A Month Later, Stage 3

In our entry orientation Alliance warned us that culture shock consists of three main steps: enchantment, irritation, and enthrallment. The first is an initial sensory bombardment with an internal monologue somewhere along the lines of “Oh, look over there! The colors! Wow, this is incredible! I can’t believe that I’m here! Why didn’t I come sooner? Nothing could ever be bad in a place as vibrant as this!” And I was certainly in that zone for the first week or so.

Then I shifted towards disappointment, lethargy, and a longing for a simple routine. As previous posts can attest to, I had a couple of difficult weeks. Getting across the city was an ordeal, my internship was infuriating, and overall I was missing my creature comforts (I would still trade a lot for a hairdryer).  But I’m glad to say, with lots of apologies to those who have had to listen to me complain, I’ve turned a corner (and just in time with exactly a month having passed since my departure from DC).

I am now solidly in stage three where I spend my time desperately visiting different areas of the city, listing everywhere I still want to see, lamenting that I don’t have time to go to Mumbai, and trying to figure out how to get back to India, and soon. I savor each cold coffee as if it’s my last, frantically text Indian friends (to whom I owe most of the credit for the change in my attitude—literally, some of the nicest, most hospitable, helpful people I have ever met), treat each rickshaw ride as my own private tour of the city, and walk the streets with a bounce in my step and my held high because at this point, I belong here dammit.

As many predicted before I left, India has invaded my heart and mind. And at this point, and I’m pretty positive it’s not going to let go until I satisfy my craving for this exotic, colorful, diverse, irritating, majestic, friendly, puzzling, wonderful country. 

Some Belated Background

I feel like I’ve gone about this blog the wrong way. Here I am narrating experiences and feelings without a background on the program I am completing or my day to day routine. So, a little too late, here goes nothing:

           I am in Pune, India on the Alliance for Global Education’s Contemporary India program. There are 20 students on our program this year from many different schools in the US. We all meet in the morning at our program center in Fergusson College to have breakfast and then troop through campus to our class on Contemporary India.

           After a discussion that begins with a variety of topics and inevitably ends with an analysis of politics, we all disperse to our internships throughout the city of Pune. For me personally, internship times means either waiting at school and creating my own assignment or heading to one of the seven branches of Parvati Swayamrojgaar, a NGO with the mission of alleviating poverty through micro-finance. The branches are located in slum communities and I have now been into four of the seven to observe the collection motivators at work as they promote PSW, collect loans, and check-up on the partners in the field.

            After internships, we tend to gather again at the program center before heading home, out to eat, or to our expressive culture classes (pictures of pottery class soon to come!) The program center is that home away from home that you hate but still can’t totally desert. Littered with combed through newspapers, always occupied by one or two students, it beckons us even as we try and resist. It is safe, familiar, and static and so it is there that we regroup before heading out into the foreign land of Pune.

Scams, Rip-offs, and Scoundrels: An Exclusive Guide to Rickshaw Schemes

Pune has the most motorcycles (also called scooters and two-wheelers) in all of India. They are everywhere, with men straddling the seat, and women in saris sitting sidesaddle with incredible balance. Even on the highways, I often see a two-wheeler with a whole family of four sitting astride.  Remarkably nimble and useful for the stop and go flow of traffic, the motorcycle is ideal for the streets of Pune. However, riding one is grounds for serious punishment by the Alliance authorities.

So, we use rickshaws to get anywhere of distance. A three-wheeled, hunchbacked vehicle, the auto rickshaw is a strange beast. With its driver’s seat in the front, the back bench is used for the one, two, or three passengers, or perhaps the eight schoolchildren who cram in any which way. If you are lucky, your rickshaw has all three mirrors a car would have, although it is more than likely that at least one of the side mirrors will be tilted at such an angle as to allow a clearer view of our pale faces than of the traffic behind. And on the left hand side, between you and the driver lies the meter.

Alternately a weapon of justice wielded by meter-card carrying individuals and a device used to legitimize scams, the meter keeps track of how far you have traveled and what the corresponding fare is. For the first kilometer, the meter stays at 1.0. That way, any short distance ride will cost 11 rupees (1.0 x 10 +1). After the first kilometer, it ticks away the tenths of kilometers and your fare goes up by 1 rupee per extra tick. Staying still for prolonged periods of time, such as at traffic lights, also will cause the meter to go up, but only very occasionally.

Presumably such a uniform billing system would destroy plans to get the most out of naïve travelers or clueless Americans. Instead, it only makes said plans more subtle. Since I have been here, I have caught on to the most common scams employed by rickshaw drivers to make a few extra bucks.

The first is obvious, a refusal to use the meter, leading to a long haggle over what the price should be. Most effectively used in the pouring rain (the one time the city has had true rain this season happened to be our first Sunday as we were shopping at Pantaloons), or on busy nights in peak traffic with no other rickshaws around, this rip-off technique leads to more upfront arguing, but a mutually satisfactory end of us getting home and them making a little extra money.

Another technique is the keeping of change in a different pocket. Rupee coins seem to be a particularly rare breed here. Often, bills are in terms of round numbers so only bills (with ten being the smallest common bill) are necessary. But rickshaw fares often fall in those in between areas that require one or two rupee coins. As a result, when your fare is 33 rupees (as ours is to school), you often do not have exact change.

And finally there is manipulation of the meter system. Again, there are two options. The first happened just this morning as Liz and I were sleepily getting into our rickshaw after quite a confusing routine of forgetting our keys and then her phone. She noticed soon after we were on our way that the meter had ticked past 1.0 kilometers much sooner than it usually does.  We quickly figured out that the driver must have had the meter started before we got in, allowing the meter to count the time he stood still waiting for a passenger to push the fare up slightly.  The second meter manipulation is what I like to call, “the winding way”. The meter counts out distance traveled, not what the closest route from point of entry to intended destination actually is.  As a result, taking the long way costs you more money. Just last Friday, I had a driver try to drive the complete opposite way down a one way street to up the fare. Luckily, at that point I knew the general route home and told him to stop, yelling when he originally ignored me, got out and found a more honest (maybe more afraid of foreigners causing a scene) fellow to take me on my way.

Although assuredly not an inclusive guide, this post hopefully gives you an explanation of why even getting from one place to another in this city can be fraught with emotion and leave me drained. Even when dealing with great drivers, I have to be on guard simply because I’ve had so many bad experiences. After a long day, I just want to get home. And I’d like to do it in 33 rupees please.

Happy Independence Day!

Isn’t it silly, but I’m always more excited about the fourth of July when I am out of the country. The best Independence Day party that I went to was actually in London, on the same day that a salesperson at Harrods handed me an American flag.

Perhaps its because in the US, everyone is excited so I can just coast along with the flow. Here, there are so few of us to carry the standard (see what I did there?) of American patriotism that we all have to try extra hard. So, I am fully into the spirit of things.

Here in Pune, we 19 Americans (the Iranian is less excited) have big plans, beginning of course with a dress code of red, white, and blue. Then it’s onto our usual activities before meeting back at the program center for burgers, hot dogs, and the singing of patriotic songs. Then tonight I’m planning on going out on the roof and pretending that the fireworks from the wedding park across the street are just as magnificent and awe inspiring as those on the National Mall.

How appropriate that it is the Fourth and just yesterday I was struggling to describe American culture to my immediate supervisor. I thought up a bunch of clichés like a “melting pot” of cultures, baseball and apple pie, freedom, but eventually settled on independence as the core value of our culture.  A lot of my difficulties in India have been based on a mix of struggling to getting around on my own and pulling against the reins of obligations in order to be more independent. Even the smallest thing like a struggle for personal space while shopping can be linked back to my inherent desire for choice, freedom, and personal independence.

So, today I am celebrating Independence Day abroad in Pune for the purest of reasons, a celebration of freedom and my own independence. Happy 4^th everyone!