Introduction
This travelogue was created based on my journal entries on a daily(ish) basis. I volunteered as a teacher at a remote village in Uttarakhand and helped high school kids prepare for competitive exams (JEE/NEET) for two weeks. This travelogue is presented almost in its entirety with few redacts that I deemed too personal.
Day 1 (30/31 May)
I got onto an almost full Traveller van in front of Satpura1 amidst torrential rain and found myself greeted with unknown (and somewhat hostile) faces. I got into a corner and crumpled myself somehow into that little space. And we rolled around 7:30pm. After sometime I realised, to my horror, that I wanted to puke. It was then that it dawned on me that perhaps I’m also one of those people who cannot stand travelling in cars although I was surprised because it had never happened before (also maybe because I have never been on a trip like this). Anyhow, because of a sheer stroke of good luck, someone shifted and I got a window seat and I got better because of the cool Delhi air.
Got off for a dhaba dinner at midnight and then bobbed and slept and somehow made it through the night only to wake up at 5am to a sight that turned me stone cold. There were freaking mountains! And cold and clouds and the van was swirling through these snakey roads that weren’t really roads but strips of lands clinging onto rocks for their dear lives! Trust me when I say, all my sleep went away. I was alert and awake. And praying. Meanwhile, I noticed a turned over truck and secretly let out a gulp. I noticed that the driver was talking on the phone to someone and finally started to say my last prayers. Everytime the van approached a turn I had to hold my breath. It was terrifying (and feels funny now). The drop in air pressure had conveniently left me light-headed with funny things happening to my eardrums. And while I was cruising through and praying for my dear life, I realised how I don’t want to sit in that metal box but get out and reach out for the mountains, and dip my feet in that freezing turquoise water, and take a deep breath in that low-pressure air. Ah.
We arrived at 10am, tired and sleep-deprived, at a government school at Narayanbagar-Chamoli, Uttarakhand. Adjusted and got around the place. There’s a river nearby. Met friends who are here for the last slot (they left today). Dozed off, fatigue I guess. Chilly weather. Perhaps 20-21. Just perfect. There’s an oscillatory weather variation from sunny to overcast to rain here. Breathtaking mountain views.
Night fell. Had dinner. And sat down to teach kids. And boy oh boy, as I was teaching them I realised that I am learning hindi. A myriad terms and a myriad variations. And perhaps you are well aware of my love for linguistics and languages in general. Someone told me it’s already 10pm and then I realised how quickly the two hours went by. Someone later complimented my teaching (Not the first time, perhaps I should consider this as a serious profession?). The girl who I was teaching told me that I should take physics (it was informal today so I taught physics just for kicks) and I coyly laughed telling her that I am supposed to teach English. Good day, I guess. Very good day, in fact.
Day 2 (1 Jun)
I slept late because surprisingly, A2 texted and informed me of her latest breakup. That dwindled into an unplanned hour long video call till 2am where every single bone of my body was screaming for sleep. Anyway, I woke up later than others at 8am which is early by hostel standards anyways. Perhaps, its the amazing climate and aura of this place. Only city life destroys the last remnants of sanity in humanity.
I took an unplanned chemistry class for 9th because the person who was supposed to had some predicaments so I conceded. We went for a walk around the place and found myself at the river and I saw the most breathtaking views of gigantic mountains and turquoise blue water bravely cutting through rocks. Air so clean (oh nvm, I think I have already raved about all this) and I saw step farming and crossed a bridge. I took videos of my feet dipping in river water as cold as ice.
Personal hygiene seems to be suffering I guess because I am lazy always and there doesn’t seem to be much impetus in terms of infrastructure here either. Anyways.
Me and A will probably get back together.
Day 3 & 4 (2 & 3 Jun)
A and I will probably not get back together. Somebody has to make me believe in the existence of love once again. To make me believe that it is easy for two people to meet and start liking each other just like that. But I think that would require a miracle in its own right.
Realisations are a funny thing. Like the first time I realised that my music is only mine to keep and nobody else gives a fuck about the music I like. I am setting this biology question paper for these village kids in these hilly areas where the general aspiration is to get into the army (for boys) and to become a teacher or a nurse (for a girl), and these are questions about Darwinism and Mendel’s laws and excuse me for wondering but I really do wonder what good is any of it for these kids? And isn’t mine own endeavour or whatever you want to call this little thing that I am doing here (and supposed to do for 15 days), isn’t this supposed to be my unconscious way of coping with the fact that I am more “privileged” than these poor souls and somewhere deep down I know that I am responsible for their conditions? And once I ask this question, all acts of kindness becomes tainted by my selfish perversion. There is no absolute kindness. We are just bundles of contradictions.
Anyways, I hark back to the days when I learnt about Mendel and genetics and I remember how excited I was, to being able to understand a hidden law of nature, a law that pervades one of our deepest pillars of civilisation. Yeah, maybe I am a Romantic. But what do these kids care? Their incentive is to get passing mark in an exam and get the hell done with it and get on with life, not a life of 9-5 and AC and weekly nightclubs but a life of real struggle and pain and sacifice. And it breaks my heart. It really does.
Some worldly update:
Went to a stream nearby with water so clear I could see the waterbed. It was so unreal. I had rainbow trout for lunch today. It had a distinctive taste, perhaps what really fresh tastes like. I am freaking tired and exhausted and fatigued and everything in between. I had to coax myself to sit down to write this even. I studied 10th genetics in pure hardcore hindi myself with all the terms etc and delivered a 3 hour lecture on it. Then took a 45 mins English class. Attended a BSP3 meet. Finally took a 1 hour doubt session on IUPAC nomenclature for organic compounds. And just finished setting a biology question paper for 10th graders. But surprisingly I am fine mentally. IIT has conditioned me to be tough for sure. And I love this.
Day 5 (4 Jun)
If everybody turned into a nihilist one day and realised that all their efforts must go in vain and there is no real good that will ever come out of it, then the world would be unlivable. Yes, this is irrational but we must allow irrationality in our deepest fundamental belief system. We must toil in the face of defeat knowing very well that none of it matters. Perhaps that is the beauty of it.
Yesterday, an eleventh grade girl stood up and answered “What is my aim in life?”, a question I had posed as part of a writing task. And she answered that she wanted to be an engineer and crack JEE. And I was overcome by a strong sense of irony and guilt. Is it ever possible for a girl living here in this alcove to ever experience the cutthroat competition that exists “out there”? Such guileless honesty was commendable yet vacuous. Is it ever possible for this girl to really crack JEE? Is she aware of the kind of sacrifices JEE requires? Who will provide her with the resources? Is it just one of the many pipe dreams that dot the miserable and sad Indian landscape? Most likely.
When you are free, interesting thoughts come to the head. I was wondering what these kids think about us. Carefree days with unbounded playing and accountability. One day this uncle comes and imposes 4 hours of study followed by a 3hr weekly test. I wonder if this is how Indians felt when the East India Company came to India started interfering in economic and political activities. A little far-fetched come to think of it now but fun thought anyway.
BSP had a full team meet planned on Sunday at 4pm. But the gang here decided to go to the river to bath and boy oh boy, it was SO fun. I basically ditched the full team meet to go dipping (clothed) in the river lol. But I am not to be blamed. I HATE online meets. Anyways, let’s talk about the fun part. The water so freezing I had never felt before. I was literally trembling. It was amazing.
I finished watching Death Proof, a Tarantino, in installments, albeit. Kick ass movie. Weaker than his other works but still very tastefully Tarantino. As I have maintained that Tarantino movies are “delicious”. This was all the bit the same.
Day 6 (Jun 5)
My laptop battery kinda went bust (I think I already told you) and now I have to stay connected to power just to operate my laptop which means I am extremely paranoid to work on anything important on the laptop now thanks to the frequent power cuts here (I am writing this blog on my iPad). I guess it’s all part of the hill side village experience. That day I went to the bathroom all mentally prepred to have a long and relaxing bath only to find no water in the bathroom. I was lucky to have the hindsight to check for water before applying soap. Otherwise it would have been a sure disaster.
I woke up today morning and saw these kids who start arriving around 7:30 for class starts at 8, touching my feet out of respect. It was an extremely sweet gesture.
Rawat sir arrived and with him arrived a ray of hope. He teaches biology to 10,11 and 12. He had to take leave for the weekend and I had to fill in for him which was a thoroughly new experience and involved learning 10th biology in pure hindi and teaching it to kids. I feel better that I don’t have to do it now.
We went out on an unplanned trek through the mountains and I took my iPad. A totally enthralling experience with me literally clinging onto rocks for dear life. I sketched the view from high a top the hill too. Hehe.
I was wondering if it is rational to love just one person throughout one’s life. You know if they are far away, then to sworn into modesty, and keep a picture in your breast pocket which you hold to bed at night and silently endure the pain of not being together and to imagine the conversations you would have if they would be there right at that moment through the night whilst the other person has long forgotten you (and being practical and rational) moved on and started “loving” someone else. Does it really make any sense?
I started reading Lord of the Rings finally. I kinda like the book.
Day 7 (Jun 6)
Fairly normal but tiresome day somehow. I watched Drive movie - the one starring Ryan Gosling and its soooo good. The gut to leave behind the girl and the money (obviously metaphors of things you achieved in your life) and just walk away in the end is unbelievable. Moreover, BSP inception meet was so fun! I slept early.
Day 8 (Jun 7)
The head of the coaching program here is a 60 something professor names J. P. Dabral. Possibly a graduate of IIT Delhi himself, this project is his brainchild. Now, Mr. Dabral cuts a picture of authority and sheer intimidation. But underneath he is a humanitarian figure who has seen many days of adventure (that is obvious from the various stories and anecdotes he relishes to share with us) and holds a high degree of ideal for himself. When I talk to him (which is rarely so but I’m warming up to the idea) I can sense years of wisdom in that calm voice that replies and a certain unnamed satisfaction and contentment that is evident of a happening life. That day he told us about how he served as a assistant to a photographer for a Bollywood film! The other day he told us about the time he had the urge to learn bee-keeping and enrolled in a course for the same. Stay tuned for more information about Dabral sir!
As you may know, we (8 boys and 3 girls from IITD) are staying in the head school of this village which is one of the many in this block, the district has 9 such blocks. And starting 10am or so, human voices can be heard from the adjoining room which remains locked and a banner reads “Virtual Classroom”. The aforementioned Dabral sir educates us about this curious phenomenon with the knowledge that this is supposed to be how kids would be learning in the village. The Virtual Classroom is equipped with gadgets and computers, etc. But due to incorrigible management there is a teacher but no students, What a shitshow is the Indian administration and education system.
I went on a walk with few fellow volunteers and had the sweetest and darkest sugarcane juice followed by a feet dip in the river. Walked through beautiful and grand paths that cut through rocks and tall trees that bowed to the whims of the wind. The silhouette of the hilltop trees seem to be alive and swaying like hordes of men cloaked in black and on a procession of death or something. I heard this story of a 23 year old girl from Lucknow who has been saying in this part of the world for two months. Everybody wants to get away. Every place has their culture. A peculiar thing I noticed here is complete shutdown of markets and shops by 8pm simply because it gets dark beyond bearability so its basically impossible to get any productive work done after that.
I don’t really know how to put this but this idea doesn’t seem to leave my head so I have to put it in some form. I have noticed how each generation of people come up and exclaim “Oh lord, this is the end. The world hasn’t been more fucked up. Culture is declining, kids don’t respect their elders, climate change is killing the planet, and so on and on” and yet, and yet civilisation seems to exist just fine. Why is that? It is because when people pop up on the scene and by this phrase I mean get conscious and aware enough to ask meaningful questions after acquiring knowledge they fail to acknowledge the existence of a long line of ancestors and their history and their thoughts. For example, for me the world started to exist in 2003. Anything before that is simply a word of faith; mere collection of words or pixels. The limitation of the human brain combined with the explosion of information forces most of us to ever only process only a certain section of history - the part that is most relevant to that individual’s survival (an engineer might get away without knowing anything about geopolitics). And this is what creates a gaping information crisis with each generation looking at certain superficial indicators - country’s GDP, unemployment ratio, sex ratio etc and jumping to conclusions. What is really problematic is when we ask the question - how to track these indicators and a civilisation’s health across ages? Is there ever any objective way to truly measure this? Sure, we can (and do) measure it by reading history books but that’s very troublesome for a number of reasons. Sadly, I think it is impossible. You may ask - why is it important to ask this question. Well, otherwise how will we ever know if civilisation is actually failing? And I think that is an important thing to keep track of.
The analogy of streetlamps. Each individual is a streetlamp and the area illuminated by it is the area od understanding of that lamp. It may be possible that two lamps illuminate the same area in which case these individuals agree with each other but for the most part, each lamps is only ever capable of illuminating a fraction of the entire area that can be illuminated. The responsibility of the journalist is to illuminate as large an area as possible.
Day 12 (Jun 11)
You might have notices my negligence in regularity and slip into frivolous carelessness. Well I never boasted of myself as a good blogger :D. Anyhow, not much of interest has been happening or anything that I haven’t already talked about. Or I have been waiting to accumulate more thoughts. Or maybe all this conjecturisation is bullshit and I have been pure lazy. I’ll leave it to you to choose.
But today, my dear friend, I washed my clothes. With my own hands. I know. BIG DEAL. Part of the exposing myself to new experiences narrative. Learnt it from another volunteer, Amrita at the camp. Surprisingly, it is a very tiresome procedure. Extremely.
As this camp draws to an end, an unfound happiness seems to be springing from within my heart; a happiness rooted in satisfaction and the realisation of the end of a long and painstaking wait to see A again. I cannot believe that we will be together once again and I could listen to her IRL and not via those frustrated video calls.
Today was my 3rd day at an inland spring here at Narayan Bagar. I think I have talked about the spring/lake thing before. The water so clean I can see the riverbed. Also, little ill today because of that I guess.
I was wondering how serendipitous this vacation has really been for me - from barely making up my mind to filling up the form to almost giving up and walking out of the interview because I was intimidated by all the Hindi teaching idea to actually teaching biology in Hindi to kids - this vacation has been a vacation of many firsts and a much needed getaway and therapy that I needed. The best things in life happen not by coercion but on their own?
I wish I could stay here longer you know for another fortnight but unfortunately I have MCP101 back at campus. Might be better than rotting back in Kolkata but all’s well, all’s well.
I read the first two chapters of the Gita in English and it opens at a very dramatic moment where Arjuna is having a moral crisis standing between the two armies ready to shred each other to pieces. Krishna is standing by as a counsel and by answering Arjuna’s questions is actually teaching us moral philosophy. But somehow, just somehow all these religious scriptures seem to fall into the same pattern. You must abstain from X but it will not tell why. You must do Y but it will leave the mind-numbing problem of doing Y to the poor reader. It will mention itself as great and market itself as a text that if understood would lavish the reader with superior intellect but it will never tell us how to do that. And I find that especially funny (and disconcerting about religious texts) that it treats its readers as buffons. The way to escape from the clutches of desire is to not have any desire to begin with. But what life would that be - plain and bland and without purpose if it is devoid of desire? Krishna never tells us how to manage our desires if we have them but to simply not have them. I don’t necessarily agree with this hard-conservative approach to life. It is ascetic and careless to the point of stupidity. Also, I notice how the Gita begins on an extremely charged and violent premise where Krishna is literally instigating Arjuna to become manly and fight and shed blood and yet people only seem to notice Jihad. Silly people.
LOTR progress: Frodo has encountered Barrow-wight and got rescued by Tom Bombadillo on his way to Rivendall.
Jun 13 (Day 14)
The other day I looked up at the stars and luckily it wasn’t cloudy and I saw a hemisphere of embedded jewels in the cosmic bowl. It was a maginificent image. So many stars and such beauty!
My long (and unkempt) hair seems to be quite a hit here among the students and other volunteers. I have noticed the topic discussed multiple times in different conversations. People here seem to be more driven by physical apperances, the mark of a superficial mindset.
Another thing I have noticed is the curiosity around my name and the innate human need to understand or as Elizier puts it, to “rationalise” the unknown or unfamiliar. To this end, I have heard people rationalise my name as another name for Tulsi (especially those with a Hindu persuasion) while Christians are content with some priest like St. Basil. And so we roll, not to mention, all the attention I get around me.
I have been asked this question on multiple occassions and here too, “Where are you from?”, “What are you?” People can give simple answers like Bengali or Punjabi or Marwadi. But I am at a loss of words when I am to answer this question. And I have pondered a lot. I am not a Hindu Bengali, I am definitely not a Muslim Bengali. I am not Bihari anymore (my granddad was born in Kolkata) but some generation did migrate from Bihar. So who am I? This need to identify with a group is not something I deeply care about. I believe in making my own identity.
Jun 14 (Day 15)
Today was Harsh sir’s birthday. He is a computer science graduate currently working in Gurgaon. Party was on him. Crazy good hogya. Moreover, got cake and stuff up here in the mountains and did a cake cutting proper. Fun. I also noticed how I have been spared a lot of the financial burden by virtue of me being the youngest in the group. This is a peculiar tendency of humans to sympthasise with the youngest of the lot. Financials as in party expenses, small things. That day I heard Manish sir talk about how he was asked to pay for the extra parathe he was taking.
I have been taking class 11th chemistry for a week now and it has been super super tiring.
experiencing a different bond with the students - beginning to understsand how teachers feel - you know that feeling when you have given a piece of yourself effectively to someone else. its the other side of the student-teacher dynamics. fun fun stuff.
bad dreams - apple pencil getting destroyed.
Jun 17 (Day 18)
Today was a hectic day. It was my official last day on the teaching volunteer programme at Narayan-Bagar. Morning was marked by the weekly exam followed by checking answers. A last trip to the river stream and a bath there. One of my students in class 12, Neha, drew a sketch of me on my iPad. It touched my heart. I also brought clothes for mom and sister which took me an hour since I had to video call and stuff. Got myself a pahadi cap too. Always been a family guy. Many farewells and a few teary eyes and some more heart-touching moments such as kids touching my feet out of respect. Oh my god.
Did I tell you about me learning about the Mahabharata from a hindu spiritual guy who also volunteered? I have sketches of it also. Fun stuff.
Jun 18 (Day 19)
Travelled all day. Got delayed at a few places due to traffic jam but reached campus in one piece and crashed to bed after a video call with A. The journey took almost 15 hours. It’s supposed to be 10 hours.
That’s it I guess. Hell of an adventure.
Footnotes
1: Satpura is the name of one of the eleven boys hostel at IIT Delhi.
2: Removing name for obvious reasons.
3: BSP stands for Board for Student Publications, the official student-run media body of IIT Delhi, where I’m a Chief Editor.
Life update: Me and A broke up.
Basil | @itbwtsh
Tech, Science, Design, Economics, Finance, and Books.
Basil blogs about complex topics in simple words.
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