Mussoorie

I arrived in Mussoorie a little over a week ago to begin Hindi classes. There are four hours of Hindi every morning and ~three hours of lectures/discussions in Contemporary and Historical India in the afternoon. Free time consists of exploring the villages and playing games with local kids and writing/reading at a few phenomenal cafes.
I've become friends with the manager of this internet cafe, named Balbir, but we all call him "Beer". He's been showing us the ropes around town and we go to his house during down time.
This weekend was spent on a farm called Navdanya, the home base for Vandana Shiva, an environmental activist. We did some work in the fields and learned the ways of local agriculture.
As I am finally falling in to a daily routine, the transition from euphoria to reality has been sinking in. The other students on the program are also starting to think about home a little more, especially when vignettes are shared from our respective schools. The last two weeks have been a blur, it feels like we've been in India for at least a month already. It's hard to believe that school is only starting now at home. This is not to say that homesickness is becoming an issue, but the occasional fieldtrip to Domino's Pizza is nonetheless welcomed.
My IFP is also beginning to take form. Recently, I've been meeting with our assistant directors who are both anthropologists for coaching. I'm learning that candid discussions with the average bystander is just as valuable as someone who may be directly involved in education. This means that I've been talking to children who have never gone to school, as well as their parents, just as much as I've spoken with teachers and students.
The responses I receive from people who are not so involved in education tend to be more honest and less framed and cautious. It's very clear, however, that due to the history of colonization, the Self and Other frame of mind still permeates every discussion. When I speak with the locals, the color of my skin and where I'm from is certainly taken into account and so responses come with a little hesitance or incredulity. While I try to penetrate the West - East, outsider - insider, foreigner - villager mentality, I'm obligated to acknowledge these institutions if any value is to be dredged out of what people tell me.

New Delhi

My travel to India went smoothly. The only delay was twenty-five minutes at Syracuse going to JFK. In fact, the refuel in London was supposed to take one hour and forty-five minutes but they called us back onboard about five minutes after getting off.
The Delhi airport was even easier. Despite the fact that we all felt a little self-conscious (twenty or so American kids marching through the airport), it seemed the world froze every time we turned the corner. Everyone was staring --except my customs officer, who didn't even care to look at my passport photo because the talk show on the overhanging television had his eyes glued.
The name of our apartment complex should speak for itself: Golf Links, which is a very upscale gated community almost smack in the middle of city. Every day has been filled with lectures from Indian authors, professors, film makers and politicians. Otherwise, the rest of my time has been devoted to feeling out Market areas, visiting museums, eating out, and I recently conducted my first interview for the fieldwork. Access to phones and computers is difficult so posts will probably be both brief and sporadic at best.
I would post pictures but I accidentally left my camera on its highest settings so each photo uses too much memory (thanks Rohit). Highlights of this week, however, include visits to Qutb Minar, Humayan's Tomb, and the Lodi Gardens.

The Last Hurrah

As my bag still remains empty on the floor, this post will be short and sweet.
My flight to JFK leaves tomorrow at 3:06pm. Since my last post, I finished my summer job and have been preparing (as much as one can) for India. I have spent the last few days saying my farewells.
Today was spent knocking off the last few errands with my girlfriend Katie who is heading to Nepal next Wednesday for the semester. We met our friend Caitlin for a celebratory lunch. Despite the house being unusually full with people such as my Uncle Ray, friends of my siblings, and Katie, I have been feeling an eery calm, a sense of anticipation that acknowledges the fact it hasn't hit me yet.
My next post will be from India. I will be in Delhi for the first week so hopefully I can send an e-mail or make a post then.

Meeting with Cecil Abrahams

Last Tuesday I met with Professor Cecil Abrahams of the Syracuse University School of Ed. for advice on the IFP. On one side of his family, his grandparents are from southern India, his father from South Africa, which is where he is from as well.

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I met Dr. Abrahams at his office in the Huntington building on campus. As we shook hands and settled into chairs, he folded his hands into his lap and told me he was excited for my journey. He is a gentle and soft spoken man. I briefly recapped my research goals and chipped into discussion about general things such as matters of food and poverty. He remembered eating ice cream there. Clutching his stomach while leaning back in the chair, he laughed, "I thought I was dying." He was unable to climb out of bed for two days, not even to look at the Taj Mahal outside of the window. Most dairy products and anything with unboiled water is out of the question.

Drawing on his personal observations, he told me India is a country of variety. "I used to think that India was one of the most peaceful countries in the world," he said, citing the influence that Mahatma Gandhi's Nonviolence Movement once had. He decided, however, that the country is actually quite violent. India is geographically vast with the second largest population in the world. When the subject of the Partition came up, I was reassured that there will be little difficulty finding people who are willing to talk . Many of the problems India faced sixty years ago are still alive. Krishna Kumar has written despairingly about the seeming permanence of hostility between India and Pakistan.

Based on his answers, I gained the impression that Dr. Abrahams generally thinks I am steering in the right direction. I asked him for advice on where to specifically target my research. We decided I should focus on public schools sponsored by the Government because they are the most representative of Indian students. They are also probably the most influenced by political discourse. There is an abundance of private schools to examine for comparison; Catholic schools, Gandhian schools, and NGO based schools among them. Dr. Abrahams shared his knowledge on all of them. I suspect I will be able to perform considerable research with a NGO sponsored school in Varanasi, one that an anthropologist at Hamilton has recommended from his own fieldwork.

We also addressed the paradox of the English language, one that Dr. Abrahams described as "quite comical". On one hand, Indians seek to dismantle British influence as much as possible in the quest to cultivate a national identity. On the other, the elite class (much of which has been educated in England) speaks English in an accent that is often more polished than the Brits' --Abrahams laughed, "a more bookish accent." Much like the French language in Medieval Europe, English is increasingly utilized in the elite and bureaucratic spheres of Indian society; replacing Persian since the second half of the 19th century. A student who already went on this program commented in their account that Hindi is now sometimes called "Hinglish".

The meeting gave me some strategies to consider as well as some specific areas to magnify for research. I continue to read and plan for the trip, which is little more than one month away.

Fieldwork

I have been delving deeper into the independent fieldwork project as the departure date grows closer. My primary focus has been to narrow the scope of research: to do "more with less." This will hopefully aid in avoiding lulls or becoming overwhelmed during the four months of fieldwork.

My IFP examines the relationship of nationalism and education. Within school systems, there are certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that are placed above others, intentionally or unintentionally, which reinforce that country's cultures and political ideologies. The classroom fosters a national character that children identify themselves with from a very young age. Imparting a sense of national pride to children is a major priority in politics. Moreover, national consciousness is often most pursued in younger nation states that do not have as much history to build on or pedagogic leeway.

My research is thus two-fold. The first is examining how Indians define themselves on a national level such as what qualities and aspects of their history they most identify with. I will also observe how they compare themselves with Britain and Pakistan. The other facet is determining how this nationalism is communicated through education: textbooks, teachers, emphasis on particular values, etc. This is a project concerned with national hegemony and how education fits into that hegemonic apparatus. India's rich historical landscape will be used to survey how culture, beliefs, and attitudes toward Pakistan has been taught in schools. Perhaps this may yield a better understanding of why some of India's most prevalent issues, such as communal violence, persist.