Ayodhya

Ayodhya is the mythic birth place of the Hindu God Ram or Rama who is the primary character in the ancient Sanskrit Epic poem called the Ramayana. (Prounounced "Ramaayan")

However, it is also the former location of the Babri Masjid (or "Babur Mosque") which was built by Babur the first of the Mughal Emperors in the early 1500's.

During the 1980's the Bharatiya Janatiya Party (BJP) a conservative Hindu political party which wished to challenge the preeminence of the Congress Party used Ayodhya as a rallying point for all Hindus. They were assisted by the Telebroadcast of the Ramayan in 1987 which was easily the most watched television program of that decade. I heard stories of people peforming puja to their televisions before the program would come on and that most stores would not open until after it was over (it aired on Sunday mornings).
The attention drawn to this controversial site eventually led to Riots that tore down the 450 year old Mosque in 1992. The BJP and other radical Hindu organization such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had sponsored a March to Ayodhya, but at first they claimed no responsibility for the raid that ultimately destroyed the Mosque. Since that time, Kalyan Singh, who was U.P's chief minister at the time has openly accepted responsibility for instigating the riots. He resigned shortly after the incident.

Here is a video of the Mosque being torn down:



Here is the longer version (in Hindi)



Since it was thought that Mosque itself was built out of materials used in an even older Hindu temple, even the pieces of the building have now completely vanished into various individuals homes as holy relics.

Since 1992, a small makeshift temple to Ram has been there, but the Indian Government has not yet decided what should be done to the location. Should they build a Mosque? Should they build a Temple? Both? Neither?

In 2005 five gunmen attacked the makeshift Ram temple and all five were killed in a gunfight - presumably with the military and police forces permanently guarding the site.

The High Court of U.P will announce its verdict on September 24, 2010

As you can imagine, no matter what the verdict is many people are going to be very unhappy about it. Subsequently, in preparation for the announcement security forces are being stepped up all across Uttar Pradesh. They have requested 685 more companies of police officers just for this date. Here in Varanasi, some social workers are trying to organize a peace march for the day BEFORE the announcement to encourage everyone to stay calm after hearing the news. It seems as if the delay in announcing the verdict was deliberate so that the government could prepare itself for what might be a particularly explosive moment in Communal violence in North India.

Of course, no matter what the verdict is, it will be immediately appealed and sent to the Federal Supreme Court - so India is far from finished with Ayodhya. As for the immediate future, it seems as if everyone here is holding their breath waiting to see what will happen two weeks from now....

Guest Blogger Allen: Jump Rope

So while I beat the heat and wait for Ramadan and Eid to end before really diving into my fieldwork I have spent the last few days reviewing and taking notes on interviews I recorded last year. It's really amazing how much my language skills have improved! It kind of inspires me and gives me hope that I can pull this whole dissertation thing off.

In the mean time I have started an exercise regime to try not to waste away like I did last year. I started in July with 20 push-ups and sit ups each day, then August it was 30 and now we're in September so it's 40. At this rate, I should be really cranking them out by next summer!

I decided to add to this regime a jump rope. Which I must say was surprisingly difficult at first. for the first few days I couldn't get more than 50 jumps in before tripping myself up. But today, I got 164 and am quite proud of it. Now that Nikki isn't blogging the pressure is on to pick up where she left off - we'll see how well that works.

more soon.

allen

The hills are alive...

... with the sound of one-on-one Hindi lessons......!
I'm in cool, rainy, wonderul Mussoorie!! Poor Allen is still stuck in hot, sweaty, sticky Varanasi!
(giggle)

I'm up here to go to the Landour Language School - work on my Hindi while trying to escape the heat (and subsequent heat rash and eczema). One of the wonderful things (depending I guess on how you look at it) is that I feel totally disconnected from anything up here. There is no internet at the guest house I'm staying at or at the school where I spend most of my time. Who needs Google Reader when the mountains are staring you right in the face! Who needs email when you can just sit in your room and think (or nap) for hours on end!

So, I'm warning you in advance that you might not hear much from me while I'm up here. So Allen will be the lead blogger for a while ....



......



So...... you may not hear from both of us for a month or so, but rest assured that we're having fun and having plenty of adventures - that I'll be sure to update you all about when I get back.

:)

Varanasi Ho!

Loading up and moving out

Early Tuesday morning, Allen and I packed up all our worldly possessions from Lucknow and took the 5+ hour drive out to Varanasi to begin his PhD fieldwork. We were totally floored by how much crap we had collected over the last year in Lucknow - though somehow it all seems so indispensable ("But I don't want to have to repurchase all the kitchen-wear or buy new buckets for hand washing clothes!") .... Seems like a moot complaint I guess coming from the US, but then we remembered that each extra item we might have to repurchase would require its own special outing ... and well .... we caved and tried to take as much as we could possibly cram into the car.

I gotta say, I think my dad would have been incredibly proud of Allen's packing job (and that's saying a lot). As it was, everyone at the institute (where we had stashed our stuff over the summer) and even the driver were amazed that we managed to get everything in.

So we made it safe and sound with our washing buckets in tow. Our new little flat is cheery and completely welcoming of all the crap we have to fill it.

Varanasi is in the throws of monsoon heat - with its contingent power-outages .... but also surprisingly water outages too! Our host have warned us that things will get much worse after the local elections (just trying to butter up the constituencies ahead of time).

Groan.

But I'll be in the mountains of Mussoorie soon enough - leaving poor Allen to fend for himself in the heat.

Allen and Nikki's Excellent Adventure

*

So when we last left the story we had (amazingly) returned to good 'ol US of A.... where we basically couch surfed for 3 months straight.... you think I'm exaggerating** ....but, no, seriously, we've been on the move - visiting family and friends - for 3 solid months.

Pray tell, what were we doing during all that time ...... well, we ....

... caught lots of fish out at the beach house in San Diego

Allen catches a bat ray and a corvina in one cast

... soaked in the SoCal sun....

... played in some fierce game nights...

... then we headed up to SanFran to ...

... hug trees ...
... play with other friend's toys ...

"I want to ride my bicycle"

... visit the great outdoors ...
... root for Holland in the World Cup...

... and see some really freaky SanFran fog...

... then we hopped back over to Brooklyn and joined the Zany Umbrella circus for a day....

Check out those roadies

... then we headed down South to KY to play on a boat...

I'M ON A BOAT!***

... then in NC we were able to spend time with Mutti, Allen's 103 year old grandmother.

It is good to be the queen...

... then it was off to SC, where we celebrated birthdays

Hmmmm..... frosting .....

... and had adventures with our nephews....

... then (finally) back to New Jersey and New York to say our last good-byes to friends and family .... hang out with babies ...
... and play with other people's toys (again)

Can I have one, pretty please?

Believe it or not, but we're already off to India again. We leave this afternoon and will be in Delhi by Thursday evening. We had such a wonderful time visiting everyone and getting to catch up with you all while we were back in the States. Thank you everyone for letting us invade your couches and guest rooms as we crisscrossed the country. We're sad to be leaving again so soon - but ... you can be sure to hear from us soon.

;)

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* I hope some of you caught this reference.
** It has been known to happen
*** Again, I'm hoping you caught the reference.

Stuck on the Tarmac

I'll try to keep this short and sweet because I would rather not think about this episode. So you may have heard this story... about a Virgin Atlantic flight from Heathrow to Newark getting diverted to Bradley CT because of heavy rainfall in NJ... how that flight was held for 4 hours on the tarmac (from 9am - 1am local time) with no air conditioning (85+ degrees in the cabin) only to be finally turned into an airport that wasn't equipped to handle nearly 300 passengers and crew.

Well, that was the flight I came home on. I was suppose to arrive at Newark around 6:30pm on Tuesday evening.... but got in at 7am on Wednesday instead.

But this flight really had been doomed from the start. We couldn't board on time in Heathrow because the plane was over 100 degrees and needed almost 40mins to cool down to a more reasonable temperature (warning signs of mechanical failures to come?). We then waited another 20 min for two passengers that felt they were too good to show up for the plane on time (they never made it, and their luggage had to be offloaded).

Once we touched down in CT, we were told it was only a matter of time to refuel, recharge the plane batteries, then we would head back to Newark, where the storm would hopefully would have blown over. We had been told that the storm was so bad it had shut down all of the local airports; Newark, JFK, and La Guardia ....

However, after the third mechanical failure (power outages, which turned off the lights and the air-conditioning) .... and the ground crew filling (and I quote) "the wrong gas tanks" on the plane* .... then as the ground crew started leaving for the evening .... you would have thought someone higher up would have made the call to get us off the plane. But we had to clear customs because we were an international flight -- or at least, this was the reasoning we were given as to why they couldn't get us off the plane and wait in the terminal....... even though at least one person required oxygen because he was suffering from heat stroke...

When we were finally let off the plane around 1am (with the help of the shuttle buses from Hertz and the local hotel because there wasn't enough ground crew to help) it still took another 2.5 hours before I got cleared through immigration.

We were told that there weren't hotels available for us because there was a PGA tour going on and all the local hotels were booked --- so shuttled buses were being coordinated instead. But, finding buses at 2am proved to be quite a challenge... so it was 4am by the time I was on a bus headed back to Newark.

At 7am - 12 hours late - I finally got to Newark airport ... tired, anxious, and incredibly thankful to be headed to my parents house**.

3 days later we got on a plane to head out to San Diego.

(sigh) ... and the travel marathon continues***.

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* Seriously, how do you fill the "wrong" gas tanks on a plane? Why do they have wrong tanks on planes?

** I still have some serious questions about how poor the decision making was while we were waiting on the tarmac. I'm not really convinced by all that we were told - there must have been something else going on, but they didn't want to scare us ...? Regardless, the whole thing felt really fishy.

** I realize I never really gave a full time-line of where we've been and where we're going:
May 1 - May 25: Sikkim
May 25 - June 4: England
June 4 - June 16: Baltic Sea Cruise
June 16 - June 22/23: Holland
June 26 - July 6: San Diego
July 6 - July 12: San Fran
July 13 - Aug 1/2: BROOKLYN
Aug 5 - 17: NC, KY, SC
Aug 18 - Aug 26?: New Jersey
Aug 26: Return to India

Hup Holland Hup!

Go Holland Go!*

So after cruising back through the UK, the whole family set off for the Netherlands to visit our extended family.

We took in the local fare...

Hmmmm... Raw herring with raw onions on a bun... delicious. Tastes sort like sushi

Ohhh.... sweet and savory pancakes for lunch? Sign me up!

We also took up some of the local sports.

World Cup Fever!

We criss-crossed the country... Rhoon... Rotterdam... Haarlem... and of course Amsterdam. We took a canal cruise around Amsterdam.

Enjoying the view

Bikes, bikes, bikes and more bikes

(Sigh) We had such a great time, it was sad to say good-bye to everyone at the end of our stay. But hopefully we'll be able to get back sometime soon...

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* (tear) Especially after USA lost to Ghana today...