Delhi

Finished up a transcription and started another. I started with the easy ones, and now have only the very quick-talking Sonam Jorgyes’s interview to transcribe. Finally got in touch with a professor at Roorkee who can fix me up at the hostel, and he has done it for me. So nice of him! I also have an interview set up with him later tomorrow, so I hope my travel plans go OK. I don’t have any money left on my phone now, and I don’t know when I can get it refilled. Schnikes! Got in touch with LBSNAA, after tracking Kalpana Dube down in Delhi, and finally getting in touch with someone at the academy, after being hung up on countless times. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. Maybe speaking English is my problem. Anyway, I feel like my plans for the next week and a half are at least shored up, and that’s a relief, though I still have to get through the actual travel part of it tomorrow. I hope I have something to read on the bus. There are a few reports that Jenny got for me that I still haven’t a chance to look at, and they’re in my bag. So maybe I can do that, if I don’t get carsick from reading. I feel I’m again going to be last one on the bus, with my giant backpack, which means I’ll be at the back again.

I just feel like a lot of this project is going to be more drab, without Sarah or Alex or Jenny to return to in the evenings after I’m done. I will have to keep being “on” all night, meeting all the new people in the hostels. Which is OK, really, I’ll appreciate the experience and getting to meet so many people, but it leaves me little time to recharge my introvert nature.

I think it was today that I spoke with Dr. Eaton, who was very encouraging, but I still feel I’m accomplishing nothing (hence, I’m still keeping this journal up). Even as I transcribe these interviews, I feel I “did them wrong,” and there are so many points in the interview I want to shake myself and ask “Why didn’t you say or ask this??” So frustrating to myself. Still, when I talked to Dr. Eaton, I probably sounded positive because I had gotten three very friendly interviews recorded, and a number of others achieved, though in written form. But I still wonder: how much useful information am I really getting?

Monday: Delhi

Today I spent a lot of time on the phone, running down my already-paltry supply of minutes. I wasn’t able to get much accomplished despite that. I did finish my transcription and start on another one. I felt so tired, it was hard to keep up momentum on any one project. I went down and bought a lot of stuff at the market to make me and Jenny and Stephanie some dinner (what turned out to be moussaka and French fries). Even if I don’t have a productive day, at least I can support someone who did. I did send out a lot of emails/letters to the Roorkee contacts I have, but I was unable to book myself into the hostel, so I’m worried about that.

Sunday

Today, I’m planning on transcribing as many of the interviews as I can. I will start with the one I don’t have the recording for, Mr. Dakpa.

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Well, I didn’t get as much transcribed as I had hoped today. Having everyone around makes it harder to work. That’s my line anyway. I was able to do half of one, with my earplugs in, but I felt quite rude with everyone around being social.

No work day: Delhi

Today was mostly spent getting a few errands done for Sarah before he plane left. Bangles bought, FabIndia visited, coffee drunk. Then we went to Jenny’s “parlor” down the road, got the thick coat of dirt scraped off our feet. Packing ensued. Taxis called, last minute time spent. Then Sarah was away, in her taxi, hopefully successful on her flight because once you’re in the Delhi airport, it’s hard to get back out.

After excruciating discussion with the rickshaw drivers, less about money and more about if they knew where we were going, we got a ride to a party that Jenny’s friend was having. Everyone there was nice, and we left by about 1:30, when more excruciating rickshaw negotiations ensued.

Travel Day: Leh to Delhi

Another day full of traveling. We got to the airport before it even opened, which caused a few problems because we were two hours early for our flight. But after a few baggage scans, and several pat-downs, we were safe in the terminal, where we met Shlomi, from Israel, who partook of a prayer session the likes of which neither Sarah nor I had ever seen before. We tried not to gawk, but it was very interesting.

After we arrived in Delhi, there was a heated rickshaw exchange, and we had to pay 30 more rupees than I had had to pay to get to the airport in the first place. But we really were not given any choice. I guess I lucked out on the ride to the airport, even if he dropped me at the wrong terminal. So we got a ride to near Jenny’s house, and camped out with all our stuff at Café Coffee Day for a few hours, then retired to the park near Jenny’s house to sit on a bench and talk for the next 6 hours. Jenny’s phone had died while she was at her conference, so we couldn’t get in touch with her. I promised myself another weekend workday to make up for the day of not working. But there was nothing for it, so there was no point getting frustrated, and we tried to enjoy sitting out for hours in the scorchingest part of the day in the Delhi heat. It was easier because I had Sarah with me. I’m worried about similar situations when I’ll be alone again.

Sarah was very sad that night about her impending departure, so we tried eating ice cream and watching Sex and the City to cheer her up. But the real problem was probably that we were so tired from our scant few hours of sleep, and sitting out in the heat all day.

Leh :Day 4

This morning I had the interview with the CEC, who much be a pretty big-wig, top-brass kind of guy. His house was ginormous, and when I told the taxi driver where I was going, he knew the name of the person who lived there (“Chering Dorjay?”). Basically, this guy was the governor of the Ladakh region, so he had no problem letting me film the interview. The view was beautiful, and afterwards he gave me some tea, and there was once again belabored small talk. The problem is they don’t ask questions back. I wonder if there is some cultural difference, and they’re thinking “God, she talks a lot, doesn’t she ever stop asking questions?” While I’m thinking “It’s like pulling teeth to get this conversation rolling!” Maybe it would be nicer just to sit in silence and sip tea. But it would have been awkward because he wasn’t having any.

Then I walked down to the Women’s Alliance, which had its headquarters and a café right down the road from his house. I was there very early, but luckily there were some tables for the café outside, so I sat down and wrote yesterday’s entry by hand. Then a little later, two women showed up, and I hoped they were some of the ones I had the names of to contact. They were all whities’ names. But Sam and Ellie, the women, were just tourists, here for some breakfast, so we all ate together. They lived in Goa, but were from England and Cyprus. After they left, I wondered a round a little bit because more and more people were finally starting to show up. I asked around, and found one lady on my contact list (Sharon Hoffman), and she suggested Alex, her colleague, also participate in the interview. Sharon turned out to have lived in New Orleans for a while, so we hit it off about that. I liked them both a lot, and they were so nice to submit to the interview without any advance notice. I hadn’t had any contact information for them. On the way out, I got a video about the NGO and the Ladakhi region, thinking it could count at research, but it also looked moderately interesting to me, too. It’s about local Ladakhi’s traveling to the West to see the “civilized” world, but of course they also see all the downsides that they don’t have to deal with, like nursing homes and landfills.

After Women’s Alliance, I tried to walk to LeDEG, another NGO right down the road, but I couldn’t find it despite Alex’s very good map. So I kept walking into town, and eventually got a taxi out to the guy that the Mr. Dorjay, the governor, had recommended I talk to. It turned out to be basically in the next town, so it was a long taxi drive, and then once we got to the Power Project Development Compound itself, the taxi driver had to take me around to a few different buildings, trying to help me find the right guy. Eventually, I found him, and he had a line out his door, so I knew this was going to be a foreshortened interview. I did get to skip to the head of the line (Why does this happen, I wonder?).

I forgot to say that I had gone home to change out of my green salwar-kameez because I realized it was doing more harm than good—it was Indian culture, not Ladakhi, and I was interviewing a lot of Ladakhis. So when I went out to PPD to interview SK Kakroo, I had changed to pants and a white kurta. And wouldn’t you know it, he was Indian. But I am not good at guessing from the names because I don’t know any of the languages I’m working with.

The “interview” was not particularly successful. He was very brusk, and also had his executive engineer, MK Varikoo, in the office with him. Both answered the questions, and neither seemed happy with me. But I got a few smiles out of them, so maybe they were just rushed and over-busy, and it was very nice of them to meet with me at all. I didn’t even ask to record this interview because I was pretty sure they wouldn’t want it recorded, and it would just set a poor tone to begin the talk that way. I probably only talked with them 15 minutes, which was frustrating considering how far I’d ridden to get there.

They did recommend I talk to someone else, Dean Mahmood, the executive engineer who would have the discharge data on the Indus. Of course this was very much of interest to me, so I walked around the compound to find this guy, but ended up finding only a few of his colleagues, who said he wasn’t in that day. Curse the luck, and it was my last day in Leh! I talked to his colleagues for a while. I seemed to attract an entourage wherever I went, which was weird. I don’t know if my research is really all that interesting, or if it’s just because I’m different and foreign and seemingly interesting. But anyway, after another short interview with this “subsidiary” guy, he mentioned I could walk to the Indus from where we were.

I was very excited about this possibility. Suddenly, the long taxi ride didn’t seem like a waste. I managed to go get some shots of the Indus, and it really was beautiful. There was a bridge over it, covered in prayer flags. The river was so small, it was hard to think of it supporting all of Pakistan. It will be interesting to see Tabby’s photos of the same river, and try to reconcile the two.

I then called the LeDEG guy to get the directions to his place. Grabbed a taxi straight back to him place, and conducted the interview, which he let me record. His name was a difficult-to-pronounce Sonam Jorgyes. He was helpful, but in a hurry, so the interview, while dense, was only about 30 minutes. I had to use the video camera, not the camera-camera’s video function because the batteries were dead. I was really nervous about the sound, but at least it was the first indoor-interview. Later, I at least found the sound was hearable, if nothing else.

Afterward, Sarah and I went to get a yak-cheese sandwich for dinner. I didn’t do my interview transcriptions that night as planned. We instead packed up for most of the evening, got all our bills taken care of, etc. Then went back to the roof to sleep, but it was already raining. It stopped eventually, so we got some sleep at least. Despite our rude Belgian roofmate.

Leh: Day 3

This morning I went to the same Wildlife Office as before because there was a sign that said Ladakh Hill Development Council, which was whom I was going to try to meet with today. But I asked someone at the door, and they laughed and said no it wasn’t and then gave complicated instructions that I wasn’t sure were in English, so I found a phone to try to call Moses K, my contact in the office. I told him I was at the taxi stand and he said “oh, good!” my heart leapt! I was in the right part of town after all! Then he added “Take a taxi to our offices.” At first I thought I’d try to walk, because one of my crappy maps of Leh showed it not too far away. But I lost my confidence partway there, and went back to take a taxi.

There was no red carpet at the place and though there were several police asking my business, I think it was mostly to help me, since there were no metal detectors involved. I met with Moses, though he quickly got me audience with his boss, the chief executive council (woah) of the Ladakh Development Board. “You can stop wasting your time with me” said Moses. I had a brief meeting, which seems to be par for the course. I’ll try to remember to set up, or plan on these pre-interviews. We made an appointment for tomorrow morning at his house for the real interview. Then I ent back to Moses’s office for some tea. The was very nice, though the small talk was somewhat belabored. In the end, he asked me to email him If I needed any help, and to let him know all the places I’d be going so he could see if he could find me any help there. So nice of him! I saw some stupa-eyes, and we talked about religion some, so I asked if he was Buddhist. Surprisingly, he was Christian, and the stupa-eyes were a gift from Nepal. I guess I did only see those eyes on the stupas at Nepal. He got me a car back to the market, which was incredibly nice of him. The driver and his companion were very amenable, but I don’t think they spoke much English.

Next I went to see if Jigmet Dakpa was back in his office after yesterday’s emergency. I didn’t see him in there at first, but he was in the corner eating his lunch. He finished up quickly when he saw me, which might have made me feel bad, but everyone is so happy and friendly, it’s hard to feel bad about anything here.

He said he could do the interview now, but when I started to set up the camera, he balked, even though we’d talked about it. So I ended up not recording, but taking detailed notes, which I hope I can read later. I better type them up quickly while my memory is fresh. He was very kindly and seemed amused by the lacunae in my knowledge. A few times as he gave me a lesson, he would jovially command “Educate yourself!” he studied as a civil engineer then switched to forestry and studied the 2 ½ years at FRI! So we talked about little about Dehradun.

I then called the name I’d gotten from the CEC, at the PPD. He said to try to come by that day, but I only had ½ an hour to get to his place. I went back to the hotel to get some supplies, but it took longer than I thought to walk back from where I was, so I’ll have to see the guy tomorrow, which he said was OK.

Sarah and I had a long tea to kill time before meeting Lena, Catherine, Nadine, and whatever entourage they had picked up that day, for dinner. They’d picked up a couple of Aussies and a guy from Detroit, for their Sunday bike ride. Dinner was nice, though I was still full from my Nutella pancake.

We slept on the roof again, and watched the Watcher in the Woods, as well as the stars, which were amazing. I saw a few fall.

Leh: Day 2

I think the acclimatization caught up with me today. I went into the office for the second, “real” interview with Mr. Dakpa, but he wasn’t there. So I ran back to my hotel, leaving my camera and stuff all set up. Of course I was completely out of breath, but that had been normal since I got off the plane. I grabbed some extra cash, which is what I had gone back for, and then ran back to the office, where he still wasn’t yet. After sitting a little longer, adding a few potential questions to the trough, someone came up and told me he’d had an emergency meeting with the electoral council, or something like that, so might not be in all day. I was disappointed, but I said I’d come back later. I packed up my stuff and went to the post office on the way to the internet place. I mailed all 51 of my postcards, and I only have about 15 left to write. It took forever to lick and affix 102 stamps, but I was able to listen to interesting conversations of other tourists.

I went to an internet place to write down the contacts information for some people because I didn’t feel like going all the way back to the hotel.

Leh: Day 1

I just finished up a pre-interview with Jigmet Dakpa, who works in the Department of Wildlife Protection as the Conservator of Forest (Wildlife). Dr. Hussain had recommended the Wildlife Warden, Tahil Shawl, but when I called him, he was out of town, so he gave mr Mr. Dakpa’s number, and Mr. Dakpa said he could only meet today, so I rushed to get ready to meet with him. He was already meeting with a journalist/documentarian, Janki Kathayat, who was doing a few projects on climate change and wildlife in the Ladakh region. She also turned out to be incredibly helpful, so I really lucked out. They both recommended a lot of government agencies to go in town, and by the end of the interview, Mr. Dakpa even offered to give me a guide to take me around to these offices tomorrow, since they are difficult to find online.

Both of them also recommended I visit Jammu, if not Srinagar, to talk to farmers in the villages of the area, particularly right along the border. Ms. Kathayat offered her help in getting me military clearance to go there, which is unbelievable, but I’m still not sure of the safety issues. She said if I went with a local person, they would have a better sense of when there is real danger, and when not. This may be so, but she also makes “finding some farmers to talk to” sound like a simple task, when it’s been one of the most daunting of this whole project. She also looked at my release form, and said it was pretty standard, and she doesn’t have trouble getting hers signed for her documentaries. She also said there was no need to get it translated because people in Ladakh speak better English than they do Hindi. Their native languages are too varied for translation into all of them. So that’s good news—no translation needed. Whew!

In Jammu, specifically, Ms. K particularly suggested visiting Joria, Lacampur, Callor, Undamphus. Not sure of spellings of any of these. Joria is very agricultural. Also look into the Iggo Phey canal in Ladakh. It’s nearly complete, but there’s no water for it from the Indus—here, before its tributaries dump water, it is very small. Himas. They recommended talking to the Flood Control Department, and the Command Area Development Department, which builds canals, for one thing. Meet with administrative staff as well as ministers, and as well as locals. Meet with the External Affairs Ministry in Delhi, regarding the Indus Waters Treaty. Also look into the Neemo Bandgo aachi dam project, with Mr. Sharma as the project manager. Look at Spituk, a village. Meet with the Board Development Corporation and the Board Development Department. Go to Chogiasmsar (part of the city) for these guys.
Ms. K’s documentaries: Human Invasion, about turtles in the Sunderbans mangrove system (island, very large, a few hours from Calcutta). Survival Sunderbans, about the River Lung in the valley.

Long day of travel from Dehradun to Delhi

Today I left the Wildlife Institute. It was so nice to have all those facilities to use for that week. I feel really behind on everything because of the days of traveling I took first, but at least this way I won’t lose momentum by traveling in the middle, or at the end.

I spent the week reading reports, looking up contacts online, looking up data online. Besides the data, it was basically what I’ve been doing to a lesser degree already on this project. The first day I had access to the internet, Saturday the 28th of June, I worked for 10 hours straight, and got myself locked out of the dorm, so I slept in Dr. Badola’s office. Luckily she had a couch.

At the moment, I’m in the airplane on the way to Leh. “On the way to Leh,” heh. Outside the window is a glorious view of mountains capped with snow! I know a pictures would come out crummy, so I won’t even bother. But it’s beautiful, with the black and white relief.

Anyway, Dr. Badola and Dr. Hussain at the WII were so incredibly helpful. They pointed me in the direction of different contacts for the same organizations I’d identified, more specific names and emails, different from the heads of the office I’d found, and who are so uncommunicative.

On Thursday, I finally sat down to call the people who didn’t answer by email, or for whom I didn’t have emails. Some were helpful by phone (the Central Water Commission quickly gave me two contacts in the areas that are better suited to the project, Chandigarh and Simla), and some were incomprehensible. A few for whom I had no email address, and who were having trouble with the language barrier, asked that I send them an email so they could better understand what I was doing. However, I think I must have written their emails down wrong. The accents can sometimes be so heavy.

Now the mountains outside are brown and rocky. They are so barren! I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like being on another planet, or the moon.

But enough about my progress, or lack thereof. I need to talk about my nightmare of a day. I’m constantly tied up in knots about days of travel, and it turns out I have good reason to be. Today went about as badly as possible, without me actually missing any connections. So I don’t know if this will make me more nervous about travel days, or less, since it could barely get any worse. I’ll go into detail because I’m so baffled by the whole ordeal.

I thought I had it all under control when I got a fellow student at the WII to order me a rickshaw to come up to the campus and take me to the Interstate Bus Terminal (ISBT). However, as I was walking up to the rickshaw, a couple outright stole it from me! I was dumbfounded by how blatantly rude they were. So I had to order another rickshaw, at cost to myself in the form of the STD/ISD/PCO phone calls that were made. This rickshaw offered me a price 40 rupees higher than the other one would have been. I’ve been in no position to bargain all day because I really needed to go to wherever I was going, and needed to get there quickly. So I didn’t argue much. But it was frustrating that Sahas’s work negotiating me a good rate was also stolen by that couple. So, I got to the bus station much later than I meant to—it was about 2. Some of this lateness was my fault—not realizing how long it would take to close up shop, pay for room and board etc, at the WII hostel. Packing up wasn’t too bad because I’d done most of it the night before. I left my suitcase in the office of the hostel, so hopefully it will be safe there. Dr. Hussain must have forgotten to tell them I would be doing that because they seemed really unsure about the process when I finally was able to communicate that I wasn’t taking it with me.

So, I got the ISBT, and went window to window, trying to find some information about when and where the next Delhi bus was. I was happy to take deluxe, non-, AC, or non-. But no one spoke English at the first two windows. Either that, or they just blatantly ignored me. I’m not really sure what’s worse because when they don’t speak English well, they tend to tell you “yes” no matter what you ask, which is confusing, and they tend to tell you any answer rather than figure out what you’re actually asking and figuring out how to tell me the correct answer. So the first information I got about the “next” Delhi bus was that it was at 10;30, which I knew was false because they went hourly, even on Sundays. Finally, someone who spoke good English told me where (stall 40) and when (3pm) the bus would be leaving.

I went to sit near stall 40 and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally a bus pulled into stall 39 at 3:15. I asked the crowd that instantly thronged around the bus whether it was going to Delhi. But I was told “They are taking Jaipur riders first.” At first I thought maybe the bus was going to Jaipur via Delhi, so I wasn’t too concerned. But then someone told me I should get in line for the bus tickets, which was weird because I knew the tickets were sold on board the bus. But I went and got into the “line” just in case. The “line” consisted of a group of Indians, all with cash in hand, thrusting it towards the attendants. I guess whoever got the cash snatched up was first in line. Eventually, from scraps, I picked up that the bus was basically being auctioned to either Delhi or Jaipur—whichever group bought the most tickets. Which seems like an unsustainable system. So we were still in line for the regular bus that would leave later, which let me tell you, looked a little grim. First of all because there were about 50 people in line, and second of all because the bus really looked uncomfortable. I hadn’t been set on having AC or a “deluxe” bus, but a little room for my huge backpack would have been a must. But that one sold out, and there were no prospects for another because of the rain, I guess. And this rumored landslide.

Luckily, I found three kids (students) in the same predicament, and long story short, we decided to share a taxi back to Delhi. I offered to pay more for it, and in return they offered to accompany me on the second part of my trip to VasantKunj, Jenny’s part of the city. They said it wasn’t safe riding alone at night. Ignoring the part where I’d only just met them an hour before, I could tell they were being quite chivalrous, and I know for sure now that I made a good character judgment in the end.

I had really looked forward to sleeping on the bus since I hadn’t slept much the night before, up late packing, up early paying off debts and having breakfast. But the boys kept asking me lots of questions and wanting to chat, which was sweet, but annoying when they would do it right as I dozed off. They got me some dinner, chat and some paella, as well as a lassi and a piece of gum.

Finally, I arrived at Jenny’s, where she took good care of me, and then I slept for one blessed hour before the taxi I ordered was due to arrive. Only, it never came. I tried calling them (waking Jenny to get the number), but they had no record of the order. Just as I was ordering another one, a rickshaw drove by, so I was able to catch it. This was very lucky because if I’d been in that neighborhood any longer, the packs of dogs would have probably torn me apart. Nothing swayed them or scared them.

Got to the airport, had been dropped at the wrong terminal and abandoned. Another auto driver offered to take me to the other terminal for 100 rupees! It was ridiculous. I said I’d walk, but he said it was 4 kilometers the back way, which was a mistake on his part. I said I’d pay 40 rupees max if it was 4 kilometers. After all, he’d still be at the airport and able to get another fare right away. He said OK, and he drove me what was significiantly less than 4 km. I got out and gave him a 50, but he said no, and demanded a 100. I argued with him but he was obstinate, as if we hadn’t had our bargaining conversation at all. Finally, I gave him the 100rupee bill that I’d been carrying around for weeks because no one would take it—it was really ratty and had some weird stickers on it. He tried to give it back to me, but I was so angry at him, I jumped out of the auto and said “Huh! I guess you should have taken the 50 after all! Hope you’re happy with your life.” And ran through the ticket gate to where he couldn’t follow. I hadn’t been that angry in a very long time. It was partly because I’d had such bad transportation luck the whole day so far.

After that, it was pretty clear sailing. I got through the tickets bureaucracy pretty easy, thanks to going to Nepal, and was sitting in the terminal waiting, a full hour before the flight took off. There was a slight delay once we got on, maybe because of the rain. They served breakfast, and gave water, and I had taken my altitude sickness pill, and I was sure things would be looking up. And as you saw from my interjections earlier in the entry, things certainly looking more beautiful.