Diligence

You know how it feels really good to stay on top of things?  Like work, school, research, connecting with people?

Or updating the blog?

Fail.

Like this entry.  I was surprised to see that I had started this draft on 11/20.  November.  I had written "coming onto week 14" - at that point, I was indeed counting.  Completely rid myself of that bad habit as the weeks blended into months.  A quick and dirty highlights reel of major happenings:

• More than 3 months of intense Marathi classes.  At this point I can't remember what I didn't know before I started, if that makes any sense. आता थोडी तरी मराठी बोलू व लिहू शकतो !  This unique opportunity unleashed a whole host of thoughtful musings about language- to be expounded upon shortly.

Excellent one-on-one class environment!

Healthy discussions (चर्चा)  of the exquisite subtleties of Marathi, in Marathi.
During tea time, no less.

Intense, but always relaxed. Structured, but comfortably flexible.  Fantastic!

• An excellent break in mid October to celebrate Navratri in the epicenter of Gujarati culture: Baroda and Ahmedabad.  I had been dreaming of this pilgrimage for years.  Never will I forget dancing in complete synchrony with 10,000 other equally enthusiastic dancers.  Check it out below, but with the knowledge that pictures do it no justice.  You just gotta be there.

The biggest, most organized, most coordinated garba I have ever seen.  

Americans got some moves too.

• Realizing that rickshawallas are some of the most fascinating and infuriating people in the world.  An in-depth study (read: viable Fulbright project proposal) of their complex society and hierarchy - replete with drama, politics, scandal, corruption, boredom, rampant public urination (by no means unique to them, but in their case, who can blame them?) and a curiously voracious appetite for reading the paper, many times at the expense of a ready fare - would be a gold mine of a peek into the sociological structure of one of India's most needed, despised, and misunderstood segments of the population.

• Wondering when I'd moved into a raging warzone.  Or, celebrating Diwali in present day India.  

• Reconnecting with family!

भावबिज (Bhaubeez)

Kusum Aji's 94th - yes, you read that right - 94th birthday

• Giving in to the stereotype and choosing Goa as the holidays / New Year's destination.  Not quite up to the hype, but good nonetheless:

Credit: Sherry Rahmatian

I like to think of these months as the "break-in" phase of the Fulbright experience.  Get the lay of the land.  Have a solid work/study structure to keep busy (the regular four hours per day of class, five days a week, complete with homework assignments and field trips, generated a peculiar deja vu: 4th grade?).  Properly settle in without the added pressure of immediately getting moving with the actual research proposal.  Good old days, they were.  Hints of nostalgia have already started to surface...

Post Marathi class, the end of year holidays provided an easy distraction to the work at hand.  But now, the honeymoon phase is over.  Me n' India- we're now in each other's faces, ready for the long haul and the real work.  Time to get my hands dirty.