Hey folks,
it’s been really a long time since I wrote about my life over here despite so many interesting things happening around me. So I’m going to get things back on track over the coming days 🙂 Basically what kept me from writing was Ana, who arrived in Delhi  Tuesday two weeks ago. A friend of mine asked me whether I could take a little bit care of her during the first couple of days being here and thus I offered her to stay at my place until she would find a nice accommodation. So before she arrived, I asked her whether she would want to go to Agra together with me to see the Taj Mahal. I booked the tickets and guess what, Tuesday she arrived, Wednesday we went off to Agra 😉
The train was scheduled to start at 6:15 in the morning and thus we had to get up around 4. I didn’t sleep at all, as I normally don’t go to bed before 2 and thus couldn’t sleep despite lying in bed for quite some time… The train to Agra was really good, it had enough space, provided us with good food and arrived in time! 🙂 Arrived at the station we chose to take a driver for the entire day that (750Rs = 10€). He was really nice and carried us not only around, but gave us helpful hints for the Taj and taught us a little history lesson 😉
First we went to the Taj Mahal and what shall I say, it’s impressive. Not so much from the inside, but more from the outside, combined with the intense atmosphere in the morning – great. It’s hard to describe and thus I advice you to check out the pics we took.
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Next we went to see how the marbel is actually treated to look as it does at the Taj and afterwards we learned about handmade carpets (did you know that the color of a handmade carpet changes depending on from where you look at it?). After this little „commercial“ trip we went on to see the Red Fort. It’s pretty big and impressive and definitely worth visiting. Together, Ana and me shot 540 pics… 😀 I uploaded the best 50 to SmugMug, so you should check them out!
After a very nice lunch, we asked our driver what we could do next. It was 4pm and as the opening times of everything are „From Sunrise to Sunset“ and it gets dark at 5pm, there was nothing else to look at (at least not in Agra itself, as the town is not only really polluted, but as well pretty ugly…). Anyway, he drove us to a little temple which was nice to check out but didn’t help killing the 4 remaining hours we had until our train would leave.
So what to do? Well, let me put it like this: The next half hour ended up to be a verbal stress test for me… 😉 What had happened? The driver proposed to bring us to a jewelry store to check out some nice stones and as we had no other real option we agreed. Being in the shop, the first ten minutes were great, seeing the stones and stuff. But then he showed us his „art“ and Ana showed some interest for a really nice neckless. So at one point, the guy asked her: „So, how long have you been together.“ And without a second to think about she replied „5 years!“. Guess what, now all the attention was on me as being 5 years together, it was clear for the guys that I would have to buy it for her… To make a 20 minute argumentative fight short, I had a real hard time to maintain my politeness but get out of the store without buying anything… 😉 While I had to struggle with the two guys in the shop giving each their best to convince me, Ana had fun playing the „Pleeeaaaaaase, it’s really nice!“-card on me…
Finally we arrived back at the station more than an hour in advance just to sit down, have a coffee and relax. The train back to Delhi was on time but arrived with a delay of 45 minutes (which is good for Indian standards… 😉 ).
To conclude: Agra sucks, but the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort are really worth seeing. It’s been a long and intense day but overall great 🙂
Okay, that’s for now. More stories soon to come 🙂
Stay tuned, Strothi
Hey folks,
it’s been a week since I told you about my awesome Diwali so it’s time for a little update on „living in India“ 😉 Actually last week nothing really special happened. I tried to work in the library, had language class and enjoyed my time. The only reportable thing was my try to book tickets to Agra.
Since I’m healthy again and actually close to hit the „bergfest“, thus half of the time being here, I thought I should finally start making travel plans and get out of Delhi. So I opted to go to Agra for a day and see the Taj Mahal. I actually wanted to book the ticket online, but after I had spend quite some time on finding the right trains, I wasn’t able to book: Neither one of my two visa cards would be accepted, as they are not „verified by visa“. This new system introduced by Visa some time ago has not been implemented by german banks so far and thus booking online was no option anymore. BUT my friend Navarun came up with the great idea to use the „Travel Agent“ of the institute I’m working with. To make a long story short, 2 hours later I finally got my ticket and thus I’ll travel to Agra on Wednesday. Great, but even better: I won’t travel alone! A good friend of an old friend of mine is coming tomorrow to Delhi to do some research for her thesis and even though I haven’t met her in person yet, we decided (via e-mail) to travel to Agra together. Moreover, me being the nice guy, she’ll be staying at my place for a couple of days while searching for an apartment, thus I guess I gonna have a great week 🙂
Alright, from future back to last weekend. Actually it was great. While I had no real plans except of working a bit on various things and check out a festival at Teri University, Navarun called me early in the morning on saturday to tell me that he was going to the University as well and asked, if he could stay at my place afterwards. Thus, my „finally let’s do some work“ plans vanished 😉 Vrishali, Navarun and me met and drove to the campus where we arrived right in time to get good seats for a panel on „youth and sustainability“ that encompassed not only an Indian Minster, the Swiss Ambassador and other distinguished persons, but as well Dr. Pachauri, Chancellor of Teri University and Chair of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)! As some of the panelists said, this guy is a „rockstar“ to journalists who are interested in climate change, but to everybody else dealing with the issue probably as well 🙂 With the exception of the Ambassador’s speech, all the others were refreshingly interesting and thus I enjoyed my time. Moreover, I managed to pose two questions to Dr. Pachauri -> me being very very happy 😉
Another thing that really made my day: Ripping me off failed 😉 As you know, I stayed the first couple of days on campus. Last week I got the invoice for that and believe it or not, they tried to charge me four times the initially communicated amount of money! So I wrote them an e-mail asking about the difference but became no answer. Now, being on campus again, I ran into the responsible person and was told that there „has been a confusion“ and that I would only have to pay the initially stated amount of money! Yeah, that’s actually 100€ less 🙂
Now, aside from the panel there was lots going on on campus. The festival (Aahvaan – the awakening call) was meant to celebrate the 10-year existence of the University as well as to raise awareness for environmental issues. As it was a festival open to other Universities as well, a lot of people were there 🙂 Moreover, a lot of competitions were going on. Be it theater, music or other arts, everything was there 🙂 Even though I did not understand much of the theater played by the different student groups, I understood the main ideas behind their plays and as many of the students were really good actors, it was fun to watch.
At one point, Navarun came to me and told me that he had to accompany a relative of his supervisor (to which he’s rather close) to the railway station and proposed that I should join, so I would know on Wednesday where to go. I agreed and (as nearly always), we started with a delay of nearly an hour. I wasn’t sorry about that, as that gave me the chance to talk to the girls I know from living on campus. Most of them were happy to see me and thus I talked a lot about my place here in Green Park, my work and my impressions of Delhi so far 😉 When Navarun, the said relative, me and the supervisor’s driver finally left, we had one and a half hour to reach the train. Guess what, we arrived at half past six at New Delhi Train Station only to find out, that the train – scheduled to leave at ten past seven – was leaving from Old Delhi Station. Now you might not have an idea what distances mean time-wise here in Delhi, but let me say this: Reaching Old Delhi in the given time was close to being impossible. Just check out the pics I’ve uploaded and linked below on the traffic. We were basically stuck, but the driver was really freaky awesome. He stayed cool the entire time, drove fantastic and somehow managed to drop us at Old Delhi at seven past seven – three minuted to actually get her on board. So we ran – well, I crossed the street in good old Paris-Style (thus just stepping right in front of the cars causing them to hit the brakes really hard 😉 ) but Navarun and the girl weren’t that conviced over my style of crossing the street so they stayed behind. Shortly afterwards they managed to get to me and we ran into the station, got one of the guys that carry your luggage, and told him to show us the way and run! Believe it or not, we reached the platform on ten past seven, put the women into the train and shortly afterwards the train left! Wow, that was some kind of an adventure 😉
Afterwards the driver dropped me and Navarun at my place and we had a great time watching „Thank you for smoking“, one of my favorite comedies 🙂 On sunday Vrishali joined us and we – well basically Vrishali and Navarun – cooked a really good indian lunch 🙂 By the time we were nearly done cooking, Bala, my flatmate, finally arrived home. He was scheduled to be back in Delhi at 3:30 in the morning, but his train got stuck for NINE hours! When he finally came, he was really dead but happy to enjoy the great lunch with us. Vrishali, Navarun and me relaxed afterwards by watching „The Constant Gardener“. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a must! It has the same quality as Hotel Rwanda, maybe a bit less action, but certainly as impressive. It’s about big drug companies testing drugs in africa and the tragedy behind it.
Alright, that’s been my weekend 🙂 I hope you had a great time as well. Tomorrow I’m going to get Ana at the airport, Wednesday we’ll go to Agra, Thursday I’ve language class and Friday we’ll meet up with some Indian friends – sounds like a great week to me 😉
Oh, here are some of the pics from the weekend. Check out SmugMug to see all of them 🙂
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Take care, Strothi
Moin,
hier mal eine kleine Auswahl von Leseempfehlungen. Die drei Texte sind wirklich lesenswert und auch wenn einen das Thema selbst vielleicht nicht so interessiert, solltet ihr euch die Zeit nehmen, ein oder zwei davon zu lesen.
1. „Man muss härter sein als ich“ - Interview mit Sebastian Deisler
Selten habe ich ein so eindringliches und offenes Interview gelesen. Sebastian Deisler ermöglicht dem Leser ein Einblick in seinen Gefühlshaushalt. Das ist nicht nur interessant, wenn man sich für Fussball interessiert, sondern zeigt auch sehr eindringlich wie unsere Gesellschaft funktioniert. Insbesondere der vielfach unreflektierte Umgang mit Menschen, die einer enormen Erwartungshaltung von so vielen anderen ausgesetzt sind, wird zurecht kritisch betrachtet.
2. Zu Besuch bei der Großmeisterin der Boshaftigkeit
So genau weiß ich nicht, warum ich diesen Artikel angeklickt habe, aber ich bin froh, dass ich es getan hab. Diese „Homestory“ über Brigitte Kronauer, die die Eindrücke eines Interviews beschreibt, ist erstaunlich interessant geschrieben. Ich mag Texte, die dem Leser vermitteln, er würde mit im Raum dabei sitzen. Der Text schafft es, nicht nur einen Blick auf die – mir bis dato unbekannte – Autorin zu werfen, sondern fesselt einen auch dadurch, dass die Interviewerin einen teilhaben lässt an ihren Gedankengängen während des Interviews. Darüber hinaus finde ich die Aussagen sehr spannend. Ein Text über Boshaftigkeit, Lebensentwürfe und Kunst – lesenswert!
3. In fremder Haut
Auch schon etwas älter, aber dennoch absolut lesenswert. Günter Wallraff beschreibt seine Erfahrungen als „Schwarzer“ in Deutschland. Wer die Chance hat, sollte sich den dazugehörigen Film Schwarz/Weiß ansehen, leider habe ich die Möglichkeit hier in Indien nicht. Dennoch ist das Thema nicht zu unterschätzen. Die Erzählungen von Wallraff erinnern mich an ein Gespräch mit Freunden, wo berichtet wurde, dass ein Verwandter mit afrikanischen Wurzeln tagtäglich die Diskriminierung in Deutschland erleben würde. Mit Befremden erzählte meine Freundin davon, dass – wie von ihrem Verwandten angekündigt – sie auf dem 5km langen Weg zum Bahnhof mit dem Auto tatsächlich von der Polizei „zur Kontrolle“ angehalten wurden.
Ich denke, noch schlimmer als der offensiv ausgelebte Rassismus von den verwirrten Rechten ist der unterschwellig gelebte Rassismus in unserer Gesellschaft, den auch Wallraff beschreibt. Wenige sind direkt unfreundlich und offen rassistisch, aber im Endeffekt werden Entscheidungen auf Grundlage der Hautfarbe getroffen. Wallraff selbst ist immer noch erstaunt darüber, dass die Leute, die zuerst versteckt gefilmt wurden, keine Probleme darin sahen, die Aufnahmen zu veröffentlichen. Das zeigt nicht nur ein fehlendes Problembewusstsein sondern vielmehr das diejenigen den Eindruck haben, dass ihr handeln gesellschaftlich akzeptiert wird – DAS ist das eigentlich Erschreckende.
Nun habe ich meinen indischen Freund – der bis vor kurzem in Berlin war – gefragt, ob er in seinen vier Monaten Situationen erlebt habe, wo er sich aufgrund seiner Hautfarbe diskriminiert fühlte. Erstaunlicher Weise nicht. Vielmehr erzählte er mir davon, dass die indische Gesellschaft viel rassistischer sei, als die Deutsche. So würden auch hier diejenigen mit deutlich dunkler Hautfarbe als „minderwertig“ angesehen, was sich auch im hier immer noch existierenden Kastensystem widerspiegelt. Egal wo, egal in welchem Zusammenhang und egal gegenüber wem, Rassismus an sich muss bekämpft werden und dabei ist eines besonders wichtig: „The watchers are the worst!“ hieß ein Theaterstück einer englischen Theatergruppe die mal an meiner Schule gespielt hat und das ganze auf den Punkt genau treffen. Wer zuguckt und nicht einschreitet, macht sich schuldig. Denn nur eine schweigende Mehrheit erlaubt es den Tätern, ungeschoren davon zu kommen. Es ist wichtig, aufzustehen, Courage zu zeigen und nicht wegzugucken. Wer wegguckt, unterstützt die Täter!
Und weg, euer Strothi