Katie Revell\’s India Blog

After a 20-minute wait I’ve managed to bag myself what must be the slowest computer in the whole room. Res-ult.

Before I move on to more pertinent topics and forget, I keep meaning to ask a bird-related question. I’d like to add a disclaimer and say that I’m not a geek or nuffink, but I’m curious and thought I might as well utilise the pool of knowledge I am sure is available to me through the blog. A few weeks ago I saw this really bizarre-looking thing; it was about the same size as a seagull but with a body shaped more like a crow’s. Its head looked like that of an eagle or a hawk and its body was black but its wings were red-brown. And it had bright red eyes. Seriously. Any ideas?

The concensus seems to be that Winter has come to an abrupt end and that Summer’s on the way. I’d let myself get used to the luxury of bearable temperature and am now being reminded of our first few weeks here. As everyone keeps helpfully saying, it can only get worse.

Having returned from our very enjoyable Christmas travels a few weeks ago, we found ourselves suddenly flung in to…another holiday. This one was for the festival of Sankranthi, which is the South Indian harvest festival. It’s also known as “Pongal” and lasts for three days, the first being “Bhogi”, second “Surya” and third “Kanuma”.

As generally seems to be the case, actual celebrations were pretty muted and weren’t much in evidence. However, we were lucky enough on the Sunday evening to see the Bhogi rituals being performed at the house of one of our friend Subha’s relatives. Her great-grandfather, Gora, established the Atheist Centre but his brother remained a Hindu and so it was that side of the family that was celebrating.

There was a large display of dolls and ornaments in the main room of the flat (see my photos) - one of the women explained that these are worshipped as representations of the Gods. The younger children were blessed by the older members with the usual sprinkling of flower petals on the head, this time mixed with coins (coins + unformed skulls are surely not a good combination) and little plum things. The older people (us included) took a handful of the petal/coin mixture and circled their fist around the child’s head before dropping it. Then everyone was “bindhi-ed” with a big red dot on the forehead. This is something which is central to any sort of Hindu event.

Monday was supposed to be marked by kite-flying, although I only saw a few - it sometimes seems that there are so many Hindu festivals that people get a bit half-hearted in their celebrations (which is understandable). I’m not sure what Tuesday was supposed to involve; in any case I didn’t see anyone doing anything out of the ordinary so I suspect most had lost their momentum by the third day.

You can generally tell if it’s festival time according to how elaborate the Rangoli (patterns made with sand or chalk) designs outside the houses are. Hindus make Rangoli every day, but during festivals they get especially large and colourful. Originally they were done with flour so that the ants would eat it - partly as a sign of respect for all living things and partly since it would stop them raiding the houses (we later had an interesting conversation with Radhikda, head of the SKCV girls’ home, about the original, practical purpose of many Hindu customs). I’ve read in other places that it’s also got to do with the transience of life being represented by the use of sand/powder.

Because of the festival, the College was closed from Saturday to Tuesday. We took the opportunity to visit an NGO called IDEAS, based in a small town called Tiruvuru, about 2 1/2 hours away along rutted roads by rickety state bus. A good early-morning wake-up.

We’d met the director of the organisation when he visited the convent a few months ago. He brought with him their German volunteer, Stefan, and they invited us to see their work when we could. So, on Monday morning we set off at 7am. As always, the journey itself was one of the most interesting parts: it was really good to see some of the Andhra countryside and the smaller villages and towns. Here in Vijayawada you don’t really appreciate quite how lush and pretty the surroundings are, even now when there’s been no rain for months.

IDEAS operates a hostel for boys as well as various initiatives for domestic workers and the children in the “colonies” around the town. Most of the boys come from families who live in the countryside and are unable to look after them (or with whom the boys don’t want to live) and stay at the hostel during term time. A few live there permanently, and it was only they - about 10 boys in all - who were there during our visit.

On Monday we were shown around by the organisation’s director, Mr. Shouri. The hostel is a three-storey building with the usual large multi-purpose rooms (the boys just roll out mats to sleep on at night), a small office, kitchen and so on. It’s a much smaller project than, say, SKCV, and in many ways felt more relaxed and family-like because of that. Mr. Shouri doesn’t believe in strictly disciplining the boys, and prefers to let them come and go as they please (up to a point!). While we were there, they had no classes and so instead were busy making kites out of newspaper for the Monday festival. On Monday afternoon we were taken out to see a nearby dam where the boys go swimming. Speeding through the paddy fields and palm trees on the back of a motorbike (carrying a positively civilised three passengers), I felt like a “proper” gap year student…the complete lack of helmet and occasional last-minute buffalo-dodging only enforcing this.

In the evening, we were taken to some of the town’s colonies. The colonies are pieces of land owned by the government and leased out to people to build dwellings. The residents of each colony generally share an occupation - rickshaw wallahs in one, domestic workers in another and so on. Owing to the poverty of those who live there, the houses were pretty basic - mainly mud-walled huts with thatched or corrugated iron roofs. A few were more substantial, and Mr Shouri explained that government grants were available, the catch being that the occupant has to chip in with a certain percent - too high for most. A member of staff from IDEAS (and Stefan, the volunteer) visits the colonies every evening during the week to check up on their little schools. I think some of the children from the colonies go to government schools in the town, but some have completley dropped out. In the evenings, they go to the colony schools and play games, sing and so on (I thing they also have some remedial classes but I’m not sure). Despite it being a holiday, the children had turned out to see us (possibly encouraged by the promise of sweets). We spent a while with them, playing games and being sung at and they all seemed really happy kids despite their less-than-adequate financial/social situation.

I do always feel a bit uncomfortable doing the White person thing and turning up to dole out sweets - we always sigh when children come running up to us demanding “chocolate, sister!”. It’s easy to feel like a bit of an exhibit-cum-candy machine. However, we were made to feel really welcome and it was fascinating to see inside the colonies and meet the people who live there. Some of the children do move on to bigger and better things, even if that just means completing secondary school and going to college. Many, however, don’t go to school at all and I guess it’s these who will benefit most from the work being done by IDEAS.

Lots more to update you on but I’m going to have to leave it there.