Things have been pretty eventful over the last few days; Archana, who’s a staff member from Indicorps, came down from Ahmedabad to visit. Just before that I’d given Karthik a preliminary draft of the paper, which basically established the main structural and managerial impediments in the vocational education system. On November 2nd, I visited Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Masab Tank. (That’s south of my office, which is in an area called Panjagutta). Here’s a passable map of Hyderabad, if you’re interested.

http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/andhrapradesh/hyderabad-map-city.gif

On the northwest corner of Hussain Sagar you can see Panjagutta. Just a little further south you can also see Khairatabad, which is where Dilip lives currently. So the deal apparently is that I’m going to stay with him in his current place if we don’t find another, larger, place before November 15th. However, I want to actually clear that with his landlord, who I imagine might be less than thrilled about the prospect of an unexpected tenant. Dilip, Prakash, and the other guys keep telling me I’m worrying over nothing. Prakash keeps telling me with an amusingly declarative air of finality “Befikar raho! Aapka problem solve ho gaya!” That basically means “Stop worrying! You’re problem has been solved.” The tone is definitely lost in translation. So I guess I’ve digressed a bit, but that’s the housing situation at the moment. I’ll figure something out. As Sheel and I have grown so fond of saying, ho jaega (it’ll happen).

Now back to JNTU. First I talked to an official in the admissions office, a retired lecturer. He was a very talkative fellow and definitely excited by his small NRI audience. First he gave us a breakdown of the JNTU’s engineering school (I was expecting to find an ITI campus there, but I guess there was some misunderstanding about the directions). Then he thoroughly interviewed Archana and me about our educational qualifications, making sure to ask the oh-so-typical question about why I had chosen area studies and political science over a track like engineering. He also asked the customary questions about our parents and their occupation, and then talked about his son in the U.S. While it was nice to have him take so much interest, there was a disturbing contrast between his genial attitude toward us and his approach to the students who came in trying to submit paperwork or ask questions. He either dismissed them almost rudely, or waved them off to wait at some benches by the wall. Things like this make me wonder if an NRI, specifically one born outside India, can ever really experience India in the same way as residents here. I guess that’s actually a hypothetical question; I’m quite sure the answer is an unequivocal no. Even if we weren’t treated differently, or even when people mistake us for native Indians, our conscious and unconscious frames of reference make our experiences necessarily different.

This identity discussion is a topic I usually feel is flogged to death, and I’m kind of surprised that I’m writing about it now. I suppose I’m beginning to understand the weight of identity and power in ways I hadn’t before. That’s not a function of fundamentally seeing things differently, but just of being in India for a longer period of time, I think. One more thing before I close this topic…we talked a lot at orientation about shedding frames of reference and adopting new ones, and I do think that’s possible to a certain extent. If anything, though, I’m just becoming a lot more conscious of my different frames of reference here; and the interesting mixture of “Indian” and “non-Indian” perspectives. At least as of today, I think I’m discovering just how American I actually am. I started reading Nobody Knows my Name, by James Baldwin, but put it down a week or so ago and haven’t gotten back to it. He has some interesting insights on the issue of dual identities; there are some parallels to Du Bois’s double consciousness concept. It’s a lot more powerful to read that kind of a book here than in America because the dualities are very much alive in my head. It’s especially interesting when he talks about his reactions to a conference in Africa.

Back to Hyderabad. After about an hour at JNTU we went next door to an institute called Government Polytechnic. The watchman/doorman wasn’t initially inclined to help me in my search for informants on vocational training. I first started off in Telugu, but then switched to Hindi, and then back to Telugu. Maybe I was hoping one would win him over more than other, not quite sure what I was doing. He apparently was amused, and he said in Hindi “first you used Telugu, now Hindi, which do you want?” “I’ll take Hindi,” I said. So he basically told me “Ask. You can ask me whatever questions you have.” So I did ask him questions, and after each one he’d ask me “what else?” and I’d ask another question. Apparently I passed the test in his mind, and he took me inside and introduced to a man sitting a table chatting with a few of his colleagues. A little persistence in India (sometimes) goes a long way; he turned out to be a gold mine. Mr. Vasanth Kumar, now the head of the Civil Engineering Department and a former consultant for the World Bank, was incredibly humble, friendly, and pretty inspirational. It was nearly 5 pm when I met him, and he talked to both of us until almost 7 PM, a pretty generous gesture at the end of a work day. He broke down the nuts and bolts of the technical training system really well, and offered an interesting “unofficial” classification of types of educational institutes by their founders/operators:

1. Academics – usually have a strategic vision as well as a profitable model
2. Industrialists – good infrastructure, and profit – they make sure the graduates are useful to them
3. NGOs and voluntary organizations – their often-good motives produce often-good results
4. Politicians – profit is usually the sole motive, quality predictably suffers
5. “Land-grabbers” – again, just looking to run a profitable enterprise
6. Chit-fund owners with profit as the only motive. Chit funds are an interesting financial arrangement that take some time to explain, so I’m conveniently deferring to Wikipedia for whoever’s interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chit_Fund

He also shared a bunch of stories about his efforts to pool together money from his students and friends to put some lower-income students through school and college. He wasn’t tooting his own horn, though I suppose he has some right to if he feels like it. He has a really personal touch, and I learned quite a bit in a pretty short amount of time. I also asked if I could visit his classes after exams finish up on November 15th, and he was more than willing. He wants me to get to know his students, which would be perfect.

I also turned an early rough draft of my paper into Karthik, and we had a one hour conversation about it and about what I’ve been up to in general. He was really happy with the paper’s progress and encouraging about my spending my time inside and outside the office more or less as I see fit. I think it helped that he had some on-paper evidence of basic competence and effort. So hopefully things will take off from here; it’s primarily a matter of narrowing this project (at least from the actually-do-something side) to a more manageable side.

So that’s the work situation. Now for the fun stuff, if any of you are still reading at this point. For those of you who know a bit about my compulsive exercise habits, this might not surprise you too much. Sarita and I are planning to run the half-marathon (13.1 miles) in Mumbai on January 21st.

http://www.mumbaimarathon.indiatimes.com/

If anyone will be in Mumbai at that time, come out to show some support! Jigar, I’m not sure if that interferes with your exam schedule.

So Sarita actually ran a half-marathon in Chicago last year, and has a whole running schedule charted out from a former marathoner’s website. Basically the idea is to gradually build up your endurance; each week culminates in a long-run of increasingly distance (from 3 miles through 10). You never actually run more than 10 in this schedule, the idea being that you don’t want to wear yourself out and that adrenaline can carry you through the last 3.1 miles on race day. Today was the first official day of training; naturally I failed to run the 3.1 miles and went closer to 4. But from here on I’ll probably stick to the schedule because the distances are going to get tougher and it’ll be a challenge to complete them.

I’m definitely not a good runner, but I’ve made myself into an acceptable one in the past few years. This should be an interesting challenge for my flat feet and funky knee, but it’s only a few months of training and “only” a half-marathon. In fact, two other Indicorps people in Bagar, Rajasthan – Radhika (fellow) and Lakshmi (staff) – are training for a full marathon. They were actually the inspiration for our deicions. I’m also probably never going to do this again, but you know what they say…when in Mumbai…

Right. My sense of humor has drastically deteriorated as well. If any of you know some good knee stretches be sure to let me know. And if you want to send me a birthday present (shameless plug) send me two knee braces.

At the end of September I was thinking about how I was dealing surprisingly well without my trips to the gym. Apparently the exercise bug doesn’t stay away for long. That’s probably a good thing given the amount of dosa and uthappam (wonderful South Indian food, but rather oily) I consume. I think I’m going to bring this mammoth entry to a close now…I’ll post it tomorrow morning.