Lesson from a lion

In the back of an open jeep, surrounded by long yellow grass and blue sky, The Doctor and I watched a lion lazily yawn and flick his tail not 20 metres away from us. We were at Dinokeng Game Reserve, on a well-deserved mid-week break 200km from the city of Johannesburg, where we now stay. Just 20 minutes earlier, as we were eating our oats on the front porch of our chalet in the bush, still in our pajamas, the owner of the bush camp asked us if we wanted to go on a little drive into the bush, as a lion had been spotted not too far away. We threw on clothes and jumped on the jeep, and now here we were, face to face with the king of the jungle.

"What if he attacks?" The Doctor asked me in hushed tones. "What do you mean?" I asked, noticing panic in his eyes. "What if the lion decides we look like lunch?" he asked, as the driver of the jeep inched closer to allow us to take better pictures. His fear was palpable, radiating off him like pheromones. "Then you die," I answered with mock cheerfulness, and grinned.

Later on, our game drive continued, with plenty of far less threatening prey for my ever-clicking camera. All the while, I thought about fear. Why was I not scared in that moment, when we faced the lion, a ferocious beast of the wild? Why did I just trust that this was not a dangerous moment, that being eaten by a lion was not how The Doctor and I would meet our end?

I thought back, and realised I've never really been scared of those traditionally scary things - heights, flying, pain, needles, ostrich-riding, relocating to foreign places I know very little about - and instead really strange things fill me with dread, such as having to make a phonecall, for one thing. Having to deal with unpleasant and unavoidable conflict is another. But most frequently I have felt that anxious feeling, a leady heaviness in my tummy as if I'd swallowed a billiard ball, while sitting in front of a laptop, staring at a cursor blinking at me tauntingly. I get paralysed with fear at the thought that what I will write will be...bad. (Gasp and pause for effect.)

I grew up hating to make mistakes. My grandma dedicated the Fairground Attraction song (It's Got to Be) Perfect to me when I was still in the early grades of school. I was a klutz, as my mom called me, and every time I dropped a glass or knocked over a potplant I would quite literally beat myself over the head with my little fists, apologising and close to tears with shame. I was really, really hard on myself.

I read an article once that said that it's quite common in little girls who are smart to want to do things perfectly the first time, and if not, give up. You see, the article explained that when little girls achieve in school, they get told, "You're so smart! You're so clever!" as if intelligence is an innate thing, a natural talent. Little boys, by contrast, develop later cognitively. It's often a difficult task just to get the little hyperactive buggers to sit still and pay attention in the early grades of school. They get told things such as, "If you just made an effort and tried a little harder, I'm sure you can get this right." Little boys are given the message that if you work hard and keep trying, you can achieve success. In other words, little girls grow up believing you either have it or you don't, whereas little boys believe that it's through hard work, repetition and perseverance that you can get good. This accounts for why, in the research described in the article, young girls would give up after failure, whereas young boys would try and try till they got it right.

Believe this theory or not, it's neither here nor there. The point it, I, like many other smart girls, didn't want to work hard. School was easy, and when it wasn't anymore, I gave up. I quit science in my Matric year, because I was getting Cs. I did not want to fail, under any circumstance. I wanted to be nothing short of excellent, at all times, in all fields, even something I had just learnt. Anything short of brilliance would bring upon (imagined?) disapprobation from my parents, teachers, lecturers, other authority figures I respected, and intense and crippling shame in me. Conversely, nothing gave me a better feeling than getting 90% for a paper I just wrote last night. Emphatic praise from my superiors gave me a high. I lived for external approval. I still live for gold stars. Two or three please, if possible.

So what does this longwinded personal history have to do with fear? Well, dear reader, as any true procrastinator knows, there comes a point where you start to be intimidated by your own success. The fear of not being able to replicate your previous genius, seeing as it was based almost entirely on natural ability and not repetitive effort and determination, is probably the main source of writer's block. You start thinking, "Everyone thinks I'm really good and talented. What happens if what I write next is total and utter crap? What will people think?" The process of putting pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, and simply starting thus becomes an obstacle equivalent to starting a bushfire in Antarctica.

So this was the epiphany I had in the back seat of an open jeep in the middle of the African wilderness: To fear failure is to fear success. You'll never get anywhere if you don't have the courage, the wherewithal to just write, to just try, to just produce, no matter the consequences. This moment of clarity was echoed a few days later at a workshop run by this guy called Simon on our innate potential and areas of natural ability. I asked him about how I could overcome my bizarrely deep resistance to doing something I love. He told me that human beings will rationalise just about anything. "Because you hate failure, you'd rather not write," he told me. "No one can reject you, no one can give you negative feedback if you simply don't produce anything. You're protecting yourself from bad feelings by just not doing anything at all!" The key, he said, was to train my brain to associate writing with creation, rather than with the search for approval. "Don't do it for other people. Other people be damned! Do it because you are creating something that didn't exist before, no matter the quality." You can't succeed if you're not willing to fail.

If you haven't twigged by now, this entire post is a very long apology for being absent since leaving India to return to South Africa over 4 months ago, and a rumination on what has been keeping me away so long. Fear, dear reader, is the short answer. Fear of being good, fear of being bad. Being good comes with a responsibility to keep doing what you're doing, being bad means carrying guilt and shame like a baby elephant sitting on your chest. But I've made the decision to set the baby elephant down, to release myself from the burden of caring what others think. So as much as I love you, dear reader, I'm going to stop listening to the little voice in my head that cares too much about what you think, that craves your gold stars. I write to create. And hopefully I will continue to do so for a very long time. 

The difference between India and South Africa, or, Why autorickshaws would never work in SA

There are many similarities between India and South Africa. Both are economic and cultural hegemons in their respective regions. They share a history of British colonialism, and of struggle against oppression by a minority over the masses. Both suffer from acute and widespread poverty, counterbalanced by the excesses of the ruling and owning classes, creating ridiculous levels of inequality. They both experience unacceptable levels of corruption, unacceptable levels of rape and domestic abuse, and unacceptable levels of child homelessness and poverty. On the plus side, both can boast a level of diversity unseen in many other nations in the world, a resource that should not be ignored. 

There are also many differences between the two countries. Size, for one thing. India isn't known as the subcontinent for nothing. Made up of 1.2 billion people, 3,166,414 km², 29 states, seven Union Territories, and one National Capital Region, India is, in a word, huge. South Africa is tiny by comparison, with 51 million people, 1,220,813 km², and nine provinces. And although Indians will complain about their abysmal education system, once children are in school, there is an expectation that they achieve. I have never heard of the kind of competitive spirit in South Africa as I have heard of in India. The competition to be the class "topper", to get into the best colleges and universities, to get the plum jobs thereafter, is so intense that suicides due to failure to achieve are not a particularly surprising phenomenon in Indian urban society. Over and above all that, in all three urban metropolises I have visited, there have been street vendors selling books on pavements, displaying their wares in Connaught Place or College Street or Colaba Causeway. Clearly, if there is a market, then ordinary Indians are reading for pleasure. Comparatively, South Africa's major distributor of books is a chain of stores in high-end malls called Exclusive Books. I don't think I need to say any more on that. 

But the most interesting difference to me is displayed by the humble autorickshaw. What is an autorickshaw, exactly? Well, this:

Next left, bhaiya!

It is a three-wheeled vehicle, the illicit lovechild of a scooter and a Smart Car. It is a main mode of public transportation in Indian urban areas, and a main source of traffic-related frustration for urban drivers. However, as a pedestrian, it provides a very convenient and relatively inexpensive way to get from A to B. Autowallahs drive in a style that could be described as "controlled, calculated risk." Yes, they will squeeze through gaps you never imagined possible. Yes, they will run the light just before or even just after it turns red. But I've never felt unsafe in an auto, unlike in a minibus taxi in South Africa, those hell-sent sardine cans of death.

But I digress. What struck me the first time I rode in one, was this: This mode of transportation would never work in South Africa. Firstly, as you may have noticed from the picture, autos have no doors, one consequence of which I have already written about. In a country where South Africans lock their doors immediately and automatically upon entering their cars, a car with no doors is inconceivable. The first few times I sat in the back of an auto I clung to my bag like a crazy person. What was stopping someone from reaching in and grabbing it, besides my arthritic death-grip? Nothing! No doors! Open both sides! And yet it wasn't long before I would just let my backpack sit at my feet, unconcerned. I knew nothing would happen to it, even when the street vendors came up to my side to sell me magazines, oversized balloons, bangles and bindis. 

But my mind still boggled. What stopped someone from getting into an auto, commanding the driver to take them someplace far away, and then once sufficiently close, just jumping out and running away at a red light without paying? Nothing! Clearly the autodriver wouldn't be able to abandon his vehicle at a red light and give chase! And similarly, why doesn't it seem to happen that, once the passenger has stepped out of the auto and hands over a large note to the driver expecting change, the autowallah just drives off, big note in hand? Inexplicable!

These are things a South African thinks about. I like to tell foreigners, and I'm sure many of my fellow South Africans say the same, "The state of crime in South Africa is largely exaggerated. Of course you and your possessions will be safe! You just have to be alert." What lies beneath that statement is that, to the speaker, precautions to avoid crime have become routine, habit, something we don't even think about because it's just part of the way we are, the way we live our lives. Of course you need to lock your doors. Of course you never walk around after dark. Of course you never leave bags in parked cars, or drive with them on the passenger seat. Of course you should never wave your camera or your cellphone around in high density places. Of course you need an alarm system, or at the very least a big dog to guard your property. 

I'm not saying that India does not experience crime. My flatmate Anna had her bag slit and valuables stolen from it while visiting a temple not long ago. I'm sure others can share similar stories. But it's not nearly as pervasive as in South Africa, despite similar levels of poverty and inequality. 

So why is that, I wonder? It's clear to me that Indian society functions on trust. When I select and pay for my heavy bag of vegetables at the market, and the shopkeeper offers to have it delivered to my door, I trust that it will be, and I don't fear that now a random stranger knows where I live, as I would in South Africa. When I don't have sufficient change to pay the security guard and I have to give him 50 rupees extra and he promises to pay me back later, I trust that he will. Trust is taken for granted in India. 

There are of course multiple explanations for this disparity. On a black-and-white level, we can say South Africans don't trust because of crime. End of story. But let's scratch beneath the surface a little. Does South Africa experience such high levels of crime because of our recent brutally violent history? Or perhaps there has always been a lack of trust between the haves (mostly white) and the have-nots (mostly black) and that that distrust is so ingrained it might never change. Is it a kind of feedback loop wherein if you don't trust someone, you give them no reason to honour your trust? 

Or does the answer lie with what India is doing right and not what South Africa is doing wrong? There is a sense of personal honour and familial pride that exists here, the kind of honour that makes students strive for the top positions and commit suicide when they fail. Perhaps the culture of trust relies on this honour. The autowallah has his pride, as do the street vendors, shopkeepers, and security guards. Perhaps the worst crime of the apartheid regime was to twist our pride and our sense of honour to a state in which criminals take pride in getting away with crime, and ordinary citizens feel no shame in suspecting every taxi driver, every passer-by to be a potential criminal.

I was once sitting on a bench in Deer Park near Hauz Khas in Delhi, when a girl of about eighteen or nineteen came up to me. Shy and nervous, she hesitated as she told me in stilted English she was a tourism student. Drawing nearer, she placed her hand on my bag, and instinctively and automatically my hand shot out to draw it closer to me. She wanted a picture with a foreigner, she said, showing me her camera, and I felt ashamed for ever suspecting that this young girl would ever run away with my backpack. 

South African society is not based on honour or trust, but on suspicion, an ever-present divisive othering and a growing frustration with the way things are, whether you have or you don't. 

My dream for my country is that the humble autorickshaw can one day become a viable option in addressing our public transport problem. I hope that someday South Africans can learn to trust, and give each other no reasons to distrust one another. Crime will never disappear entirely, but clearly there has to be reasons beyond mere poverty and inequality for its extreme levels in SA, and those reasons are more nuanced than mere black-and-white explanations, pun intended. I hope that someday the rage that simmers beneath the surface of South African society will mellow, and that through development and dialogue we can achieve true reconciliation. No, I'm not stupid, I'm just an idealist. 

15 unexpected side-effects to living in the hottest heatwave Delhi's seen in 5 years

In case I haven't complained enough, it is indeed true that Delhi has turned into the 7th ring of hell, and that coincidentally, is also seeing some fairly regular and highly irritating power cuts. Which means that not only are we plunged into darkness with nothing to do in the evenings, but also that the ceiling fans don't turn to at least give a little respite from the sea of sweat that springs up from my body whenever they stop.

1) I've become a night owl. Since night is the coolest time (a cool 32 degrees, thank you very much!) and since I'm pretty much constantly fog-headed and mildly nauseated during the day, I've taken to intermittently reading stuff on the internet and napping while the sun is out and working at night. This means that I regularly go to bed at around 3-4am. For pretty much my entire life, 10:30-11pm has been my bedtime. I like sleep. A lot. I usually need a good 8 hours of it. But these days I'm surviving on 3-4 hours a night, seeing as it's impossible to continue sleeping once the sun is out. Yay.

2) I got sunburnt from spending a grand total of 10 mins in the sun.

3) I got prickly heat. No, it's not a fashionable STD. It's when your sweat glands go all WTF?! and refuse to work and your skin gets all inflamed and itchy. Apparently Indian children get it because their sweat glands are underdeveloped. Indian children, and stupid foreigners. I'm sitting here typing this while wearing a wet t-shirt to trick my skin into thinking it's sweating.

4) I get irrationally annoyed and angry every time I open Facebook, seeing as most of my friends are in South Africa and complain bitterly of the cold. I can guarantee you, your cold weather is better than my hot. You can always put on more layers, but you can only strip so far before you are liable for public indecency. And it doesn't help anyway.

5) Today I found myself sitting in the lounge, wearing the prettiest dress I own, the one I wore to graduation and have not worn once since coming to Delhi. Pants just don't seem like a viable option anymore.

6) There is no cold water. All showers are hot, even if you're only opening the cold tap. And even if you take a bottle of cold water out the freezer, within a few hours it will be lukewarm, like when a cup of boiled water cools. Tasty.

7) I sleep on the floor. Somehow, it seems cooler. Who wants cushy comfort that's just going to cling to your skin and make you hotter? And yes, the floor itself is hot too. And just a note on sleep in general -- it is not easy. I have to sleep with an alternate pillow within reach so that when both sides of the one I'm sleeping on are drenched in sweat, I can grab a dry one and start the whole process again while the wet one dries.

8) Bouts of irrational hatred towards my boyfriend, henceforth known as The Doctor, who is at home in the foothills of the Himalayas and regularly tells me it's so cool he doesn't even need a fan. Motherf*cker.

9) I've stopped exercising. So I'm getting fat. Fatter. Whatever.

10) My Vaseline is pure liquid. My wax strips have melted all over the place. Lipsticks have turned to mush. I'm pretty sure my salmon oil capsules are just going disintegrate and I'll have to use their contents for cooking.

11) I'm sick of the taste of water. Also, I drink gallons of it and my pee is still amber. My kidneys must hate me and my lifestyle decisions right round about now. This may be worse for them than the 3 years I spent at Rhodes.

12) I am homesick for the first time in my life. Since the very first time I left my parents' house for a week-long Scripture Union camp when I was 10, I've never felt homesick. I think it's less homesickness and more longing for more reasonable weather.

13) I'm simultaneously intensely bored and unable to do anything about it. Because going outside would be equivalent to self-immolation and should only be attempted in the most dire of circumstances. Like running out of food. Or, if you're my flatmates, going to work.

14) On a plus side, cutting off all my hair before coming here may have been the wisest decision I've ever made. Balanced out by the idiocy of not investing in AC at the first signs of summer, which may very well be the most arrogant and ignorant decision I've ever made.

15) As you've clearly gathered, I've turned into a self-pitying, whiny brat. I was going to use another word that rhymes with brat, but I feel like this post is already sufficiently swearword-heavy. I've probably already offended someone. To you, I say, I'm sorry. Blame it on the heat. 

Love in the time of 44°C heat

Soooo...as of yesterday, I haven't blogged in over a month. My sincere apologies, dear reader. There are, however, two reasons for this:

1) Living in Delhi is like living in Winterfell, except in reverse. Here, for months after I arrived, people kept muttering "Summer is coming" in ominous tones. Well, summer has arrived. All 44°C of it. My flatmates and I have opted not to rent AC units. My motivation for this is mainly because a) I can't afford one and b) I end up constantly sneezing like someone put pepper in my nasal spray. So really, all I have to combat the heat in my room is the ceiling fan, which just kind of shuffles the hot air around a bit. There is no chance of sightseeing, unless it's to nicely air-conditioned malls. Going to a crowded monument like the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi would be temperature-induced suicide. The heat quite literally makes me feel ill. So I'm pretty much stuck indoors. Which is not so bad becaaaaause...

2) I've fallen in love. I'm very much aware that I'm stepping dangerously close to Eat, Pray, Love-esque cliché here. Middle-class twenty-something girl, dissatisfied and bored, goes to "find herself" in an exotic and culturally-rich location and finds love instead. It sounds like the blurb of a particularly trashy summer holiday reading paperback. The twist is - and yes, this is also cliché territory, so not really a twist at all then - that I've never been in love before. Not properly. Anyone who knows me (and if you're reading this, I'm assuming you do) knows that I'm the prototypical perpetually single girl who just can't seem to find someone she likes who likes her back.

I've had more than my share of unrequited crush dramas. Actually, they're dramatic to no one but me due to their total and utter lack of anything deserving of comment. If you've been my shoulder to cry on during one of these crushes, I offer you my deepest thanks. And I now repay you by dropping entirely off the face of the earth. Whereas once you couldn't get rid of me and my whining, you now barely hear from me, because I'm at my boyfriend's (!!!!) place making cutesy baby voices while we feed each other with our hands. Yes. We are that sickening.

And quite frankly, I feel no guilt about it. Because at 27, I'm enjoying my first real relationship. Coincidentally, neither of us has an office-based job at the moment, which means we get to hang out a lot. In a few months we'll both be doing the 9-to-5, and life will get instantly and simultaneously more complicated and boring. We'll look back on these days of Delhi summer wistfully and say, "Remember when our biggest problem was what we're going to eat for lunch?"

I don't really want to say too much about it, because I'm afraid I'll jinx it. (Aaaand now realising the irony of saying that after waxing lyrical on a blog read by most of my friends and family...) Suffice to say, I'm happy. I'm really, really happy. Obviously, it's still early days, as we both keep saying. But I feel really good about this. He's a really great guy and I really enjoy being around him. And he's good for me. He hassles me about my time management issues and encourages me to write. Probably the main reason I'm writing on this blog today is because he reminded me that I hadn't updated it in a month. Not to mention the fact that he knows more about South African political history than I do, Indian citizenship aside, and so I'm learning more about not only India but also my own country through him. (Did you know John Dube, Sol Plaatjie and Pixley ka Isaka Seme founded the ANC? I didn't! I probably should have, what with having a history teacher for a mother, but I didn't!)

Ok, I'll stop gushing now. I'm getting mildly nauseated by my own teenager-iness on your behalf. I tell you all this only as an explanation for my conspicuous absence from the blogosphere (as well as Facebook, email, gchat, whatsapp, and all other means of communication). I'm sure I'll return to normal soon. Bear with me. I'm heading to Mumbai/Bombay next month, and the most wonderful Estelle will be visiting just before I leave in July. More India stories to come, I promise!

Love and more love,

M.xx

How I nearly died on a Himalayan mountain top

At 2700m above sea level, I thought for sure I was going to die. I felt so dizzy and lightheaded that I was absolutely certain I would faint any minute now, bash my head against a rock, and tumble down the mountain into the valley below. Although we had trekked all this way and my body was screaming for me to stop, it wasn't my weary leg muscles that couldn't cope. It was my lungs, which are next-to-useless in normal circumstances, and as thoroughbred Capetonian lungs, are used to the pampered lifestyle of oxygen- and moisture-rich air. What helped immensely was that my trekking companion was a mountain goat born in the hills and with the patience of a saint. On the plus side, stopping every 30 metres or so to catch my breath meant that I could truly enjoy the magnificent view. Far beyond the forest below, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, the capital of the Tibetan government-in-exile and our residence for a couple of days, could be seen.

Don't let my smile deceive you. I'm about to freefall into the trees below.

We'd taken an overnight bus from Delhi departing at 6pm, and arrived the next morning at around 5am. We forewent the most luxurious bus, the Volvo, as certain among us *coughmecough* lives in a perpetual state of brokeness. Despite that, the seats were comfortable, the air was breathable, and the stares were minimal. Even the unsubtitled Pujabi movie they screened was so overdramatic as to be understandable. Sleep was difficult to attain, however, owing to the extreme bumpiness of the twisty-windy mountain roads. I'm sure if it had been daylight and I was able to fully experience the speed of the bus and the height of the potential fall, sleep would be the least of my worries.

I struggle to describe my first view of McLeod Ganj. Imagine arriving soon after the sun has risen, when the air is still hazy so as to give all colour a pastel tinge, as if seen through frosted glass. The song of unseen birds greets the dawn. Now imagine a steep mountain slope, full of deep-green cedars, with roads cut into the cliff-face, and houses that seem to cling to the verdant incline as if for dear life. "Impossible!" you might think. "This goes against all laws of gravity!" Yet there it is. Now imagine snow-capped peaks in the distance, framing the picture in front of you, and a valley below as far as the eye can see. This is Dharamsala, a holy place for Hindus and Buddhists alike. And who can blame them? Every viewpoint delivers a postcard-worthy scene.

After a few hours' nap filled with gratitude for an immobile bed, we had breakfast in the sky, that is to say, on the top floor of a restaurant overlooking the valley below. I'm not exaggerating when I say, the breakfast itself, though slow in coming, was the best I've ever had. This is probably due to the fact that I haven't had bacon and sausages in close to 3 months, and certainly not in combination with fried egg, mash potato, toast, jam and coffee. That breakfast may have changed my life.

Breakfast in the sky. 

The breakfast was symptomatic of one of the downsides of McLeod Ganj, though. Everywhere you looked, there were gore, foreigners like me with pale skin, sun hats and cameras. Some were unclean-trippy-hippy-backpacker types, others retired-oldies-out-to-see-the-world types (dressed in khaki-and-white, of course!), and others were the same kind you'd find at Khan Market on any day of the week. In fact, I saw more foreigners in that little town than at Khan Market, Connaught Place or even Humayun's Tomb. Although McLeod Ganj was clearly picturesque and remote, in no way could it be described as an "undiscovered gem". I'm pretty sure the number one contributor to the Tibetan GDP is tourism.

And we, too, were tourists, although my companion had been here before. On our first day, we walked up to Bhagsu waterfall, which, although pretty, was not unlike many other waterfalls I'd seen before. The real fun part came when we decided to follow the stream downhill by climbing the rocks instead of following the man-made steps we had taken to get there. Slipping, sliding and leaping from one rock to the next, my problem-solving mind enjoyed figuring out the safety:efficiency ratio of each potential path, while my limbs just focused on keeping my weight on my feet and my backside pain-free. I would advise, if you are planning on doing the same, not to wear the well-worn leather pumps you got from Woolies five years ago, because those don't really offer the optimum level of grip. I found myself taking the safe route more often than I'd have liked.

A FUCKING WATERFALL!! YAAAAY!!

To get back to where we began, the only reason I found myself close to death (I believed) on a mountain face, was because this was the primary reason for the trip. My friend had been to McLeod Ganj several times before, but had never trekked to Triund. I, in my ignorance, when invited to come along, said, "Yeah! Sure!" knowing full well that my lungs are worse than a chain-smoker's and always have been, and hoping that this time would be different. And it was, for the most part. I complained minimally, mostly because I believed "It has to end soon, right?"

Wrong. It doesn't end. It doesn't end till you find yourself struggling not to slip on the ice on the steepest part of the mountain, or on the mud that inevitably forms around it. It doesn't end till you realise your totally inappropriate footwear (running shoes, this time) have given you a blister in the flatness of your arch that is threatening to pop and unleash its world of pain. It doesn't end till the quite literal hand-holding of your friend is the only thing that keeps you moving. It doesn't end till you think you cannot possibly go any further, and yet you can. It doesn't end till the words to the song you've made up and sing to yourself in your head are "Just one foot in front of the other" over and over again.

And then it ends. Shaking the temptation to collapse to the ground, you are drawn to the opposite edge of the plateau, where you are rewarded with a panorama like no other. Snow-capped Himalayan peaks lie beneath heavy clouds of matching white and grey, and you find yourself wondering about the centuries-old depth of collective human experience. Who was the first person to climb these mountains? How many have attempted it, how many succeeded? Did anyone ever climb these mountains for any other reason than to test the limits of personal achievement? I imagine fur-clad cavemen stalking saber-toothed tigers. These mountains are ancient, and inspire thoughts of how life was in ages gone by.

Made it!

The next day, your body will stubbornly refuse to move. The electrical signals passing from grey matter through nerves over synapses will be ineffectual. When you do move, you will groan like a slave beneath a yolk every time you get to your feet. But unlike a slave, you have already received your reward. You did something you never would have believed you could, and saw a sight few have ever seen. You have deepened the trust in a friendship you never knew you needed. And you have faced your fears, the distrust of your body that you've carried since childhood, and to your surprise and delight your body has delivered.

Your only disappointment will be, that after all that physical exertion, you didn't lose more weight.

My crappy little companion

I loved my camera when I first got it in August 2012. My dad had given me a much bulkier one and I begged my mom to swap for the one she got, which had cool filter features and other tricks that I knew my mom would never use. And use them I did. Throughout my year in Brighton, my camera went everywhere. At every beach party, every pub crawl, every impromptu pancake making plan, I was clicking away. I must have taken over a thousand pictures in that year. So clearly, it's been through a lot. It's been dropped on hard surfaces, dropped in sand, gotten wet in rain, and, most recently, braved the coloured powders of Holi.

It comes as no surprise then that it's dying a slow death. It switches off at random times. It never selects the right function when I turn its little function dial. (No, I do NOT want to take a panorama shot!) Everything, everything, is delayed. It never focuses when I need it to. Half the time I want to throw it against the wall in frustration. It's particularly embarrassing in moments when I've asked someone else to take a picture so I can be in the shot. My camera has let me down, let the photographic moment of opportunity pass, many, many times in its old age.

But. It can still deliver the goods better than most, for a shitty little point-and-click. Sometimes I view a photo on my laptop, and a little spark of pride flickers for what me and my camera made. Which is why I won't replace her till the day she dies. And then I'm getting an SLR and photography lessons, because hopefully by then I'll be less poor. Hold out just a little longer, my crappy little companion!

The sweeper at Humayan's Tomb explaining where the other tombs are.

Taking a break at Humayun's Tomb

Humayun's Tomb

I'm still trying to figure out what happened in February 1945, other than just general Second World War-iness.

Entrance to the Arab Sarai, Humayun's Tomb

On a cycle rickshaw, Old Delhi

India is nothing without colour.

At the spice market, Khari Boali.

My camera, like me, has trouble focusing. 

Dog in a spice market. Maybe he likes the paprika?

Tomb at Lodhi Gardens.

Famous coffee house in Calcutta where all the intellectuals used to gather and have intense debates. Now mostly frequented by students.

Women do much of the construction and restoration work in India, thanks to government quotas.

Holi daze.

No such thing as too much colour. 

Accidentally discovering a tomb at Deer Park, Hauz Khas.

Blessed by a 30 metre tall Hanuman at Chattarpur temple complex.

Sneaky lion tamer, Chattarpur temple complex.

A long overdue update

Soooo...yeah. Sorry for leaving you hanging, folks. That first week after Holi was really rather stressful, looking back on it. There's a lot of energy that goes into staying strong on your own and trying to just get on with your life. It was made somewhat easier by the tsunami wave of support and encouragement from friends from all over the world, empathising with what I experienced and in some cases sharing their own stories with me. Thank you, friends. Nevertheless, I missed out on a lot of work hours that week. A lot. I just wasn't in a good headspace to produce creative work. Which means I'll be broke again next month, seeing as I get paid by the hour. Yeah. The unexpected outcomes of sexual harassment.

Anyways, so the 8 guys were arrested and have been chargesheeted, which is an Indian legal term. A chargesheet is "a formal document of accusation prepared by law-enforcement agencies in India...Once the chargesheet has been submitted to a court of law, the court decides as to who among the accused has sufficient prima facie evidence against him to be put on trial. After the court pronounces its order on framing of charges, prosecution proceedings against the accused begin in the judicial system." (Thank you Wikipedia!) I know they had a bail hearing last week, but I don't know the outcome of the hearing. I don't really care enough to call and find out.

How did we find out they were chargesheeted? Through the media. Not just one newspaper, all of them. Apparently every FIR (First Information Report) gets uploaded to the internet for anyone to access. Greeeeeat system, India! Fortunately each account differs drastically in the total inaccuracies they've decided to fabricate in order to fill in the blanks. Thank Kali* for small blessings.

Anna and I were struggling for a long time with the idea that these guys could spend years in an Indian jail (not like a German jail at all!) for what they did. It seemed disproportional, and will be on our consciences for the rest of our lives. But the way I've managed to clear my conscience is thus: it is out of my hands. It is now in the hands of the law to decide what is proportional punishment for the crime. This outlook of mine is strengthened by the fact that molestation is a non-compoundable offence -- which means it's no longer me (the complainant) against them, it's now the state against them. We wouldn't be able to drop the case even if we wanted to.

So I've made my peace with it. I'm not pushing for justice or any particular outcome. The way I see it is I go to the trial, give my testimony as best I can, and then step away. I'm not getting emotionally invested in the outcome of the trial. If the trial ever happens, that is. At this point in time, even though Anna and her boyfriend wrote to the court to tell them they'll be leaving the country soon, we've yet to receive a summons.

I'm a little afraid that they will leave the country and then the date will be set once they're gone and I'll have to go through everything all on my own. But I made a decision when I was 15 not to be afraid of anything, which is a philosophy that's served me well thus far. If that happens, it happens, and I will survive and bounce back like I usually do. No point in worrying about it now.

Oh, and the embassy eventually emailed me, after a good friend in South Africa spammed every email address available on the DIRCO website. Did I mention that I have really great friends?

So, that's the state of things. I will let everyone know if and when we eventually do receive a summons, and what happens at the trial. I hope you don't mind if, until then, I write about other, more normal aspects of life in India -- like how apparently mops are a technology that have not reached this country. Every day I see our maid (a perfectly acceptable term here!) clean the tiled floors by bending down and wiping them with a wet cloth. The whole flat. Every. day. Same goes for brooms, actually. They're short little bundles of long reed-like things tied together with no long handle. What the hell, India? Don't you care for the backs of your women? As much as I love this country, there are some things I'll never understand.

Love to you all,

M.xx

*Kali is an awesome Hindu goddess whose temple I visited in Calcutta. She is dark and fierce and angry and destroys evil, the embodiment of empowerment. She carries a sickle and wears a necklace of human heads around her neck, stepping on her husband Shiva to calm her fury. "To be a child of Kāli...is to be denied of earthly delights and pleasures. Kāli is said to refrain from giving that which is expected. To the devotee, it is perhaps her very refusal to do so that enables her devotees to reflect on dimensions of themselves and of reality that go beyond the material world." (Again, thanks Wikipedia!) I am in awe. 

Dear SA Embassy: Why don't you pick up the phone?

This is the email I sent to the South African embassy in Delhi earlier today, after they were of zero help yesterday when we went to court to make our statements, due to the fact that they have no one answering their phones. Yeah.

Dear Sirs,

I am a South African citizen staying in Delhi. This is to inform you that on Monday 17 March I was sexually harassed in Saket, New Delhi and registered an FIR with the Saket Police Station (FIR No. XXX). Yesterday the culprits were apprehended and my 2 friends and I went to the courthouse to give our statements. We will likely have a court date soon as my friends, a German national and a Colombian national, are leaving the country at the end of the month.

I tried to call the embassy in Vasant Vihar multiple times throughout the day yesterday, on the first two numbers provided on the DIRCO website. I was disappointed that out of the seven times I tried calling, the calls went unanswered 6 times. The one time I managed to get someone on the line, I explained what had happened and was asked to hold. After waiting on hold for some time the line went dead. My calls went unanswered thereafter.

As you can imagine, I'm disappointed by the embassy's service. My two friends' embassies, the German embassy and the Colombian embassy, were helpful and responsive throughout the day yesterday. It was an embarrassment that my embassy could not be contacted and could not be of assistance.

I will not go into further details about what happened in this email, as it is of a sensitive nature. I sincerely hope someone from the embassy will call me on +91XXXXXXXXX so that I can explain in further detail what happened and what the further proceedings will be.

Regards,

Melissa Nefdt
Passport number XXXXXXXX

Yeah. I'm pretty pissed. Will let y'all know if they ever call. 

My (not so happy) Holi

Outside my flatemate Anna's boyfriend's house, there were colours and waterballoons and music and dancing. There were about twelve of us in total, of various nationalities (although none of us were Indian), joining in the neighbourhood festivities in the park. I was wearing a white tank top and blue jeans cut off at the knees, and was a little self-conscious. This is a bit more revealing than I would normally dress in Delhi, but these were the only clothes I was willing to get destroyed by the colourful powders that I was soon covered in. I took pictures, to hide the fact that I knew no one there other than those who invited me. And anyway, I wanted to document what would most probably be my only Holi in India.

We decided to all go to the Garden of the Five Senses, where there was apparently a big party that we could enter for free. We took 3 autos, 4 of us in each. In my auto was Anna, her boyfriend and some guy I hadn't met. Along the way, kids threw water balloons at us and on top of the auto. It was cute. I took pictures. 

Somewhere along the way, a big white car drove in front of us, blocked off the auto's way, and stopped. Six or seven big Sikh guys got out the car. "Happy Holi!" they shouted, and threw paint and water balloons at us. It was irritating, but so far harmless. Then they came over to my side, the left side, the open side. It became obvious they were drunk. They smashed an egg on my head. They reached into the auto to throw paint at my friends. They started smearing colours all over me, in my hair, in my neck, and the next thing I knew a hand was down my top, in my cleavage and groping my breasts. "What the fuck?" I thought, but there was nothing I could do, squashed in the back of the auto. Another guy came, and did the same thing. Then another. They kept groping and pinching, all the while smiling and saying, "Don't be scared" and "Give me a kiss!" I told them to go away. But they came back for more gropes, more pinches. Eventually they left, and the auto could proceed. 

Thirty seconds later, when I realised what had happened, I started to cry. Trust me, no one was more surprised at my emotional response than me. Someone had asked what had happened, and I couldn't even get the words out. I couldn't stop the tears. I felt so violated! Why did they think it was ok to do that to me? I tried to pull it together. I realised that this was not the time to break down. 

We reached the Garden of Five Senses, and there were the guys. I knew it was them because I saw the look of recognition in their eyes when they saw me. They walked away, but we found their car and confirmed the licence plate number and called the police. I couldn't do anything. I just sat on a cement block, not looking at anyone. I called a close friend and told him what happened, more to get the opportunity to speak the words and make them true and have all the tears come out than for any other reason. The guys came back, and Anna's boyfriend and the guy I hadn't met got up in their faces. "What makes you think you can treat my friend that way, huh?" said the guy whose name I didn't know. "Who do you think you are?" The Sikh guys said it wasn't them, it was people who looked like them, and when Anna's boyfriend stood in front of the car to stop them, they drove anyway, leaving him sprawling across the bonnet of the car. 

The police eventually arrived. We told the same story a million times to a million different people. I say "we" but actually nobody ever spoke to me, the main victim in the situation. I was excluded from the entire proceedings. I watched it, like I was watching a show. Bystanders who had nothing to do with anything were talking to the police. The event organisers pitched, and spoke to the police. But the police didn't want to speak to me. 

They put us in the back of a police van with 3 other male police officers, and I couldn't help but think, what if I'd been raped? Is this how you treat victims of sexual violence, by putting them in close proximity with men so soon after the fact? 

It became obvious that the police were woefully untrained for this sort of crime. Everyone kept asking us if we were enjoying our Holi. No. No, I am not enjoying my Holi, that is why I am at a police station. They laughed, as if this was some kind of joke. "Many foreigners are enjoying Holi!" they say. I got the distinct impression that some of these guys thought the facts that it was Holi and the guys were drunk made their actions excusable, like they were just playing. 

Five hours later, we were still at the police station, with no better idea of what was happening. No one had offered us water, although when we asked for it, it arrived, and soon after tea and biscuits. My other flatmate started warning about intimidation, that if these were wealthy guys from well-connected families, which it had seemed they were, that we should be careful. All the while I sat and waited, turning it over and over in my head. Was I making too big a deal of this? Was this really just the sort of thing that happens during Holi, and I should go home and forget about it? After all, I hadn't been hurt, as one police officer kept asking me, and made me sign a statement to the effect. Was this worth all the admin, the long proceedings that will start with a court case and end up who knows where? People were telling me to call my embassy. That seemed like a big step to take. Like many victims of sexual harassment, I questioned whether my complaint was legitimate, whether I was making too big a fuss and should just go home and get over it. 

But no. I had no doubt in my mind that had I been walking instead of in the back of an auto, those guys would have gone further than groping my breasts. They thought they could act with impunity, because they are the men who own the world. They deserved to be told, in the severest way possible, that this sort of action was not ok. The very fact that I felt violated and could not control my tears meant that they had taken advantage of me in a way that was out of line. I thought about my male friends, especially the Indian ones, and knew they would never do such things, even if they were drunk, even if it was Holi. What they did was wrong, and they deserved to face the consequences of their actions. 

As I'm writing this, the culprits have not been found. Despite my big words, I don't have much hope that they will be. In a system in which the police only wanted to speak to the male in our group, despite the fact that the females were the victims, how can you expect the patriarchy to be fought? The sad thing is, I've been defending Delhi to everyone. I've been saying, "I've only been stared at, never touched, never harassed, yes I've been hit on, but it's not as bad as back home." I was wrong. And now I'm aware of how quickly a situation can turn from harmless to irritating to violating. 

I stood in the shower once I'd gotten home, washing out the colours from my hair and off my body. Most of it came out. But the one colour that refused to wash away is a big red stain, starting between my breasts and going right down to my belly. I don't need to wonder where it came from. 

Day 3: Lazy Friday

The best things in the world is good people, wine and momos on the balcony on a Friday evening. Ahana (Indian flatmate) brought over a friend from work and the three of us relaxed and spoke about everything and nothing and watched videos of Shakira and Beyonce and Rihanna and not-so-secretly wished we had their bodies, and more importantly, their sex appeal sensuality.

Shout out to the friend on whatsapp who wanted me to write about drunk development workers today. Well, in a way, I did, didn't I?

Tomorrow (and by tomorrow I mean in 2 hours at 2am) we leave for Rishikesh, which is a beautiful place in the mountains through which the river Ganga flows. Ahana, her friend and I are taking a roadtrip. I'm so excited I could pee! My camera is beyond terrible, but I will try and take a few decent pictures to share with you guys (thanks all two of you who actually read this drivel!).

Woop woop! Cannot wait!

M.xx

Day 2: Sarojini Market

I didn't go on a run this morning. I couldn't get out of bed, and when I did, I realised that my legs were aching because I'd overdid it on yesterday's run. So I took a rest day.

On days when I don't run, I'm like a hyperactive child. I have this restless energy that usually gets burnt off when I run and I can't sit still. Eventually, I sat down to start work at around midday and then stared at the google front page. The little voices in my head said, "The sun was shining outside! You're in India! What are you doing indoors?" The little voices had a point, the buggers.

So I decided to go to Sarojini Market to buy towels, seeing as I'd been using the same one since leaving South Africa at the end of January (yeah, I know, it's gross!). Sarojini Market is huge, and almost always full of people. Although most of the stalls are for clothes, you can find almost anything there. Anything, that is, except towels. I walked round and round the market, checking stalls with kitchen appliances and tupperwares and bed linen and other bedroom paraphernalia (no, not that kind! Indian society is very conservative, I'll have you know! Get your mind out the gutter!) but there were no towels in sight. Exhausted and hungry, I whatsapped my flatmate Anna:

Mel: Question: do towels not look like towels in India?
Mel: Or do Indians not use towels? How do they dry themselves?
Mel: WHERE ARE THE TOWELS?
Anna: :D :D :D :D :D
Anna: I think they do look like towels.
Mel: I can't find them anywhere!
Mel: Started to think maybe it was something like the bedsheets thing, where I just wasn't used to how they look.
Anna: Hahahahaha
Anna: Yeah, the bedsheets were alien for me as well

I have to explain a bit here. Most people reading this will be from South Africa, Europe or the Americas, and will be used to bedsheets that are either white, or some other solid colour, probably of some pastel shade. Bedsheets in India are multicoloured, intricately patterned and look something like this:

The day after I arrived and had to buy a sheet for my bed was the first time I went to Sarojini Market. Although Anna (who is German) warned me about the Sarojini experience, I felt less overwhelmed and confused by the market, the constantly invasive hawkers and their cries and the total disregard for personal space than what I was seeing displayed in front of me as bedsheets. It makes perfect sense in India, actually. Why have plain when you can have colour? Along with the rock-hard beds which are essentially two single bed frames pushed together to make a double, the sleeping experience is wholly different in India than it is in many other parts of the world, I think.

Anyway, back to the towels.

I did eventually spy a handtowel peeping at me from behind a myriad of bedsheets. I asked whether they had any full-sized ones, and they sent me upstairs. Up narrow windy stairs, in what was essentially a kiosk. The upstairs turned out to be more spacious (and stable) than I had imagined, and had many many towels of many recognisable shades (and many that were also just WTF? But this is India, after all). So my hunt was thankfully complete.

What's the moral of the story? I'm not sure. Mostly I just wanted to get a Day 2 post out before it's tomorrow in South Africa, as it's already tomorrow here. I guess the moral is that while India, and life in general, will present to you many things you find utterly unfamiliar and bewildering, it will also occasionally reward you with comforting sameness when you need it most, if you look hard enough. Like soft, thick, full-sized, 100% cotton towels, for R26.50 (£1.50). I love India.

Day 1: The pledge

Sooooo...clearly I suck as a blogger. I've been in India for over a month and haven't written anything about it. Well, I haven't written anything here on the blog, anyway. I have an entire journal full of observations and angsty scribblings.

Yes, I said angsty. I've been dealing with a lot of anxiety lately. That's mostly what's been causing my writer's block. When you start asking yourself questions like, "But what if it's crap? What if people hate it? What if it's...horror of horrors...boring?!" you pretty much cripple your creative capacity before you've even begun. "I want to be deep! I want to be entertaining! I want to be inspiring! I want to be funny!" Yet all I end up being is nothing. Because nothing ever comes out. All the ideas remain in my head, as perfectly-worded epithets. No one can judge the ideas in my head, not even myself.

Anyway, you'll hear all about my struggle with fears and anxieties (my own and those of others) soon enough. Today I just wanted to start very simply, and say that I'm committing to...drumroll, if you will, kind sir...100 DAYS OF BLOGGING! Yes, indeed, good readers. I will overcome my fear of putting down and publishing my thoughts by making a commitment to publishing something, anything, every day for 100 days.

Yes, a lot of it will be inane, boring drivel. That's ok. Some of it, at the very least, will be worth reading. And I'm realising more and more that I'm surrounded by so many kind friends who love me, and will read the crap I write purely because they care about me and want to know what's happening in my life and in my head. I am eternally grateful for these people. If you're reading this, you're probably one of them. You're lovely.

So here's to 100 days of markets, panic, Hindi, autorickshaws (and autorickshaw drivers, like the one I accidentally found myself on a date with), clarity, cows, temples, growth, FabIndia, travel, joy, development (but what is development?), flatmates, food, faux-pas, truth, dust, friends, heat, peace, trains, toilets, namastes, and, because it's me, love.

M.xx

Because why not?

Ever since I was about 4 years old, I’ve wanted to see the world. When I was 7, I used to draw world maps out of my head. I also told my mom, “I want to learn ALL the languages…except German. It just sounds like you’re angry all the time.” Fast forward 20 years: I speak only 3 languages, I’ve visited far fewer countries than I’d like, and only lived in two – my native South Africa and the UK. Now that my 20s are almost over, I feel the geographical clock ticking.

I’ve also been a writer for as long as I remember. Like other little girls, I played with Barbies, but not because I loved their long blonde hair or because I liked to dress them up in pretty clothes. They were the actors in my plays, the heroes and villains and saviours and traitors of the melodramatic world in my head. When I was 6 years old and about to start Grade 1, I told my mom, “I want to go to school to learn to read and write. And then I can leave.”

Where exactly am I going with this? Well, this little girl grew up and forgot about all of that. She found out that people have to work to make a living, and the kind of work that most people did made her miserable. She hated details and schedules and logistical planning, and she hated sitting at her desk all day, seeing no one but the people in her office, implementing other peoples’ ideas. At 11pm in a dingy B&B in the middle of nowhere, after quitting her job and embarking on a disastrous road trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town, she got a call offering her a scholarship to study a Masters degree at her dream university in the UK. She was ecstatic!

After a mindblowing year in Brighton studying at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), making the most interesting friends from all over the world, having craploads of fun on Brighton beach (spoiler alert: there’s no sand, just pebbles), and learning so much her mind felt electrified, this little girl returned home to Cape Town and felt kind of…meh. She did the jobsearch thing, but her heart wasn’t in it.

The jobsearch progressed, and the little girl was on the point of being offered a well-paid job with a good organisation in Cape Town that would be a great next step in her career. And all in a flash, she realised she didn’t want it. She wanted to travel! And she wanted to write! And she wanted to do work that she wanted to do, with young people who had the passion and energy to make a difference in the world. As luck would have it, she also managed to secure a freelance writing gig for a great new website aimed at young South Africans. So she turned down the job offer, and decided to leave the place she knew and loved for a totally uncertain and insecure future in a country that fired her imagination: India.

That’s me, in a nutshell. But this blog won’t be all about me, because really I’m not that interesting. It’s also about people doing amazing things to change the world! It’s about people making a life for themselves despite overwhelming odds. It’s about the big issues and the little issues that affect our world and our lives, that sometimes we’re too busy watching Here Comes Honey Boo Boo to think about.

So sometimes you’ll read about adventures in India: moments of panic, moments of frustration, moments of peace, moments of love. Sometimes you’ll read my thoughts on topics both obscure and current, from my issues with consumerist culture to structure vs. agency to cultural appropriation (it won’t be boring I promise!). Sometimes you’ll read stories about the people I meet in the places I go, or stories entirely woven from the bits and pieces of my imagination. Sometimes you’ll want to say “wtf, Mel?!” and want to give up on me (please don’t!). I will always endeavour to be interesting, easy to read, and maybe, just maybe, a little inspiring.