Ninth Day in India: back to Vallabh Vidyanagar

At 5:30 one of the guest house clerks knocks at the door, brings tea for breakfast. At 6:00am we assemble in the lobby and get into the car, to drive through the morning darkness towards a remote temple site on a hill for watching the sunrise. We are there shortly before 7am, driving up a very steep road (probably 30% slope). as we reach the top, a very surprising site: a wall straight ahead, and behind it we see - boats! We think this is a Fata Morgana, boats on the top of a hill. But there is indeed a small reservoid / lake on which a few boats are floating. As we get out of the car, a cold wind is greeting us. We climb up the wooden covered structure from where we can see the plain below slowly becoming visible through the darkness. I head back into the car for a while to warm up. Then, as the orange disk of the sun appears at the horizon, we all assemble on top of that wooden observation point and take pictures. Afterwards we are heading back to Vallabh Vidyanagar towards West. Passing through a few lively towns. Small rikshahs and trucks are loaded with people: usually there are at least about 20 people per small vehicle: sitting on the roof, hanging from the back, squeezing themselves inside. On the way we see a road accident that must have happened just recently: a white car is damaged at the front, while a truck is lying in a ditch at the side of the road, the driver's cabin smashed by a tree. We arrive safely back at the Vallabh Vidyanagar guest house and have a rest. I can upload a few pictures, then we head out again for dinner: at 18:30 Sunil picks us up in his car, and we drive first to Kiran Chauhan and his wife Sarika for a tea, where also members of his family are present. Then we all together move to Sunil's house where his wife Viraj has been busy the whole Sunday to prepare a meal for us: a mix of traditional Indian cuisine with Western and Mexican components. We enjoy the company of the family and friends: Surendra Gohil and Juhika are there, as well as Kiran Chauhan and Sarika. Back at the guest house around 22:00 we quickly fall asleep after a busy weekend.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2008

Vallabh Vidganagar

I finally begin to understand the geography: We are in Vallabh Vidyanagar, our host institution is the Sardar Patel University, specifically the H.M.Patel Institute for English Teaching and Research. The town appears to be grown together with the town Anand, which is bigger. Overall, the two towns appear very rural. Vallabh Vidyanagar has wire roads with large trees at the side, giving a nice shadow in the warm weather (the first days here the max temperature was 36 C). In the evening, someone sweeps the leaves from these trees into small piles, and these are then set on fire, filling the air with a scent of burned leafes. In addition, there are often burning incense sticks at memorials or altars / shrines, which add to the aroma in the air. Overall, there is a lot of smell in the air - and not always a good one. When walking towards the more busy streets, there are a lot of cows there - including what they leave behind... The streets main streets are quite busy, with many of those motor rickshaw taxis driving around. Once in a while, a cameldrawn cart comes along.

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011

A lifelong dream came true: driving an Auto-Riskshah - and I mean "driving", not being driven

Before we went to India, I had toyed with the idea of renting a car in India for a few days and to travel around a bit, independently, just following the road signs, stopping wherever I felt. From my first visit here I knew about the road rules, or more correctly, about the absence of those, so I felt I could do this without a lethal accident. But when searching on the internet for opportunities to rent, I noticed that this would only be possible in Ahmadabad, about 2 hours away from where we are. So I almost gave up that idea. Jokingly I told Brian that I might rent a rikshah instead, just to drive around a bit in Vallabh Vidyanagar. And yesterday, Dr Jadeja told me that it would be possible to rent a rikshah - with an accompanying driver. Great! So on Thursday morning at 9:30 I went to the HM Patel institute where the driver Harish with his rikshah was already waiting. First I got a brief instruction: there are three gears, to he shifted with the left handle. The "neutral" is between gear 1 and 2. The clutch is operated with a lever at the left handle. The right handle turns the throttle. There seems to be no idle, the throttle has to be operated always, during starting, and during idling when standing, otherwise the engine dies. The brake is operated by the right foot. The horn (very important) is operated with a button by the right hand, which then has to be removed briefly from the throttle handle (or you need to have a large hand). The blinker is a switch near the left handle, but no finger can reach it while the hands are on the handle, so one has to remove the left hand from the gear switcher. Very un-ergonomic design, that 1950s Pioggo from Italy. But as we slowly do a test ride around the block, I get the hang of it. Brian sits in the back and enjoys the ride. The test ride immediately develops into the real ride, and we drive out of Vallabh Vidyanagar towards west, on the road to the temple town Vardtal. Traffic is light. The speed indicator is not working, but I have my GPS: it shows almost 40 km/h. The driver keeps telling me "slo, slo"... While driving this rikshah I can now appreciate the difficulty in multitasking which these drivers have to do: in addition to the actual driving task, meaning operating the non-ergonomic machine, one also has to pay attention to the traffic situation, watch vehicles in the back, front, and sides, swirve around potholes and avoid speed bumps, overtake pedestrians, cows, dogs, camels, and tractors, be overtaken by basically everybody else, and avoid any kind of collission with anyone. This is quite a number of tasks, and I hardly manage. Especially because the side mirrors are not well adjusted - I have to move my head very far out of the way to see anything, and they I miss what is ahead of me. So I simply rely on other vehicles sounding their horns, and I also use every opportunity to beep the horn, to warn everybody that I am approaching. The turn signal indicators are of no use, because our accompanying driver has wisely switched on the alarm blinker, indicating that an "incompetent driver" is now operating his machine. On the way we pass the village "Jobanpura", and I decide to stop and have a brief look.

We go on towards Vadtal, and that town always has a special flair to it, with its temple in the center, its gates, the buzzing crowd around the stalls. I take a few pictures, then we return. We stop at the guest house to pick up Gina and Deborah, to give them a lift as they have to go to their next appointment at a local school. So I am now officially acting as a rikshah chauffeur. But their destination is too far away for me, the two hours rental are soon over. So we drop them at a busy intersection where they take another auto rikshah. A few minutes later they overtake me laughing. A brief stop at a bank for exchanging some money, then we are driving back to the HM Patel institute. That was fun!
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 09, 2011

How I got interviewed by the police

On Sunday afternoon I walk alone along the main street in Vallabh Vidyanagar, on the way to the DBS supermarket. Very busy, very dusty. Everyone is staring at me, and I attract significant attention. Not sure if it is just the fact that I am the only Westerner in the whole town who is walking here, or if it is my GPS unit that I am wearing around my neck, or the fact that I take pictures of almost everything I see: cows, buildings, just the road... And walk by a group of three policemen who are sitting on chairs, chatting with each other. Maybe I looked somehow suspicious to them; after I am already away about 10 meters, one of them shouts after me "Hey, come here". I think I better follow. With a big smile I turn around and walk slowly towards them. One gets up and points me to sit down on the chair. I do this. "Where are you going?" I say that I am going to the supermarket. "What do you have in the bag?" Cake from the bakery around the corner. "Where are you from?" Not sure what to answer, but I say "Germany". At least they cannot release any anti-colonialistic resentments then - the relation to the former colonial power here in India has still a slight tension. They all smile while they ask me these questions, so this questioning feels kind of weird: maybe this is not an official inquiry, but just a chat... ? There is actually a meeting of police here in the town, for a kind of drive around various towns, as I have seen the signs "Vallabh Vidyanagar welcomes police from..." and then a couple of towns listed. So we talk about that. Then I say that I have to go now before the supermarket closes. A friendly good-buy, and I walk off. On the way back I stay on the other side of the road, just in case. In the evening we have a tea with the cake which I bought, and we have a laugh while I tell the story to our group.
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2008

Arrival in Surat

Back at the hospital, our group splits. Most people will drive back to Vallabh Vidyanagar. But Adam has offered to visit another educational institution which is interested in establishing links with overseas contacts. This would be in Surat, a few hours more to drive from here. Beccy and myself have been interested in this, but she does not feel so good today - some of the spicy food has not been kind to her. We are considering cancelling that trip, but Adam convinces here that it would be good to go. So the other ones take off, and Beccy, Adam, Asha, and myself stay behind. We sit in the garden, chat with out hosts while it gets dark. A great view onto the starry sky. At 8pm the driver from Surat arrives, we say good-bye and drive off into the darkness. The driver seems to want to make up time, he drives quite energetically over the potholes. Often we "test the suspension" - yes, it still works ok. After 45 minutes we get a call, from the people back at the hospital. They found an ID card, with the name "Reinhold Behringer". What the hell...? I check my wallet, everything is there. I did not take my passport with me. What could this ID card be? Then I realise: it is my German driver license! Just a few months ago I had been looking for it for a few weeks, because I had replaced it and could not find it. And now this old grey paper document has again disappeared. Fortunately Dr. Yoshi would bring it to Vallabh Vidyanagar on Thursday, so I would have it back then. I have to find a better place to carry it with me than the mobile phone pocket. A few times we cross railway tracks of those narrow gauge lines. I mark the position on my GPS, to be able to explore them sometime in the future, maybe. The ride goes through a lot of construction. After a while, the air begins to smell "chemically" - there are many factories outside, we are driving through a very industrial area. Around 11:30 we arrive in the outskirts of Surat, at the Pacific Inn Hotel. Makes a nice impression in the dark - before I enter the bath room. There are the usual buckets and fossets/taps on the wall, no surprise there, but the bath tub is something that I must take a picture of: it has stains, traces of dirty water, I would really not want to step in there and take a shower, not talking about a bath. And the toilet... well, I will be kind to the readers and spare them a detailed description of what was swimming in there... I wanted to take a photograph as evidence, but then I shy-ed away because it was just too disgusting. The whole think looked like something from the movie "Trainspotting"... Well, no time to think much, I switch off the air conditioner and go to sleep.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2008

Folk Dance Festival

After we return to Vallabh Vidyanagar, the ladies in our group want to buy some Indian clothing. I have no specific plans, I will just walk around. But when the car enters the town, the road is suddenly blocked: there is a truck on which people are dancing, dressed in costumes. I get out of the car to do some more filming, this time legally without any restrictions, using the HD camera. I keep the audio recording running, the head cam, and also film with the regular camera. Three devices at once - have never done that before. The truck is moving, and ahead of it is a long procession of music groups and dancers. As I learn, this is the West India Youth festival, in which universities compete in categories of dancing, singing, etc. This festival goes on for the whole week, in a tent on the large sporting area between our guest house accommodation and the H M Patel Institute. This procession here through the tree-lined alleys of Vallabh Vidyanagar shows someting quintessential of India: a cacophony of sounds, because all the bands play together, and they play different music pieces. Very nice colourful costumes, in stark contrast to some of the beak housing along the streets. Traffic that is uninhibited by the procession and adds to the sound carpet, with honking horns, motorcycle noise, and cars and buses driving by.

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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 08, 2008

In and around Villabh Vidyanagar

On Saturday we visit the painter Kanu Patel in his home and atelier. He gives us some very nice presents: booklets and brochures with his paintings. He shows us several of them, and I consider buying one. Price would be 100, not too bad, but quite high considering the local expense level. Our group then begins preparing for tomorrows online conference with our project partners in Yorkshire. We set out an agenda, and I collect bits of work, upload them to our shared server where our Yorkshire group can access them. In the afternoon we are visiting the Sardar Patel memorial, a few kilometers east of Vallabh Vidyanagar. This is a whole park and conference center, with information displays about his life and legacy. The guides there take a few pictures of us which we will later receive by email. One interesting moment occurs at the end of our guided tour through the facilities, when the main guide shows us a powerpoint presentation on his PC: first it appears like there would be some thought-provoking questions, but we soon realise that this has a strong anti-Muslim inclination, and we do not really know how to respond to this. The slides seem to indicate that the Hindu minority is making a lot of concessions to the Muslim minority - quite explosive material (no pun intended, in the light of the events in Mumbai 2 weeks later...) and very provocative. We decide not to go into a deeper discussion, but we leave slightly concerned about the very difficult situation of these two groups who appear to be quite hostile towards each other.

We visit a nearby temple. This area is very rural. A herd of sheep and cows passes by on the road, guarded and guided by a shepherd. We then drive a few miles north towards the town of Vadtal. First it looks from the outside like an unremarkable village in the middle of nowhere. But as we come closer, there are suddenly many people, walking through a sort of town gate into a large square, surrounded by buildings. Music is played from loudspeakers. In many small stalls, drinks, food, and other stuff is being sold. The whole place appears very busy.

In the centre of this square, there is a temple. Inside are colourful statues of some gods. I have no clue what this all is about, but the atmosphere is very intense and lively. When we leave at sunset, we see a few monkeys climbing on the roofs.

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 07, 2008

2nd Day in Ahmadabad

In the morning we have a breakfast at 8am. I keep taking Strepcil lozenges to remove the soreness in my throat, and I seem to have slight success. This morning we will attend the morning prayer of the students there will be a few hundred of them, and Brian and myself are invited to say a few words. But before that, I use the opportunity to take a few video shots outside of the campus. I put my in-ear microphones on and record the sounds of the passing traffic and the voices of the people, while recording simultaneously with the HD video camera while walking along the street. The people look at me slightly amused, but friendly, and often wave and begin talking to me. They often pose for a picture, and then they even thank me for taking a photograph of them.

The contrast here in this city is remarkable: busy noisy street traffic on one side, with busses, cars, rickshaws, modern store fronts, advertisement for internet. This is the 21st century, as it is in many cities around the globe. But in side streets off the main street appears a different side of life: quiet, with small dealers selling services, fruit, and other items of daily life. This appears to remain from another century, back in time.

At 10:00 there is the morning prayer of the students in the prayer hall. Brian and myself are invited to attend - and to give a short address to the students. We walk into the hall and take a seat on the front bench, facing towards all the students (I estimate about 300), who are sitting on the floor, rotating their little mobile spinning wheel. On the right to me is a musician who plays on a type of mobile harmonium a prayer song.

Brian talks about poetry and the environment. I talk about the Leeds Met Gandhi Hall and the use of technology for creative purposes. Each of us only has 10 minutes, and what we say is sentence by sentence translated into Gujarati by our host Dr. Jadeja who accompanied us from Villabh Vidyanagar. Afterwards we visit the Tribal Museum which is on the campus of the university. It shows arts from different tribes in India. Many people in the countryside still live in tribal communities, and the museum shows some of the tools and the housing that is common. In the afternoon we head home with our vehicles. We pass a famous mosque where just now the Friday prayer takes place. This mosque is famous for its intricate windows. Adam, our poet from Gujarat / Bolton, takes the opportunity to participate in this prayer. We get out of the car and have now to cross the street not easy when there appears to be no working traffic light in sight! Actually there is one at the nearby intersection, but it does not seem to have lights for pedestrians - it just combines three different traffic streams into an endless traffic stream which to cross appears to be highly suicidal. I record a video of the crossing, when Adam goes ahead, and Brian and Asha follow.

We continue towards Vallabh Vidyanagar and arrive at the Guest House around 16:30. Since our stay began here, I had not yet explored the area and surroundings, so I begin a walk on the main street towards Anand. I am not very well, my head hurts, and I have almost used all tissues for blowing my nose - so I look for finding some more tissues. I go to a few stores on the side of the road, but when I show them my last package of tissues, the store clerks / owners shake their head. Even at a "medical store" no tissues are available. When I mention that the tissues can be also in a larger box, the store owner goes back into the storage and brings out a dusty green box with tissues. The last and only one. It has the printed note "expiration date September 2005". I show this to the clerk, and he rightfully replies that tissues do not really expire. Well, they are a bit rough, but fulfill their purpose. I walk further, take pictures of building construction and high-rise apartment houses. A cow follows me for some reason, and the guys who sit at the side of the road have a good laugh about this. After darkness sets in, I wave to a rickshaw taxi and drive back. We have been invited by Sunil Shah for a nice dinner - his wife cooks an excellent fusion cuisine which has European and Indian elements.
Written by Reinhold Behringer at 16:52

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011

Seventh Day in India - Kite Flying Festival

On Friday is the kite-flying holiday. The university and all stores are closed, people are at home, on the roof of their houses, and let kites fly. Traditional food is chikki, a sweet desert: nuts bound together by crystallised brown sugar.

Brian is on this day on a tour with Dr Piyush, to visit an ancient well. The rest of us has been invited by Sunil to join him and his family for this event in the morning. He picks us up at 9:30, and first we visit one of his friends for a brief view of the kite flying frenzy in one of the neighborhoods in Vallabh Vidyanagar. Loud music, everybody on the roofs, flying kites. Unfortunately there is very little wind, so it is difficult to get the kites up. Then Sunil drives us to his home, where it appears to be a bit more relaxed and quiet. We go to the roof of his home, were other members of the family and friends are there to fly kites. We unwrap our kits and also let them fly. Naturally there is tea being served.

Around noon Sunil brings us back to the guest house, he will in the afternoon visit other friends out of town. We have a lunch in one of the restaurants. Then we rest a bit in the guest house, before Dr Jadeja picks us up for a tea at his home. We meet his family and have a nice chat. Then we walk back to the quest house, where we meet Asha. Then also Brian arrives back from his day trip. We discuss the further plans, then I upload quickly a few pictures. At 6:30 Kiran picks us up for meeting his family for a traditional dinner, with the festive vegetable dish Undhui. Delicious! A great day, full of meeting people in their homes and enjoying their hospitality.
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 2011

Fifth Day in India

We get up around 5:30 am. For the first time on this trip I find a good use of the Immodium tablets that I had taken with me. Maybe one of the 10 chillies which I ate yesterday was not so good...

We drive to a temple in the hills to watch the sunrise above the Narmada river. Then we continue to a waterfall which is called something like "Dshermanie". I keep hearing "Germany" when our Gujarati friends talak about it in their native language. The dusty dirt road goes in winding curves up into the 7-ridges mountains. When we reach the destination, we visit a tribal family who lives in a wood hut with her children. We brought some sweets with us and hand them out to the children. Walk along the water to the waterfall, crossing the stream a couple of times on rows of stones in the water. A little girl offers Gina a kindly helping hand while walking across the river. We drive back towards Vallabh Vidyanagar, because Falguni has to be at the institute before 1 pm. In the afternoon we have a rest, and in the evening, Surendra and Jinny visit us at the guest house, and we drive with an auto-rikshah to the North-East exhibition. For the upcoming kite festival Brian and I decide to by kites. We go for the largest ones in the store, because they are the easiest to fly. Also bought some strong string which is fortified with a golden glass powder. We have been told that during the kite festival one of the goals is to bring down the kites of others

- by trying to cut their wires with your own wire. Supposedly there are every year during the kite festival stories in the newspaper about people fallong down from balconies, or heads of careless motorcyclists being cut off with those wires...
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 08, 2011

First Day in India

After another night with only a few minutes of sleep we had arrived in Ahmadabad around 3:00 am. In the baggage claim we were for a long time looking for our luggage, and we were afraid it might have gone lost in Dubai. But after a while everybody of us had their luggage, and so we headed through the customs control. The flight attendants of our flight to Ahmadabad had not given any of the passengers an immigration form, so there was a rush to get these forms. Quite a chaotic queue formed at the immigration desk, with people getting to the front to bring back these forms to the waiting passengers. In principle the queue was supposed to be meandering in an S shape, separated by barries. But some people decided to shortcut the queue by going straight instead of following the S-shape, by removing the barriers. Some heated "discussions" started then... We finally made it through the immigration, and then went outside, where our driver greeted us. It was 4:30am.

A crew of 3 people had come to pick us up. They had been here since 1:30 am, due to a misunderstanding of the time communication. When loading the luggage into that Toyota van, it became apparent that there would not be enough space for the four of us to squeeze onto that one backbench - so someone would have to go into the luggage compartment. Gina and Deborah volunteered because they were smaller than Brian and myself. So our three drivers rearranged the luggage and put some onto the roof, where it was affixed with a very thin looking piece of string... it was not really our intention to treat the ladies that way, but that is how it turned out to be: their luggage on the roof, and they into the trunk. The car had seatbelts in the rear seat, but when I tried to put it on, there was only one half of the seatbelt - the parts where to stick it in could not be found anywhere. Fortunately everything went well, and almost two hours later we arrived safely at the university guesthouse in Vallabh Vidyanagar. During the ride Brian and myself noted that the road near the airport had been improved significantly - much fewer potholes. We drove around Ahmadabad on a kind of ring road where the early morning traffic began. The temperature was relatively fresh, and we saw many people outside with scarfs around their face. In combination of those scarfs with some automated guns which a few of the guards at the toll stations were wearing, it looked as if that toll booth had been hijacked by a local warlord... in many places a few people stood

together in a group around a small fire, to warm themselves. After arriving at the guest house we moved into our rooms and had a few hours of rest before we headed at noon to the university to meet our hosts Sunil Shah, Dr Jadeja, and Surendra. We received a heartfelt welcome. Turns out that my Twittering (tweeting?) and facebooking had kept everybody here well aware of our travel obstacles, and they had felt very well informed and up to date. Sunil as the ICT expert suggested to me that I should get a Tata Docomo 3G USB stick for a fast mobile internet connection, and so we headed off on his motorcycle. I felt a bit unsafe, but Sunil was driving very cautiously through the Indian road traffic with its 3-wheel motor rikschahs, motorcycles, cars, tractors, pedestrians, cows, and the occasional camel. The question of wearing a helmet never came up... what is a helmet anyway? Got my USB stick, drove back to the university, but it did not work... some driver problem. Must be because I had other Huawei drivers installed from another earlier device... and the software did not appear to handle this case very gratiously. So we went back again to the Docomo store to get some help. However, the IT guys there were not very well versed in computer installation questions and just were able to offer some generic help. What I needed was an explicit Huawei driver which I could install separately. After a few hours tinkering with the registry and reinstalling the device several times I finally got it to work- and the afternoon was over.

Back at our guesthouse the electicity went off for 1/2 hour, leaving us in complete darkness, except for the bluish glow of my laptop display running on batteries. But a few minutes later the house attendant came with a candle for everyone. Kiran, Falguni and Mitali who had visited us in Yorkshire in summer 2009 came to the guest house to welcome us, Then we headed to the restaurant "Colour Flavours" where we were treated to an excellent meal by Falguni. As usual, I had something sizzling - I like it when the food makes a noise.

On the way there were many stalls on the road selling kites. Dr Jadeja explained that this is for the upcoming kite festival, and Sunil invited us to experience that festival in his home on Friday. Back in the guest house I tried the internet stick, but the performance was very spotty. Often no web site could be reached. Only a few times I was able to see my emails, reply, and send out a tweet.
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Last Evening Dinner, and Folk Dance Performances

We are all going out for dinner to one of the restaurants, and we invite our hosts who have made our stay there in Vallabh Vidyanagar so smooth and pleasant. Afterwards some of us go to the area where the West Indian Youth Festival Competition has been taken place since Monday (when there was this procession in the streets). This is located on a large open sports ground, covered by a marquee tent. Traditional Indian music can be heard from outside. We walk into the tent, and see immediately colleagues from the university. Also Kanu Patel is there, as he was involved in the organisation of this whole event, and he points us to seats in the very first row. Behind us are probably 1000 young people, listening and applauding the performances that are ongoing at the stage. We sit down and watch a bit. The speakers are very close, and the sound makes everything vibrate. Kanu offers me a seat in the centre, wher eI have a better view for taking video and pictures. The different groups who are competing in this dance competition wear colorful costumes and perform several different dances. They also provide the music for their dance, with the musicians in the background playing while in the foreground the dancers show their performance.

We leave before midnight, shortly before the whole show ends.

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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2008

Visit at IET, and Driving Back

The educational institution which Adam wanted us to get in contact is IET. This institution has the main mission to bring education to the tribal communities around Surat. They teach English and other subjects which are relevant to these communities in order to not stay behind in this rapidly developing country. IET has a great campus at the River Tapi.

We are welcomed by Ashok Vyas, the director of the institute. He shows us around and explains us the situation. We also realise that Adam and Dr. Jadeja (Sardar Patel University) are on the advisory committee of this institute. Beccy and myself are taking with us information material which we can then present to our home institutions. We visit the president of IET who is located at another building. Afterwards, we drive through the city to Ashok's home, where he invites us to the usual great tea, and where his wife performs a puppet theatre performance for us, with her hand-made dolls. On a laptop computer we are shown a video recording that was taken in this flat during Brian's first visit back in January. The video shows him and the singer Ray Hearne, sitting in those seats were we are sitting right now. We take off. Driving back through the town, on that elevated motorway. The city appears very contemporary, but somewhat run-down. Many glass facades of buildings are damaged. We are told that this city has many diamond processing factories and a large textile industry. I would be curious to see the old town centre. There is supposed to be a fort here. But interestingly, our hosts do not mention it, nor do they recommend anything in the old town. Instead they point out the factories and shopping centres that we are driving alongside. We continue towards North. The road is a long construction zone, due to the conversion into a motorway. We drive again through many potholes. Our driver appears to be even more agressive than before, and even more than all the other drivers around. He honks a lot, speeds at intersections and roundabouts. But the most life-threatening scene happens when our part of the quasi-motorway is very slow, and he just moves across an intersection onto the other lane, right into the oncoming traffic. Lots of honking, but everybody sees our vehicle and moves to the side. This goes so for about 1/2 km, then he returns back to the correct track. From now on nothing can shock me anymore. Beccy is half unconsious and says nothing. We drop off Adam near the town of Bharuch. No time for sighseeing, we drive further into the night. Eventually the road becomes better. After about 4 hours of driving we are back in Vallabh Vidyanagar. Somehow after all this Indian food, vegetarian and spicy, I have an appetite for pizza. There is a place, and we all go. The pizza is quite a bot different than expected: an almost solid bottom crust, and on top some tomato paste, with grated cheese strips.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2008

Conference on Creativity and Literature

Our hosts at the HM Patel Institute have asked us to participate in the conference which they are organising on Monday and Tuesday, and we agree. The topic of this conference fits very well our background and agenda: "Creativity and Literature". Beccy and Jenny hold a workshop on creative writing, where a "river of paper" is created. Brian sits with the panel in the front and gives an opening address. There are about 150 participating students. The conference opens with a group of students coming in and singing a traditional prayer. Then a few welcome words by the panel. In the afternoon is Beccy's and Jenny's workshop. The students are very keen on learning, and it is amazing how they follow the speakers' words.

In the late afternoon there is a book fair, where books are being exhibited and offered at a discounted price. In the evening is "The Poets' Meet": Gujarati poems are being read by the authors, and also Brian gives a reading of one of his poems. The local painter Kanu Patel here from Vallabh Vidyanagar paints live a painting, accompanying the read poems. Afterwards there is an exhibition of his paintings in the court yard of the institute.

Food is being served at the university: lunch and dinner includes the usual vegetarian dishes, all served on a big metal plate, with a few cups containing the more liquid things. The accompanying drink is buttermilk. Some in our group have concerns, as they have read that anything with cream should be

avoided, because of the danger of bacterial infection. But I rely on buttermilk having some acidity, and also on the antibiotic effect of the omnipresent chilli in all the food items. I eat lots of raw onions and hope that this will scare off any bacterium that should dare an attack...
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008

A Day in Ahmadabad
This is our last day. We have done a lot: visited several institutions, recorded material, collected information, created writings. Now I would like to see some more of Ahmadabad - we only had been there for our project activities. I had heard that the old town would be worth seeing. Also I wanted to be a bit adventurous - and take a train. Strangely enough, nobody of the locals recommended to take the train. Our hosts at the university offered to provide a car, as they have done during all the time. But Brian also agreed that taking the train would be worth doing, to get a bit more immersed in local life. Only Brian, Jane, Asha, and myself would go. We had an invitation to a private home for lunch: a participant of the Creativity Conference last week had invited our group, she wanted to introduce us to her family and offer us some homemade Indian food. After breakfast we take off. First we take one of these rickshaws from the guest house to the train station in Anand. All four of us sqeeze into the small vehicle, and this time I record with the hand-held camera. At the train station there is a large lane-crowd in front of the ticket office. The train leaves in a few minutes, no way that we would get tickets in time. But Asha knows her way: she goes to some dealer stand outside of the station and buys 4 tickets. Each costs 15 rupies, which is 20 pence, for a 2-hour train ride. We are rushing to the platform. Interestingly the low sensitivity for risk again shows, as everybody just crosses the railway tracks instead of using the bridge... and we do that too.

The platforms are very crowded, for trains in both directions. This is the train line which leads south to Mumbai.

The train is very crowded, people sit on the floor. Nevertheless we find a seat bench and chat a little with the local travellers. The train does not go very fast, max. 80 km/h, so it takes 2 hours until we arrive in Ahmadabad. Trupti, our host, and her husband are already there and welcome us in the station. They drive us a bit around, then we go to their home. The streets are loud, but these side streets are very quiet. A nice well-maintained house, with garden. We sit down, and Trupti wants individual introductions from everyone. So each of us gives a brief CV. I film it, and when it is my turn, Trupti films. We then have excellent food, brought out from the kitchen by the servants. Suddenly a shout from the kitchen: there is a monkey! But before I can get a climpes of it, the monley disappears out of the window from where he (she?) came from.

Jane and myself are taking off, as we only have a short time for exploring the old town of Ahmadabad. Again we feel this mode of surprise, about our desire to see some old things, when the town has to offer so many new things... it seems that many Indians consider some of their heritage as outdated, dirty, full of traffic, crowded, cramped... or is it just because the Old Town is Muslim? Brian and Asha stay, we will meet at the bus station. So Jane and I take a rickshaw towards the centre. Again the GPS ix very helpful, as I can trace our routes and can indicate the proximity to the train station for example, even though I do not have a map of Ahmadabad on the device.

We see a great old gate and get out of the vehicle. Then we walk towards East and Southeast into the town. Narrow streets, many vendors. We follow just arbitrarily the path, always knowing that we can just get out and take a rickshaw which would bring us right to the bus terminal. Many nice old buildings, often damaged and not cared for. Suddenly a small gate, and behind there is a temple. Houses with intricate masonry work. We have no idea what these houses are, there are no signs, it is all being used for daily life and not kept as a museum.

After one hour we get back onto the main road and take a rickshaw to the bus terminal. When we arrive, we see this is a large area wich many busses... and we have no idea which one would go to Anand. Fortunately, as we go around one corner, we see Brian and Asha, and she guides us to the right bus.

So we go back by bus. Noisy, dusty, but it drives. Takes about 2 hours as well, across country roads, through small towns and villages. Unfortunately it si getting darker already, so my pictures do not come out well... too much motion blurriness. In Vallabh Vidyanagar for the last time a rickshaw, then we are back at the guest house.
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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2008

Activities in Ahmadabad
On Thursday we take up our original program for our project: we wanted to organise workshops for writing about climate change and the situation of the rivers. So our first workshop takes place at the Sabarmati river in Ahmadabad. We leave early in the morning, as the drive on the motorwaYtakes at least one hour. We will stay for one night at the "Gandhi University" in Ahmadabad, which was founded by Gandhi in 1920. Our first stop is this university in Ahmadabad. We meet with the Vice Chancellor of this university where

we have the usual Indian tea. I really like this tea: it comes with milk already (no choice - too bad if one does not like milk in the tea). In addition, it has all kind of spices: I taste some Ginger, also Cardamom. A distinct taste of Christmas honey cakes. A pity that the amount of this tea (which is very strong) is so small: it is always served in expresso-sized cups. Since it is boiled together with the milk, a skin immediately forms on top of the tea - something which I could live without.... (already as a child I did not like when the milk after heating had that skin). But the taste of the tea is just fantastic - and it helps to sooth my aching throat. My infection seems to get worse. during the drive to Ahmadabad I had headache and did not feel very well.

The VC of the university explains to us the basic principles under which they operate here: modesty, back to the roots, back to rural life. Students are required to work with the spinning wheel, to make their own yarn. Technology is seen somewhat as hostile, threatening. Accommodations are modest and simple, people have to stay in double accommodation. We are asked to do the same, unless we would feel uncomfortable about it... and our spoiled western individualism wins, as we agree that we would be a bit uncomfortable with this. The beds in the guest rooms are indeed very simple: almost just a wooden board, with some blankets on it.

We drive to the Gandhi Ashram, which is located at the banks of the Sabarmati River. There is Gandhi's house, and the houses of some of his friends. A museum is there, with interesting exhibits. In the bookstore one can buy his works.

We camp behind Gandhi's house for our workshop, from where we have a nice view of the river. There is a lot of construction going on: the whole river banks are being rebuilt. It looks like a dam more downstream will raise the level of the river. Big concrete walls are being put in place on the sides, to keep the water in the river. Supposedly this will lead to a revitalisation of the river banks... but some of the people whom we interview do have doubts. Some remember how the river was many decades ago. Right now it is actually fed not with its own waters, but with the waters of another river: the Narmada river. To some, this is a violation of spirituality of the river gods...

We also meet an ardent supporter of this project, who believes this project will be an improvement for all people. Some details from the official side are here:http://www.sabarmatiriverfront.com/. The workshop goes well. I record several interviews, other participants write poems and essays, others paint - or take pictures.

Around 3pm in the afternoon we are done, and we visit a local woman poet and comunity "activist" who has been engaged in mitigating the violence between Muslim and Hindu fanatics. A few years ago there had been riots between these two population groups, and just a few months ago there had been a few bombings here in Ahmadabad. The woman leads a street theatre group, which performed in the streets to engage people to think. Very interesting - she also read a poem in Gujarati language, to which our whole group listens intensly - just the song of words is very interesting, without actually understanding the meaning.

It is slowly getting dark. We are done with our program for the day, and we conclude it with a visit in a bazar. This is actually just like a large department store, with several floors where different stuff can be bought. As we leave the car, I am the very first one to buy something from a street vendor: a map of India. I am able to negotiate the price down to half (90 Rupies), but later another member of our group gets the same map for 50 Rupies... so much for my bargaining ability. At the side of the road, an old lady boils some tea in a bolile cart cooker. The procedure looks slightly unhygenic, but the tea water (with the milk already added) actually boils and bubbles, so that I loose my fear and actually buy one - for 5 Rupies. Tastes delicious!

In the bazar I find a very useful item: a wiper for the floor to remove water. I actually buy it: I see an urgent necessity for the shower in our accommodation back in Vallabh Vidyanagar, as the water just keeps accummulating on the floor and does not flow into the outlet, due to some unevenness in that floor. We drive back in darkness to our accommodation at the Gandhi University campus. My headache which had disappeared during the day, wsa now back, and I decide to get an early rest, without any dinner. A short update on the work blog, then I have a rest.

Written by Reinhold Behringer at 21:39

12th Day in India: Feedback Session and Good-Bye

On Wednesday morning we had a feedback session at 10am at the HP Patel Institute where we discussed the project and our stay. The resume was overall very positive, and we decided on a few action for the future.

Afterwards we went with a rikshah to Anand, meeting Chhaya and Mitali for some more gift shopping. We got hungry, and I could not resist trying something extravagant: a cheesburger with fries and Pepsi. The cheeseburger was indeed unusual: instead of cheese inside, the cheese was grated above the burger. The veggie part inside the burger was not a patty, but were actual vegetables: cucumbers, tomatoes, and a kind of green pesto. Very unusual, but quite good. Then I use the last few hours in which I have access to the USB 3G stick for uploading a few more pictures. Tomorrow we will be in Ahmadabad, where possibly I might have another few hours of internet access.
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2011

11th Day in India: A Book in 8 Minutes

The workshop was supposed to begin at 11:00. However, only a few students were present at that time; more started to trickle in, as they were commuting and came back from the holidays. It reminded me of my lectures that I gave this semester at LeedsMet each Thursday morning - many students usually also started then to trickle in a bit late. In this area there is definitely some room for improvement on the students' attitude... although I must say that our taxi pick-ups and all the travel arrangements during our stay had been spot-on in time. When finally the last students come to the lecture lab around 11:20, Brian begins the lecture. The first part is about the students writing in Gujarati language on paper a short paragraph about "My Place is Gujarat", which would be intended to be a textbook for Gujarati children. Each of them has to do this within 8 Minutes, and then they read aloud and translate this paragraph into English. Then comes my bit: Each of the students should now put down their story/paragraph online, to share it with the world. I show them how to use the page I have set up and how to get pictures from my Flickr archive, then the start typing. In the end we have collected 23 pages, which automatically were collected on the web page:www.theriversmovement.org.uk/bi8m/ViewBook.php. In the evening we have invited all our friends to the restaurant "Flavours", and we have a great farewell dinner.
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MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 2011

Tenth Day In India: Writing a Web App

On Tuesday we will give lectures at the HM Patel Institute, and these need some preparation. Gina and Deborah will give lectures about education, Brian and I will give a workshop on writing a "Book in 8 Minutes", involving collaborative technology. For this I have to write some software, enabling the joint authoring. So on Monday I devote the whole day to this, sitting outside near the entrance of the guest house and hacking away on my computer. The goal is that the students should be able to write a very short story related to the topic "My Place is Gujarat", amended by a photograph from my online collection. We did not want them to use other pictures because of possible copyright issues, therefore we focussed on my collection only. There was now one technical problem to solve: a few years ago, one could directly right-click any picture on Flickr and get the true URL. This has changed: right-click on a picture does not provide means for saving it or getting its true URL; for this one needs to use the Flickr API. So I had a

quick look at it - straightforward, one first needs to get an API key, then call a specific function in the FLickr API to get all the info about the picture in an XML response, then parse this to build the actual URL. I did not want to write a parser for XML, so I was looking for something that would make this job easier, and I found phpflickr: this provides the tools for getting info of any Flick picture, just by passing the picture ID to it. Then there is another function for building the URL. So I began writing a little PHP script, using that phpflickr library: to the script the picture ID would be passed, then the image URL for a medium-sized image would be returned. This script in turn would be called from JavaScript on the main page, using AJAX. What the students then had to do when they would want to embed a picture in their page: they would copy the URL of the picture page into a field, click on a button, and the page would receive the unique image URL from where it could be passed on to a web form for storage in a database. All I had to do now was to write a parser to get the image ID from the Flickr image page URL. This worked fine: the result is here: www.theriversmovement.org.uk/bi8m/. I did some more minor edits later in the night to have this ready for Tuesday.

At 17:00 we went to Asha Makheesha's C Z Patel College of Business, where an official awards ceremony took place. Gina and Deborah had gon there already earlier, Brian and I wanted to join just before the event would begin. I did not know where the college was, and Brian had missed one turn... so we were a bit lost, when suddenly we met a friend from the HM Patel Institute who recognised us. She engaged another motor cycle rider who was around, and then each of us was riding on the back of a motorcycle heading to the nearby College of Business. The floors on the halls were decorated with graphics made out of coloured powder or sand. The main event venue was outside on a roof terasse, under a large fabric tent roof. The honourable dignitaries were sitting on a podium, waiting for their time to speak. Then the official event started, Asha moderating the proceedings. Brian started to cough, probably a consequence of rushing to this event earlier, and also because of the dust and pollution in the streets. He left the proceedings and went back to the guest house for a brief rest. When he came back 2 1/2 hours later he just came in time for the closing of the official events, after all speeches and prize awards to the students. Since Brian did not feel very well, we decided to not attend the following dinner and instead head back to the guest house, where I could finish my software for the workshop on Tuesday.
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2011

Ninth Day in India: back to Vallabh Vidyanagar

At 5:30 one of the guest house clerks knocks at the door, brings tea for breakfast. At 6:00am we assemble in the lobby and get into the car, to drive through the morning darkness towards a remote temple site on a hill for watching the sunrise. We are there shortly before 7am, driving up a very steep road (probably 30% slope). as we reach the top, a very surprising site: a wall straight ahead, and behind it we see - boats! We think this is a Fata Morgana, boats on the top of a hill. But there is indeed a small reservoid / lake on which a few boats are floating. As we get out of the car, a cold wind is greeting us. We climb up the wooden covered structure from where we can see the plain below slowly becoming visible through the darkness. I head back into the car for a while to warm up. Then, as the orange disk of the sun appears at the horizon, we all assemble on top of that wooden observation point and take pictures. Afterwards we are heading back to Vallabh Vidyanagar towards West. Passing through a few lively towns. Small rikshahs and trucks are loaded with people: usually there are at least about 20 people per small vehicle: sitting on the roof, hanging from the back, squeezing themselves inside. On the way we see a road accident that must have happened just recently: a white car is damaged at the front, while a truck is lying in a ditch at the side of the road, the driver's cabin smashed by a tree. We arrive safely back at the Vallabh Vidyanagar guest house and have a rest. I can upload a few pictures, then we head out again for dinner: at 18:30 Sunil picks us up in his car, and we drive first to Kiran Chauhan and his wife Sarika for a tea, where also members of his family are present. Then we all together move to Sunil's house where his wife Viraj has been busy the whole Sunday to prepare a meal for us: a mix of traditional Indian cuisine with Western and Mexican components. We enjoy the company of the family and friends: Surendra Gohil and Juhika are there, as well as Kiran Chauhan and Sarika. Back at the guest house around 22:00 we quickly fall asleep after a busy weekend.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2011

Seventh Day in India - Kite Flying Festival

On Friday is the kite-flying holiday. The university and all stores are closed, people are at home, on the roof of their houses, and let kites fly. Traditional food is chikki, a sweet desert: nuts bound together by crystallised brown sugar.

Brian is on this day on a tour with Dr Piyush, to visit an ancient well. The rest of us has been invited by Sunil to join him and his family for this event in the morning. He picks us up at 9:30, and first we visit one of his friends for a brief view of the kite flying frenzy in one of the neighborhoods in Vallabh Vidyanagar. Loud music, everybody on the roofs, flying kites. Unfortunately there is very little wind, so it is difficult to get the kites up. Then Sunil drives us to his home, where it appears to be a bit more relaxed and quiet. We go to the roof of his home, were other members of the family and friends are there to fly kites. We unwrap our kits and also let them fly. Naturally there is tea being served. Around noon Sunil brings us back to the guest house, he will in the afternoon visit other friends out of town. We have a lunch in one of the restaurants. Then we rest a bit in the guest house, before Dr Jadeja picks us up for a tea at his home. We meet his family and have a nice chat. Then we walk back to the quest house, where we meet Asha. Then also Brian arrives back from his day

trip. We discuss the further plans, then I upload quickly a few pictures. At 6:30 Kiran picks us up for meeting his family for a traditional dinner, with the festive vegetable dish Undhui. Delicious! A great day, full of meeting people in their homes and enjoying their hospitality.
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 13, 2011

A lifelong dream came true: driving an Auto-Riskshah - and I mean "driving", not being driven

Before we went to India, I had toyed with the idea of renting a car in India for a few days and to travel around a bit, independently, just following the road signs, stopping wherever I felt. From my first visit here I knew about the road rules, or more correctly, about the absence of those, so I felt I could do this without a lethal accident. But when searching on the internet for opportunities to rent, I noticed that this would only be possible in Ahmadabad, about 2 hours away from where we are. So I almost gave up that idea. Jokingly I told Brian that I might rent a rikshah instead, just to drive around a bit in Vallabh Vidyanagar. And yesterday, Dr Jadeja told me that it would be possible to rent a rikshah - with an accompanying driver. Great! So on Thursday morning at 9:30 I went to the HM Patel institute where the driver Harish with his rikshah was already waiting. First I got a brief instruction: there are three gears, to he shifted with the left handle. The "neutral" is between gear 1 and 2. The clutch is operated with a lever at the left handle. The right handle turns the throttle. There seems to be no idle, the throttle has to be operated always, during starting, and during idling when standing, otherwise the engine dies. The brake is operated by the right foot. The horn (very important) is operated with a button by the right hand, which then has to be removed briefly from the throttle handle (or you need to have a large hand). The blinker is a switch near the left handle, but no finger can reach it while the hands are on the handle, so one has to remove the left hand from the gear switcher. Very un-ergonomic design, that 1950s Pioggo from Italy. But as we slowly do a test ride around the block, I get the hang of it. Brian sits in the back and enjoys the ride. The test ride immediately develops into the real ride, and we drive out of Vallabh Vidyanagar towards west, on the road to the temple town Vardtal. Traffic is light. The speed indicator is not working, but I have my GPS: it shows almost 40 km/h. The driver keeps telling me "slo, slo"... While driving this rikshah I can now appreciate the difficulty in multitasking which these drivers have to do: in addition to the actual driving task, meaning operating the non-ergonomic machine, one also has to pay attention to the traffic situation, watch vehicles in the back, front, and sides, swirve around potholes and avoid speed bumps, overtake pedestrians, cows,

dogs, camels, and tractors, be overtaken by basically everybody else, and avoid any kind of collission with anyone. This is quite a number of tasks, and I hardly manage. Especially because the side mirrors are not well adjusted - I have to move my head very far out of the way to see anything, and they I miss what is ahead of me. So I simply rely on other vehicles sounding their horns, and I also use every opportunity to beep the horn, to warn everybody that I am approaching. The turn signal indicators are of no use, because our accompanying driver has wisely switched on the alarm blinker, indicating that an "incompetent driver" is now operating his machine. On the way we pass the village "Jobanpura", and I decide to stop and have a brief look. We go on towards Vadtal, and that town always has a special flair to it, with its temple in the center, its gates, the buzzing crowd around the stalls. I take a few pictures, then we return. We stop at the guest house to pick up Gina and Deborah, to give them a lift as they have to go to their next appointment at a local school. So I am now officially acting as a rikshah chauffeur. But their destination is too far away for me, the two hours rental are soon over. So we drop them at a busy intersection where they take another auto rikshah. A few minutes later they overtake me laughing. A brief stop at a bank for exchanging some money, then we are driving back to the HM Patel institute. That was fun!
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MONDAY, JANUARY 10, 2011

Third Day in India

On Monday morning I again woke up around 5am, but I did not feel tired. I used the time to try the USB stick again, and it worked great! I uploaded all pictures I has so far onto Flickr, and responded to emails. This day would be devoted to music. We wanted to show to the same class as yesterday the music which I had written for the Rivers Movement: "The River Aire", after a poem by David Wilders. The students should then try to find words which were embedded in the music. This was a very interesting experiment, especially becaise these were Indian children, and the music had been written in a Western classical style. The schedule for the day changed a few times, but it was finally set that this lecture/performance would be given from 14:00 - 15:00. In the meantime I prepared a video of this music, with the corresponding words from David's poem shown synchronous to the music. The internet worked fine, no need to exchange the USB 3G stick.

The lecture in the afternoon at 14:00 started with me switching on my laptop computer, connecting the audio to the speakers, and then playing the wav file with the recording of "The River Aire". 95 Indian English teacher students are the very first people on this planet who hear this music being played. They are being told to write down words and impressions of this music. After 10 minutes it is finished, and they "report" threir impressions. it is amazing how well they were able to capture the spirit of this, not having seen the original poem by David wilders on which this music is based. They mention words like "storm", "calm", "serene", "raging", "animals and plants" (how did they get this one? pretty good!). This shows that music is a cross-cultural language, even if it has some local "dialects". Later we listen to a recording of Indian music about rivers, played with flute and sitar. and yes, you can hear the river there as well, with its waves and flow. The video of the music is here: It is to note that this is still an incomplete draft - when I am back from this travel I will add the missing 11 words, and I will revise the instrumentation and composition to make it more consistent. At 15:00 Surendra and Falguni take Gina, Deborah and me to a tribal village school outside of the town, which is away a 45 minute drive. We see children in their classes, and Gina and Deboray talk with their teachers. I document with camera and video the activities. When the classes end at 17:00, all the children walk out and wave to us. Then we take a walk around the willage. Small mud houses, surrounded by farmland. Women carrying fire wood on their heads, men plastering house walls, and everybody smiles friendly when we walk by. It appears that everybody wants that we take pictures of them - so we do. And it appears that the polite thing to do is then to show them their picture on the camera screen. Thank goodness for digital technology!

Already during my last visit to India two years ago I was wondering why almost everybody there was so keen to have their pictures taken. I came up with a theory: when a picture of them is taken, their image goes onto a journey. They themselves may not have the opportunity to see the rest of the world in the near foreseeable future, but their picture will. Their own eyes will not see the world, but the world will see them on their image - so in a way they do travel and get connected to the rest of humanity, to whoever sees their image. So I keep taking pictures of them, to fulfil their dream of being seen by the world (or whoever has a look at the pictures). In the evening when we return to the HM Patel Institute, there is a group of young students from Surat, supervised by Ashok. They are also very keen to have their pictures taken.
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SUNDAY, JANUARY 09, 2011

How I got interviewed by the police

On Sunday afternoon I walk alone along the main street in Vallabh Vidyanagar, on the way to the DBS supermarket. Very busy, very dusty. Everyone is staring at me, and I attract significant attention. Not sure if it is just the fact that I am the only Westerner in the whole town who is walking here, or if it is my GPS unit that I am wearing around my neck, or the fact that I take pictures of almost everything I see: cows, buildings, just the road... And walk by a group of three policemen who are sitting on chairs, chatting with each other. Maybe I looked somehow suspicious to them; after I am already away about 10 meters, one of them shouts after me "Hey, come here". I think I better follow. With a big smile I turn around and walk slowly towards them. One gets up and points me to sit down on the chair. I do this. "Where are you going?" I say that I am going to the supermarket. "What do you have in the bag?" Cake from the bakery around the corner. "Where are you from?" Not sure what to answer, but I say "Germany". At least they cannot release any anti-colonialistic resentments then - the relation to the former colonial power here in India has still a slight tension. They all smile while they ask me these questions, so this questioning feels kind of weird: maybe this is not an official inquiry, but just a chat... ? There is actually a meeting of police here in the town, for a kind of drive around various towns, as I have seen the signs "Vallabh Vidyanagar welcomes police from..." and then a couple of towns listed. So we talk about that. Then I say that I have to go now before the

supermarket closes. A friendly good-buy, and I walk off. On the way back I stay on the other side of the road, just in case. In the evening we have a tea with the cake which I bought, and we have a laugh while I tell the story to our group.
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Second Day in India

I slept very well, but for some reason already woke up at 5am. This was quite strange, as I had expected to sleep longer than that, because the time zone difference in India put us there 5 1/2 hours ahead of UK time, which means that 5am is 11:30pm UK time. All those sleepless nights in the past days must have reset my inner clock to a wrong time...

It was very surprising to us that the uni staff was working on a Saturday, and that students were actually attending lectures. But even more surprising was that the same thing happened on Sunday: a full day of lectures was scheduled, and we were given a two hour slot to give presentations. The students are future English teachers. Brian introduced them to the Rivers Movement, Gina talked about her work at Barnsley College, and Deborah about her work in the education sector in Rotherham. My presentation was about teaching with technology: I talked about SCORM and learning objects, showed what you can do with CourseLab, and pointed out how this could be used in the educational context with very little resources. The USB 3G stick was not functioning well, I had hardly been able to get to any website. So Sunil decided we should go back to the store on Monday and cancel this 3G plan. I used some free time in the afternoon to do some shopping of water, cake, and some cleaning utensils for the bathroom.
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SATURDAY, JANUARY 08, 2011

First Day in India

After another night with only a few minutes of sleep we had arrived in Ahmadabad around 3:00 am. In the baggage claim we were for a long time looking for our luggage, and we were afraid it might have gone lost in Dubai. But after a while everybody of us had their luggage, and so we headed through the customs control. The flight attendants of our flight to Ahmadabad had not given any of the passengers an immigration form, so there was a rush to get these forms. Quite a chaotic queue formed at the immigration desk, with people getting to the front to bring back these forms to the waiting passengers. In principle the queue was supposed to be meandering in an S shape, separated by barries. But some people decided to shortcut the queue by going straight instead of following the S-shape, by removing the barriers. Some heated "discussions" started then... We finally made it through the immigration, and then went outside, where our driver greeted us. It was 4:30am.

A crew of 3 people had come to pick us up. They had been here since 1:30 am, due to a misunderstanding of the time communication. When loading the luggage into that Toyota van, it became apparent that there would not be enough space for the four of us to squeeze onto that one backbench - so someone would have to go into the luggage compartment. Gina and Deborah volunteered because they were smaller than Brian and myself. So our three drivers rearranged the luggage and put some onto the roof, where it was affixed with a very thin looking piece of string... it was not really our intention to treat the ladies that way, but that is how it turned out to be: their luggage on the roof, and they into the trunk. The car had seatbelts in the rear seat, but when I tried to put it on, there was only one half of the seatbelt - the parts where to stick it in could not be found anywhere. Fortunately everything went well, and almost two hours later we arrived safely at the university guesthouse in Vallabh Vidyanagar. During the ride Brian and myself noted that the road near the airport had been improved significantly - much fewer potholes. We drove around Ahmadabad on a kind of ring road where the early morning traffic began. The temperature was relatively fresh, and we saw many people outside with scarfs around their face. In combination of those scarfs with some automated guns which a few of the guards at the toll stations were wearing, it looked as if that toll booth had been hijacked by a local warlord... in many places a few people stood together in a group around a small fire, to warm themselves. After arriving at the guest house we moved into our rooms and had a few hours of rest before we headed at noon to the university to meet our hosts Sunil Shah, Dr Jadeja, and Surendra. We received a heartfelt welcome. Turns out that my Twittering (tweeting?) and facebooking had kept everybody here well aware of our travel obstacles, and they had felt very well informed and up to date. Sunil as the ICT expert suggested to me that I should get a Tata Docomo 3G USB stick for a fast mobile internet connection, and so we headed off on his motorcycle. I felt a bit unsafe, but Sunil was driving very cautiously through the Indian road traffic with its 3-wheel motor rikschahs, motorcycles, cars, tractors, pedestrians, cows, and the

occasional camel. The question of wearing a helmet never came up... what is a helmet anyway? Got my USB stick, drove back to the university, but it did not work... some driver problem. Must be because I had other Huawei drivers installed from another earlier device... and the software did not appear to handle this case very gratiously. So we went back again to the Docomo store to get some help. However, the IT guys there were not very well versed in computer installation questions and just were able to offer some generic help. What I needed was an explicit Huawei driver which I could install separately. After a few hours tinkering with the registry and reinstalling the device several times I finally got it to work- and the afternoon was over.

Back at our guesthouse the electicity went off for 1/2 hour, leaving us in complete darkness, except for the bluish glow of my laptop display running on batteries. But a few minutes later the house attendant came with a candle for everyone. Kiran, Falguni and Mitali who had visited us in Yorkshire in summer 2009 came to the guest house to welcome us, Then we headed to the restaurant "Colour Flavours" where we were treated to an excellent meal by Falguni. As usual, I had something sizzling - I like it when the food makes a noise.

On the way there were many stalls on the road selling kites. Dr Jadeja explained that this is for the upcoming kite festival, and Sunil invited us to experience that festival in his home on Friday.

Back in the guest house I tried the internet stick, but the performance was very spotty. Often no web site could be reached. Only a few times I was able to see my emails, reply, and send out a tweet.
Written by Reinhold Behringer at 22:31 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook No comments: Labels: Gujarat, India, travel, Vallabh Vidyanagar Links to this post
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008

Last Evening Dinner, and Folk Dance Performances

We are all going out for dinner to one of the restaurants, and we invite our hosts who have made our stay there in Vallabh Vidyanagar so smooth and pleasant. Afterwards some of us go to the area where the West Indian Youth Festival Competition has been taken place since Monday (when there was this procession in the streets). This is located on a large open sports ground, covered by a marquee tent. Traditional Indian music can be heard from outside. We walk into the tent, and see immediately colleagues from the university. Also Kanu Patel is there, as he was involved in the organisation of this whole event, and he points us to seats in the very first row. Behind us are probably 1000 young people, listening and applauding the performances that are ongoing at the stage. We sit down and watch a bit. The speakers are very close, and the sound makes everything vibrate. Kanu offers me a seat in the centre, wher eI have a better view for taking video and pictures. The different groups who are competing in this dance competition wear colorful costumes and perform several different dances. They also provide the music for their dance, with the musicians in the background playing while in the foreground the dancers show their performance.

We leave before midnight, shortly before the whole show ends.

Written by Reinhold Behringer at 23:55 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook No comments: Labels: dancing, India, performance, Vallabh Vidyanagar Links to this post
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2008

Folk Dance Festival

After we return to Vallabh Vidyanagar, the ladies in our group want to buy some Indian clothing. I have no specific plans, I will just walk around. But when the car enters the town, the road is suddenly blocked: there is a truck on which people are dancing, dressed in costumes. I get out of the car to do some more filming, this time legally without any restrictions, using the HD camera. I keep the audio recording running, the head cam, and also film with the regular camera. Three devices at once - have never done that before. The truck is moving, and ahead of it is a long procession of music groups and dancers. As I learn, this is the West India Youth festival, in which universities compete in categories of dancing, singing, etc. This festival goes on for the whole week, in a tent on the large sporting area between our guest house accommodation and the H M Patel Institute. This procession here through the tree-lined alleys of Vallabh Vidyanagar shows someting quintessential of India: a cacophony of sounds, because all the bands play together, and they play different music pieces. Very nice colourful costumes, in stark contrast to some of the beak housing along the streets. Traffic that is uninhibited by the procession and adds to the sound carpet, with honking horns, motorcycle noise, and cars and buses driving by.

Written by Reinhold Behringer at 23:07 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook No comments: Labels: festival, India, procession, Vallabh Vidyanagar Links to this post
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 05, 2008

Visiting other Institutions

Our hosts are from the H.M.Patel Institute for English. We are also interested to meet other people from the university. Unfortunately, this is the time of the Hindu festival Diwali, which just was a few days ago: celebration of the beginning of the New Year. Students actually have off, and many of the staff is on holiday too. This Diwali festival becomes more popular, as India appears to move away from Western holiday schedules: we were told that a few decades ago Christmas was the major holiday, but it is being nowadays been replaced by Diwali. We visit the Faculty of Arts which is not very far away. Very interesting architecture of the building. We see the workshop rooms and ateliers, with exhibitions of paintings and sculptures. Then we try to meet someone at the Faculty of Art, but they are all on holiday. We further visit Asha's faculty, the Faculty of Business. were we receive an information pack and a light meal, prepared by the restaurant of the School of Tourism. In the evening, Dr. Jadeja, head of the H M Patel institute, invites us to a restaurant. I enjoy the dosa, but I could not resist ordering s "sizzler": cabbage leafes outside on a sizzling pan, inside filled with rice and vegetables. There appears also to be a sausage-like thing - is probably made of soy. Am feeling a bit worse, the frequency and intensity of my sneezing increases.
Written by Reinhold Behringer at 21:29 Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook

2 comments: Labels: Leeds Metropolitan University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, visits Links to this post
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 03, 2008

Vallabh Vidganagar

I finally begin to understand the geography: We are in Vallabh Vidyanagar, our host institution is the Sardar Patel University, specifically the H.M.Patel Institute for English Teaching and Research. The town appears to be grown together with the town Anand, which is bigger. Overall, the two towns appear very rural. Vallabh Vidyanagar has wire roads with large trees at the side, giving a nice shadow in the warm weather (the first days here the max temperature was 36 C). In the evening, someone sweeps the leaves from these trees into small piles, and these are then set on fire, filling the air with a scent of burned leafes. In addition, there are often burning incense sticks at memorials or altars / shrines, which add to the aroma in the air. Overall, there is a lot of smell in the air - and not always a good one. When walking towards the more busy streets, there are a lot of cows there - including what they leave behind... The streets main streets are quite busy, with many of those motor rickshaw taxis driving around. Once in a while, a cameldrawn cart comes along.

Written by Reinhold Behringer at 23:46