A Matter of Inconvenient Convenience

January through March is the marriage season in India. It is the coolest and driest time of year therefore lending itself well for large celebrations. Grooms wearing red turbans ride on white horses through the streets during their night processions to the wedding. Family, friends, and marching bands in glittering regalia surround the groom in merry cacophany; electric lanterns and general claustrophobia are joyfully expected. The streets bulge as cars and camels try to squeeze by the procession.

In the morning newspaper a "Matrimonials" section replaces what Americans would call the "Wanted Ads". Love-Marriage is a new and generally frowned upon practice. In the rural areas, like the Thar desert, it is completely unheard of and Arranged-Marriages encompass 100% of the marriages.

The Indian supreme court recently ruled to lower the legal age that boys could marry to 18 (from 21) to make it the same age for both boys and girls. This will likely have some affect in the big cities, but in much of Rajasthan the ruling will be ignored. Child-marriage, although illegal, remains a strong cultural tradition.

For example, our driver at GRAVIS was telling us last night about his marriage, and he is no exception. He comes from one of the villages where GRAVIS does its work.
Our driver was engaged at 3 or 4 years old. This arrangment was made by family elders who ensure that the couple will be of the same caste, similar economic status, good family relations and that's about it. Our driver was engaged to his first cousin who was two years younger than him. In this way the parents don't need to worry about who their child will marry when they grow older. However child mortality is high, and fiances may need to be renegotiated.

At the age of 14, our driver was married to his 12 year old bride. The ceremony took place, but the couple would not live together until later. This early wedding made sense economically for the family because and older cousin and another couple were getting married at the same time. Therefore only one wedding party and feast needed to be paid for. Lavish weddings often throw Indian families into unreturnable debt, but this too is often expected.

When our driver was 21 and his wife was 19, his wife moved to her in-laws house and they began their married life. A second procession in which the groom goes to get his bride from her house occurs at this time.

Our driver is now 23 or 24 with one child.

In other circumstances, couples will be arranged and married in their later teens. The couples are restricted from seeing eachother and often the groom will only see his brides face until after the wedding. Talking to one man on the train the other day though about the arrangement he had made for his nephew who was getting married the next day revealed that the girl had received a photo of the boy from a secret source and only much later did the boy obtain a picture of her. The uncle was quite amused.

I'm hoping to make it to a wedding while I am here to understand more of the tradition, and although I've been invited to two, haven't been able to make it to any yet.

As you may be able to tell, the whole concept of Marriage is completely different from how we may perceive it in the West. Questions about love and divorce don't even need to be asked.

Time Pass

Thank you all for the Birthday wishes!!!
And thank you Joey for your beautiful song!
It amazes me that we can send musical creations from the other side of the world!

I had a wonderful birthday in the city of Jaipur.
Well, the first part of the day was spent at a conference on the issue of Ageing in Developing Countries, which at first i didn't think applied to me at all. but then i thought, what better time to think about age and the passage of time than on your birthday? Don't worry I'm not feeling close to decrepit!
The end of the day ended with a lovely dinner with some new friends, just met that day, at their apartment. Two girls: Elleke from the Netherlands, Jana from Slovakia, two guys: Illke from the Netherlands and a local from Jaipur, plus of course my lovely friend Ruchi.

Ruchi is invaluable as a translator as she speaks both Hindi and English fluently. But more than that she's a wonderful coworker and travel companion!

Taking the train from Jaipur back to Jodhpur last night, we met two men, Shivdatt and Nepal who were from different desert villages. Shivdatt is working in Jodhpur and studying for an MBA, he would like to come study in the US. Nepal is trained as a teacher, but with the limited amount of work here, has found a stable position with the Indian Army instead. We talked about water, agriculture, arranged and child marriages, militant activity at the pakistan border, comparisons between rural India and rural America, our families and funny stories that we shared.
The long train ride went much faster with our pleasant "Time Pass" and new friends.

Thinking of all of you with affection!

The Desert

The Thar Desert is one of the driest places on the planet, but surprisingly it is the most inhabited desert in the world as well. Visiting the villages dispersed between sand dunes in the Thar last week, I was struck by the stark, beautiful landscape, the sun beating down on us, and the determination of the people who live here and all of the work that GRAVIS is doing. We drove in Jeeps through the dunes visiting to see the various structures that GRAVIS trains the community in building and supplies some of the funding:

taankas (the water tanks that store monsoon rainwater throughout the year for household drinking water)
beris (underground percolation wells)
khadins (bunds and dikes that slow down water moving across agricultural land and let it seep into the soil)
naadis (community ponds used for drinking water and livestock water)

In just 20 years, GRAVIS has supplied sustainable sources of drinking water for thousands of people in the Thar, as well as working on sanitation, education, women's empowerment, mineworker's rights, and starting village development committies which choose the beneficiaries for projects like taankas and discuss issues that arise in the village.

Supplying drinking water close to the home is crucial for several reasons:
it improves health, sanitation, and chance of survival
it makes the people more independent intimes of drought
it decreases the daily drudgery of women who have to walk miles and miles every day to gather water for their families from distant wells and ponds, carring heavy pots back home on their heads
it allows girl children the chance to go to school rather than gather water
it increases gender equality in the village
and on and on

As you can tell, there's so much to say about what's going on here...
One of the most important things is that in all of the projects GRAVIS requires beneficiaries and the villages to take ownership of the projects and work on them to create a sense of self empowerment and responsibility. This, I believe is a sustainable way of ural development.

We visited a small tailoring shop where the women had recieved a micro-loan from their Self-Help Group (a group of village women who donate 50 rupees monthly to their own fund and can use it to start up small businesses and save money) to buy sewing machines. Now they are sewing shirts, pants, and lengas (traditional women's dress). Just getting the fabric from the market or city, these women sew beautiful, strong clothing for the rest of the village. And I had thought all of the clothes must have come from the city!

I wanted to post a bunch of pictures for you all, because that would be the best way to see what i am seeing, but the internet connection is being fickle. So I'll just have to try again later.
Much Love!

First Project

First official day of work today with GRAVIS (Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti)! I am starting out with a project devising a curriculum for the desert schools on sanitation and personal hygeine. The access to clean water is so important for this!! There is very little water out in the Thar desert, so implementing practices for adequate sanitation is difficult. If you have any ideas about games kids could play or activites that I could include in the curriculum to promote health, please email me. The World Health Organization reports that simple hand washing could save up to 1 million lives a year!
I expect to be going out to the villages tomorrow or the next day!

Jodhpur

Remember how we were saying that all of the south Indian cities were starting to blend together? Well, north India couldn't be more different. Within a days time we traveled from the lush mountains of Kerala to the dusty streets of Rajasthan. The city of Jodhpur (yes, you can look it up on Google Earth) was a hub of caravans, trading, Moghul warriors located in the great Thar desert which extends west to Pakistan. Arriving yesterday, I was shocked by the refuge-camp look of the city. Mostly I think it is just the lack of greenery, which derives from a lack of water, which after all is exactly why I'm here.
The NGO I will be working for has their office in a district called Milk Man Colony, which is also quite appropriate when you note the number of soft-eyed, barrel-bodied and odorous cows walking up and down our street. Hundreds of flattened cow pies lie in rows drying on almost all the roof top patios to be used as fuel soon.
After the somewhat surprising impression of the place where I will be spending the next four months, dad and I went to walk up to a temple we saw perched on the side of a sandstone cliff of a plateau. At the top we started talking to a couple local fellows who demonstrated the correct protocol in the temple and before we knew it we were being invited top their houses to drink chai, meet their whole families and next door neighbors. Talking with these lovely people as best we could and smiling with them made this place come alive to me. Depite the greyness of the surroundings there is so much incredible color and life here! Wow.
Today the two guys we orginally met, Vinod and Tejkeran, took us up to the stunning Meherangarh fort on their motorcycles. The intricate artistic masonry work out of red sandstone to build this daunting fort for warrior kings is indescribable. The fort was actually occupied by a raj until 1972!!! After which point it became a museum. Maybe dad will write more on this later.
But another reason why I am so excited is that after talking with the director of GRAVIS, the ngo I'll be working with, I got a very good sense of thje kind of service work that they do in rural desert villages outside of town. Their projects for rainwater harvesting and water resource conservation are totally in line with sustainability, self reliance, and Gandhian principles. I am fully looking forward to throwing myself into these service projects. I can't imagine how much I will learn over the next several months! And I am really glad my dad gets to see a little bit of what I'll be up to. Hopefully he will be able to go visit a village tomorrow and stay the night at a field station in the desert! (There's not enough room in the jeep for me tomorrow, but I'll have plenty of opportunity.)
By the way the groom of a wedding that happened yesterday lives across the street, so his family members have been playing boppin music all yesterday and today and I suspect it'll last all week! That's what we're hearing in the background here in India! I feel like I'm relearning how the world works everyday. Sure, there are some similarities and consistent human traits, but travelling in other countries really does make one think about how disimiliar America is from the rest of the world. It's quite a bubble that we live in in the US.

A couple comments!!!!

Here are a few comments people have emailed to us!
If you would like to comment but don't want to sign up for the Blogger thing than just email me and I will post it for you!!! sandhya.tillotson@gmail.com
much love!


nancy auker
What great experiences you are sharing with us. This is the type of trip I most enjoy being among the people, interacting, finding-out what's happening. You have planned the trip so well, avoiding the foreign tourist routes. Good for you!
What are the "trusty klunkers" you are using to get to the New Age place?...I suspect they are old bicycles.
Much love and luck in continuing your marvelous journey!


Todd Auker
Enjoying the blog...email me back and I'll know this is reaching you. Love Uncle Todd.

Renee
Loved hearing about your first day.
Today is full moon day, so there may be special festivals or pujas that you can be on the look out for.
Love,
me


Ray
Hi Cliff and Sandhya!
Thanks for keeping us posted. I copied you on a message to my Swedish/American friend, Gunilla who lives in Auroville, Sweden and San Francisco parts of the year. Nice lady and kindred spirit.
Bon Journey,
Ray

Emily Rumberger
SANDHYA!!
woohoo!! i am SO excited for you that you are leaving for india so soon!! you must be incredibly excited yourself!! i just looked over your itinerary and it looks AMAZING!! you are going to have so much fun on your adventures!
well i wont keep you too long since i know you must be busy packing and getting ready. just wanted to let you know how much i miss you and how happy i am for you! i'll be checked the blog religiously and am excited to hear of your fun adventures!! :)
lots of love!,
em


su su
I'm so thrilled for you-----have to get the atlas and flow your itinerary ------love Su-Su

Crikey! wild elephants!

Wow! Kerala is Green! India's southwestern state seems more like Costa Rica to us than anything. The little tourist town of Kumily is up in lush tropical mountains and much cooler than the dry plains to the east. It seems like the cloud forests of Monteverde. The town buzzes with western eco tourists who have come to see the wildlife, buy the spices grown there and have an aurovedic massage. We were only there to do the first. Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! The Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary next to town is also a tiger perserve, but unfornately we didn't see any. I would have liked to add this species to my listing of "big cats seen in the wild" but too bad! We went on a tour boat through the flooded valley of the preserve which was done by the British when they were in control. The preserve with the reservoir in the middle is hundreds of square kilometers and we only got a peek at some of the shorelines and ridgelines from the boat.

However, we did see several herds of big, hooved animals (not really sure what those were), some deer, wild boar and birds.

Also, ELEPHANTS!!!!!
Rounding a bend in the lake we came upon a mid-sized, reddish colored Indian elephant feeding right at the shore. He or she would grab a tuft of grass with the tip of "his" trunk, rip the grass out and proceed to spin the end of his trunk around in circular configurations, slap the grass against his foot a couple times, maybe slap his back with it to get more dirt off and finally place it in his mouth. I had never seen an elephant move his trunk so nimbly and preform such and intricate feeding pattern!!!

20 minutes later, noticing 3 or 4 other boats floating in the same area, our boat captian sped over to see what the interest was about. Standing several feet in the water, a herd of six elephants were drinking and washing. The two small elephants were positioned in the middle of the group with the four big elephants surrounding them and facing in four different directions. These elephants surely knew this area was tiger habitat as well!

After several minutes of gawking and photo taking, the elephants had had enough of us and five of them went trooping back into the forest. The biggest elephant and supposedly the leader (who is often the oldest female in a herd I believe, if my scant knowledge from National Geographic is accurate) stayed behind at the water to fend us off. Raising her trunk and trumpeting loudly twice she charged, spraying water towards the direction of the boats. We were nowhere close enough to be harmed, but we sure knew she didn't want us there anymore. After making her point, she swung her trunk from side to side and followed her herd up the bank and into the trees.

Superstar

Strolling the streets of Madurai, Dad and I come upon a gathering of dudes standing transfixed in the street. We look up too, and see a giant Bollywood poster of a handsome man and beautiful woman. A garland of real flowers is being hung over the male actor's photo. The boys on the street start chanting something to the image of their hero and one shouts over to us while pointing at the poster explaining "Superstar! Superstar!" The next instant Dad is pointing back at the boy and yelling, "No, you're the Superstar!" To which all of his friends start a spontaneous applause.

Statue makers

Swamimalai is a small town north of Kumbakonam in the state of Tamil Nadu. It is well known for its bronze statue making. Dad and I are dropped off in town by an auto rickshaw and without knowing where we are at all, we go out to see if we can find some of the fabled bronze casting. Finding ome small shop on the corner which holds statues of Krishna, Shiva, Ganesh and many other gods and goddesses, we gaze through the windows since the shop is closed. A neighbor notices our interest and soon the son of the owner arrives followed shortly by the owner. Before we know it we're being whisked away by this jovial artisan to his workshop. Here we learn about and observe the whole process of bronze statue making. Each of the steps of the process is performed by a different artist to create the finished piece. First, hard wax is heated over coals to soften and become malleable. For the structure of the statue it is mixed with tree pitch. A softer wax is used to create the arms, legs and delicate features of the statue. The precision and ease with which the artists mold the wax between their fingertips and shape it with a knife is amazing. This takes about 3 to 5 days for a 12 inch statue and many more for the statues that are 10 feet tall. After a complete statue is made out of wax, it is covered with a clay mixture until it is totally unrecognizable. It looks more like a blob of mud rather than a prized statue. Nevertheless it is placed in a large fire to bake and let all of the wax run out of two openings that have been left in the statue. As the wax runs out, the clay mold remains.Next, molten bronze, which is an alloy of several different metals is poured into the mold replacing the wax. Once cooled, the casting is broken off and slowly the statue emeges from its earthly encasement. The clay is chipped away until just the dusty metal remains.Now the master work begins. Metal files come out to buff up the statue and let the golden color show. Holding a chisel in one hand and a hammer in the other the artisans carve away at the statues they're holding securely with their feet as they sit on the ground. Detailed belts jewerly, fingers, and facial expressions come to life as the chisel works its magic. When the statue is finally done it glistens.I never knew these bronze statues were done completely by hand! Or that a new mold must be created every time! Although there are classic characters and positions to create, each statue will be unique. Each Shiva Nataraj will be different. We really loved getting to understand the process and meet the people who are enjoying creating these statues.

Scenes from a bus ride

In an open air brickyard factory on the side of the road a man balances 8 bricks on his head. In perfect unison he swings both arms up to stack 2 more on top.

We come to a stop and suddenly I hear chickens sqwauking. Over the side of the bus come a flapping bundle of flying feathers and several pairs of feet tied together with string. A few more bundles are thrown off the roof to a catcher below, followed by 2 full and screeching burlap sacks of presumably similar contents.

A woman smiles with love at the infant she cradles in her arms and then turns to the world with a face of apprehension which becomes a glare.

Waterbuffalo plow through a river in front of their owner who's swimming frantically to catch them.

An elephant walks down the street. A short while later a man with an elephantitic leg walks down the street in the opposite direction.

Itinerary continued

Hello! just a short itinerary for the rest of the trip:

Feb 1
left Auroville by rented bicycle to ride back to the city of Pondicherry
Took a bus to the town of Kumbakonum (4.5 hours)

Feb 2
Took an autorickshaw to the town of Swamimalai to learn about the ancient art of bronze casting statues. the creativity and workmanship that goes into these statues is truly incredible! will write more about the process of creating them soon.
took a bus ride to Trichy (3 hours)

Feb 3
Visited the Rock Fort Temple in the old city of Trichy today. Man, we wished we had our rock climbing shoes to jump on some of this steep granite, but of course that probably wouldn't have been acceptable.
Taking our first train ride at noon to Madurai. (Another huge Indian city, so far it is difficult for me to distinguish between all of them.)
Try to find the birthplace of Sri Meenakshi this afternoon or tomorrow.

Feb 4
Bus to little town of Kumily north of the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary. (Yes Becky we're finally going to the beautiful region of Kerala!!!)
Visit the animals! See a tiger hopefully!

Feb 5
Take a bus to the coastal city of Cochin (Kochi) and explore

Feb 6
Take an afternoon flight from Cochin through Mumbai and on to Jodhpur, the place I'm (sandhya's) volunteering.

Feb 7-9
Explore Jodhpur together and get sandhya set up before cliff leaves on the 9th.

So many stories to tell you all and too bad it takes FOREVER to load up pictures.
But we've got to go catch our train.
Hope you're all doing well!!!!!!!