Inge in India

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2006-08-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

I'm back home again :( The last month I did a really bad job in keeping my weblog up to date, so sorry for that. Though I would love to share them with you, I'm to lazy to start writing stories now I'm back but I'll at least upload all the pictures we made. If you're interested in more, just ask me.

In Agra with Marjolein

2006-08-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Here a very short update. At the moment I'm in Agra for the second time, this time with Marjolein. We met each other as planned in some cafe and did all the sightseeing, the second time the Taj Mahal is still beautifull. The wether is now far cooler than when I was travelling with Michael. You don't get so tired of everyting. Tonight we will leave for Jhodpur with the night train. Maybe I can give a more detailed description of our activities when we reach there.

The last week

2006-07-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

This will probably be the last post from Kanpur, only two days left. Last week my presentation did not go like I wanted it to go. Not that it was a total disaster but still there’s much room for improvement, luckily I’ll have another chance when back in the Netherlands. The days after my presentation I enjoyed, apart from the fact that I was suffering from diarrhoea. On Sunday I was invited to the home of my professor to have dinner with his family. It was quite nice, he’s got two kids and a very fluffy white dog. His wife and a servant cooked a good meal for me, which even included pasta! I didn’t taste that for a long time. They had put very much care in making the food not spicy, not aware of the fact that I have eaten spicy food every day since I’m here so I’m used to it by now. This week in lab I got pretty much all the characterisation results of the films I have been making. I’m now desperately trying to do the analysis of all these, but I’m still troubled by my diarrhoea. I didn’t make it to the lab before 11 until now because I was continuously running to the toilet. Tomorrow I’ll visit a doctor here and I hope he will subscribe me some medicine that can cure me in one day, else my trip will become very uncomfortable. For the rest everything is arranged I think, I even managed to book train tickets via the internet and that made me very happy. I cost you a little money but it saves hours of frustration.

Nervous

2006-07-20T04:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my final presentation, and I'm very nervous about it. I'll be glad when it is over tomorrow night and I can just enjoy my last week here. There are already some plans to go to the city for a dinner party to celebrate that Saumyadip's paper is accepted and some other plans involving whiskey and beer. Unfortunately also the workload of my internship is also peaking at the end. A lot of characterization of the samples we made will have to be done in this last week. And of course all that new data will have to be analyzed and inserted in my report. I'm not sure whether I will finish it before I'll leave here, which was my original plan, but we'll see. First I'll have to get over with that damn presentation.

Time flies

2006-07-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Next week my final presentation about my internship here is scheduled. It seems that the end is approaching very fast now. Without me noticing it time has past. It is very weird and I have mixed feelings about it. Of course I'm looking forward to traveling around with Marjolein, but somehow I don't want to finish things here. Maybe it is because I don't like finishing things in general. After my presentation Ive still a week left to hopefully obtain some more results, and of course prepare for the journey. Until now we don't have a plan for that, so it's about time that we made one. If we still want to get train tickets we'll have to be fast! I'll also have to think about a way of getting my laptop back to The Netherlands, because carrying it along with me for a month while travelling doesn't appeal to me that much. So mom, dad, if you receive a very big package somewhere in July it is not a present for you so don't get too excited over it.

Varanasi - part 2 and the end of our journey

2006-07-07T03:55:00.000-07:00

Varanasi - part 2

Our second day in Varanasi we went to visit Sarnath, a place with lots of Buddhist temples, which is about 12 km form the city. It was nice to see these temples, but they were not that impressive. Inside one of them the life of Buddha was depicted on paintings on the walls. A guide told us some background information, though not too much. In the end he took us to a sari shop; that might be the reason that he volunteered to guide us. Actually I had to do some sari shopping for Alka and Aruna and a friend of hers. They all wanted a real sari from Varanasi. In the end I bought them in a different shop and I think I got them real cheap after bargaining. We had lunch in Sarnath and then went back to Varanasi, to walk in the alleys of the city centre, and to visit the Golden temple. First we had trouble finding the temple in all these alleys. It was in an enclosed area, which was guarded by a lot of military people because there was also a mosque in the same area they wanted to prevent riots. You could not even take mobiles or cameras in the area, so we put everything in a locker. We walked to the temple, but we could not enter because we were no Hindus. We went op in a building at the other side of the alley to watch the temple’s golden towers. Afterwards we had some fresh mango juices on a rooftop terrace and watched some people on another rooftop flying kites until it was almost time for the sun to set. We wanted to go back to our hotel by boat and watch the sunset from the water. We found a boatman who wanted to take us. The sunset from the water was indeed very nice. That night we had dinner in a nearby hotel where they served some real good Middle Eastern food.
The next day our journey would end and we would go back to Kanpur, but not before we visited the Maharajah fort on the opposite bank of the river. We arranged an auto rickshaw but the driver didn’t take us to the fort for the arranged price, because the bridge was to fare away (a closer seasonal floating bridge had just been dissimilated). Our driver wanted to hook us up with some boatman, but luckily we had the lonely planet to tell us there was also a very cheap public ferry.
The Maharajah fort was not really well kept and people were just living in some parts of it. We were forced to buy tickets to the museum inside, we couldn’t enter the fort otherwise. The museum had an interesting collection of stuff, from American cars to weapons and even a steam fan?! Where all these things were coming from was not clear as they were not categorized and there were no signs with an explanation. Furthermore these things were not at all well preserved; they just were decaying there in dusty cabinets.
There was also a very large ballroom but it was not lighted and there was a massive iron fencing in front of the entrance, they certainly could have made more of it.
Before going back to the other side of the river we had a lassie (yoghurt drink) in the nearby shop that is supposed to have the best lassie in the country.
We had lunch in the same hotel as the day before, this time we had pizza but it was not as good as we expected.

Back to Kanpur
Our train to Kanpur would leave from Mughal Serai, a train station about 15 km outside the city. Our plan was to take a share jeep from the city train station, but the cycle rickshaw driver suggested us to take a share auto rickshaw from some other place because it would be faster and cheaper. I decided to trust him, but Michael was suspicious and turned out to be right. At the share auto rickshaw stand there were no people to share the rickshaw with so we were forced to take a rickshaw for ourselves (more expensive) or to wait very long (and we didn’t leave a that big margin). Michael managed to bargain the price a bit down and we arrived at the train station in time. In the train back, again people were sitting on our reserved seats and they acted like this was very normal and didn’t even ask us whether they could stay so we just shove in. Back at IIT we had a meal in the campus restaurant, though it was already closed the people who were still there were so kind to give us some food.
It would have been nice to spend some relaxing days in Kanpur with Michael but there was no time for that, the following day Michael would have to go back to Delhi.

Varanasi - part 1

2006-07-06T03:50:00.000-07:00

By taxi we went from Khajuraho to Varanasi, you would think that travelling by taxi is really comfortable, but if it is on Indian roads it is not. The first part of the journey the roads were still good and the environment was beautiful. We passed a national park and some nice green valley. We also passed a truck that got off road and had fallen down a hill. We were wondering how this trip could take 10 hrs, but we found out soon enough. The asphalted road changed into a bumpy sand and stone road were 30 was the maximum speed. Some random stretches of road would be asphalted now and then, though there were no signs of infrastructural planning. When arriving in Varanasi we had trouble convincing our driver to take us to our hotel instead of the train station. He first lied that this hotel was no good and he would take us to another hotel, but it turned out that he didn’t know the way to our hotel, I think he was ashamed to admit that. We insisted so he stopped to ask for directions, and in the end took a cycle rickshaw driver in the car as a navigator. Finally we got were we wanted to be.
In a hotel near Assi ghat we took a nice air-conditioned room with a balcony and a view on the Ganga.
On our first day in Varanasi we went for breakfast in the centre of the city and walked back along the ghats (stairs down to the Ganga where people come to bath and to worship and to bring ashes and at some places burn the dead).

Sight from one of the ghats

At one of the gaths a public cremation was just about to start, the body was in a pile of wood and the feet were still visible, than the set it on fire. It was a weird thing to look at. One man was very kind and explained us everything about the burning, but he turned out not to be totally altruistic, afterwards he wanted us to visit his sari shop (we didn’t). That afternoon we visited the university of Varanasi (B.H.U.), which has a large campus with a lot of old buildings and a temple. In de evening we watched a ceremony at Assi ghat, there was some priest near the water performing a kind of dance, an people could light candles and let them float on the Ganga and throw flowers in the water. This thing didn’t really feel like a sacred event, mainly because the music accompanying the ceremony was very load and was coming from two big speakers, and a lighting installation was installed. That night I was so tired that I fell asleep before dinner and didn’t even notice that Michael had a meal in our room.

Khajuraho

2006-07-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

Indian style bus travel
From Agra we traveled to Khajuraho. First we went to Jhansi by train to take a bus from there. That bus trip was a real punishment. In the lonely planet it was mentioned that express busses would leave from the railway station, but when we asked at the tourist enquiry booth they told us that the bus wasn’t running because it was off-season. Thus we decided to take an autorickshaw to the bus station to take a normal state run bus. However when we got there we were dropped at some private bus. They told us it was an express bus and that it would leave at 11.30 am and would take four hrs. In the end it turned out to be a real Indian style bus in which people were packed until really nobody fitted in anymore, it left at 1 pm and took 7 hrs because it stopped every time to pick up more people. That day it was my turn to get ill, I survived the journey with only one toilet stop and suppressed the stomach cramps by eating paracetamol all the time.
During this bus trip we met a couple from England, Lucy and John, they were also mislead. Together we concluded that we didn’t want to experience another bus trip like this. As they also were travelling to Varanasi later on we decided to look if it was possible to share a taxi for the onward journey.

Temples and waterfalls
In the evening when we arrived in Khajuraho we followed a man who had made us an offer for a hotel room in the bus to Hotel Lakside. The rooms were good and after bargaining the price down to 400 Rs a night we decided to stay there because I was really to ill to walk any further. That night and the following morning I couldn’t do without a toilet for more than an hour.
As we only had 1.5 day in Khajuraho this was a bad time to get ill. Luckily in the afternoon I felt a little better and we went to see the temples. These were very impressive. The area around the temples was also very quiet and green. In the temples there were all kinds of erotic sculptures.

Erotic scenes

These were meant to teach boys the art of love, as there were no women around in that place back than.
That evening John and Lucy told us they had found a cheap taxi to Varanasi, but that it would leave at 10 am the next morning because it had a pickup in Varanasi. We had planned to leave in the afternoon because we still wanted to visit the waterfalls, Raneh Falls, near Khajuraho. But the taxi was such a good opportunity, so we took it. The next morning we got up very early so we could still go to the waterfalls before leaving. On the way there we spotted a deer and a very huge lizard (~1.5 m). The raining season had not started yet so there was not much water to be seen falling at the waterfalls, but the rock formations were impressive. We climbed some of the rocks and our guide found us some real nice coloured stones. We also found some seashells in the sand but I guess they were not natural; maybe they dropped beach sand there though I don’t now why they would do so.
Back in the hotel we packed our stuff and got in the taxi to Varanasi. The distance from Khajuraho to Varanasi is about 350 km but it would take us 10 hrs to get there.

Fatehpur Sikri

2006-07-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

The next day we would go to Fatehpur Sikri, an ancient place near Agra, at 10 am but because Michael still felt very ill we postponed the trip to 12 am. We took a government bus to get there and were surprised by the fact that it was so well arranged. On the way we got stuck in some traffic jam because one way or another our driver thought is was faster to drive on de wrong way of the road. When we arrived in Fatehpur Sikri we first had to climb a pile of dirt before we arrived at the mosque and the group of sandstone buildings and palaces. It was very hot that day and Michael was still not feeling too well so we took it slow. Some of the buildings were really great with beautiful carvings in the stone.

Carvings in sandstone

The mosque was also very beautiful and very big too. We had to take off our shoes before entering, but it was painful to walk on the marble floor of the inner square of the mosque because it was burning hot. Inside the mosque we were bothered by lots of small children who wanted to give us a tour, pretending that they wanted to practice their English. Of course they just wanted to make money, although they said it was free. Back at the bus station I forgot my camera on a bench, a very nice Indian man brought it back to me. He proved that not every Indian wanted to cheat on us.On the way back to Agra our only delay was caused by the fact that the driver stopped for maybe ten minutes to teach the ticket selling guy how to sell tickets, how difficult can it be, that guy must have been retarded.

Agra

2006-07-03T02:15:00.000-07:00

At the moment of writing (not the moment of posting because the internet isn’t working once again) I just went to see off Michael at Kanpur train station. Now I’ll have to miss him for three months :-(, luckily I can always look back on the great time we shared here in India. After a couple of quiet days in Kanpur we started our journey by train to Agra. After we found the right seats we found them occupied. On our upper bed some people were sleeping and on our lower bed was a family that didn’t have confirmed tickets (they were on the waiting list). We kicked out the people from the upper berth and decided to share that with the unlucky family including two hyperactive kids. The train arrived more than an hour late in Agra. At the station we were picked up by a rickshaw driver, Wazeem, who took us to our hotel. He offered to take us on a tour for the following day and we accepted, as all the information he had given us thus far seemed correct.
Our hotel room was rather small and not too clean, but the hotel restaurant on the rooftop had a great view on the Taj Mahal. The next morning we got up very early to see the Taj at sunrise, to bad the sun was already up when the Taj opened at 6 am. It was still very quiet in the morning and there was a beautiful ‘green and clean’ park around the Taj. In the rest of the city there were not much manifestations of the city’s motto “Green Agra Clean Agra”, it was as dirty as any other place.

The Taj Mahal

We came back at the hotel to have breakfast and afterwards we met Wazeem who took us to the Red Fort, a big fort of red sandstone. Luckily it started raining then so it cooled a bit down. In a temple in the Red Fort Michael learned that marble becomes very slippery in the rain. After visiting the fort Wazeem took us to a mosque where we were lured into making a donation, we felt very bad afterwards about the trick the played on us. Next we had lunch in some restaurant that was obviously only meant for tourist. Then we had a lesson about marble work, and a guy made a bindi (thing Hindu women wear on their forehead) of some blue stone. After seeing the marble shop and a silver shop we went to see the Baby Taj, a small Taj look-alike. To end the day we went to the back side of the Taj Mahal across the river to see the sun set, but there was no sun L. But there was a camel, and that made my day! When we were sitting there to watch the Taj, a crowd gathered around us, and people ware making pictures of us with their mobiles. Apparently we were very interesting.
That night we had dinner at a restaurant where we were the only guests. The food was the best we have tasted, but the night and the day after Michael was feeling very ill so we suspect that food.

The Ganga

2006-07-03T02:12:00.000-07:00

It’s been a real long time since I updated my weblog. The past few weeks I didn’t have the time and the inspiration to write things down. Two weeks ago Michael came here and together we visited the main tourist spots in central India, it was an amazing trip. Before I go into that I should go a bit further back in time, because I also didn’t write about a trip I made with a boy from my lab, Kedar, and his friends to the Ganga river near Kanpur. We went by car and drove a while trough the countryside. At a certain moment we saw fire at the side of the road. Because it was so hot the bushes had begun to burn probably when somebody threw his cigarette there. I already uploaded the pictures a while ago. Then we arrived at a small village, and the last part to the river we had to walk. My first impression of the shores of the Ganga was that they were very dirty, waste was lying around everywhere. We hired a boat and a boatman who told us some stories about the mythological significance of the place. On the water it was very quiet and you could see the stars, real nice. I also touched the holy water then, trying not to think about all the sewers coming out to the river. When coming back at about 9pm all the people in the village were already sleeping and it was very dark because of a power cut. Back home we watched football but I gave up after the first match because the heat of that day had totally worn me out.

Weird people

2006-06-10T22:39:00.000-07:00

A couple off day’s ago I had this weird conversation in the swimming pool. A girl came up to me to compliment me on my swimming technique:

> No I am not a professional swimmer.
“But your strokes are so nice.”
> I’ve had swimming classes, but I am by no means a professional swimmer.
“You know my friend she used to come here? (No) She wrote an essay about you.”
> She what?
“Yes, she wrote: Inge has so many word records and stuff.”

At that point I understood what was happening, they apparently knew my name was Inge and that I came form The Netherlands so they thought I was Inge de Bruin!
Quite funny, so I walked out of the swimming pool smiling.
But I quit smiling soon enough because some guy I don’t know came up to me forcing a conversation and trying to be my friend, it appeared that he was staying in the hostel where I stay. As this was not the first time this happened I was a bit annoyed and managed to get rid of him.
When I came back to the hostel I went to the water cooler to fill my bottle. Then another guy (who I’d met earlier that day in the same manner), came to talk to me:

“So you are from the Netherlands?” >Yes
“That’s in Europe?” >Yes
“So it’s a well developed country?” > Yes
“I need water. Give me water”
(Ok -stupefied by his rudeness- , I let him drink some water from my bottle)
“You have to help me.” “I want to do a post graduation course in the Netherlands”
“You have to give me your e-mail id.” “You have to call me, my number is…yours is …? (He knew my room number and phone numbers are based on that)”
> Another time maybe, I’ll see you around, bye!

Really! How unsubtle can you be!
Back in my room I went watching some tv and preparing to go and get some take away meal. Then the doorbell rings. It’s that guy from the swimming pool: “I just met you, I came to talk to you” I really didn’t feel like talking to him so I told him I was just going for dinner. Luckily he didn’t insist on coming with me.
Later that night, while I was eating may take away meal, my phone rang. I could guess who was calling so I didn’t pick up the phone.
When the phone in my room rings it is usually someone who derived my number from the room number, so no friend of mine. Some time ago I used to get calls form somebody who only would say “Madam, I love you” and than hang up, to call back a couple of minutes later to say the same thing.
Even on my mobile phone I sometimes get calls from people I don’t know who want to be my friend; how they get my number I don’t know. Weird!

Also in other matters Indians have a strange way of handling. This week a water tube under a main road cracked so water was coming up from under the asphalt. After a couple of days some workers decided that it should not be like that, so they dug a hole in the middle of the road. Then they find out that things cannot easily be repaired so they just leave a hole in the ground. After another few days someone notices that it is not so safe to have a hole in the ground in the middle of the road, so some signs have to be placed. Apparently they ran out of warning signs.

Luckily the signs on de sides say “ No Parking”

Back in the city

2006-05-26T22:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I visited the city again, Saurabh who couldn’t come on Wednesday still had to buy some clothes so he and Prashant were going to the city anyway and I could join them, Aruna, a project student like me from south India came too. This time we didn’t hire a car but we went by public transport. On the way to the city we took a direct bus, which was quite comfortable. When we went back we took a vhikram, this is a little buslike thing with a noisy motor. In the cabin there are two benches, obviously made for 3 people, but they are used for 4 people, so that people half have to sit on each other’s laps. Luckily we paid for an extra seat so we could sit on a bench for 3 people with 3 people. This made the trip ok, otherwise it would probably be very uncomfortable, but it’s also very cheap.

me in my new dress

Today I’m wearing my new salwar kameez dress, you can see a picture in my photo album. This time I also got the chance to make some pictures in the city, but they are not very clear because the air is very dusty. I guess all the fumes I inhaled yesterday weren’t that healthy too. There was a power cut yesterday in the city so every shop had it’s own stinking and noisy generator working. But that’s still better than total darkness.

The city of Kanpur

2006-05-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening I finally got to see the city. First we would go on Tuesday but than there was some protest organized against the reservation system in education, in which many people of the group wanted to participate. This reservation system was initially made to increase the participation of the people in the lower casts in education, so a certain percentage of the available education was reserved for them. Now however being in a lower cast doesn’t mean per definition that you are poor or without possibilities, so in fact the reservation system comes down to help to people who mostly don’t need it. Most students here think social support should be based on the economic position of a person and not on his cast. And a place in a university should be granted according to capacities of the students.
But yesterday we thus went to the city for shopping. My general impression of the city was that it was very busy. The streets were packed with cars, motorcycles and rickshaws and people and dogs and cows were crossing the street everywhere. To me crossing the street was a very scaring experience. While we were shopping some kids that were begging kept following us, and especially me. They kept patting me on my arm and looking at me smiling. Finally someone gave them some money to stop them bugging, so their strategy had worked out.
I bought some real Indian salwar kameez suit. I don’t have it yet, because a tailor is still adjusting it to the right size. I also bought new batteries for my camera so I hope they will work. After shopping we went to see a temple. This was actually a quite new temple so people were saying that it was not a ‘real’ temple, though to me it looked very real. Before entering the temple we had to take of our shoes, and while entering people touched the steps to the entrance and also the doorstep, to show respect. Inside there were all kinds of statues of gods to which an offer of flowers could be made to worship them.
After visiting the temple we went out for dinner in some posh restaurant were the also served continental dishes so I ordered some oven dish with baked potatoes, pineapple and cheese, and it tasted very good. Finally the bill came down to less than 200 Rs per person, that’s about 3,5€. So you will have to do very weird things if you want to get an expensive meal here.
Initially we also planned to go and see the sunset near the Ganga River but we didn’t have time for that. So we decided to plan a next trip to the river to see the sun rise, because this even should be more beautiful, I’ll see.

Doing fine

2006-05-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted to my weblog, but I’m still doing fine. Last weeks I was actually pretty busy with my internship, so luckily no more waiting. Although, since Friday our professor is out of the lab and he will also stay away next week, as he told nobody what to do in the next week we’ll probably do nothing. Actually everybody is pretty happy, because they now have time to enjoy. We even went to see a movie on Friday night, and the lab was half empty on Saturday…can you imagine ;). Another good thing is that we now finally can go to the city! The plan is to go on Tuesday for some shopping and visit some sights. (so Karolina, you’ll get your purple sari) Unfortunately there is something wrong with my camera, so I probably won’t be able to make pictures.
Since a week there are also two new summer students in the lab, on of them is showing a remarkable fascination for The Netherlands, he was even wearing an Ajax shirt (too bad for him).
Today I did some planning for the trip Michael and I will be making. First we visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, than we go by bus to Khajuraho, a romantic place with a lot of temples and next we go to the holy city of Varanasi. As we will do this in 9 days the schedule is pretty tight, but not too tight I hope.

I hate waiting

2006-05-09T02:22:00.000-07:00

I’m now in the lab, but I have to wait, for someone else to give me a substrate so I can’t do anything right now. I feel a bit annoyed that I cannot do anything without help so I always have to wait. Maybe I have to get used to it and relax (although I’d rather do that outside the lab). Last week I had a mission that also involved a lot of waiting; I wanted to buy train tickets. That doesn’t seem like a big thing, but when I first came to the reservation counter, and was standing in line, someone told me that I first had to fill a form. I got the form at another desk and filled it, but when I was finished the lines had doubled in length and my lunch break was almost over so I decided to come back another day. So the next day I came back, but than it seemed rush hour so I backed off immediately. The third time I came the lines were not much shorter but I had to do it once so I stood in line. (Apparently in the wrong one, because the second line was proceeding much faster.) After standing for 2 hours in a room with no air conditioning I finally got my tickets. Though these tickets are for trips I’ll be making together with Michael in June, I was just in time to reserve the last to berths in an AC class in 2 of the trains. I’m glad it is not the high season else it would become very difficult to travel by train, there are just too many people here.

Things are different here

2006-04-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

In the meantime I got to know a bit more about the Indian culture (if you can describe it as one culture) some parts are nice and some parts are frustrating. Let’s start with the good part. Last week I’ve been to the engagement party of Alka, a girl from my lab. When I arrived with a group of people from the lab we were immediately directed to a big table with snacks in the garden. At the same time the engagement ceremony was going on inside. This ceremony takes about an hour so I didn’t see all of it. But the moment the rings were exchanged I saw. After that, the couple got all kinds of blessings, they got fruit and people were waving money above their heads. After the ceremony there was a dinner in a tent, the food was very nice and everybody was happy, so in the end everybody was dancing. And dancing is kind of a sport when it is still over 25 deg outside. Luckily there was a fan. At the party I had some nice conversations about the Indian marriage, still a lot of marriages are set up, but the love marriage is getting more and more common. There is also something in between, the ‘set up love marriage’: The parents say to the boy and the girl: this is who you’ll be marring and now you get a year to get to know each other and fall in love. If things don’t work out than there will be no marriage.

Group picture at Alka's engagement party

Also something that seemed very weird to me happened that night, our professor (Sir) and his wife also came to the party, and when he arrived suddenly all the students were rising. So I was like, OK should I do this too, he’s my professor that’s all. And when the professor sat down everybody sat down again, so that time I thought they were just being very respectful towards the professor.
But yesterday something else was going on. I went to the lab to have a bit of a relaxed working day, reading a bit, going for tea a couple of times. And while having tea I was bringing up that I wanted to buy clothes in the city some time, and from that, the plan came up to rent a car and to go to the city that night. We would go with a group of 5 or 6 people at 5pm. By that time I was preparing to go and drop my bag in the hostel, and than Saumyadip was telling me that we couldn’t go because all the cars were busy, he was acting a bit weird about it. I was like, ow than maybe we can go on Monday. A minute later, Alka told me to wait, because maybe we could still go. I felt something was going on but I didn’t know what the problem was, so I sat down and read some paper. After Sir left the lab I got to know what was going on. Apparently Alka had gone to Sir to tell that we would go into the city, because somehow his permission was needed. He had been yelling at her and insulting her and was asking why so many people had to come and things like that, and he said we couldn’t go. Than 10 minutes later he had called her back in to say that we could go. But than nobody felt like going. I did not really get what happened so I was asking what the reason was that Sir was acting like that. I thought maybe it is because it was during working hours that we wanted to go, but they told me that was not the case. Than of course he also could have said ok you can go after 6 or something. It was some dual reason of me being a girl, and going out and having fun with a group of boys would be against his view on how boys and girls should interact, and the city may be unsafe in the evening or something. (I still don’t totally get this part of the reason) But the other part I get very well now, and I feel very angry about it. It is about showing his power. So first he says that we can’t go (in some inhuman way) and than he says we can. So if we go it is his decision, it’s a statement: ‘Nobody makes decisions here except me’, so I understand well that we did not go in the end because that would be like giving in and let yourself be played around like a puppet. To me, having an intrinsic aversion to authority, these things are very frustrating. The professors have total power because the number of students wanting to do a PhD is so large, they can just send someone away and hire someone new. This is also the cause that it takes people here more than seven years to do a PhD, the professor is the only person that decides what is done by who, he just exploits the students to do the ‘dirty jobs’, so they don’t get the chance to have results for themselves. Furthermore I frustrates me that I was hesitating to write this in English, like I’m a bit scared that my professor gets to read it and I’ll be sacked. But I still decided to do so because I just don’t agree and I want people to know.
Nevertheless I had a good evening yesterday, I visited Saumyadip and Prashant in their hostel and we went for dinner outside the gate. I really hope to go to the city some time but it seams to be more difficult than I thought it would be.

The start of my internship

2006-04-22T03:17:00.000-07:00

Last Monday I went to my lab for the first real working day, it consisted mainly of reading. As did the two following days. One funny thing to mention is that there is no toilet in de lab. You have to go outside and there is one common toilet for all the labs in the building. This toilet is an Indian style toilet (a flushable hole in the ground), with no toilet paper! But I’m getting used to it.
Unfortunately Saturday is a working day in my lab, though when I asked for it I was told that I didn’t have to come on Saturday’s, still it is kind of expected I think. Today I was in the lab for a half day, to show my good will (and because the internet connection in my room broke down for the second time this week but now it is working again).

This is where I work

On Thursday I started learning how the Pulsed Laser Deposition system is operated; somewhat more interesting than reading all the time.
Yesterday I had my first ride in a rickshaw, we were with three people and the rickshaw driver protested a little because it is actually prohibited to transport more than two people at the same time, but eventually he gave in. We went to the gate of the IITK campus because just out of the gate there are a lot of little shops and I had to have photos taken. It actually cost me 20 Rs which is about 40 ct for 5 pictures. The photos were taken with a normal digital camera and duplicated and resized in photoshop and than printed out, still its very cheap. The guy at the shop couldn’t even come back from 100 Rs (2€!!).
When you go out of the gate it’s like entering a complete new world. The gate comes out to highway no 1 (on which people actually also walk and cycle). On the roadsides all kinds of food are sold, cows are walking around and dirt is just being burnt.
Yesterday evening there was a dinner party because Kartik finished his PhD and is leaving the group. It was really nice and for the first time in a week I ate something different than rice and it was also non-veg. When we went out after dinner is started raining and lightning pretty heavy, so we ate ice-creams sheltering near the ice-cream stall. It was very funny to watch how some guys tried to ‘steal’ each other’s icecream and tried to push each other into the rain. Of course I forgot my camera so I cannot show you the pictures.

In the land of the holy cow

2006-04-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

After a prosperous 7 h flight, I arrived Friday 22:10u above Indira Ghandi Int Airport in Delhi. We circled around for some time to wait for an opportunity to land. When we finally landed and wanted to go to the gate, we couldn’t because it was still in use by some Malaysian Airlines plane. Without problems I got trough the customs and got my luggage. In the arrival hall I soon found Navneet’s wife holding a ‘poster’ with my name on it. She and Navneet (an ex student of IITK) had not heard of the delay at the gate, they just heard that the plane had landed. They were getting worried and Navneet had just gone to get
may name announced; luckily his wife could reach him in time on his mobile phone. We took a taxi to their house at the IIT in Delhi. Though it was midnight it was still about 30 deg C and the air was thick and smelled weird. On the way went trough some very sloppy streets with lots of dogs and cows!! walking around. The traffic is one big mess here. (Photo 1: Navneet and his wife)
At the house of Navneet, a two room apartment for married couples, we first had a meal in the middle of the night, Navneet’s wife had prepared me some real Indian vegetarian dishes. Luckily she doesn’t like food that’s too spicy so I could eat it without any problem. It tasted good. There was a very special desert: the main ingredient was cauliflower!
After dinner we went to sleep, there was no ac just a very big fan, but I slept well during the two hours that we had before to get up to go to the train station. We again went by taxi, this time we went trough the street in which al the ministers live, in huge house with big pinned fences around it and a couple of guards ever 100m.
At the train station the traffic was a disaster, and continuously people were asking whether you needed assistance carrying your luggage. But thanks to Navneet and his wife I got to the right platform at the right time, and I even found the right chair. I was in 1st class AC so I was served very well. I was stuffed with food and drinks on that train. The 440 km journey went trough nothing but nothing but agricultural flat land, people were harvesting grain (by hand). The villages we passed were small and a lot of houses had no roof on it, there were just some wall’s like the rest was destroyed or something. At some places they were even building with clay like I have seen in the “Prehistorisch dorp” on Tuesday. In the train everybody had a mobile and it seemed that they liked the ring tones very much, they were loud and nobody cared to pick up the phone quickly.
In Kanpur I went of the train and met Rajeev who took me to a cab. Rajeev is operating the SQUID machine in the lab where I’ll be working. We drove directly to IITK which is 17km from the station. In Kanpur there are many colleges and universities but students are having their summer holiday. At IITK I was brought to the visitors hostel and got a big room with ac, two beds, a bathroom and Internet. Though the closets smelled (mothballs) and the ac was noisy and there were ants in the bathroom I thought I was quite lucky to have a room like this. After I got my room my professor, Budhani, called me and said that I had to switch rooms because the one I had was to far from the entrance, and he warned me not to drink water from the tap and not to eat anything uncooked and to lock my door from the inside and so on. He is very worried that something will happen to me. So I got a similar room on another location, this one was even better because there were no ants in the bathroom as there were in the previous one. (Photo 2: The visitors hostel; my room is on the 2nd floor (1st door left of the stairs)) It is like a hotel here. I can get breakfast, lunch and dinner here in the dining room (you can’t eat anything but vegetarian here) and I can call the reception for water. At lunch I met some Portuguese guy who is staying here until Monday. I walked with him, he was going to the lab but he said we would pass the commercial area. I went there, the shops look a bit crappy, and I walked into one of them. I tried to buy a bottle of water just to see if it was possible. But when I asked for it they didn’t understand or pretended they didn’t, so I went out without water. Outside it was very warm about 40 deg C and when I got back to the hostel I was very tired, and it is even getting hotter and more humid. I couldn’t rest long because at 3pm prof. Budahni would pick me up to see the lab. In the lab I met the rest of the group, everybody was working (on a Saturday!!). I know a bit more about my assignment now: I’ll be making superconductor (La/Sr) Ferro magnet structures and than investigate the proximity effect in these structures. As the article I had to read was quite difficult I got a book about cuprate superconductors and I also have to read a book about pulsed laser deposition techniques. (Photo 3: The shops)
A master student from the lab, Monamie, showed me around and she also went with me to the shops to buy a sim card. With her speaking Hindi I also could buy a bottle of water this time. Back at the lab I got the bike of Rajeev which I can use while I’m here. Back at the hostel I slept some went to dinner and slept some more. At 6.30am they knock on your door to ask if you want ‘bed-tea’ just a cup of tea with very much milk and sugar to drink in bed before you really get up. Of course 6.30 is a ridiculous time…Tomorrow I’ll hang a note: ‘no bed-tea’. Today I’ll do some reading and I’ll also take some pictures. The campus here has a lot of beautiful gardens with peacocks and gecko’s in it. This is in contrast to the rest of Kanpur, there is not much green what I’ve seen. I think people do not get off the campus here very often; everything you need is there. But I’ll see whether I can see something of the city soon.

Welcome

2006-04-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

On the 14th of April I'll be leaving for India from Schiphol airport. I'll be doing my external practical traineeship at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur in the low dimensional systems group. After I've finished my intenship (end of July) I'll be staying in India for another month to travel around in the northern parts of the country. On this weblog I'll regularly (at least that's the idea) publish stories of everything that is going on in my life both to comfort and entertain my friends and family and to have a report of my journey when I'm back.