Do Lucknow

I’m sitting with David at a trendy wireless cafe called Passion in Vasant Vihar Market. He’s working on video editing for his non-profit (http://www.realeyesarts.com) and I wanted to tell you one more thing about yesterday, now that yesterday happened. How should I tell it? like a detective novel: Geeti entered the room wearing a flowing magenta Iranian dance costume and a light smile. The teachers and remaining students sat on the couches… nah.
In the Rose style: She danced two really pretty dances with twirls, one sad and one happy, and then I sang my two songs about love and abandonment and leaving, and made Aftab cry. Then we tried to get Wafadar to dance to the Khajuraro song with Aishwarya Rai that he does so hilariously, but he wouldn’t unless we all did, so we all did, until the dumb librarian insisted on recording it with her phone, which is not so cool for an essentially very religious dude like Wafadar. In the process she knocked my camera off the table and broke it, but I didn’t realize till I was packing at 2 am so I wasn’t sad about that yet. Then we three last students (Sadaf was out with her parents arranging her future) walked out to the front gate, just like happens in my detective story, and saw Prem a little ways off waiting for me. Geeti said, That’s Prem the hero of the story! and the teachers were like oh that’s him, the hero! and then Geeti went over to Prem and said, Rose wrote a story about you and so that’s why they’re talking about you, about how good and honest you are. He turned his back to her and started to cry, but I didn’t quite realize what was happening, just that now Geeti was crying, so I hugged her and sat on the rickshaw and we rode away, me covering my face with the dupatta and him wiping his eyes and pedalling fast. Then, like I said before, I went to get my wedding dress. I was already emotional so to deal with complete and utter unprofessionalism from one of the most respected cloth and tailor stores in Lucknow made me almost insane. I know it might be hard to imagine, but I am my mother’s daughter. By 8pm, three hours later, I was heading back home. I popped into the Sidiqqis to say bye, went to dinner, came home and spent the entire night packing. Sadaf stayed up with me. At about 2am a storm came in and dumped an inch of water on the city, and took out the electricity. At 3:30 I realized I had better find a candle instead of miss my train by watching the lightning and wind. The rain felt so cool! I felt my luck turning around. I heard the doorbell at 3:50; that was Prem waiting for me. I stuffed the last things on the floor into my huge duffel bag, realized I couldn’t bring the oatmeal and coffee to Ladakh, and left the house. At that point only one person, Sadaf’s dad, was still asleep. The whole city was so quiet and empty and wet. At the station I gave Prem all the money I had saved by taking non-ac instead of the Shatabdi to make sure the evil eye really would go away (600 rp). I know Prem will be ok. If people like Prem were allowed to rise in business and government, instead of the goondas and sons of politicians, India would be unstoppable. It took two coolies to carry my bags but I made it, finally, to Nirinder and Mridula’s apartment in RK Puram.
Now Mira and Sunita are coming to Ladakh, so I’ll stay up there the next two weeks instead of going to Pune.

I hope to see everyone soon!
rose

Prem ji and Rose

Our group photo

Engrossed in Ibn e Safi’s “The mysterious screams”

My bike ride to school

Tomorrow is my last day in Lucknow. Brian, Maryam and Nathan have left and Geeti, Rohish, and Sadaf will leave after the weekend. I’m right in the middle, balancing a year.

For the past two months I’ve been reading detective novels. It reminds me of when I was in 5th grade and discovered Sherlock Holmes. The author Ibn e Safi lived in Allahabad and died in the 1980s and is wonderfully funny and equally hilarious, in a very Hindustani style. There are more theatrics and ghazals. And sometimes exoticised Americans who exoticize India. The stories inspired me to write one of my own for my final project, and I’ve been working on it for the past month with a teacher, Sheba Iftekhar, whose family is from Allahabad and whose father was a close friend of Ibn e Safi. I unveiled the plot yesterday and read a couple chapters, and it was a good reminder how keeping secrets can be so rewarding. In my story, a new Lucknowi terrorist group (originally from Aligarh, of course, there could be no home-grown Lucknowi terrorists) takes Brian hostage. Aftab, Wafadar, Nathan and Rohish go around helping the detective, but Rose sends Prem to investigate independently and Prem uncovers all the clues, finally riding up behind the gun-weilding detective wannabes pulling Brian on his rickshaw. Prem is the hero. It came out to 20 pages but I’m still working on it.

Prem is taking me to the train station at 4:45 Saturday morning in another heroic act. I’m meeting my brother David in Delhi and then Brooke in Ladakh, my best friend since seventh grade. We used to eat ice cream in the fog and argue a lot. Now we mostly agree and almost never eat ice cream. She’s been in India for the past six or seven months doing an incredible amount of Vipassana, yoga and service, and she’s going back to America on May 7th. David, Brooke and I will be in the mountains for a week. I never made it to the Lucknow Vipassana dhamma, or the botanical gardens. Or Allahabad, Jharkand, Ayodhya or Bhopal. On the 8th I’m heading down to Pune to spend my last week in India with my aunt Mira and cousin Sunita.

Day before yesterday my calligraphy teacher Mohammed Ali said: no one can say where they will be next; we’re not in control of our destinations. All we can do is sit on the bike and pedal as hard as we can. It’s not a very American philosophy, but it’s what I’m doing. I have no idea what will happen when I get back to the States; what kind of job I’ll take, if I’ll go back to energy and climate change or intelligence analysis or keep writing Urdu detective stories.

Today I said my goodbyes to Bhavna and the Darzi family. Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to the Siddiqis, my singing teacher and everyone at the institute. Geeti is presenting some kathak dances, then I’m going to pick up my wedding dress from Aminabad, have a goodbye dinner with my housemates, pack my bags, and set the alarm. I’m ending my blog with a list! Just like I started it.

This note/poem is from the rickshaw driver Prem who has been taking me all around town for the past 7 months, getting my fruits and vegetables, and protecting my life in various little ways. My translation is not totally clear, the poem has lots of literary Hindi in it; he was well educated. He carried it around with him all day, and then gave it to me as I was coming inside tonight. I don’t really know what comes through in the translation, or how it sounds, but it made me cry a lot. It turns out he’s a poet, and I wanted to share it because of that, because it’s so unexpected and beautiful. He’s a white-haired grave-looking bony man who barely makes eye-contact except when giving advice and smiles almost too shyly while turning away and muttering “Thik! Thik!” And he always calls me Sahab; this is the first place he has addressed me as behen, sister. I always call him bhai-Sahab, just like how I say Adab-Namaste, to be safe and cover all my bases. Though sometimes I do say Prem-bhai, brother. The other day I asked if I could interview him and record it so that when I left India I would have something to remember all my acquaintances by. This follows in that vein, I think. One more thing worth mentioning is that having daughters, paying for the wedding and providing a dowry, is such a huge financial burden here. The social economics of daughters is the cause of girl abortions, infanticides, and suicides. According to a recent study, there are 500,000 fewer girls than boys born *every year* in India. The people aborting tend to be in higher income brackets. Poor people who cannot afford the burden are paying it. The logic of ecology says that at some point girls will become precious; but if that’s true, why not already? Aah, culture, when will you be less confusing.

From this hand’s palm
Which could have had a thousand holes
You gave whatever you wanted
So what did you actually give?

Sister is a traveler, coming and going
Memories are left on the road
My own dear sister
Very lovely and good prayers.

In my life there are two heavily laden aspects
Comfort and sadness.
Comfort has torn its relationship with my life
and sadness has joined my life.

Life has worries, difficulties, and things you have to do
I am settled between these three.
The biggest thing is this
How will I marry my three daughters?
Accha sister ji, now I will end this writing
because tears have started to flow from my eyes.

Sister, the day that you leave, what will happen to us?
(You) will come, will come, to someone
Memories will come.

Your foot servant,
Prem Nath Kashyap