Grandma's a Witch

Raymond Fisman, a professor at Columbia University, told a recent seminar: “In Meatu, there are veritable witch epidemics now and again – certainly any time there is a bad crop year. Witches are the scapegoat of first resort. He suggested that “witches” were killed to make resources stretch farther. “Who are you going to knock off? You want the person who is the greatest consumer of household resources relative to that which they produce . . . it turns out that it’s grandma.”

That being from an article on witch-hunts in India's Assam and West Bengal, where there have been about 750 witch-killings in the last five years. Considering the current state of the economy, I think we all know what needs to be done on Thanksgiving.

Parricide aside, I am assembling my fieldnotes from India and hope to soon have here for you a reflection on my experiences and attempts at ethnographic methodology. I must balance this work with my job-search, however, which has proved fruitless thus far. Contract-killing has taken quite a hit in the downturn, and as such I have not found any postings in the papers or even craigslist. However, my application to the School of the Americas has been accepted with a full scholarship! I guess I'm at a crossroads...

Post-India Stress Syndrome

Two nights ago, as I lay late in bed addled with jet-lag and a sinus infection, I attempted to provide commentary as my youngest brother flipped through my photographic record of India. As usual, I quickly lapsed into a trance and began to channel unknown entities; my brother of course had the good sense to record this information. The transcript of that night's divination follows:

J - There were all these little snakes dancing in my face.
J - You Don't Even Know!

J - Everything is possible......in India.
M - Then we must all go.
J - NO!! There are too many possibility people!

J - Where are you!?
J - Don't be afraid.

J - I have 3 faces.....in my hand
M - What do they look like?
J - All old men.....they have control, but I control the central face........I was at the conference; they gave it away!

J - Oh my god it's a catrabbit! the size of a pig! Its front half is a rabbit but the back half is...(mumble).....Face in the carpet!

J - That monkey has my rat's tail.
M - You had a rat tail?
J - I'm a rat!

J - There was a little boy at the zoo running around with a boogie board carrying it like a shield
M - So you did go to a zoo
J - NO!!

J - Rippling in Alaska zoom into flag pistol.....there's an engraving on the handle...it says "me be, me see."

According to my brother, by the time I spouted this last bit I had fallen asleep and was going faster than he could write, so it is regrettably incomplete. However, it appears to be the most pertinent parcel of future knowledge, and I suspect it to be vital clue in preventing the Palin run of 2012.

I Found the Coconut

I can't write much because they are after me now, the men painted white. They say something like "om tare tutare ture soha." I think because i find the coconut with the camera card and the other maps. I must follow this person to Cabo de Rama. These are the only snaps on the camera card. -Jerome

I Found This Scratched Into Banana Leaves

[Note from finder - these words were scratched into a pack of banana leaves tied together with the coconut rope from the husk, you know? They floated with a wave in front of my bungalow in Palolem but the rope was made very poorly so some of the leaves are missing. This i know because they are numbered. I followed the instructions and am writing this blog with the password it gave me, so maybe somebody who knows this person will get this. There were many leaves and it took a long time for me to write it here, but reading the story made me very interested. I don't know all of the english words so i didn't understand all of it. I am alone here in Goa with none to speak french and i am not good at making friends you know so i feel like this person has become my friend. -Jerome]

1. [Instructions for the finder to write this with password. Also password for flickr.com and instructions for camera card but i have not found it yet. Also maps through jungle.]
2. I have many leaves available, and many old coconut husks with which to tie them together, so I won't worry about being brief; I will try and tell everything from the beginning. I believe I have plenty of time to think about it all.
3. I knew that night was the night, but I was still quite apprehensive about the entire affair. This is why I truly came to India, after all, and under false pretenses. I began the day fasting, ending with a ritual vindaloo with ginger rice.
4. I allowed myself not a single drop of water and instead meditated in the hot sun amidst several zebu cattle on the beach. I spent six hours in the dragon pose as per my instructions before my final meal.
5. In my search for the food I required I entered trance and wandered Palolem, finally drawn to a restaurant on the north end blaring Massive Attack. The lights were dimmed in red paper lanterns and the deck was heavy with opium smoke.
6. Waiting for my food I drew a fifteen-card spread; There was an overwhelming wand influence, and almost half the spread was trumps. This indicated a confluence between will and dharma, but several cards suggested a terrible trial.
7. [missing]
8. [missing]

Reflexive Contradictions

Yesterday I spoke vaguely of the many contradictions I've observed in India. Today I hiked up to Pothamedu; since it was Sunday I was able to hike through a tea and cardamom plantation. I stopped near the top at a tea station and spent some time talking with folks. On my way back I reflected on the contradictions inherent in my own being here.



I am traveling through places considered by Western standards to be quite underdeveloped, but I am in many ways sponsored on this trip by a system based on the continual economic and militaristic exploitation of such lands and peoples to ensure its own comfort,

Entrenched in Munnar

I have developed a kind of aural spatial perception of traffic over the last few weeks, enabling me to give just enough room for a rickshaw or car to pass without looking, or to know when to dive into the muck or off a cliff in the event of an approaching bus. Sometimes, however, the buses have deceptively high-pitched horns, leading one to believe a mere motorbike is encroaching. Both Sarina and I have had the occasion to look behind us casually only to behold the monstrous visage of "BABY JESUS" lettering the top of a hellbent deluxe-AC bus barrelling down on us. Needless to say this has scarred our psyches in ways unfathomable to the imperial proletariat.



The bus ride up the mountains to Munnar lasted approximately 4.5 hours, careening up through innumerable switchbacks and narrowly missing downward-bound traffic with remarkable accuracy. Regarding the ordeal with enormous levity, I began to question my sanity when I noticed the nervous terror etched into the miens of the local passengers, who numbered fewer and fewer the higher we climbed. One old woman seated directly in front of me leaned out to spew chunks; Sarina was listening to her IPod behind me and no doubt thought the spray to be a refreshing monsoon sprinkle. If I ever require extensive knowledge of momentum, inertia, topography, or surface tension, I will immediately seek a Keralan bus driver over say, a physicist or engineer. It is no wonder that the state provides a plurality of drivers to the rest of India, as well as to various Middle Eastern countries. I suspect that roller-coasters will be rather hum-drum from now on.



I saw my first wild monkey on a tree branch during the trip up.



I now much more fully appreciate the class in Collins' Ethnographic Field Methods in which we covered methodology informing theory and theory informing methodology. And studying anthropology has overall given me a subtle awareness of commonality and difference,

Malabar Blues

Some final thoughts before setting off to Munnar. Keep all limbs inside the vehicle at all times, if you want to keep them at all. There is a copy of The Fountainhead mocking me from the bookshelf in the internet cafe, nestled between two Noam Chomsky books; Dawkins looms above them. I saw a North Indian intellectual yesterday or the day before wearing a blue scarf and red Chomsky shirt. At Cherai Beach a giant hammer and sickle was chalked across the road, next to a giant lotus flower. Scores of men young and old come there to stare and call out to Western women in their bathing suits.

Asharof helped me out again last night, when I left my camera's memory card at the internet cafe. After introducing me to more of his family he drove me back in his piece of junk rickshaw, wiping the rain off with some dirty newspaper (was he a little drunk?). He didn't charge me, but told me instead that "God knows what is in your heart." He is currently jobless, not for lack of willingness (his programming skills can't compete with youth), but because Kerala is communist he has a roof over his head and food to eat. We gave each other our most profound wishes and parted ways; he will send me a Christmas card.

When we went south to the backwaters the other day, I saw some petrol tankers labeled "Highly Inflammable."

How did I end up in India? How did I end up studying Indian philosophy, religion, culture, and history? How did I end up at Towson University? Where the hell do I go from here? How will I ever think again that comfort is worth the theft of natural resources and the mass murder of millions? How could I ever believe again that war is anything but war against children? How can I ever again be confused about who the real enemy is?

The whole financial collapse thing was going on right before I left the U.S. I've been trying to keep up with it from overseas... It seems that we are nationalizing our banking system. How many times does history need to repeat itself? Don't people realize what's really going on? It's not like we didn't see this coming, but... Maybe soon it will be enough to mobilize the angry middle class, i.e. to make the guards realize that they're expendable and on the same side as the prisoners, as Howard Zinn put it.