The dream come true..Chandragiri!!

I was planning to visit Chandragiri since 2010, as the history of Indo-Tibetan and the Tibetan refugees have always ignited my mind. Finally after a long wait I could make it to the refugee camps in Chandragiri in 2015. It was long journey by bus, train and car from Rourkela-Bhubaneswar-Bharampur-Mohana-Chandragiri. One of my senior Ph.D. colleague joined along with me to the place.

Both of us were excited for the trip and carried all necessary things that we would require for two days stay in the camp.  It was breath taking experience traveling to the place and seeing the colorful Tibetan flags in their entrance to the camps. Finally after a tiresome journey both of us reached the place. We stayed in a guest house called the 'Ripa house' which was clean and tidy. There was one small eatery where we used to take our food. On our post arrival we quickly visited the Rigon Monastery which was quite popular lately as Dalai lama had inaugurated it in 2010. The beauty of the monastery was scintillating. Each and every part of it was depicting the tradition and culture. The wall painting of the god were trying to say many things which was tough for both of us to decode it. The usual evening prayer had already started in the monastery, there were around eight young boys who were offering prayer to their lord. They were sitting in two lanes and two of them were beating the drums, one was playing the instrument called khanjani and another one offering some sort of holy water during the entire prayer session. We were asked not to click any photos or videos during the prayer session although we were allowed to see it. The camps were looking deserted due to business season for the primary occupation of selling woolen sweaters and shawl in the cities. The secondary occupation for them was selling sweet corn, other small business or jobs.

In our stay at monastery we try to gather information from the lamas about the teachings and the library. Surprisingly the young boys were from Nepal and not the Tibetan refugees. It was little strange to know that the monastery and the library was taken care by the Nepalese. We were latter not allowed to visit the library, as the higher authority were at Nepal. None of the boys were ready to spare more time with us. We assumed that that it would be the higher authority instruction not to share any information with the visitors. As we were walking around, we also found another  interesting place for the meditation called the 'mind doodling'. The beautifully revolving doodlers which has some prayer engraved on  it. We spend little time to observe the men and women meditating there. There are total five camps out there and we were living in camp-4. While walking down to the camp number three to talk to the female scholars in the monastery. We saw beautiful corn field on our way. We also crossed the lane that covers with colourful flags with some alphabets on it. Upon enquiry we found that the Tibetan believe on evil eye. To protect themselves from evil eye they use the flags with written prayers on it. The prayers were written in Sanskrit which was not read by all the young Tibetan. We found another small monastery in camp 3 where the female scholars were staying . We talked to them and found that they joined the monastery out of their own interest. Most of the scholars were from Nepal.

Question keep coming to my mind that how a 3 year old girl would find interest to join the monastery? There must be some political interest to bring these small kids into such teaching. As many of them would continue to stay in the monastery after the teaching is completed or they will be shifted to some other monastery to teach other fresh scholars. It was quite strange to know that the Nepali scholars are majority in number in the monastery than the Tibetan. What really strike my mind that the Tibetan refugees in the camps do not share any kind of information to the visitors. The refugees do take the advantage of doing government job especially in the Indian army which was again a political question of why joining Indian army? We also came to know from the local that they have a Tibetan PM for all the Tibetan refugees in India. They would collect vote from each destination to the head quarter at Dharamsala to decide the next PM. The only big social gathering for the Tibetan refugees is the new year in February. Most of the weddings are also conducted during that time of the year. It became a opportunity for the Tibetan refugees to integrate with other refugees living in different location in India. One of the fascinating thing that I noticed was the well preserve tradition and culture, nationalism and having that sense of belonging among themselves. I also felt that there are many other things I need to explore. But may be with frequent visit and interacting more with the Tibetan about their entire journey from Tibet to Chandragiri, political movement, economic migration, structural changes etc. Perhaps I can wait till February to go on their new year eve.

 

Being ethnic...

It took me month to sort out my travel plans to Washington D.C. I was fully prepared to deliver talk on my topic in one of the international conference. Mind full with academic works and excitement to meet different research scholars and academicians such as Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. First day in DC went on strolling around the street and checking out some of the tourist attractive places. The best part of it was the well organized museums, memorials, US capitol and parks. One can never get bored, as each step has something to checkout and wonder about. The most interesting museum among all was the US Holocaust and the American Indian Museum. The

conference started on the 2nd day, heart full with excitement to see Georgetown University. The most beautiful and interesting  was the old Gaston hall building of 1782. The campus was looking lively the students was seen busy organizing small events and cheering each other. It was wonderful to meet so many scholars from different parts of the world. After having a full academic session, I used to return to the place where I was put on called Westfalls church. I was staying with the Odiya family I know from my child hood days. The 3rd and 4th day went on attending lectures, plenary session, networking with different scholars. The conference end on the 4th day paying good bye to all scholars and professors I was interacting for constant 3days.

Every evening after the conference we used to visit different families for some social gathering. I never thought that I would meet so many Odiya families in the US. The huge Odiya gathering in a house-warming party was giving me a feeling of Odiya diaspora in the US. It was amazing to see all Odiya delicacy and traditional attire worn by each and every female present in the function. There was Indian music  and kids giggling and playing with each other just like how it is in India. I was betting within myself the perception carry by most Indians living in India. Its a common perception among those people who live in India, that people who immigrate out of the country forget their culture and language. They assimilate with foreign culture and people to get themselves diffused with other culture and leaving their own. Spending few days in Washington DC and meeting so many Odiya families proved those common perception wrong. It was amazing to see family keeping themselves update with each and every Odiya festivals. Each of the family has some plan for the gathering and celebrate the festival with whole hearted. The Ganesh Chaturthi was round the corner I

could able to smell the festive feeling in each and every family.

It was more like an diaspora where people  have the sense of belonging within themselves. It is so very important to have that feeling of ethnicity within ourselves that keep us lively and cheerful in a foreign land. I would like to thanks some of the beautiful Odiya families I came across during my visit to the US. Most importantly I would like to thanks a friend with whom I was staying at and who introduce me to so many Odiya families.

Tribes Vs Development

Tribes or Adivasis or Indigenous or foragers are now centre of question for many development practitioners and the capitalists. On one hand development practitioners are putting full efforts for the development of the tribals on the other hand the capitalists are leaving no caution to displaced the tribals from their place of origin for the sake of development. In return they are ready to provide best of development to the tribals demanding the land they are living for ages. This certainly sound like double edged sword.

Reading daily news paper on these issues, discussing and debating with peer groups, I often questioned myself 'Do tribals really need development?' I was asked by one of my senior friend 'What can be done for the economic upliftment of the tribal's?' I gave a deep thought to the question. It indeed took me back to the history of tribal origin. The era of kings, where tribals used to have their own dynasty, territory, cultural and political organizations. They indeed never needed any economic support from the kings. Rather it was kings who used to take support from the tribals to help in their economic activities. Let me give you example of Juangs who are now called as the Particularly Vulnerable Groups of Odisha who used to have their own territory known as Juang Pidha. It was king who officially given the geographical territory to the Juangs so that they can take care of the forest and the wild animals. It was believe that tribals are the best care taker of the forest. They used to practice their own economic activities and were empowered with their own indigenous knowledge. Infact they never needed any outsiders to teach them the indigenous technology rather it was inheritate from their forefathers. With the enforcement of British rule things started changing tremendously, the administrative setup was formulated. The Saheb culture started  tagging the tribals as uncivilized and jungle people. To make them civilized the official cadre was formulated in each districts, it was Britishers who have written most of the Gazetteers for the districts. After going through few of the district Gazetteers, I got shock of my life that Britishers had never used to appreciate the Adivasis. Infact they were always been abused and wrongly represent since time and memorial. This trend is still going on in each and every places in India. If one visit the government officer and talk about adivasis the very common sentence one hear is ' Adivasis are uneducated, uncivilized and drunkard people. They can never be changed'.

After working in various setup for the cause of the tribals I came to realize that tribals are the most knowledgeable and has well equipped indigenous techniques, good medicinal healer and well acquainted with the nature may it be forest, animal or water sources. They have the best techniques of growing number of corps in a natural condition. If one try to look into the indigenous knowledge of the Dongria Khond they grow the best pulses and turmeric in the state. I always wonder why don't the Government officials who are working for the betterment of the tribal development never try to understand the indigenous knowledge of the tribals. This is one of the reason why the best of livelihood schemes failed in the tribal regions. The imposition of the modern techniques on the tribals without really going deeper into their practices is the main cause of the failure of many development schemes. Many of the development schemes are either top down approach or lack participatory approach. How can one ignore the faulty implementation of the tribal subplan projects and policies by the government? Even if you have best of administrative officers in the district in most cases due to lack of department coordination the schemes failed.

The Dongria Khond of Kandhamal

 My argument here is that if the tribal indigenous knowledge could be appreciated and considered for formulation of any livelihood schemes then their is remedy to the failure of the scheme. Also the development projects or schemes should be need based with prior discussion with the village grama panchayat or the tribal community it is meant for. The more it is participatory the better chances for the sustainability of the development. The better coordination of the government department can also bring strength in the implementation of the development schemes.  Let me site here the indigenous livelihood practices of the Dogira Khond in Kandhamal, I was quite content to see the tribals are allowed to practice their indigenous ways to grow the livelihood, they were certainly seen enjoying the work in hot summer.

World without forest

How our life will be without forest? How the world will look like without forest? Where will the foragers go if there won’t be any forest to live? These are some of the questions brings goosebumps in me.  After travelling deep inside the forest and falling in love with it has made me connected intensely to it. I often fear losing my lover (forest), seeing it slashed and burnt by the machine lovers. My eyes burn with tears seeing my lover dead and buried in grave, upon which stand the cemented buildings and factories. Blood drain from my heart seeing the fellow foragers displaced and lifeless. I cannot envision living in a land of grave. Time and again haunted by my lover and chastised with deadly flood, cyclone, earthquake and fatal disease. I know you are in deep pain underneath, I know the poisonous gas is choking your throat, the waste materials are making you filth, the heat from AC, motor vehicle etc. are making you ill…I wish I have a magic band to clean it all for you. I miss your freshness; the dew drops of love, the scent of your body and touch of cool breeze.

Oh my lover, take me along with you into the grave before I die getting hunted by you and your deadly punishment.

Love, Lust and Marriage...

The title of the blog itself may raise many eye brows. Let me start with the history of marriage where people used to rely on polygyny and polyandry form of partners before it comes to monogamy. Now we are in the trend of monogamy form of choosing partner but the instinct of polygyny and polyandry still remain within all human being somewhere. This is why many couple have extra marital affairs.  Couple get married and start living together with the hope of raising a happy and good family. Now the question here how many couples are really happy in their married life? if not what is going wrong between them?

I have personally experience talking to many Indian married men and women who goes through terrible time in their married life. Let me first start with the statement given by married men. The common reply from the married men on their broken marriage was that they were not happy sexually with their wives. Another group of married men said they were not happy of their wife because they are less skilled, less educated and not updated. Some other men said they were not happy with their wife interference in their life. Some said they were not happy with their wives as they were not sensible and balanced enough to manage professional and marriage life. The key words what I gathered was sexually not happy, less education, interferences, jealousy, less sensible, not balance, abusive. Now when I talked to women they said they were not happy because their husband do not give much time to them and spend more time outside home. Another group said they doubt their husband having many affairs outside marriage. Some said they were not happy because they were miss treat by their husband and in-laws. Some said they were sexually abused and raped by their husband. The key words here are not giving much time to the family, having affairs, miss treat, sexually abused, rape..

Being an Anthropologist I always tend to think of going deeper into the root and finding cause of the human problem. Marriage is a long term affair for life, if a single knot loosen then the entire rope tying the marriage get shattered. I truly feel an healthy communication between couples, healthy sex life and honesty with each other will let the relationship grow stronger. I was once asked by a married woman in a chat room 'What will I do when I am not happy sexually with my husband, my answer to her was to communicate with her husband about it and resolve it in the best possible ways' than cheating on him by having extra marital affair. I have seen married men having extra marital affairs in maximum rates than the female counter part, this is not because they do not trust their wife rather they miss the companionship, free will in life and good sex life.  After interacting with many Indian married men and women, I feel the root cause of many married couple not happy sexually was because they not been able to express their sexual desire and fantasises to their partners.

Indian women are usually forbidden not to share her sexual desires. This remind me of a  scene from a Hindi film Aastha where Rekha's husband find her wife to be sexually active and fairly good on bed. He enquired about her enchanting love making skills when she said she learned from blue films. He reluctantly said not to watch it again. The Indian married couples are less expressive sexually and lacks healthy communication about the problem they have with each other. Perhaps the ancestral ways of living a married life that instil upon couples that  a wife should treat her husband as god and a husband should act as godly figure in the family. I feel family has bigger role to play here its high time parents should not inject myths and superstitious believes in couples mind.

I see many broken Indian marriages today but their is always a way out to live a happy and peaceful married life than falling for lust and spoiling marriage for good. Their is a lovely saying 'The difference between an ordinary marriage and an extraordinary marriage is in giving just a little ‘extra’ every day, as often as possible, for as long as we both shall live.”-Fawn Weaver

An interesting talk by Esther Perel on 'Rethinking infidelity ... a talk for anyone who has ever loved ' (click the link bellow)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2AUat93a8Q

Charm of living in a small town...

Different places, distinguish culture and people which has its own beauty in itself. The journey of exploring new places has remain unending for me. I was leaving Nagpur, the city which is other wise known as 'The Orange city'. Life in Nagpur was quite and pleasant, after spending nearly two years in the city I was moving to a small city in Odisha. With lots of questions and wonders I reached the city called Rourkela in Odisha state. Rourkela  in the local tribal language of Sadri means 'Our village', the city was also otherwise known as Ispat Nagar situated in Sundargarh district of Odisha. The place which used to be dominated of adivasis, apparently Rourkela was named after the Roulia indigenous population in this place.


After living in most of the metropolitan cities, I was not very happy to come to this place. Due to the misconception I carried about the city that it lacks good communication, having no good place of entertainment, no night life etc. As I started exploring the place I tend to fallen in love with the town. I find the city to be well planned, the roads are widely constructed, the markets and street food stalls has a separate lanes, everything was so organized and beautifully placed. The city appears to be less crowded. There are better and quite places for entertainment. The educational hub NIT has big name in the city. The student from all across the county studying in the NIT, makes the place all the more cosmopolitan. There are few good tourist places inside the city such as Vedvyas, Hanuman Vatika and Khandadhar. One of the most fascinating thing about this place is the mark of the Germans who introduces Rourkela Steel Plant in 1950s. There is a club named German Club still exist in the city. Another interesting thing I noticed in this place was that the people who work here are not from Odisha rather from near by states. Every shop vendor I visited, I found them to be a non-Odiya person. The population are less Odiya than a mixed culture population. This could be due to Rourkela Steel Plant that has attracted many faces from all across the county to earn bread and butter in this city.

As I started with my academic life in NIT. I find the atmosphere more student friendly than typically teacher dominated place. One good thing I like about NIT is that the place is giving opportunity to the students to hunt their own talent by organizing number of events in the campus. The student and teacher relation is more friendly than restricting them to the strict exams and exhausting curriculum. The Teaching Assistant system of giving opportunity to PhD scholars to take lecture is the best way to understand the fellow juniors academic problems. There are many other academic things making NIT a outstanding institute in the country and Rourkela NIT happens to be on top out of all NITs in the nation, this itself makes big difference in a small city like Rourkela.

Exploring of different places and culture will continue for me, as I am a voracious traveller, extrovert than a  introvert person. The travel certainly has helps me to openup my mind and vision towards everything thing I do in my personal and professional life. Nonetheless, I disagree with those people who think small cities has less opportunities, has no good education system and has no life to live in. One must have the art to relish the beauty each place has and admire the lesson it teaches us to think one step ahead to broaden our vision.

Journey of a Indian woman for marriage

When a woman is born in a Indian family the first thought comes to her parents mind is that, we will have to take care of her till 20s as she will be marrying and going to her in-laws house someday. With this start the journey of searching ideal partner for her. As she crosses 18 year, her family start worrying 'Oh our daughter has become old enough, to find her a man'. In early 20s her relatives start pushing her families to find a man quickly. As she start reaching 30s the tension for marriage worried more to the girl parents 'Oh our daughter is turning old to find her a man soon'. The arrange of perfect man lead her parents to showcase their daughter in front of each and every perspective grooms family. Some groom family would say 'Our son is too qualified and look and earn handsome' what your daughter will contribute to his life. Another set of groom family would say 'We are looking for higher caste, fair and good looking women for our only loving, good looking son'. To glorify the girl family there are a group of quick bride hunters who want the marriage to be fixed the very same day, as though the world is coming to an end the next moment. The man who too believe his family will arrange ideal bride for him despite of holding a hypocritic flag of open mind and liberal thoughts. They say 'Beggars have no choice' as the women start crossing 30s, the entire world start poking the girl to get hold of any man, to get herself tagged before the society start talking of her singlehood 'Ohh some problem must be there in her, that is why many groom came to see her turning off with the marriage proposal'.



 

                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jAHR1saGOg

This is the story of all most all Indian women who are working hard to have valuable contribution to the society, who want to live a dignified, self dependent and harmonious life. I truly wonder where our society leading to, in one side our great PM passes a slogan 'Beti 'Bachao, Beti Padhao''safe the girl, educate the girl', on the other side such hypocrite and typical patriarchal society who want a woman to serve their son for life. It also amaze me how we Indian have distinguished 'Love marriage' and 'Arrange marriage'. The couple who know each other before marriage are define to be love marriage and the couple who are not known to each other before marriage are define to be arrange marriage. At the end both the women has to live same life after marriage. Wonder what difference the so called love marriage does to a couple life.

 

To me love and marriage should not be given any such dead line, let the society talk hell out of her. The women should not get trapped into it to sacrifice all her dreams and goals to serve the so called godly like husband. Marriage is when two mature and adult person vision for harmonious and peaceful life together, nurture and help each other dreams come true and hold each other hands to reach their goals together like two friends climbing staircase together if one falls the other help vice versa.

Hope...

As I complete the journey of 2014, I realized how many miles stone I have actually crossed. I was not surprise of my own achievements, yes the achievement of spreading smile across, positive thoughts among my peer groups, selfless care and support to the near and dear once. Older and younger who see me as epitome of courage and patience to fight back all odd in life. I said to myself there is more to achieve in this journey. The hope of doing my karma evolve newness in me to take each path with positive, perseverance and strength.

Each fellow passenger I have met in the journey have helped to unfold something new in me. I truly praise them for guiding towards the 'inner hope' I have within me.