And Such Is the Paradox of Living

I'm winding up my first year in law school; only three more weeks of class before finals. It has been a stressful but productive year. I've struggled to find time for everything, but that's par for the course, supposedly. I've barely done anything with my music — nothing new has been written, but I've managed to do a bit of mixing and mastering. My language study has fallen behind; I was keeping up with Mandarin and French in the fall (didn't find time for Spanish). Now I'm back to Hindi/Urdu, because I'll be returning to India this summer. I will be working in a legal internship in Hyderabad (although Telugu is the official state language, Urdu is most common in the capital of Andhra Pradesh), for the Council for Social Development, advocating for women, children, and disadvantaged social groups.

I don't get to do much reading outside of class material, but I'm currently working on Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. I'm still on Swann's Way, but it is by far the most amazing novel I've ever read. The last french novel I read was Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma — fast-paced and a bit thrilling, whereas reading Proust is exactly like the first paragraph of Swann's Way:

Delhi Belly

Our first night in Delhi was an unfortunate introduction. I had not slept for two nights in a row, and our hotel did not send our driver, forcing us to use a prepaid taxi. A word of advice: don't give anyone your taxi voucher until you've arrived at your intended destination. Our driver was in fact a tout, taking us instead to a "tourist info" center where we were told that there was a "mistake" in our hotel reservation and that without our reservation number we were screwed. But we had already called at the airport to confirm our booking, convincing me that although I watched the guy dial the hotel's number we were in fact talking to someone in a back room. I let the man think we were desperate and willing to do anything, accepting his sales pitch on a tour of the Golden Triangle (Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur) while I considered our actual options. Once he started using underhanded sales (manipulation) techniques, trying to make us afraid and such, I got pissed and walked out.

But at this point, after an exhausting plane ride and the run-around through Pahar Ganj, my fear/paranoia level was indeed rising. I was done with taxis and autorickshaws, so we walked up the next street and found a decent cheap hotel. I wouldn't let my travel partner, our baggage, or our passports out of my sight at this point, so they were completely bewildered by my behavior. In a back alley I insisted walking on foot with one of the hotel workers so that he could photocopy our passports. On the way I explained what had happened and profusely apologized if I had offended in any way. He apologized even more that that was my first impression of India, and did not come across as a smooth operator.

Cuz It's Hot... Cuz It's Hot... Cuz It's Hot Baby, Cuz It's Hot

As you might know if you're reading this, I will be trying to keep a public record of my travels through India at the request of friends and family. In the morning I will leave, and I should arrive in Delhi early evening on Wednesday. I'm not bringing my computer, or a phone, or much of anything really. I've learned from past travels that those things rarely come in handy, and I go pretty light these days. This will be my first excursion into a non-Western country.

My primary purpose will be preliminary research regarding an ethnographic research proposal I wrote as an undergrad. The proposal was an attempt to combine my academic interests in anthropology of religion, symbolic anthropology, urban anthropology, neoliberal "globalization," and the history and philosophies of India with my personal interests in the occult and Ganesha. The idea is to collect ethnographic data via the method of long-term participant observation on Tantric sects devoted to Ganesha/Ganapati, especially ones who have grown in or relocated to urban environments. My efforts in the next six weeks will be devoted to answering the following questions: