Check out the Perspectives summer programs 2011 FaceBook group discussions here!

The new dates for our 2011 programs are as follows:

• Perspectives China (4 Weeks: July 10-August 6)
• Perspectives India (3 Weeks: July 10-July 30)
• Perspectives Brazil (2 Weeks: July 10-July 23)
• Perspectives China Travel Extension (Parents: August 4-17, Students: August 7-17)
• Perspectives India Travel Extension (August 31-August 3)

Apply here

In India, "public" means private

Lara being formally welcomed

Pauli meeting her homestay partner

Nerva singing a Hindi song at the "cultural fiesta"

Tagore students dancing for us

Performing a traditional Chinese song

The most surreal part of the "fiesta": German exchange students from Tagore performing an Indian dance

Kate working on a sand mandala with her homestay sister

Chris showing off henna applied by her "sister"

Working hard on a sand mandala

†

A finished mandala

Doro receiving a certificate from Tagore

As we approach the end of our time in Jaipur I thought it might be appropriate to write another summary of our activities and experiences in the past week.  I’ll pick up where I left off in the last update and will follow up with pictures later today and tomorrow.

After the aforementioned free morning on Tuesday, our academic schedule resumed with another productive Hindi class followed by a presentation on the fundamentals of Indian art and architecture by a local professor.  After this lecture, students had a session with their various “gurus” as part of their specialty workshops, then another delicious dinner prepared by the talented chefs of Om Niwas.  After dinner we had our first journal-sharing session, which led to extended discussions on a variety of topics that were brought up in students’ journal entries.  The value of having such incredible diversity within our group became even more apparent during journal-sharing, as the experiences of our students allowed for truly interesting comparisons between countries.

Wednesday began with yoga, then after breakfast we set out to visit an artist colony in a Jaipur slum.  This turned out to be one of our most amazing experiences as students discovered that you don’t have to be rich to be happy.  We were welcomed with a band and the smiling faces of dozens of children, then we split up into small groups to learn the art forms practiced by these spiritually rich slum-dwellers.  Students learned to dance, embroider and even create puppet shows, and the experience ended with a community celebration that had our whole group dancing like Bollywood stars.  Lunch was at a nice South Indian restaurant where students learned to eat idlis and dosas, then we returned to our academics with another Hindi class, a lecture on Hinduism, another specialty workshop session and an after-dinner talk on Indo-Pakistani relations.  Needless to say the students were more than ready for bed at the end of such a full day.

I woke up Thursday thinking that nothing could top the previous day, but Dominique-ji proved me wrong by leading our group on one of the most extraordinary fieldwork experiences I have ever been a part of.  In conjunction with her lecture later in the day on Indian Islam and Sufi traditions, Guru-ji (Dr. Khan) let students see with their own eyes the fuzzy boundaries between popular Hinduism and popular Islam by taking our group to a Hindu temple and a Sufi shrine that shared a wall, shared priestly responsibilities and shared devotees, with Hindus and Muslims freely moving between the temple and the shrine without even being aware that they were crossing a religious boundary.  We spent some time talking with a Hindu ascetic who was living in the temple, then went over to the other side of the wall to converse with the Sufi master and his devotees, many of whom were Hindu.  This amazing experience was topped off by the arrival of a local television crew who had heard about our visit and came to film our group; we were interviewed and featured on the evening news broadcast!  After lunch we spent more time with Guru-ji, this time in the Hindi classroom, then after a break she gave us her formal lecture on Indian Islam and we talked about what we had experienced in the morning.  Specialty workshops, dinner and an environmental lecture on water management in India rounded out the day.

Friday was a free day.  Students chose to sleep in before heading off on various adventures which mainly involved shopping in traditional markets and eating delicious Indian meals.  We came back together in the evening for a Bollywood film in Jaipur’s historic Raj Mandir movie theater – an eye-opening experience for the students – where a great time was had by all.  I only wish that I could get my local movie theater in New Jersey to offer samosas.

Saturday began with another yoga class, then we headed off to Tagore International School to meet our homestay partners.  Students were paired up with Tagore students of similar ages and genders, toured the school together then headed off to class.  We ended the school day with a “cultural fiesta” (their title, not mine) which included songs and dances by local Indian students, by members of our group and even by a small group of German exchange students who were studying at the school.  (See the upcoming picture posts for fiesta details.)  At that point we bid a fond farewell to our students, who headed off with their partners for two-night homestays.

Students returned to school with their homestay partners on Monday morning, where they engaged in a variety of activities as a group including cricket, volleyball, henna and the creation of sand mandalas.  The morning ended with a closing ceremony, then – with more than a few tears – students said goodbye to their homestay partners and headed back to Om Niwas.  After lunch we had a roundtable discussion in which students were able to share their homestay experiences with each other, a discussion that lasted more than two hours because there was so much they wanted to share.  They clearly had a broad variety of experiences with their homestay families – too many to mention here – but as a group there were certain things that they were especially struck by, including the warmth and intimacy of most of their homestay families and the traditional roles played by most of the women in their homes.  We ended with an impromptu discussion on arranged marriages stemming from conversations that several of them had with members of their homestay families, with TAs and our Indian group leaders helping us to understand this complex and changing phenomenon.  Homestays were clearly an eye-opening but emotionally draining experience for our students, making it even more impressive that they were able to rally for a talk on the developmental paths of India and China after dinner.

Today (Tuesday) is our final free day, and students are currently out with the TAs on various adventures (although not necessarily adventurous adventures…some of them went to Jaipur’s largest mall).  Impressively, more than half of our group opted to get up early this morning to go on an optional tour of a school and orphanage for street children, returning with excited reports of a heart-warming experience there.  This evening we have been invited to a concert by Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, a Grammy Award-winning Indian musician (kids were excited to discover that he’s on iTunes…) who is the most famous member of the family that has been working with our students in their music specialty workshops.  Today is Vishwa-ji’s 60^th birthday and this concert is in his honor, so we are lucky to have been invited and I’m sure it will be amazing.

Everyone is well and everything is going great.  We leave for Udaipur tomorrow evening, but I will try to send as many pictures as possible off to Hong Kong before then.

From Jaipur,

Brad

Two pictures from a puja ceremony at the Krishna Temple in Jaipur, one of the most important Krishna temples in India.

-Brad

Students watching the ceremony

Priests sprinkling the crowd with water from the Ganges