Caroline and I have returned to Jaisalmer from a short reprieve in Jaipur for our mid-internship seminar, and we’ve returned with new vigor. Our first day back started with a bang, quite literally, as we were woken from our sleep at 7:30 in the morning by a violent shaking. Everyone groggily jumped up, yelling “Uper, uper, uper!” as we ran outside. “Kya hai? What was that?” we asked, and I soon discovered that I had survived my first sizable earthquake; after, of course, a few minutes of inevitable language confusion. Unfortunately the Hindi word for earthquake, bhukamp, sounds an awful lot like bomb, and thanks to the profusion of Border Police, army tanks, soldiers, and trucks in the area, we’re quite aware of our close proximity to the border with Pakistan. Not until I found a Hindi newspaper clipping lying around the office a couple of days later did I find out that it was a 5.3 on the Richter scale. Cool!
Caroline and I have been accompanying Vimalaji and Anoopji on their daily visits to the surrounding villages and we’ve kind of settled into a rhythmic routine. In the morning we head out either on the back of Anoopji’s motorbike, which makes us feel like we’re about to go save the world, or, if Vimala is with us, in a public bus, which usually just makes us feel like sweaty animals being gawked at in a cramped zoo. When we arrive at the village of the day little kids and women quickly catch word that white people are in town and flock to the meeting sight. During these field visits Anoop is supposed to be holding a meeting with a Mixed Group (a kind of Self-Help Group) consisting of 10-12 locals that URMUL has organized, but thanks to us the register signed at the conclusion of the meeting usually has at least 25 names on it. Once chai is offered and introductions are made, we’re instructed to take a photo and “bat karo” (converse!). But, remember? We don’t really speak Hindi. So our conversation, rather than illuminating the complex cultural reasons for the high rate of female infanticide in rural Rajasthan, or the specific challenges of providing health care in a desert village, quickly turns into a kind of characterized cultural exchange. We can count on being asked what kind of food we eat in America, why we don’t have chapatti, if we’re married, why we’re not married, what kind of animals there are in America, if it is hot in America, if we work hard in America, what time it is at that very moment in America…once we were even asked what kind of trees there are in America. God knows why. In turn we ask everyone what their names are, how many brothers and sisters they have, how many children they have, and what they do for a living; all information we promptly forget in a minute’s time. All of this bat karo-ing is conducted in a kind of Hinglish that Anoop and Caroline and I have gradually established over the past couple of weeks with each other.
In the village of Kanode we explained that we eat fish in America while making a swimming motion with our hands. Anoopji said, “Sank? Ap sank khati hai?” with a shocked expression on his face. We said yes, not really knowing what sank actually was and the whole group erupted into various expressions of surprise and laughter. Thinking that the idea of eating fish was simply absurd to people that had probably never seen the ocean before in their lives, we put the incident behind us. Not until the next field visit, when we caught Anoop explaining to the group that in America, they eat snake, did we realize our mistake. So thanks to our unofficial diplomatic visit, the entire population of Kanode will most likely go on thinking that Americans eat snake for quite a while. Oops! Guess that’s why I’m not an International Studies major.
Anyways, our first day back, the day the earth moved, was full of more surprises and the bhukamp proved to be a good omen. We were scheduled to visit two villages situated close to one another, and we had traveled there with just Anoop on the back of his motorbike. After our first meeting we stopped at the village of Hamira, where Anoop’s in-laws live, for some khana and rest. As we were sitting in Anoop’s father-in-law’s room one man came in who spoke surprisingly good English. Not only that, he knew where Minneapolis was (Caroline’s hometown); and had been there. A little more discussion revealed that his name was Khete Khan and he was a world-class Indian classical musician who had traveled to and performed in over 40 countries, many of them with Zakir Hussain, a famous percussionist. We accompanied Khete Khan back to his house to hear him play and found out that, in fact, the whole family is of the musician caste and patrons of the Rajputs, historically the ruling caste of Rajasthan. Khete Khan’s parents began touring when they were young, and the superior condition of their house made it clear that their ability to find alternate channels of patronage allowed Khete Khan’s family to harness the advantages of globalization and continue to prosper.
Not only all that, but when I met Khete Khan’s brother, he looked familiar to me. It turns out that we had seen them play in Jaipur about a month back when we had gone to a concert with Caroline’s homestay parents. The concert had consisted of a handful of groups representing different musical traditions from around Rajasthan, but Khete Khan’s group had been by far our favorite. And now we were getting a personal concert from them in their own home!
Each boy would learn to sing and play these songs as soon as physically possible, songs that had been handed down orally for hundreds of years. There was one boy no older than two who was already singing and, with some coaxing, learning to tap out rhythms on his thigh. From talking with Khete Khan and his family, it was clear that they were all immensely proud of their craft, their history, and their recent global accomplishments. They had traveled all around the world, and still came back to this small village in the middle of the Thar Desert, because that was where their family was, yes. But also, in my opinion, because of this deep pride and connection to the past. They could confidently say that there was no other place in the world they'd rather be.
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