I lived in India for ten and a half months. I came back for six weeks as a student of Anthropology. The second experience led me to write an essay that later won a writing contest sponsored by Temple University’s International Studies Program. I have decided to reproduce it here as part of my ongoing search for employment, thus granting it the status of “traditional writing sample”.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s a rickshaw ride down Dhangadra’s main road. Two or three turnabouts, no sidewalks, and a left into a calmer but tiny road. Open sewers here, but they don’t smell like you think they should. They do make squeezing through oncoming traffic more tense. If it smells of anything, it’s of something being cooked in a home or sold at a stall. People are on their front steps—shoemakers, neighbors, working in open storefronts. Dogs and cows, and cow shit. The cows eat trash that accumulates in the corners. Once Adam pointed out a baby being carried in a cot on the underside of a cart.
We are in front of Mehul’s home. We tell the rickshawwalla when we want to be picked up. We want to be picked up at six but know that he’ll most likely arrive anywhere from quarter to half past six. Mehul tells us not to pay more than fifteen rupees; we settle for twenty.
We run into Mehul’s mother, who is sitting on the kitchen floor. She’s very sweet. She learned some Hindi during in school. This makes communication a little easier for the unwary Indianist who ignored Gujarati. She watches us while we take our tea. I’m the only one with even a little bit of Hindi, so I attempt conversation. We talk about the rain. I ask her, my hands pointed at the clouded sky and then dropping, how to say ‘rain’ in Gujarati.
We take off our shoes and head left up the stairs. The stairs have a turn in them. After four or five steps we’re facing opposite of where we started. On this landing, to the left is the door to Mehul’s studio. Straight ahead is a view of the street below. In the far corner, opposite of the window is a cooler where Mehul’s regular students get drinks of water. Hanging down from the ceiling, just outside the threshold was a bell. It was engraved with a picture of Buddha. His students would ring the bell as they entered the studio.
Mehul explains the bell, saying that the room is a temple.
Later, I ask what happened to the bell. He explains that it is broken.
Mehul’s room is a studio. It is also a bedroom. We never see it that way, however. I imagine that he spreads a thick blanket on the floor. He lies down with a book.
Mehul was married once, in his early twenties. He admits that despite his reservations regarding the Indian adoption of ‘modern’ habits, he was very modern with his wife. They didn’t get along, so they divorced. There is a picture of her in one of the many photo albums he shows us.
The photo albums are tucked away in a cabinet, behind Mehul’s seat and off to the right. Stored in this cabinet are books, notebooks, music books, pens, odds and ends, and an electronic tabla machine. Later he shows us how it works. There is a rug spread over the center of the room. There is a pale blue floor. Small mats, some with harmoniums in front of them, line the perimeter of the room. His students sit here. Since the three of us usually have our lesson at a time different from his regular class time, most of the mats are unoccupied. Sometimes we have lessons in the afternoon, and we interact with the students. They are predominantly young, maybe around ten. Some are older and obviously talented. Adam is floored by the tabla student six years his junior.
I had an interesting experience one day. Rachel and I had left Mehul’s home to visit a nearby phone booth. Though the booth was literally around the corner, Mehul sent one of his young students as a guide. Rachel went first into the booth. While the boy and I were waiting, an older man came up to me. He stood about a head shorter than me and had a habit of removing and replacing his glasses while he casually interrogated me about who I was and why I was here. He said something in English about air, but all I understood was the word, ‘air’.
A crowd of children that had been playing cricket or whatever formed around us. Trying to help, they began to spell the words, slowly.
A-I-R.
He scribbled ideograms on the palm of his hand. Pointing up for rain, he drew a pot for ‘pot’, a star (David’s) for ‘star’ (tara); symbols for sun (surya) and moon (chandra).
Air is life for us.
He asked why I smoke. No one understood my answer (‘addiction’). He said something about seeing. Shopkeepers paused to gaze at us.
Your eye sees the boy.
He said this in Gujarati, which my guide translated.
It seemed like the man was giving me a Gujarati lesson, so I tried repeating what he had said. Eventually, I got it, and was rewarded by a chorus of approval and repetition. The man pointed to his head.
B-R-A-I-N
The crowd of boys repeated this.
He knew I was taking music lessons. I pointed to the boy and said, “Mehul sir”, indicating the way with a left pointing motion. The man said something about music, something about the harmonium. I raised my hands eye-level, the left working an imaginary bellows—under my right, the keyboard. He told me about the harmonium taking in air from the world, and making sound, music, which spreads. Arm gesture.
W-O-R-L-D. S-O-U-N-D. M-U-S-I-C.
The man worked his own invisible harmonium, singing a raga I did not know. Having seen Rachel finish, the boy motioned for me to wrap up my communication, to enter the booth before someone could take my place. I said goodbye to the man and asked his name.
