feet on the ground

Arriving thus far has been a whirlwind. Coming into Delhi I was a bit surprised at just how normal and un-un-familiar every thing has been. Talking to people and getting around the city has been no problem, though I must say I very quickly tired of cris-crossing the city in an autorickshaw everyday for registrations and meetings. Hopefully I'll be better sorted for my next visit there in January. I guess the big news so far is that I'm changing before my very own eyes into someone who is really living and working here, as opposed to someone who is here as student/traveller. I now have friends I want to visit in Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, and Madras. I have a mental list of places I'd like to get to in Delhi and Uttaranchal. My meeting with my contact at the Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts saw me transformed from an erswhile graduate student to a "junior fellow" being introduced to several notable Indian scholars and talking about when I might give a talk at the center. After finding out third hand about a major conference on ritual happening in Delhi, I finally had the opportunity to introduce myself to the foremost western authority on the area in which my research is located (Garwhal), and through him met a German anthropologist who has been working for years in exactly the area in which one of my research sites is located (Ukhimath). At her invitation, I met her in Dehra Dun (having arrived in Mussoorie the day before) because a group with whom she was working was giving a performance at this year's Uttaranchal Heritage festival. She then introduced me to the members of this group, most of whom live near or in Ukhimath. So even before I arrive in Ukhimath I can happily look forward to numerous friendly contacts.

Now I'm in Mussoorie, a hill station that was the one of the first places I ever stayed in India. I'm catching up to myself a bit at the moment and doing some language work, enjoying reunions with several teachers whom I've not seen in six years or so. One of them has greatly improved his ping pong skills and handed me my you know what today in our first rematch. Being here is also existentially useful as it gives me an opportunity to remember myself as I was six years ago here in India, before starting my phd and before my time in Israel. I was definitely better at ping pong then.

Under the heading of special things that have happened so far three come immediately to mind. At the Uttaranchal Heritage Festival I spent some time just hanging out and waiting for things to get under way. During that time, an artist created a rangoli (a design created on the ground using color chalk that employs geometric and sometimes figurative elements) on the ground between two sets of bleachers found on the grounds of the festival (Ambedkar Stadium in Dehra Dun -- somewhat ironic that the Hindu rangoli was placed directly beneath the name Ambedkar, who is famous for championing those Indians most often victimized by the established Hindu social system...). This rangoli (identified as an Omkar rangoli from Pune) was an image of the Hindu god Ganesha, elegantly situated inside a canopy which was itself situated inside an oval. Watching the rangoli come to life was quite magical, as was watching the crowd that gathered in fascination as the artist worked. Children were entranced, and many women (who are usually the rangoli makers) were clearly touched by a combination of seasoned appreciation (as experienced rangoli makers themselves) and nostalgia for the times when many more people used to create them. The roughness and brightness of the powdered colors was powerful to me in a way that a manufactured image would have trouble being. I felt lucky to be there.

The second special thing that happened was that last night I was walking along the pedestrian mall at Mussoorie (which is a bit of a tourist trap) and one man kept looking at me and began to beckon. Since this often happens and is usually a sign of incipient pressure to buy something, I started to show annoyance when he said hey, don't you remember me? I interviewed you in Kedarnath a year and a half ago for my documentary on the Char Dham! He was right. Two Mays ago, I made a preliminary visit to Kedarnath for about a week, and had consented to an interview on the condition that I speak only in Hindi, which was fine with him. So he remembers me, and I'm going to meet with him sometime in the next week or two and get his advice about my research -- he appears a compendium of knowledge about sacred places in Garhwal so it should be a good meeting.

Finally, on the bus on the Delhi Meerut road, I saw through the window a shop called Time and Space Repairs. Kant would have packed up and gone home.

So things are off to a good start, though I do feel a bit lonely at times.

departures and definitions

I'm about to go to India again, this time to do my dissertation research. During my last trip I sent out periodic updates via mass e-mail, but this time I've decided to go with a blog. Now my dad is the only one in the family without one! It is, I suppose, a little odd that it is only when I go out of the country that I make a concerted effort to be in touch with everyone in my life. One does the best one can. So hello to everyone, and please forgive me for not being in better touch. I'll try to do better.

So, India, dissertation research, etc... I think for the moment I'm going to give the compressed version. In the past year I've passed my general examinations (I'm doing a Phd in religious studies at Emory University) and successfully defended my dissertation proposal. I'll be heading to India in a couple of weeks for approximately a year and a half, to do research on Hindu pilgrimage place in the Indian Himalayas (in the Indian state of Uttaranchal) called Kedarnath. You can google Kedarnath and there is a fair bit of information on it, so I'll restrain myself from saying a great deal about it now. I'll content myself for the moment with explaining the blogging handle I've given myself, Kedaraprakasha, since it is a little mini commentary on both the subject of my research and myself. I was given my name (Luke), as many of you may know, because my artist parents named me for something very important in their lives and works, namely light, hence Luke (from the Latin, lux). Light is a name that translates seamlessly into both many Indian languages (Prakash is a common name for a boy, as Jyoti is for a girl) and into Hebrew (I could have easily become an Uri during my time in Israel). I've always resisted changing my name, however, because I think it important to keep the name my parents gave me. However, here in the blogger imaginaire I've changed my name. So starting from the right and working to the left (that's how Sanskrit compounds work), there are two parts: Kedara and Prakasha. Prakasha means light, as I said. Kedara means something like a clump of marshy, clumpy wet soil. Kedarnath (shortened from Kedaranatha), literally means something like the lord of the clump of wet soil, and as a name and descriptor of the Hindu god Shiva it very closely reflects the terrain in and around the place of Kedarnath itself. So, Kedaraprakasha could mean something like the light [that is in] the clumpy wet dirt lump, or (more freely rendered), Luke--in/of-Kedarnath.