And the winner is...

I'm publishing a blog post rerun tonight. Now, I don't normally believe in reruns, in fact I rank them right down there with tick bites and GM corn. But this may be the most exciting thing I've ever written - not for most people, probably, but for the simple fact that it is actually the first bit of writing I've ever made money on. Yes, that's right, this little blog has now been recognized and awarded through the University of Oregon's study abroad program. They asked for an entry of a blog post written about a study abroad trip taken in the last year, and I had a lot posts to choose from. I polished up one I wrote after going on one of my weekend homestays in India, and assumed I'd either pushed my luck too far in submitting an hour before the deadline or they hated it so much they didn't even think it warranted a response. Then, lo and behold, I received an email saying I'd won first place.
So, with no further ado, I give you the first ever re-run and first cash cow of NoTulips.


Spelling Lessons from Krishna

My second weekend homestay is to take place at the home of a farmer-turned-artist who is a friend of Sunita, the woman I’m working and living with during my three-month internship. She makes the arrangements that Friday and, after finding the right bus, I’m only two skull-rattling hours away from a little weekend relaxation. Luckily, I get a seat, and enjoy a stimulating conversation with two young schoolboys who quiz me on my spelling, finding my American method of spelling words like “color” and “favorite” absolutely hilarious.
When I finally get off the bus in the city of Sagar, it’s nearly dark. I approach the row of rickshaw drivers at the bus stop, clutching the piece of paper Sunita gave me with my host’s address and phone number. I tell the nearest driver where I want to go: Radhakrishna’s house in a nearby village called Banghadde. Houses don’t have numbers here, and streets rarely have names, but Sunita told me everyone here knows where this house is. Radhakrishna is an artist of some local fame and one of the prominent landowners in his village.
We take off down the tree-lined avenue, going past a giant shrine featuring lions’ heads, gods, goddesses and various other brightly colored carvings. The streets are packed with vendors, women with baskets on their heads, dirty kids, bicycles, motorbikes, trucks and automobiles. After a few minutes, we pull up in front of a fenced-off building at the outskirts of town. Sunita had told me the village I was headed to is a few kilometers away from Sagar, but I forget that fact for the moment, excited by the fact that I see a sign, written in English, announcing this as the place of Shri Ramakrishna. I pay off the driver, extract my backpack and camera bag from the back of the rickshaw, and head toward the gate.
A bunch of young men are milling around the entrance to Shri Ramakrishna’s. I hang back, uncertain of how to best make my presence known, until one notices me and beckons me into the covered porch. He pulls me up a plastic chair behind a table and urges me to sit down. Then he leans over the table, and the interrogation begins.
“From where do you come? What is your business here? Who are you?” Somehow, this doesn’t feel right. I try to explain that I’m a guest of Radhakrishna for the weekend and if I could just talk to him everything will be ok. Nothing seems to get through.
Finally, I’m ushered into a small office in a room off the porch. Inside, there are two desks; behind one sits a middle-aged man with intense dark brown eyes. Between his eyes there’s a bright red dot, signifying religious faith. He wears a powder-blue shirt with a funny short collar, and his hair and mustache are neatly trimmed. I take a seat across from him. The blue walls lit by fluorescent bulbs glare down at me. Behind the desk is a framed black and white photo of a guru, hung with strands of plastic flowers and beads.

“Who?” The man behind the desk asks when I tell him my weekend host’s name.
“I’m staying here this weekend,” I insist. When would they stop this rigmarole and take me to my room?
“You can’t stay here, madam,” the man informs me. “Our rooms are for students only.”
Much back and forth arguing ensues. All his words sound like they’re spoken through a large potato lodged at the back of his mouth, and according to him, my English is equally awful. Indians have a way of integrating English words into their native language, and when faced with a foreigner, they simply mash together all the English words they know and leave out or mumble the intervening ones. The result is, at best, difficult to follow. Of course, it doesn’t help that my accent is something they’ve never encountered before – Sagar is not a city that tourists usually find.
Eventually, our semblance of conversation unravels our mutual confusion. It turns out that I am speaking to the director of Shri Ramakrishna Residential School, an ashram for boys. The man whom I’ve utterly befuddled is Thimmappa, the director of the school. Apparently, the rickshaw driver thought Ramakrishna is close enough to Radhakrishna and dumped me here. In my excitement, I hadn’t noticed the difference in spelling either. Maybe those boys on the bus would have. A sense of panic begins to rise in my throat.
Luckily, Thimmappa finds me amusing, if somewhat of an encumbrance. He can’t host me at the ashram, but neither will he hear of my ridiculous schemes to leave, find another rickshaw, and travel to Banghadde at this late hour. It is now about seven in the evening, but according to him, it’s a dangerous trip fraught with unknown danger for a young female traveling alone – the least of which may be tigers and rickshaw accidents.
One cultural trait of urban Indians I’m swiftly discovering is that they have an intense fear of forests, darkness and unknown rural stretches. So no matter how many ways I try to insist, Thimmappa does not believe there exists in this city one rickshaw driver with the courage to take me to my destination, or even somebody with a car I could hire. Tut-tutting at my foolishness, he calls in one of the half-dozen men who are now plastered to the doorway, staring at the alien in their midst, to bring me a cup of coffee. I tell him that I don’t want any (Indian coffee is usually awful, made by boiling instant coffee, milk and tons of sugar) but I’m swiftly realizing I’m not in control of the situation. Thimmappa is already on the phone to the English teacher he’s decided I’ll be spending the night with. We can discuss the possibility of transport to Banghadde in the morning.
Thimmappa seems to think the situation is under control, but I have fears of my own. I’ve traveled before. I’ve been trained to stick to plans, avoid talking to strangers, and to mistrust unknown situations. My mind is made up: I don’t trust this place, I don’t trust Thimmappa, and I certainly don’t trust his English teacher. I need to get out.
I get firm with him, demanding that he call the real Radhakrishna, whose number is on the piece of paper that is suddenly my only lifeline. But when he calls, Radhakrishna is not home, and his daughter doesn’t speak English and is immune to my pleas to be rescued. I try calling Sunita, but she can’t help me at this point. Rickshaw drivers who don’t know their way around and overly hospitable ashram directors were not in our plan. But she seems calm, not understanding my desperation and panic. Why not just wait until the morning?
By the time the coffee arrives, my schedule has been reworked for me. The English teacher has been contacted and will be here in fifteen minutes, but as far as I could tell, no attempts were made to find a driver willing to take me to my homestay. I have now reached the pinnacle of internal rage and have to work to keep the desperation out of my voice. My coffee shakes in my hand. Somehow, the stubborn but placid man behind the desk has elicited a level of frustration in me previously only witnessed by algebra teachers and my parents when I was a teen. I feel like throwing the cup of boiling hot coffee at him. Who was he to tell me I couldn’t pay whoever I want to get me out of this godforsaken place? Why was I so stupid to get myself in this situation in the first place? Why do all Indians have such silly, identical names?

All there is to do now is wait. Thimmappa sits back in his chair and places the tips of his fingers together. He considers me, observes my frustration with slight amusement. I stare back defiantly. It’s awkwardly silent for a moment, but he isn’t gearing up for a fifteen-minute staring contest. He’s preparing a lecture.
He quietly gestures to the picture on the wall above him.
“Do you know who this is?”
“No,” I tell him. Who cares, I think to myself.
“This is Shri Ramakrishna.” Oh. The photo looks about fifty years old and the man pictured is no spring chicken. This guy isn’t having any weekend guests.
“In 1839,” he says, repeating the date for clarity, “he went to Amerika and brought respect to the Hindu religion. He did this with a speech. In which, he call all the Amerikans ‘brothers and sisters’.” He pauses to take a deep breath, overwhelmed by the significance of it all. “Brothers and sisters,” he continues. “With this, he convince the Amerikans.”
I slowly warm up to the story. It turns out this guy Ramakrishna is the one who introduced Hinduism to the US and set up a bunch of ashrams and community centers there. He had many followers, including the Beatles and some of the more influential American yogis.
“You see,” Thimmappa continues, “Hindu religion is like an ocean. All the religions are in it. However, all other religions are only rivers. But all lead to God. Many ways, one God.” He goes on like this for a while, not preaching but explaining.
As he talks, I begin to consider the possibility Thimmappa isn’t so bad after all. I relax slightly, calmed by the chanting prayers of the boys in the next room. The crowd by the door slowly loses interest, and my unshaken coffee develops the smooth skin of boiled milk.

Before I can make a conclusive reassessment of my situation, however, the English teacher arrives. She’s extremely nice and acts like having me stay the night would be the best thing since Ramakrishna went to Amerika. I’m all ready to follow her out the door when the phone on the desk rings. Thimmappa holds up a finger as he talks, so we wait. When he hangs up, he informs me that they’ve drummed up a rickshaw driver who thinks he can manage the scary drive to Banghadde. Apparently, someone had been working behind the scenes.
A minute later, the driver is there, and I’m given the option of staying in Sagar or going off with him. As much as I like the English teacher, I realize I can’t pass up the opportunity to get to Radhakrishna’s, where they’re expecting me. More than that, I’m embarrassed at having mistrusted the ashram people and refused their hospitality. I thank everyone and climb in the rickshaw, a bit sorry to be leaving what was suddenly a safe haven.
As we rumble off toward Banghadde, I get a chance to process the whole experience. It’s one of the many times during my trip to India that I’m forced to admit I have been totally, completely and foolishly wrong about something. While I’d been scoffing at the rickshaw drivers for their forest-phobia, my fear of Indians is just as unfounded. No matter how much I’ve prepared myself for it and expected it, not a single person I’ve encountered here has tried to rob me, abduct me, or even take advantage of my confusion. And the overly cautious, callous exterior I’ve fostered is not only useless, it’s made me extremely impolite in the face of traditional Indian hospitality. While my actions this evening could be completely rationalized by a sensible need to look out for myself, there are lessons here that go beyond spelling words. Mistrusting somebody just because they happen to be male or Indian is as unfair here as it would be back home.
We’re on the highway now, the dark forest whizzing by. I can see the lights of Banghadde ahead of us. Through my weariness and feelings of being completely overwhelmed, one thought shines through: to survive my travels, I must allow myself some naievete, a healthy does of innocence. It’s the one thing people everywhere tend to forget – that although some individuals can’t be trusted, there are even more out there who just want to help. After all, as Ramakrishna would put it, we are all brothers and sisters.

Radhakrisna Banghadde, with some of his mud and plant-based paintings.