Ahmedabad’s auto rickshaws are unremarkable, at least in India. The bodywork of each is a rich green and the roofs are bright yellow. Their drivers perch on square seats, hunched over the steering column in front of them and will often try their best to swindle you, especially if you are taken to be a tourist, which is avoidable to some degree only in the less touristy parts of town. The autos run on liquid petroleum gas, which is less polluting than petrol itself but means a crush of vehicles at a busy junction releases billowing fumes that coat the back of the throat.
What is remarkable about the city’s autos is the panels fitted to the interior roof struts either side of the passenger seats. These metre high boards, although missing in some cases, are commonly vivid displays that can be startling as you clamber ungainly in behind the driver. There are often pastoral scenes with women carrying pots and mustachioed men in homespun khadi in the foreground, and a village hut or house set against dark forest in the background. In these scenes the moon is invariable painted big and bright. Equally popular are lake or sea side idylls, with fishermen, a gaggle of ducks and one or two palm trees in view. Equally alien on Ahmedabad’s bustling streets are the scenic vistas of snow capped Alpine mountains, rocky outcrops adorned with fairytale castles and, lower down the slopes, picturesque chalets burdened with thick powdery snow. These are however more pleasant than the more often seen image of a dream American house, all modern clapboard, large windows and an expensive sports car superimposed onto the drive, or bizarrely, onto the landscaped flowerbeds.
Many of these colourful images are accompanied by snippets of a message, such as ‘Happiness is…’, ‘True love knows…’ or ‘Your heart…’, the full meaning of which is sadly never revealed. One of my favorites, because of the work on school leadership I am involved with, is a close-up of a snarling tiger with the message that ‘A leader walks alone…’ Who knows where these panels come from or why they carry such sentimental smulch. Given the apparent Guju sense of glitzy, garish style, the smiling babies against lurid pink backgrounds and metre high red roses glistening with water droplets make some sense. The promo photos of Bollywood stars are also not surprising, posing thugs like Salman Khan smirking out at you as the auto squeezes between mopeds and Maruti Swifts at a char rasta. Of course, despite not knowing where these panels come from, it is still a pleasure to admire them, especially the snow-laden panoramas on a day when the temperature reaches 40 degrees. Another favorite, which made me smile when I first saw it at the start of an evening out, is a view of Tower Bridge lit up at night with the Thames gleaming darkly beneath it. An odd sight in Ahmedabad.
Monday, 30 June 2008
Sunday, 29 June 2008
Holi, Holi
Yesterday was the Hindu festival of Holi and for the last few weeks specially converted shops and roadside stalls have been selling a variety of powdered paint colours, water pistols and water bomb balloons across Ahmedabad. Holi is a goddess and for some reason her demise by fire is marked with water fights and people throwing paint at each other. This only seems to happen on the Saturday morning nearest to the special day, when I managed to avoid seeing any actual action. The evidence was visible though, with paint splashed people standing around chatting on Vejalpur road and multi-coloured splotches appearing here and there on pavements. Fires are also lit on the Friday night before Holi and there was a large bonfire outside our block of flats, around which women in saris walked and sprinkled ghee or water in offering.
I was in Vejalpur until 11:00 and then did little else during the rest of the day. In the evening we were invited to a colleague’s parent’s house for dinner along with the rest of the Pratham-ISE crew. Dinner was delicious; potato fried with mustard seeds, raita with beetroot, a thin and liquidy dal, fresh and crispy papad and a sweet pickle. After dinner all eight of us played Pictionary and, briefly, Taboo. It was a really fun evening.
I was in Vejalpur until 11:00 and then did little else during the rest of the day. In the evening we were invited to a colleague’s parent’s house for dinner along with the rest of the Pratham-ISE crew. Dinner was delicious; potato fried with mustard seeds, raita with beetroot, a thin and liquidy dal, fresh and crispy papad and a sweet pickle. After dinner all eight of us played Pictionary and, briefly, Taboo. It was a really fun evening.
Rajasthan for the first time
Today is Sunday and our one day off in a week. I only returned from Rajasthan on Friday morning, having left for Jhunjhunu, a Northern district bordering the neighbouring state of Haryana, on the Sunday before. I caught a late sleeper train, the Gari Braith (‘Chariot of the Poor’), from Kalupur station to Jaipur where I met a colleague and caught a cramped local bus heading north. My four-day stay in Jhunjhunu was so I could help the team there prepare for a meeting with our first major donor, a billionaire-businessman and head of a family-run pharmaceutical company. We put in long hours and I at least was exhausted when the meeting took place on the Wednesday evening.
Jhunjhunu district is hot, dry and largely flat. In the summer the temperature can reach 50 degrees. Outside the towns the land is sandy, semi-arid plain and dotted with monkey-puzzle-like trees, thorny shrubs and tall, slender grass. The effect of irrigation is visually stunning, turning a sandy field into a vibrant green crop. In places beech-like trees line the road and occasionally hairy goats can be seen rummaging around in the verge and in the alleyways between small habitations spaced along the highways. These are hamlets or isolated houses, where the concrete dwellings are painted white or beige, or unpainted altogether, and thatched huts stand nearby.
Jhunjhunu town itself is small, with three roads named One, Two and Three. These are wide, well surfaced and sandy at the edges. The nights are quiet apart from the bark and reply of dogs who have marked out their territory and guard it jealousy against interlopers. Walking down one of the streets at night the sky is clear and the stars bright and visible. During the bright day you can see a high mound, rocky and boulder-strewn, rise out of the plain in the distance. On the walls of the town are blue and white BSP posters, Mayawati’s chubby face smiling out from the top right-hand corner. Elsewhere are hammer and sickles, inexpertly daubed in red paint on low walls and sides of buildings. On the way out of town in an AC taxi on Thursday, I saw a slogan that read ‘Democracy, Freedom, Socialism. Long Live’.
Jhunjhunu district is hot, dry and largely flat. In the summer the temperature can reach 50 degrees. Outside the towns the land is sandy, semi-arid plain and dotted with monkey-puzzle-like trees, thorny shrubs and tall, slender grass. The effect of irrigation is visually stunning, turning a sandy field into a vibrant green crop. In places beech-like trees line the road and occasionally hairy goats can be seen rummaging around in the verge and in the alleyways between small habitations spaced along the highways. These are hamlets or isolated houses, where the concrete dwellings are painted white or beige, or unpainted altogether, and thatched huts stand nearby.
Jhunjhunu town itself is small, with three roads named One, Two and Three. These are wide, well surfaced and sandy at the edges. The nights are quiet apart from the bark and reply of dogs who have marked out their territory and guard it jealousy against interlopers. Walking down one of the streets at night the sky is clear and the stars bright and visible. During the bright day you can see a high mound, rocky and boulder-strewn, rise out of the plain in the distance. On the walls of the town are blue and white BSP posters, Mayawati’s chubby face smiling out from the top right-hand corner. Elsewhere are hammer and sickles, inexpertly daubed in red paint on low walls and sides of buildings. On the way out of town in an AC taxi on Thursday, I saw a slogan that read ‘Democracy, Freedom, Socialism. Long Live’.
Pratham's DLCs
Over the last few days there’s been an auto strike and it has been impossible to find a rickshaw anywhere. I have had to walk into work in the morning sun and navigate the fumey rush-hour chaos on my way home in the evening. The drivers are protesting a CNG petroleum gas price rise of 10 Rupees a litre, a mark up which nevertheless leaves heavily subsidized fuel costs a long way from their actual market price. It was a relief to find autos back on the road by this morning, when I accompanied a visiting teacher from Bombay on a trip to some of Pratham’s ‘Democratic Learning Centres’ in Ahmedabad’s slums.
After breakfast at DJ Rocks (or Deepak’s as Dani and I know it), a small and grubby but friendly and very cheap ‘restaurant’ on Vejalpur road, we rode in an auto for half an hour, ending up far into the old half of the city. All three DLCs were essentially the same: a classroom with one shuttered window, one fan and one tube light. In the first session were twenty or so 6 to 8 year olds, of varying ability and cleanliness, a division repeated across all three groups. Most had exercise books and pens, though one or two were using slates and chalk. In the second centre a young teacher supervised ten listless 3 to 5 year olds who stared at me but didn’t return my smiles. My companion thought they were too young to be there and certainly they looked doleful, although the coal which some Indian parents apply like mascara to their children’s eyes perhaps exaggerated this look beyond reality. The most fun were the 11 to 14 year olds, all of whom were boys, studying in a small room at the top of a very steep flight of metal stairs. They were learning and practicing Maths problems, directed by a Pratham trained teacher from the local area who firmly reined in their messing around. All the classess took place in the morning, with the kids going to their municipal schools at midday. My presence caused something of a stir amongst the kids and in the immediate surrounding area of slum housing, an old women taking the effort to climb the stairs just to get a look at the foreigner sitting in the classroom. None of the slums were really desperate; residency was obviously well established, with houses made of concrete and rigged up with electricity. But the absence of money was visible.
After breakfast at DJ Rocks (or Deepak’s as Dani and I know it), a small and grubby but friendly and very cheap ‘restaurant’ on Vejalpur road, we rode in an auto for half an hour, ending up far into the old half of the city. All three DLCs were essentially the same: a classroom with one shuttered window, one fan and one tube light. In the first session were twenty or so 6 to 8 year olds, of varying ability and cleanliness, a division repeated across all three groups. Most had exercise books and pens, though one or two were using slates and chalk. In the second centre a young teacher supervised ten listless 3 to 5 year olds who stared at me but didn’t return my smiles. My companion thought they were too young to be there and certainly they looked doleful, although the coal which some Indian parents apply like mascara to their children’s eyes perhaps exaggerated this look beyond reality. The most fun were the 11 to 14 year olds, all of whom were boys, studying in a small room at the top of a very steep flight of metal stairs. They were learning and practicing Maths problems, directed by a Pratham trained teacher from the local area who firmly reined in their messing around. All the classess took place in the morning, with the kids going to their municipal schools at midday. My presence caused something of a stir amongst the kids and in the immediate surrounding area of slum housing, an old women taking the effort to climb the stairs just to get a look at the foreigner sitting in the classroom. None of the slums were really desperate; residency was obviously well established, with houses made of concrete and rigged up with electricity. But the absence of money was visible.
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