Today was the first day of our assignments and all I knew was that I would be watching birds. As someone whose most relevant knowledge about birds is that their Hebrew name stems from the word bird I was feeling a little in over my head. As it would turn out I'm tasked with doing a survey of the birds in a wetland where construction is cropping up around the banks. It's a fairly simple task. We split up the lake into sections and record the number of each species at each point twice a day for the month. It's an easily set up experiment and will have a solid set of data. I've never loved math but I have learned to love the authority of statistics in science. You can make up every hypothesis you want but at the end of the day we all just wanna see the numbers. My guides are five Indian students who are all making the transition into their post graduate studies. I think we're probably all around the same age. I prefer not to ask, out of fear that it will be rude but also I enjoy being able to call them kids when I refer to them. Their youthful appearance and my ignorance are the only thing that will allow me to refer to them as such, so I leave the question unasked. The hysterical nature of all of this is not lost on me. I can only hope that the whirlwind mess that is me as a human being is not the peak of my maturity, if so this is going to be a long life. Kids or not, they are by far the best part of my assignment. They love to teach me Tamil words and ask me questions about America and my life. There's a little bit of a language barrier. I almost never catch their jokes and can tell that when I speak they get about half of what I say.
In preparation for our first visit to the site we loaded everyone into the tiny car. The three girls in the back, and shahm in the middle seat next the parakeets who had their own nonnegotiable seat. I was, of course, awarded shot gun because I was the guest of honor. Fantastic. The only driver I like less than any driver that is not me is a college aged one. As I buckled my seatbelt Shiva assured me that in India it was not required. I smiled and clicked the metal bit into place.
The moment I set foot in India I dreaded the inevitable question. So as we drove back to campus and I heard Pragathi call my name to utter a sentence that I soon sorted out as "Are you committed?" I did not expect my first thought to be committed to what? A life of luxury thread counts and real butter? I then realized suddenly it was the dreaded question. It was happening. I'm sure my face went red and in my flustered natural awkwardness the words that came out of my mouth were "What's the Tamil word for cheater?". Four sets of blank stares were directed my way. Foot in my mouth. I attempted to recover by simply saying "No, I don't have a boyfriend". This ignited a great loud reaction of giggles and shrieks. I was so confused because this time I hadn't been sassy at all, why was I funny now? It turns out a boyfriend is not really a thing in India. You're committed because you're intending to be married. This would explain why the word committed did not cause the Indian boys to throw themselves from the vehicle like their American peers, and they say India is behind in the times... They then explained to me that Indian parents mainly arrange the marriages and that marrying for love is frowned upon. I assured them all love was overrated and they weren't missing out. Sign me up for the arranged program, all I've gotten from dating is mild depression and a level of disillusionment that uniquely qualifies me to be an ex-pat in post war Paris. At this point it seemed appropriate to ask them if they were committed. This provoked wave two of laughter. Shahm pointed at Pragathi and said that she was committed. She then began to giggle and protest loudly that she was not! Shiva announced that she and Shahm were committed to one another. This caused a riot in the car to which Shahm proclaimed to all, that Shiva was in fact committed. Shiva looked over at me and smiled and said matter of factly that he was and she was beautiful and he'd show everyone her picture. It is to be noted, that as of now I still have no clue if this was a joke or not.
The wetland we are surveying in absolutely beautiful and as I learned full of birds. The catch, as there is always certainly a catch in India, is that the banks of it have become a trash dump. I honestly can't even make these things up. After we all got out of the car I looked to the other students to see if the no, no, no, you're kidding me, no feeling was only my own. It was not, but the Indian recovery time appears to be a lot faster than my own. It was at that moment that the voice in my head said, really Emily you could be in a clinic full of pregnant women right now, I hope you're happy. The reality of the situation however is this: this is not something that just happens in India. This is a global thing. This is what we as human beings have done to our earth. The survey is designed to capture the biodiversity of this wetland and maybe the data we collect can help bring attention to the fact that this wetland is worth keeping preserved. So at the end of the day, yes it's gross. It smells terrible and I wish I has a group of cows to walk with me and swat flies. I wish it wasn't almost 90 degrees at 7:00 in the MORNING but that's what it is. We can sit, we can cry, we can throw a tantrum but instead I climbed that trash heap (which in all fairness is mostly dirt and bricks from a construction site nearby covering this particular pile) and you bet that I split that swamp into scientifically sound areas and that we surveyed the different sites for exactly 10 minutes each. Because dear friends, science.
The site is near a building with an eye on it. It looks like the eyes I have on a lot of my jewelry-the whole all seeing eye thing is a popular Jewish motif so I just assumed the building was some sort of temple. When I asked Shiva what it was however, he told me he'd tell me in a few minutes once we had walked past it. The secrecy made me a little curious but honestly I just wanted to get to the last site and call it a day. The American was melting. Once at the site, Shiva told me in a hushed voice that the building was an almost completed place where the bodies of the dead would be electrically burnt and that beside it was where they were still burnt by fire. Which as I could smell the fire that was currently burning, all made sense. I told Shiva in a burst of understanding and nonchalance that we called them crematoriums. He looked slightly alarmed that I was so unfazed when announcing this and informed me that the other students were afraid of it and the graveyard beside it. I nodded in sympathy but really I couldn't believe that the crematorium is what made them uncomfortable. This big beautiful wetland full of all kinds of birds becoming a trash dump is less alarming than a graveyard? A "how interesting" moment occurred at that precise time.
I really do wonder though if they understand what's happening there. They live in such a beautiful natural place that is just being chipped away at every day. I know that I'm just their American babysitting gig and that they're all majoring in unrelated topics, but in a month I leave and go back to my home. This country belongs to them and to their children and so on. I can see where growing up in this kind of world can make all of this seem natural, but India is only going to grow and solutions need to be found sooner rather than later and it doesn't seem like they realize that they are the generation that needs to make those discoveries.
Wetlands like this one could be so helpful in a country with such a problem with water quality. I just hate that they don't think anything can be different. America isn't what it is because we're smarter. A great number of our best minds are Indian. We're just too stubborn and too unsatisfied to accept things as they are. I think it's sad that they don't feel a love for this country that makes them want to make it the things that they wish it was. But more importantly, that they can't see the role models right in front of them that are doing just that. Dr. Relton is a great example of such a person. He's helped to create this beautiful campus that is a place of learning and growth. They could do what he has done for the all of India, they just have to believe that they are more than just a gang of ragtag small town kids.
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