More arguing (will I ever stop? Apparently not.)

[rhyll]

Yesterday I spent the morning in the library, and then in the afternoon I had lunch and played dressups. Shayla and Bhumika dressed me in a sari, and put on jewellry and a bindi. Scarily, they said the exact same thing that Jyothi did when she played dressups with me - "oh! you look just like a doll now!" Photos were taken, so you may marvel in due course at my dollishness.

After I'd changed back into clothes I can walk in, we walked to the temple to do pooja. There was one god that needed thanking for not giving the children smallpox, and another that we thanked for not making the solar system implode or anything. It was quite pleasant, although as usual I felt a little awkward. I tried to give up general thanks to any gods who may have been listening, and well-disposed to me.

After dinner we went for our usual evening constitutional, and I managed to start another fight. I've been very uncomfortable with the way people (Hindus) here talk about Muslims, and I thought I should get a somewhat more balanced view. So I said, "So, I've heard a lot of anti-muslim sentiment expressed here..." Instead of getting some kind of answer explaining the reason behind this bias, and the problems it causes, I basically got, "India is a Hindu nation, always has been, and Muslims cause trouble." So, of course, I argued. After saying a whole heap of fairly unpleasant stuff (including those great chestnuts we've been hearing in Australia - "If they don't like it, they should move [to Pakistan, in this case]", and "In fifty years the Muslims will have outbred us because they have so many babies"), including claiming that all inter-religious violence is started by Muslims and Hindus only protect themselves or retaliate (I've heard this before several times), they declared that they were actually very friendly and open to Muslims. I found this depressing rather than reassuring, something which I didn't attempt to explain to them. I am hoping that the whole disagreement was some sort of language mishap, but I suspect that it wasn't.

I am perpetually surprised that people who can exhibit horror at eating meat - or even eggs - can justify Hindu atrocities against Muslims with such a lack of concern.

Anyway, on to happier things.

This morning we went to Mysore palace and looked around. It was very impressive, in a somewhat gaudy kind of way. I have nothing much to say about it that couldn't be said better by coffee-table books.

Since I've done nothing terribly exciting since then, some filler:
Drinking water here often happens from a communal cup or jug, and when it does it's polite to drink without letting the vessel touch your mouth. Now, for the sake of my explanation, it is necessary that you all go away and try this, then come back. The trick is that you must somehow pour the water into your mouth. Quite often when I go to give interviews, they will offer me water in a communal cup. I'm thirsty, so of course I want to drink. But then it's somewhat awkward to spend five minutes carefully tilting the cup. So generally I wait until my interviewee leaves the room to go get some papers or something, and then do it. Sometimes this works. More frequently, they come back to find me with water all down the front of my shirt, trying to look like I am a Grown Up instead of incredibly sheepish.

Workwise, nothing was done today. I will still interview Shayla and her husband before I leave, but there's not much else to do here apart from prepare my talk for Monday (which I still haven't started). Here is a list, however, of what I have (most of which needs to be converted to electronic and searchable form upon my return):
* about 30 interviews
* over 240 pages of written notes,
* several books/reports/pamphlets and so on
* 'experiential information', or whatever - all the information I've got that comes from having been present at meetings and events. A lot of this I've already taken notes on.

If you include my written journal notes, emails, and unnecessarily voluminous livejournal entries, this trip has generated quite scary amounts of information from me.




I am still not sure if it's enough. I hope so!

Comments

[boxer-the-horse.livejournal.com]

I can't help but laugh at the word 'Pooja' when following the word 'do'. It is clear that University Educations do not entirely eradicate childishness.

Funny you should mention about Indians attitudes to Muslims. There's a guy called Sel who I know who is a big Labor Party supporter and heads the ALP Multicultural Policy Committee, yet one day I had to sit through 15 minutes of him talking about 'those Muslim buggers, ah?' Quite depressing. I was more diplomatic than I should have been.