Time, space what is that like, Just how we livin’ when in the hip life….

As indicated by the title for this week’s blog entry. Rae and I decided we would just provide commentary about a couple of things we notice all the time: differences we see in perceptions of time and space.

Time does not mean the same thing here as it does in the US in several respects.  The first, and most obvious way, shows itself in punctuality, or lack thereof. I am only exaggerating slightly when I say that NOTHING happens when it is supposed to and NO ONE keeps appointments at the time they say they will. Let’s say there is a meeting that is supposed to start at 10:00. The only thing you can routinely plan on is that meeting will not start then. At 10:00, people will start wrapping up what they are working on. If it is an important meeting, people will start coming in about 10:05 and by 10:15 there should be enough people to actually start. This is true with business meetings, Church meetings, and personal appointments. At Church, for instance, we are averaging about 100 people in Sacrament meeting. But when we start at 9:30 (we do try to start and stop Sacrament meetings on time but the rest of the meetings during the day seem to start and stop on their own timing) we probably average 25 – 30 people. The rest filter in sometime.

The universal excuse for late starting is traffic. I have to admit traffic can be bad and is frequently unpredictable. Many people are dependent on public transportation, which reduces the individual control people have. However, there is little thought to planning ahead to allow for that traffic. And the late arriving phenomenon also occurs when everyone is already in the building and traffic is of no consideration.

Another way the difference in time manifests itself is in multitasking. Of course in the west we talk about multitasking but usually we mean listening to music while we read or looking something up on the Internet while we watch TV. In India there is little consideration to things happening serially. I can’t tell you the number of times I have been in meetings, even fairly confidential or important meetings, only to have people come in and start separate conversations with key participants or the chair of the meeting to suddenly initiate or at least accept a phone call. In fact, I am sure I irk people because I have asked them not to come into my office when I am meeting with someone else or because I won’t take a call.

This same perception of time also is why, I believe very few people will wait in a queue. If there is a counter meant to handle one person at a time, six or seven people will crowd up and try to have simultaneous conversations. The issues of time and space intersect in these crowds and in traffic also. As we have noted many times people rarely observe lane management, rather they swarm. The only limitations in multiple people or vehicles occupying the same space at the same time is actual physical limitations (how many vehicles can cram into a space at a time without crashing or with only minimal damage) rather than artificial rules.

The issue of space also presents itself in the expectation of personal space. In India this is an interesting contradiction. Impersonal crowding and invasion of personal space is perfectly acceptable. See the examples of the service counter mentioned above or the way crowds swarm and jostle each other at a market area. Having twenty people in a space that would comfortably handle five is nothing unusual. However personal contact we think is very normal, a pat on the back, a touch on the arm, holding hands, or heaven forbid a hug are still quite disapproved of at least among people who follow more traditional ways. As this implies, things are changing. In urban areas, among people who have been most exposed to the west, social contact is becoming much more accepted. On the other hand, as each year literally hundreds of thousands more people rush to urban areas from the countryside or villages, the issue of crowding in impersonal space gets worse.

Well, that’s it for me. Here’s Rae

Here are some of my extremely random thoughts on space.

So many people live in such tiny spaces and yet are so detached from one another in some ways, and so into each other’s business in other ways.  Let me see if I can explain that a bit better.  It’s not uncommon to find parents, their married children (let’s say 2 sons and their wives) and maybe a couple of grandchildren all living together.  Maybe that’s why the idea of personal space is so foreign to everyone, and the idea of having to fight to be heard is a battle. 

Right after I arrived in India we had a couple’s fireside in our branch.  It was pretty funny to watch the couples reactions to questions like, “ when was the last time you told your spouse you loved them” or “when was the last time you kissed”?  The couples looked at each other and the women covered their faces and giggled.   They seemed embarrassed when they were told that they should be giving each other a kiss at least a couple of times a week and the same with telling each other they loved them.  It was pretty funny watching their reactions when they were asked to give each other a kiss.  Husbands and wives don’t seem to care if they sit together.  Some do set together but not all.   

A couple of weekends ago Phil and I went to an area called Nehru Place.  Everyone says if you have computer or electronic needs that’s the best place to go.  Someone had explained a bit about how you can find anything there and there are a lot of venders and shops, an absolutely total understatement.  I was not prepared for what we encountered.  We went into a building and up about 6 stairs, and I literally felt like I had just walked into a beehive.  Millions of people, tiny shop after tiny shop and people swarming everywhere.  Not knowing where to go to find what we were looking for, it was overwhelming to say the least.  We made our way around a couple of the 5 or 6 floors and then it was time to retreat.  Everyone is handing you stuff, wanting you to buy from them.  It was organized, I guess, chaos, like a beehive.  Outside the building there were several other streets of more of the same.  I expect if I go back there a time or two I will become more comfortable with the whole thing. Kind of like I have with other things, like the traffic and other crowded shopping areas. 

That’s it for me for now.  I’m exhausted just remembering it.

Namaste.

If you catch me at the border, I have visas in my name….

OK. We’re legal for another year. I THINK, on balance, we are glad about that. This week’s blog will be about the trials and travails of visa and Foreign Resident Registration Office (FRRO) registration. This may not be the most exciting post for those of you following along. However, the blog is also a record for us of these three years and this is definitely a part of the experience we want to document.

You may remember the difficulties Rae had in getting her original accompanying spouse visa for India. It took weeks, several iterations back and forth between her and the consulate, and finally the intervention of our attorney. (For those of you who are planning on visiting, the tourist visa is easier but you should still plan on a month to get it, just to be safe). Well, once you get to India, the administrative hassles continue. Foreigners are required to register with the FRRO within 14 days of arriving in India. This process is an interesting amalgam of low and high tech with a generous helping of inefficient bureaucracy. Despite having someone very familiar with the FRRO process to help, it took me several trips and tens of hours of his and my time to get the registration done last year. Lessons learned, it only took Rae one trip and less than five hours to get registered.

With all of that history in our minds, we have been marking the time when we needed to renew our visas and registrations. My apprehension was also raised a bit because the person who helped last year is no longer with MAII. Anyway, we have had mid-April in our mind since last April. We decided we were going to start the process a month early so there would not be any pressure. So, about the 15^th of March, I started the process of visa and registration renewal.

One of the key findings from last year is FRRO now has an online application. This APPEARS to be a step towards modernity but that would only be true if the website actually worked well. As it is getting the form completed requires three or four attempts. And this is the easiest part of the process. To make matters worse, as I was filling in the form, I was required to put in the expiration date of our current visa and registration. Whaaatt?? Despite KNOWING, KNOWING I say, that our visa and registration expire in April, a year after I arrive, it turns out they expired on March 12^th. Instead of being a month early I was a week late. Technically, Rae and I were in India illegally; not the mental picture I usually have when I hear the term illegal alien.

Well, I really start to scramble now. I ask our Finance Manager to quickly as possible get the supporting documents together: a letter from MAII requesting they grant us visas, a letter from MAII saying they will take financial responsibility for us; a copy of my employment agreement; and a copy of our lease; marriage license; and Rae’s name change form, just to name some of the documentation.  All of these have to be certified as being authentic documents. Added to this are copies of passport pictures, copies of our passports, visas, and registration papers. It took a few days to get all of this in order and certified. Now we are even more overdue. Whew! Now all we have to do is upload all of these documents onto the FRRO website and get an appointment to go meet with an FRRO officer.

So, I scan each page of each document and picture, not an inconsequential task, and get ready to upload them onto the FRRO website. The pictures upload, no problem. First document – won’t upload. Repeated attempts with the same result. Well, I’ll try a second and then a third document. No success with any of them. ARGHH! Okay, our forms are filled and pictures are uploaded, maybe it will allow me to make an appointment without uploading the other documents and I’ll just bring them with me. No such luck. You can’t make an appointment until all the documents are uploaded. Well, we are “Surely” Out of Luck now. We can’t renew without an appointment; we can’t get an appointment without uploading the documents; we can’t upload the documents. It reminds me a little of the poem, “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost....”

I really didn’t know what to do, and then I remembered that there is a member of the Church in another branch who is an immigration attorney. I sent him an email stating I wanted to engage his services. This was Friday night. By Sunday, I still hadn’t heard from him but I knew he would be at a District meeting that night. I thought I would ask him then if he would help us and make an appointment to meet with him. As I was heading out the door, Rae suggested I take the file of documents with me. I thought, “That can’t hurt; maybe he can give me quick advice about what I was doing wrong,” so I grabbed them and headed out for the meeting.

After the meeting he came over to me and said, “I got your message and I would be glad to help. Do you have your papers with you?” Of course, thanks to Rae, I did so I handed them to him. He leafed through the papers and was waiting for the opportunity to set an appointment when he said, “Well, let’s go get this taken care of. President Massey, can we use the computer and scanner in your office?” So rather than setting an appointment, he took the time, (about three hours) on a Sunday night, to get our paperwork squared away and appointments set. I kept asking him to send me a bill for his time but he hasn’t yet and I don’t really suppose he will. One thing he told me was that because our visas were already expired that another step would be required. It had to go to the embassy, a step normally not required on renewal.  Yikes, more time.  We wouldn’t have cared except Rae’s booked to fly to the US on April 9^th, and can’t fly with an expired visa.

Monday at 11:30 Rae arrived at the campus and she and Ramdas (our new FRRO expert) headed over to our appointment. I should say that on Thursday Ramdas had come into my office with one of the FRRO officers. The FRRO officers are on campus quit frequently. 60% of our students are not from India and they also have to register as well as get their student visas. Well, Ramdas explained to the Officer that I also was needing to renew my visa and registration. When he heard that, he said, “When you get your appointment, let me know and I will make sure everything goes smoothly.”

He was a man of his word. When we got to the FRRO office, instead of standing in a queue to get a number to stand in another queue to begin to have our file reviewed, we went up to the FRRO officer’s office. He quickly reviewed our file; rearranged the order of a few things; and said, “When you go down to the main room, see this man and let him know I have reviewed the documents.” We did so and in less than an hour we both had our visas and registrations renewed, (no trip to the embassy). We are legal for another year.

All of this really is to just explain why we are late with our blog this week. Sorry.

Namaste.

Your true colors, True colors are beautiful, Like a rainbow…

Happy Holi! For those of you who don’t know, Holi (pronounced like wholly) is often called the festival of colors, hence the topic for this blog entry. I’ll give some background about Holi and then Rae will talk about the Holi activity we had at the campus on Friday.

Holi is one of the two most famous Indian holidays (Diwali is the other). Like most Indian festivals/holidays it has religious toots, although today its celebration is mostly secular. The origins of Holi are in this wise (well this is how I heard it; like most such traditions, there are several versions). 

There once was a powerful king. He became so powerful that he decided he must actually be a god and insisted that everyone in his kingdom should begin to worship him. All who refused were to be killed. It turns out his son, Prahlad, refused to worship his father because he was a true follower of Vishnu. This went on for a while but the king’s advisors told him that allowing his son to live was undermining his rule. So the king decided to have Prahlad burned to death but how? It turns out that the king’s sister (Holika) was also very powerful and evil. She also had a cloak that allowed her to be in a fire without being harmed. So, the king directed the lighting of a huge fire. Holika took Prahlad onto her lap in the fire. Prahlad prayed to Vishnu for help and Vishnu sent a great wind that blew the cloak off of Holika and onto Prahlad. Prahlad was saved and Holika was burned to death.

So the first part of Holi is the burning of the Holi fire. A bonfire is started and participants dance and sing about the victory of good over evil. The next day people gather and “play Holi” – the part of the celebration that is best known. People throw, shoot, spray, dump colors on each other. These colors take the form of colored powders, paints, and water colors. People run around trying to color one another and avoid being colored themselves. The colors were originally made of blossoms of various plants; now they are nearly all manufactured synthetically. A current concern is the lack of quality control in the manufacturing of the colors. There are concerns about lead and carcinogens in colors of low quality, which doesn’t seem to have dampened the amount of colors flying around. I am not really sure how we got from burning Holika to throwing colored powder on one another, but be that as it may, them’s the facts.

Holi, as noted above, is called the festival of colors and also festival of love. After the playing of colors, people get together to socialize or make visits to friends and families. This lower key aspect of Holi leads to another tie to the original story. After Prahlad was saved by Vishnu, he and his father reconciled with each other. Now, during Holi people are supposed to reach out to people with whom they are estranged or with whom they are fighting and repair the relationship. After all if Prahlad can forgive his father who was trying to kill him, we should be able to resolve our less serious differences as well, right?

Well, that’s the background, here’s Rae with reflections on playing Holi at the campus.

I have been told that Holi can be pretty crazy and wild, particularly in some of the more rural areas and villages. It does seem to be a good excuse to drink and go crazy with color, some of which doesn’t just wash off and as Phil mentioned can actually be toxic.

 On Friday while I was sitting in Phil’s office waiting for the festivities to begin, one of Phil’s managers came into his office and asked that all the female Admission Officers be allowed to stay home on Saturday, as it wouldn’t be safe for them to be out.  Not sure why?  Given what I know about Holi and the fact that the real Holi days are today and tomorrow, not sure if this was a good excuse for an extra day off or what.  For those of you who have watched Outsourced, based in India, you may remember the episode where Todd’s employees made up a fake holiday in order to get an extra day off.  In any case, and I’m sure preferring to err on the side of safety, the women were given the day off. 

I digress, so back to the fun at the campus.  It was interesting to me that the majority of the students that participated in the celebration were not the Indian students but rather the African students.  Maybe it’s just more of a novelty for them than the students who have experienced it all their lives.  I mean, how many times do you want to have to clean color off of yourself? [Phil – I asked about this. I was told the Indian students all have plans to play Holi with family and friends, so they didn’t need to do it at the campus too. For many of the African students, however, this may be their only chance.]

I was not sure what to expect from the students, and could see things going a couple of different ways.  Would I leave there unscathed or would I be pummelled?  I am pleased to say that while the students may have pummelled each other, they were quite respectful about asking me if I cared if they put some color on me.  Thus, no color dumped on my head or smeared on my face.  It was fun to watch them interact and enjoy the festivities.  After the coloring came the food, of course, and then the dancing, of course.  All in all it was a fun experience and I felt safe the entire time.  Yeah! 

Hope you enjoy the pictures. 

Namaste.

Welcome to the Hotel California, Such a lovely place, Such a lovely place….

The Eagles’ song, the lyrics of which are cited above, is well known. It applies this week to us because this afternoon we got a call that the daughter and two grandsons of a Sister in our branch were in danger and needed a safe place to stay (that her husband and his associates wouldn't know about) until Monday when she has an appointment at the US Embassy. We, apparently, are now running a safe house.  Other than having a spare bedroom and knowing the mother/grandmother, we really don’t have any idea what is going on.

One thing about India, it is rarely dull. Woohoo!

On Friday night Rae and I went to a reception for representatives of the embassies here in Delhi and business representatives. From a business standpoint, it was okay. I made a few contacts; our Dean made a few contacts. There was a very interesting program which consisted of numbers representing various states of India. Once again, we got drug on to the dance floor. During the last number of the program dancers started to go out to the audience and attempted to bring guests to the dance floor. Rae had just said, “I think we should move over a little so we are less conspicuous,” when one of the performers grabbed my hand and started pulling me to the dance floor. Despite what she said, I knew Rae wanted to get up there and cut a Punjabi rug so I grabbed her hand too. Next thing the two of us are in a dance circle with a half dozen performers. I am sure we were the hit of the night.

My mobile battery was almost dead so I only got the two pictures below. This was an amazing display the one guy was triple blind folded; the other guy was kneeling with some kind of vegetable on his hand, another one on his head, and a “straw” in his mouth (I couldn’t really see what it was other than it was red). The first guy starts dancing around the stage waiving two swords. After a few minutes, including taking swings of the swords right by the second guy, he split the two vegetables and cut the straw. After that, the blindfolded guy was brought back to the front of the stage. Another guy was brought in and he laid down. Again a root vegetable was applied, this time to his stomach. Again, blindfolded guy danced around the stage, this time with a short-handled pick axe. This time he smacks the ground with the pick axe all around the head and body of the guy lying on the floor. Finally he splits the vegetable on the second guy’s stomach. Funny, they couldn’t get anyone to come from the audience to help with either of these two numbers.

Not much else from me this week other than work, and more work. So I am going to pass off the blog to Rae.

I will just warn you now, that our “out and about” blog entries are numbered. This morning we went back to the temple of Akshardham.  We had gone there a few weeks ago with my niece, her husband and the McConkies.  Our time there was limited and we were not able to see everything, so went back to see the rest.  This temple is one that doesn’t allow ANY cameras or phones (trust me they do a thorough pat down), so there was absolutely no picture taking. This is the temple that had the elaborate elephant carvings.  It is truly a beautiful modern day temple (Indian style anyway).

We heard they have a big screen movie, a historical display a boat ride and musical water fountains, (the fountains were all torn apart and being completely redone).   We thought the boat ride sounded pleasant and the other stuff okay so, we went back to see those things. The fountains were still under construction and it turns out that if you want the boat ride you have to do the other two things. I thought the boat ride would be this pleasant excursion, but it turns out it was more like a Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World”.  Well, not “it’s a Small World” exactly, there was no music. Perhaps, “Pirates of the Caribbean”. It covered (in about 15 minutes) 10,000 years of Indian history. There are an amazing number of things that originated here. It was all enjoyable, but not quite what I had expected. As I noted, no cameras nor phones are allowed in Akshardham, so naturally we have no photos of our own, but here are a couple we got off the Internet.

Now, back to my original comment.  The weather here is quickly heating up and so our days of wanting to be out and about will soon be coming to an end.  Hopefully we will still be able to get in few more sights before we begin entertaining you with the more human interest type posts.   

Namaste.

Your friends they aren't at home, Everybody's gone to the garden

Thursday of this past week was a holiday at work, Maha Shivratri, which I will be talking about. We took the occasion to go visit the Mughal Garden, the formal gardens at the Indian President’s residence, which Rae will talk about. Pictures to follow.

Maha Shivaratri, which generally means “the great night of Shiva” is a holiday that is celebrated generally among Hindus and specifically those who are ardent followers of Shiva. We did see several temples at which free meals were being served (a common aspect of celebrations) but in general there were fewer obvious signs of observance than for other religious holidays that have occurred whilst we have been in India. The key to that may be in the name: the great NIGHT of Shiva. From what I have been told, those that most actively celebrate Maha Shivaratri do so by fasting during the day and an all-night vigil with praying during the night. Neither of these activities are particularly public. Anyhoo, the day off gave us the opportunity to go visit the President’s garden, as noted above.

The President’s garden is only open to the public for a month every year. During that time, millions of people visit the 80 acre gardens. For security reasons people cannot take in backpacks, purses, water, or still or video cameras. As you will notice, the prohibition on cameras does not mean there aren’t pictures taken. Cell phones are allowed and since most of them now have the capacity to take pictures… well as an Indian from New Jersey might say “badda bing badda boom”. We followed the rules very closely for the first half hour or so, but after seeing dozens of others taking pictures with their cell phones (often standing right next to guards) we decided the rule must really be more of a suggestion. Kind of like traffic lights. So, Rae did get some pictures but honestly they can’t begin to truly convey the whole experience: the sight, the peace and quiet, the wonderful fragrances… but I am afraid I am overstepping my assignment. I yield the floor and the balance of my time to my esteemed partner.

Well, Phil has already explained a bit about the Mughal Gardens.  I will just say that these gardens are beautiful and impressive.  One thing that I found so impressive was the wide variety of flowers.  For those of us from the NW It is not unusual to see lovely flowers, but we usually associate tulips with spring, roses with summer and dahlias with fall.  So, to be able to see all those plus many, many others all at the same time was both impressive and beautiful.  

As Phil explained, there were no cameras allowed so for the first part of the tour I didn’t take any pictures.  So, there are no pictures of the large herb and medicinal gardens that we first encountered.  We were told that all of the food that is used at the President’s house is raised on the grounds. 

After the herb and medicinal gardens there was a large area with display shelves that held pot after pot of bonsai plants.  There was a wide variety of plants that have been pruned and shaped in the bonsai style.  It was fascinating to see the size of some of these plants in relation to the small, shallow pots that they grew in.  There were fig, ficus (several varieties), citrus, palm, banyan, evergreens and a bunch of others that I’m not remembering right now.  Most all of these were labelled with the name of the plant, but some also had signs stating how old they were.  Some were almost 20 years old.  I found that interesting because with such shallow pots and such hot weather, keeping them watered and maintained must be quite a feat.

There are several different fountains.  Some of them were programed to music and lights.  While we were able to see the display with the music, and it was beautiful, I imagine they are quite spectacular at night with the lights. 

I tried to capture two different tennis court areas.  One looked like the ones I’m most used to, but one had clay courts.  Hopefully you can spot those among the pictures.  There is another picture that looks like a carpet.  It was made of cut flowers and arranged on a lawn area.  I’m sure there was some significance there that I’m not aware of.  It did draw a lot of attention.   There were several areas that were blocked off and so were not available for viewing.

There was one picture that I wish I’d taken, and there were several opportunities, as they were posted all over.  That is a picture of the sign saying “No Videos or photography”.  The only other thing that would have added to that would be pictures of all the people taking pictures.  Maybe another time.  I’m really good at thinking of these things after the fact. 

While the photos were taken by my cell phone and don’t really do justice to the gardens, I hope you get the idea and enjoy them.      

Namaste.