the village visit near Pondicherry. We had the opportunity to spend time in a rural village on a normal day, not during a festival. Yet we were still met with warm hospitality in the form of tea, biscuits, and flowers. We began the morning learning about "Chetana", the village's independently run NGO that Christ University's Centre for Social Action helped start. Chetana is run solely by women and they focus the project on childhood education, nutrition, and hygiene as well as women empowerment and the formation of self help groups (SHGs). 

We met with the Board of Directors for Chetana to further understand the SHGs. All of the board members are women, it is very common for SHGs or other improvement projects in poor communities to be run by women. This is because a large majority of men from poor families have become alcoholics and are unable to support their families. Hosekote women found a solution to feeding their families and educating their children through SHGs. SHGs are composed of approximately 5-10 women in the community who pool together their money to create mini banks. When women in SHGs in communities surrounding Hosekote need money to start a small business, buy a sheep or goat, or send their child to school, they will propose their project to the Board of Directors who will determine whether or not the mini banks will give a loan. The Board of Directors oversees around 60 village SHGs. Already the Board has given loans to construct a toilet in every household in Hosekote as well as send multiple children to private schools where they receive quality education. 

Christ University's Centre for Social Action (CSA) was able to remove themselves from the project in 2010, after seven years of developing Chetana. Now the program is self-sustaining, one of the first in CSA history and will serve as a model for NGOs working in other rural communities. In addition to making visible improvements in the community, Chetana has created a stronger sense of community in the village. The Board told us five years ago different families in the community would avoid interacting due to superiority complexes. But  the formation of SHGs has led to close bonds between the women of the community. They now smile at each other and stop to chat in public. Additionally, women are more willing to help each other out when water runs short or they need to trade for food.

In the future, the Board of Directors hopes to turn the mini banks into a private bank to increase the number of loans they can give and improvements the village will see. They've developed 50 goals for the village and look forward to meeting one after the other. Overall, our group left the village with a strong sense of admiration for the resilience and resourcefulness displayed by the women of Hosekote village. These women and Chetana are contributing positively to the quickly changing Indian society. 

Temples and Shopping: Experiencing the Old and New

Thursday January 22nd we had the chance to experience both the old and the new in India. We started off our day visiting two temples and ended our day shopping in the massive Commercial Street district.

The first Hindu temple we went to was home to the largest Nandi bull statue in the world. We got to visit the statue and see an old tradition in a new way. People would drive up to the area around the temple on two-wheelers (motorbikes) or four-wheelers (cars) to get their vehicles blessed by the temple workers. The blessing of new things before use is an old tradition that now, in a globalized India, includes motorized vehicles.

The second temple site was home to the International Society for Krishna Consciousness  (ISKCON). We were introduced to the initiative by a monk who stressed the importance of realizing that we are all human and therefore no matter oh nationally or religious background we should all treat each other with respect. For me this connected to the purpose of this trip which was to learn about India's culture and the people who live here. I've done a lot of compare and contrast over the last weeks but I've always tried not to judge and to keep an open mind about new experiences because there is not just one right way to do something. I think we have a lot to learn from other cultures if we remember to respect them for what they are.

We ended our day getting to bargain and explore on Commercial Street, an example of the great commercialization that India has seen in recent years. Rows upon rows of shops sell jewelry, clothes, scarves, and trinkets. Getting to experience the art of bargaining is something I know is exciting, yet dreaded for myself and many of my classmates. It creates much more of a connection between shopper and shopkeeper which I very much enjoy. But it also adds a lot of pressure compared to the traditional shopping experience in the U.S.

Parikrma Humanity Foundation and some dinner!

We've been busy during our time in Bangalore visiting and learning about many NGOs. One that particularly stood out to us was Parikrma Humanity Foundation. Parikrma is addressing the growing gap, in urban India, between the privileged and the poor by providing education to children whose families live in the slums. many of the children from Parikrma join at 5 years and stay till in their twenties, with a less than 1% dropout rate. Their mission is to complete the circle and have students who have found success through Parikrma come back to positively influence the current children.

All of us had the opportunity to visit the classrooms (one 8th grade and one 1st grade class) and interact with the children. We exchanged songs and stories. We sang them the St. Olaf fight song and Grace even shared the legendary tale of Paul Bunyan. It was an amazing cross cultural exchange and we couldn't contain our smiles as the first graders told us all about their hobbies and asked us questions about our ambitions and hobbies.

On Wednesday we had another cool interactive opportunity as we worked with culinary students at the Department of Hotel Management to cook ourselves a delicious dinner. On the menu was a corn salad, fish, ginger chicken, fried peppers, and of course naan, just to name a few dishes.

Bangalore Adventures: Day Trip to NIMHANS

We are halfway through our time here in India, and Bangalore is treating us nicely.  The weather here is still very warm as Bangalore is located in the state of Karnataka (in the south of India).  Unfortunately, the few words of Tamil we had been learning in the earlier part of the trip aren't much use here because the local language is Kannada (sounds like Canada if you don’t speak any of India’s 100s of languages).

Monday we had the opportunity to visit the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Science (NIMHANS) at two of their different locations. NIMHANS is the largest mental health institution in Asia. Originally called “the Lunatic Asylum,” NIMHANS has transformed itself into a leading rehabilitative treatment center for those with severe mental illness.  Clients received treatment either as inpatients or through daily visits to the facility. We were able to tour the building and see the many different types of activities and occupational therapies available to the patients. They worked to teach vocational skills and crafts in order to empower the patients, in addition to their treatment.

The NIMHANS Center for Wellbeing (NCWB) is an outpatient service center that works to promote mental health through training and outreach. Most of their clients are dealing with mild mental health illness and do not require serious interventions. The center helps to spread information, awareness, and non-judgmental support, as well as offering preventative services. Some of their more popular clinics include Stress and Lifestyle, Clinic for Youth and Wellbeing, Trauma Recovery, Marital Enrichment, and Psychiatric Social Work. It was really cool to see how NIMHANS combated the stigma surrounding mental health in India by embedding this center into the community.

We ended the day with entertainment and dinner at the Saint Marks Hotel. The entertainment featured many traditional dances from different regions in India. Each region in India has its own distinctive culture and art forms. There are far too many to count but the dancers gave us a wonderful sampling of just a few! In particular, we were all amazed by one form wherein the dancer balanced a live flame on his head while dancing with his feet on the ridge of a copper pot.  At the end of the show, we got to join the dancers on the stage to learn another dance, called ‘the doll dance.’ This dance is supposed to replicate the movements of a tanjore doll (Indian bobblehead from Tamil Nadu). The food consisted of traditional dishes from the Karnataka state. All in all, we had an eye-opening morning and an enthralling evening, followed by a good night’s sleep!

Lalbagh Gardens Observation Project

On Friday morning we visited Lalbagh Gardens for our first outing in Bangalore. Lalbagh Gardens is a well known botanical garden in Bangalore, established in 1760. It has a large glass house that hosts an annual flower show, which we missed by a couple days. Lalbagh is also home to India’s largest collection of tropical plants and has a large lake you can walk around. It is a very popular tourist attraction in Bangalore.

We were assigned to participate in an observation project with psychology honor students from Christ University. We were given a couple hours to observe any nonverbal behavior exhibited by people in the park and then make a presentation on what we observed. Each group got to pick their topics and they ended up ranging from fitness, to couples, to technology.

Some of us had a unique experience because we got the chance to interact with the Indian students from Christ as well as an international student from Holland. It was interesting to compare observations not only between India and the US but also between those two countries and Holland.

 It was really interesting to compare the differences between our students and the CU student’s views of the behaviors. For example, we discussed how we were not expecting to see couples holding hands based on what we’ve been told, but the CU students were not surprised, saying that the garden was a place where public displays of affection were more accepted.

Walking throughout the garden it felt like Central Park in New York City. There were people jogging (which we haven't seen people doing), friends walking and taking pictures, and families enjoying a walk in this beautiful place. One group observed how technology affects the display of affection. It was clear that people using their phones were not being as affectionate as others who were not using phones and interacting with one another..

Happy Pongal!

On Monday morning, we departed from Chennai for Pondicherry, where we spent two days learning about the French-influenced beach town and celebrating the annual Pongal festival with a nearby rural community. It was a nice change of pace from crowded and colorful Chennai. We enjoyed strolling along the promenade by the Bay of Bengal and observing the different aspects of Indian life and navigating India sans instructor for the first time :)

 On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to learn about and take part in celebrations of the Hindu festival known as Pongal. Pongal is a harvest festival celebrated mainly in the state of Tamil Nadu. Though it is celebrated on the 14th of January, a St. Olaf connection with the Arasamangalum village allowed us to experience a full-fledged celebration a few days early. The village we visited was a Dalit community, meaning that residents of the village occupied the lowest caste in Indian society. Though India's caste system has not been recognized for the last 60 years, descendants of the former lower castes still face oppression from members of higher castes. As we have explored different Indian landscapes, we have learned about the residual effects of the former caste system and the limitations that it imposes on Dalit communities. For example, Dalits are confined to daily wage labor and many of them live in extreme poverty without consistent access to basic needs such as sanitation, energy, clean water, etc. Communities experience isolation, lack of opportunity, and even violence from other castes, which has perpetuated cycles of oppression long after the eradication of the caste system. With this knowledge, we were unsure of what to expect this Pongal celebration.

When we arrived, we were greeted by an overwhelmingly hospitable welcome. Representatives from the 750-person village welcomed us with loud music and drumming, colorful bangles and tilakas pressed onto our foreheads, which symbolize blessings and spiritual wisdom. The leader of the community, a powerful single woman named Selvie, invited us into her village by explaining that while they don't have much to offer, they wanted to offer everything they had to us. This notion of authentic hospitality permeated the entire experience. Though many of the community members spoke only Tamil, they still displayed concern for our needs and welcomed us with open arms. Through smiles, confused head nods, and various nonverbal gestures, we were surprised at the level of communication we were able to share.

We began the celebration by helping community members make sweet Pongal, which is a traditional rice dish symbolizing bounty and blessings for the year's harvest. Pongal is cooked over open fire in new clay pots. When the pots boil over, it is customary to cheer and celebrate the overflow of good things yet to come. After we prepared the Pongal, we joined children, parents, and grandparents alike in enthusiastic music and dance under the 90-degree sun. The heat did not put a damper on the pure joy in the crowd! Games and coconuts filled with refreshing coconut water followed, and we cheered Julia on as she became the first woman in the village to ever win one of the traditional games. Next, we tried our hand at the art of creating kolums, which are beautifully intricate chalk designs created with rice flour by the matriarch of the household to bless the family for the day ahead. We were then ushered down the road to a community member's home, where we were served a huge lunch of traditional foods including the Pongal we'd made together. We enjoyed the meal on fresh banana leaves on the floor, and were reassured that it was in fact normal to eat with our hands.

After the celebrations died down, we joined community members in a circle to process the day and learn more about the operations of the village, and initiatives in place to empower Dalits. We had the opportunity to ask questions about gender roles, relationships, outcomes, and means of oppression in that specific community. As a group of 21 women, we were blown away by the strong female leaders in the village who were working to create sustainable change within the Dalit community through education, representation, and improved quality of life. We left the conversation feeling humbled by the happiness and hospitality shown by those who had so little, and felt hopeful for the seeds of change that are being planted. We continued to process this intense cultural experience in our class meetings and discussed the implications of India's complicated social structure.

We were sincerely touched by the genuine hospitality shown to us by this community, and the experience shaped our perspectives on community and social development. We left Pondicherry with a new lens on India's diverse identity, and look forward to discovering further differences and similarities in Bangalore.

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Chennai Weekend

Greetings from India!! We have been enjoying some beautiful weather and keeping very busy exploring Chennai. 

On Saturday, our main objective was to hit the beach but we made some other stops along the way. First, we drove to St. Thomas Basilica, where St. Thomas himself is buried. A lot of us have been very surprised at the prominence of Christianity here, and this site was especially beautiful and significant to see. We then headed to Marina Beach, the second longest beach in the world! While we couldn't wear bathing suits or swim, many of us dipped our toes in and the beach was the perfect backdrop for many photos taken by us and our MCC student guides. After grabbing ice cream, we headed to another religious site, a Hindu temple. After taking our shoes off, we were allowed to enter the temple and got to see all the beautiful designs on the shrines (each one held the statue of a god or goddess) and observe men, women, and children worshipping. It was also very interesting to notice that the temple seemed to serve as a gathering space for large groups and families, which further exemplified the communal aspect of the culture here in India. By this time, we were all very hungry and had a delicious dinner of savory Indian crepes called dosas with a variety of sauches and fillings. 

Sunday was an entirely different, but equally interesting day! We went to a movie theater to see a Bollywood movie: Bajirao Mastani. While a lot of aspects of seeing a movie are the same here (big comfy seats and popcorn), had the movie was nearly three hours long and in Hindi, not English. However, the subtitles helped us follow the dramatic love story, and the costumes, dancing, and music were incredible. After that, we got to experience an Indian mall for a couple hours before heading home.

It's been incredible experiencing many unique aspects of Chennai, and today we took a bus to Pondicherry which we know will be an awesome new adventure!

Visiting Internship Sites with MCC Students

Our first major outing in India was this past Thursday when we accompanied MCC Social Work Students on their field work visits to local NGOs. Two Indian students were matched with a couple Oles to allow for a more intimate experience with the locals. Each NGO focused on a different social issues in India ranging from domestic violence, education, disabled children, and poverty in the community. Across the board, the day proved to be incredibly insightful and moving for all 21 of us. Some had opportunities to visit homes in the communities, others taught team building exercises, and many interacted directly with those suffering from these issues.

One example was an NGO called Mumford Community Development Society, which focused on community based rehabilitation for disabled people of all ages. Rachael and Natalia had the opportunity to work directly with members from the NGO as well as their clients. Part of their day consisted of visiting a rehabilitation center located in a slum along Marina Beach where they learned about the various mental disabilities affecting the patients. The highlight of their day was participating in a relay race with all the patients they met.

Amanda and Erin had the opportunity to visit a similar NGO, Krupa, which focuses on providing assistance to families with disabled children through multiple venues. In the morning, they were able to visit client families at their own homes. In the afternoon, they visited two vocational training programs that teach women from the fishing community, family members of the disabled, and ex-convicts how to weave, sew, and embroider beautiful traditional Indian clothing.

On Friday all St. Olaf and MCC students came together to reflect on their experiences the previous day. Brief presentations were given by each set of students to share the most impactful moments from their field work visits. Common themes included strength, resilience, empowerment, sustainability, and the difference between learning vs. doing. Dr. Miriam Samuel from the MCC Social Work Department gave a closing lecture about the importance of cross-cultural sensitivity and competency when traveling abroad and interacting closely with people from another culture. Overall, the experiences proved to be quite powerful for both MCC and St. Olaf students and a great start to a month of learning and traveling in India!