singh is king

hey everyone,

it's week 3 in delhi and i still love it. yes, the project is coming along, though i defs feel kind of behind (if you've ever met me, no surprise), but its coming. I'm getting more and more into the project every day. At first, I was really confused on what I should ask in interviews and how I should go about doing the whole topic even, but after some good talks with my AD its all sorted out. Anyway, some really exciting stuff about my project. so my other AD gave me a contact at BBC India, and I went to meet him late last week. Now when my AD said BBC India, he did not tell me that I would get to go to the BBC Headquarters for all of South Asia. This, my friends, was SO WONDERFUL. Now I don't get really really really excited about many things, but this WAS SO EXCITING. Stepping our of the elevator into the waiting area, I saw the sleep silver BBC logo and flat screen TVs playing BBC television news. Through the class doors on each side of the waiting room, I got a look into the office: full of TVs, computers, clocks, and intellectual and westernized-looking Indians, both young and old. Eventually, my contact came to the waiting room, and (obviously) over a cup of chai we talked about my project. He said he wanted me to mail (which really means "email" here) my questions to him. At first, I was really mad cuuz id spent all this money on a rickshaw, but then he took me inside the office to take a look around and to talk more about my project. At this point, I was totally star-struck. Yes, I'm that cool. I was walking around with the biggest grin on my face and the widest of eyes, looking at all the activity swirling around me. After going into a small boardroom with sleek round chairs, we talked more about the project, and he ended up giving me really great advice/contacts. The downside: he has yet to send me back answers to my questions. Uncool. Still, the experience was incredible, and a part of me really wants to be a part of it all. maybe one day.

Today I had another interview (1 of 10 I've done so far), but this one was different. I was asking mostly the same questions that I usually do, but it was different for two reasons. 1. I felt like it actually went well, like I engaged well with him and also kept the conversation going well enough so that I could get good information and 2. I saw a new part of Delhi. This was a Muslim neighborhood, which more than any other neighborhood I'd seen in South Delhi is like the rest of the India I had seen and lived in: dusty, crowded, narrow streets, houses with paint peeling, advertisements everywhere, carts pulled by donkeys, goats, you name it. The tendencies in India here is for different religious to occupy different parts of the city (as opposed to a racial divide), and the Muslim areas generally tend to be poorer. I looked around at the first very "underdeveloped" parts of Delhi and I started to realize that I knew exactly how this happened: communalism. So the story goes here, but one forgets when living in ritzy Hindu GK-3.

For now, that's all I can think to say. I'll get back to you with more. Otherwise, less than a month until home (a good and bad feeling unsurprisingly, but more on this another time).

Love,

Mimi

bhut accha laga

An interesting tidbit about Hindi: there is no way to distinguish between liking something and something feel good. There is something about this imprecision which is really interesting, and which I had not thought about since I learned this until right now, when I decided to sit down and talk about my first week in Delhi. I can say that I really like Delhi AND that Delhi feels good. It's nice to be in a place with fairly functional urban infrastructure, with modern influences in food/fashion/lifestyles in general, but at the same time with a definitive Indian twist. Seeing "modern India" is really great in this way. Yes, Jaipur was certainly more accessible because it was smaller and we lived with families who could give us a lot of information, but Delhi is so much more exciting. It's HUGE! There's a ton to see and a ton to miss also, lots of markets and neighborhoods and parks and live music and clubs and theatre and restaurants. Its nice to be somewhere with a lot going on. This is why I like Delhi. Delhi feels good to me I guess also for this reason, but it's more because of the tone of the city. It's really hard to describe because it's so intangible, but within the first two days of being here and just travelling around the city in a rickshaw I just loved how I felt, surrounded by greenery and communal space, lots of people and lots of commerce. It felt comfortable right away.
But everytime I think about how much I enjoy Delhi I find myself stepping away from it, realizing I'm slowly being pacified by luxury and privilege as many wealthy Indians my age tend to be. I feel myself reminding myself every day that this infrastructure serves about 0.00001% of India's population. 70% of Indians still live rural, have little to no access to health services, clean drinking water, or education, and maybe even worse then this, don't realize that they are entitled to these things. Being in Delhi, I know I am in India, but I find myself forgetting what India is for so many and the India which I had experienced before. It's really important for me that I don't forget this, or I'll feel like my experiences and development studies will have been meaningless.
My project is going....alrite. Reminder: I am studying peacebuilding initiatives by people-to-people diplomacy NGOs in Indo-Pak relations Post-26/11. Yes, I will eventually come up with a shorter name. BUT, it has been really interesting to study thus far. Mostly I have been interviewing people involved in this diplomacy, mostly activists and members of the media. Every time I interview someone, I'm surprised by how humble they are and how willing they are to talk to me. My academic advisor has been great about getting me these contacts, and some I have gotten from the contacts he gave me, so I'm pretty set on primary research. The coolest person that I've met: editor-in-chief of the Hindustan Times, the biggest english newspaper in the country. I was really nervous to meet him, but he turned out to be really down-to-earth, and when he was busy editing something, he sent me over to the editor of the political news section to ask questions. He was also suuuper Indian in pressuring me to have a lot of chai. So wonderful. The only thing about this project that isn't so great is my lack of experience with writing a paper based on primary research. It's definitely really different, because you have to make sure that your interview questions are really good so that you can get really good info. Luckily, follow-up interviews are usually possible. BUT, it' still weird. I talked with my academic director about it today, and she helped me restructure my paper so that I could focus my questions better and tackle the whole topic a bit better. So, right now, I think I'm heading in the right direction, if a bit nervously.
So I hope all of your lives are wonderful. As of now, my summer includes a month in vancouver, 3 weeks researching at midd, and then two months interning in DC. SO, in that time, I hope to see all of you.

Love,
Mimi

ps: It's 97 degrees outside and it's around 9 PM. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!