Roorkee

And I did basically sleep the clock around. About 12 hours of sleep later, I got up to discover what this thing called breakfast is. The food is going to be mediocre at best here, but I’ve already paid for it in full, so that’s that at least. I was so hungry on my travel day (note to self: have got to remember to eat every day), but luckily a Clif bar that Jenny had given me saved the day for dinner. I had like a mountain of toast and chickpeas for breakfast, but there was no coffee. There was, however, boiled milk. I guess that’s as good as pasteurized, but it tastes weird and bland. I tried adding sugar, but it still tasted an awful lot like scalding, boiled milk.

I wasn’t feeling too well after that breakfast, so I had to further put off my meeting with Dr. Asawa, the head of the civil engineering department. I finally felt up to walking around by about lunchtime, and went to talk to him then. We scheduled a meeting for after month, and he said he had no problem with the recording, but as everyone does, expressed doubt that he’d have anything useful to contribute. We had about a half hour interview, to be transcribed, and he definitely wants a copy of the transcription, his video (which I’m going to try to shorten for him to be able to copy to disc tonight).

After that, I had an appointment with Dr. Raj Pal Singh, in the Water Resources and Development office. He was a Ganges basin expert (36 years on the field), but didn’t want to be recorded because he thought he had so little to offer. I sat in his office about 30 minutes, and he was very genial, but I did think about how difficult transcribing his accent would have been. He recommended two fantastic resources in the form of government reports. I am going to try to pick them up when I’m in Delhi. While we were talking, my appointment with Dr. Ojha, also of the civil engineering department, got moved from tomorrow at 11:30 to this evening at 6. So I went back to my room to regroup all my stuff, just in case he would be willing to be recorded.

He was not willing to be recorded, but again for the same old reasons of “I have nothing to offer your project.” But he was again, very helpful, and I was wishing I were at least recording it for my own sake, if not for the sake of the documentary. He talked about some water issues in Simla, that I think would have been very applicable to the study. He talked about a group in Haridwar, the goal of which seems to be to find the middle ground between the environmentalists and the money-makers, when it comes to hydroelectric projects. He also talked about climate change, and how Rajasthan had a huge flood in 2006 because its infrastructure is only set up for a certain intensity of rainfall, which is now changing because of climate change. We drank tea together, and he let me borrow a book he’d written. I have all tonight to read 500 pages. Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I will read as much as I can because it does look useful. Also, I wish I had time to read and comprehend all of his Hydrological Engineering textbook, because the parts I went over looked really useful. As in, it would help me understand which data would be most useful to collect vs. which data is kind of useless. I feel like I’m collecting useless data, as well as collecting useless information in these interviews. Just generally feeling pretty useless.

But it’s always nice to be settled somewhere. I’m always grateful for a day that doesn’t involve traveling, doesn’t involve staying conscious on a moving vehicle (difficult for me) to be hyper-aware of when my stop is, doesn’t involve arguing with drivers, or trying to find drivers to begin with. A day that involves spending a set amount of money, for instance, at a hostel.

Since three people had recommended their books to me, they also had recommended I go to the Indira Ghandi book depot in the Civilines part of town. I will be reliant on rickshaw drivers, even within the campus, because there are no campus maps to be found anywhere. I feel so at-sea without knowledge at-hand, but it makes me realize how spoiled I am. Not only to always have the internet, but to always know the internet will tell me what I want to know when I get to it. Here, I mostly use the internet for communication; getting information any other way besides email hasn’t seemed to work.

I hope I will be able to find an internet café somewhere in town, too. I ended up not going to town this evening because I was afraid it would get dark too quickly. I’m kind of a chicken about that. It’s hard enough being lost in a city during the day, but at night, it’s also scary on top of that. I also wanted to make sure I didn’t miss dinner because I was hungry. I didn’t have much at lunch. I did meet someone from the electrical engineering department, though I can’t remember his name. The people eating at this hostel aren’t student-aged, generally, but they’re very friendly. Dr. Ojha had mentioned there are two students from the College of Charleston here, so I have their numbers for when they get back later tonight. Maybe I can meet with them, although they’re not in my hostel. I’m meeting people left and right, but it’s not quite the same as meeting people somewhere roughly in my age group. These students might be actually younger than me, but I’m not sure. And I think at least one might be Indian, judging by the name.

Tonight, I’m going to transcribe as much of the Asawa interview as I can. It’s going to be difficult because the AC in the background makes the sound not as good. It’s funny that my indoor interviews have had the worst sound so far. Maybe I’ll figure it out. Maybe I just need to get a good microphone. I already edited his video a little bit, getting out the bits at the beginning, and where he answered the phone a few times. I think it’ll save some space, and now I’m compressing it so it will fit on the disc he gave me.