Road trips and Breakfast conversations

Badlands Inn
Badlands National Park
South Dakota
8.30 a.m (Mountain Time)
31st May 2014

On the first leg of a road trip from Chicago, Illinois to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming via Wiconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota. In the next ten days we will be in 3 National Parks and would have driven through 7 of the 50 states.

Had heavy duty breakfast conversation with our inn manager Mary Sue and a scientist from Colorado staying in the Badlands Inn with his family consisting of wife, 13 year old daughter and 10 year old son. We talked about systems thinking, design, the shortcomings of science education (around the lack of focus in designing experiments v/s conducting experiments) and the challenges in the wider adoption of systems across contexts. We discussed the lies in school education and the myths syllabuses propagate about history through the free interpretation of the roles of victims, aggressors and conquerors. Phew! We went from systems theories to the subjugation of the American Indian tribes by bible wielding, promise binding men from other lands. She talked about the burden of broken promises and the gift of trinkets that helped vanquish the native settlers. It is amazing how all societies and civilisations face the same challenges in failing to protect the ethnic people in the pursuit of money and the mirage of development.

Mary Sue is an army veteran who spent 8 years in military intelligence mapping North Korea. Her grandfather apparently co drafted the new deal with FDR and her son just returned from serving in Iraq. We talked about the the collective burden of veterans returning from war with wounded bodies and scarred minds and how the price of sending them to war is a price that we as a society pay as a whole. It makes me see India’s response to conflict (which so far has been politically driven inaction) as a better option to mobilising men and machines on the front lines.

An eye for an eye truly makes the whole world blind.

Badlands National Park on an overcast Saturday morning

One of those places where the view point is as picturesque as the view it looks out to

First leg of an epic road trip from Chicago to Yellowstone National Park

The year of the Blue Wooden Horse

2014 is the year of travel for me. Domestic expenses have been shelved. New plants, a coffee table, new linen will all be bought next year or the year after that. This year I will see what I can of the world and my corner of my country. This year I will be the budget traveler without heed to soft beds and sanitized loos. The first trip of the year set the tone for that. A 20km trek to 6702 feet and back for an unfit first timer, reverse bungee-jumped my brain into the uncomfortable and unfamiliar. I took half an hour more than anyone else and almost gave up half way on a trek that was graded moderate to easy. But now I am addicted and I want my next fix.

So, the Russians call 2014  the year of the blue wooden horse. A year they believe will be tempestuous, temperamental and a thrill ride. Make what you will of it. My plan is to travel in a whole new way, push myself beyond safe lines and reach a whole new place at the end of this year.

Images Courtesy Siddarth Murlidharan & Marie Lisa Jose

Land of the crazies

Mum asked me on the phone yesterday, whats with the travel writer-esque notes?

Why am I assiduously recording my everyday here? And mailing it to everyone who cares to read?

Well, mostly cos I just really have to have to share what I see and do. I ended up with a phone bill as thick as a notebook when I was in Paris sharing my week there. Figured I'd use better technology this time :) that said, I have stuck my tired feet in a bathtub full of hot water, gotten myself a Corona and ordered a pizza and wondered if this is what life would be like if I did live in America. 'Cos I did briefly consider moving here today when I walked into the Whole Foods store nearby. Whole Foods is like all the content of travel brochure for California - in a retail store. Everything that goes into the making of 'the good life' is sold in this store. Or at least retail in America will actually convince you of that. Cheeses, wines and beers in shelves that are size of large living rooms, flowers bursting with color, strawberries the size of my fist, fresh salmon (and no smell inside the store!), low cal apples (whatever that is!) grilled chicken, gourmet chocolate....sigh! It's a multisensory assault; A see, taste and smell fiesta. To get out from there in under and hour you need to know exactly what you want. Milk? 1% fat or 2%? ....or full fat? Or organic? Soy? Or half and half? Eggs - organic or farm grown? brown or white? large or small!!! 20 kinds of milk, 15 kinds of eggs and countless kinds of beers. I swear I could see my brother rolling down the beer aisles and crying in joy!

Needless to say, I had worked up quite an appetite by the time I left the store. Lunch was a freshly made pizza at the Italian joint next door called uncle Vito's (An original San Francisco pizzeria since 1977, it says on the menu) This tiny li'l place has a corridor that serves as a kitchen cum entrance and an adjoining dining that's seats 10. As you wait to be seated uncle Vito's, daughter or niece or granddaughter, buxom, dark haired and dark eyed, bustles around with tall glasses of coke in her hand and you can watch uncle Vito stuff the calzone with pepperoni, salami, ricotta, mushrooms and mozzarella. A calzone and The mountain (salami, pepperoni, mushroom, bell pepper, onions and sausage) later I was ready to catch some siesta. But it was conference time and off to the Moscone center I went, in a taxi ride straight out of a Hollywood movie.

Hailed down a cab that had overshot us on a one way street and he stuck his head out and yelled,  'I'll be back! I'll be back' it's kinda funny in your head when you are in the land that has Schwarzenegger as governor. ;) he came back at full tilt and said 'welcome to America my friend! And for didn't shut up for the next 7 minutes while he almost never took his feet off the accelerator! S. Uchoa. That was his name. The cops challaning him, the Chinese having the most expensive cars in the city, the hours he worked...we heard it all. He swerved, revved, stuck his head out and told the driver driving a Lexus next to us "nice car man, can I go ahead of you?' while we watched a Chinese man inside the car through tinted glasses draw deeply on a cigar. He crossed a black dude and said 'watts up yo!?', he crossed a Sikh man in a turban and yelled out at him, "Shukran! Shukran!' and when he got no acknowledgement, turns around to tell us, 'Nah! Not a real Hindu!' 'Shukran everyday man! Allah be praised!'

I say this everyday....this really is the land of the crazies!

Moscone Centre.
For a geeky IT shindig, the information security do V is here for had the some of the glitziest booths I've ever seen. I pads to win for a code breaking challenge, fruits in fishbowls for people walking in, BD guys in razor sharp suits, rumpled Indian techies, event managers in dark glasses and chicks who looked like Paris hilton...blondes and titian haired girls in short skirts and sky high heels. Even the FBI had a booth there, the girls seemed to do nothing more than play with a yo yo ball on steroids in front of one of the booths and gather crowds. Smoked zucchini and turkey breast, chicken teriyaki skewers, wine and beer on trays carried by liveried caterers. Some conference this!

Huffing and puffing through the streets of Frisco

Early mornings and retail quests

Jet lag. I slept at 7.30 last evening and I am up at 4.30 in the morning. Settled on the grey couch waiting for sunrise and watched dawn slowly break over the bay in the distance. Lights slowly going off and some coming on, framed silhouettes of people against the windows in their homes and hotel rooms. The bells of the first cable cars and quiet created by the lack of cars on the road revving up to take on the steep roads on Market street and clattering on the cable car rails. The lights in Macy's are warmly inviting and a jet is making its way across the early morning sky. I can smell the coffee brewing in the dining lounge below. Somewhere in the background I can hear the thrum of the heating systems punctuated by wispy draughts of smoke coming out of the exhaust vents.

Yesterday was a day spent in downtown, mostly hunting for a pair of boots. I had packed in a tonne of dresses counting on finding the perfect pair of boots to wear them with. In the process I walked across a coupla other American retail institutions. Bloomingdales's, Nordstrom, Victoria's secret and of course Macy's. For sister retail junkies and mall rats from home I will attempt to a draw comparisons....Bloomingdales is like a 7 star Lifestyle. Or maybe it is what lifestyle in heaven is like. Macy's is Pantaloons, again of course amped up in size and style quotient. But SALEs and women across the world, as I discovered, are comfortingly familiar. Stuff thrown pell-mell, women on their knees rummaging through the lower racks, every girl sneakily checking what the others are holding on to and how much it is, every third person holding up one shoe and looking for pair before someone else gets to it, long queues at billing, harassed looking staff....hmmmm, I felt right at home :) After an exhausting 4 hour retail quest, I got my pair of calf length marc fisher black suede boots and wore them and pirouetted on the bed, which in my head seemed like an indulgence I could indulge only in America, after which I sited jet lag and passed out.

The view from my window at 4.30 a.m

 

from bay area with love. That's a radio station here.

......bagel and cream cheese for breakfast. The best thing I can say about this iconic American breakfast is that the coffee made up for it. If you haven't had one, a bagel tastes like a constipated doughnut :P the coffee on the other hand was soothingly mellow and came with a french vanilla white chocolate mocha creamer. It's one of those things you taste and want to buy a whole dozen of, to go back and give everyone you know a taste experience of it :) well, it's jus a flavoured milk shot to add some white to a lethally black coffee, but mmmmmm does it taste good or what?

 Highlight of the day (beside the $70 Calvin Klein dress I found at half price sale)? a ride to Fisherman's wharf in the cable cars. A 300 rupee tram ride where you have to pull a rope that rings a quaint bell to request a stop. They take the steep streets on a song and if you are thick skinned enough to brave the cold they have seats out in the open. Each coach has an interesting story that's told on a poster stuck inside. The one we travelled in served in Chicago for years before the Municipal railway of San fran bought it.

 Tons of beggars here. I saw one attempting to play a trumpet with a notice in front of him that read "instead of ignoring me and pretending I don't exist, how about giving me a dollar for my 64th birthday" :D  saw this staccato dance street performer painted in metallic colours holding a begging bowl in his hand, this tourist chick walk up to him, did a staccato number in front of him that ended with her mock kicking his cup in the air and through it all he stood in his last dance post, unmoved. This really is the land of the crazies....or everyone here is on crack. Every 10th person is jaywalking, loudly talking to themselves and punching the air or the nearest lamp post.

Watched the sun set at fisherman's wharf while two Mexican teenagers kissed in one corner and the sea lions barked in the other. I watched a sea lion clumsily clamber over the dock with a supersize cup of Ben and jerry's hot chocolate in my hand as a cruise made its way back from the Alcatraz. The Americans can put a tourist twist on anything....t shirts that say, "Alcatraz, out patient ward" and a wooly caps with "Alcatraz swim team coach" for  $10. I watched a street side spray painter create a marilyn monroe in black and white, red rose in her hair, against a San fran skyline and the Golden gate bridge, all in 5 mins while grooving to Cuban music and doing some flair bartending with the spray cans. While i contemplated which wall I could put it on, he sold it for $20 to a family of 5. The father and 3 sons all had Elvis bouffants (I kid you not) and their mum looked like an ageing 80's movie star....blonde with red lipstick long black coat and black heels. Looking at them is like time travelling, and at the back if your head you can hear jailhouse rock play.

 I had dinner at another cornerstone of American civilisation, a diner. Lori's diner tonight. Chequered floors, bright red seats, juke box music from the 80's and waiters in black uniform wearing bored looks...a blue dodge parked inside as a centrepiece and diet coke that came in 500 ml glasses and tasted of chlorine, that's the American diner for me now. I loved the hearty French fries that featured potatoes fried with their skins and single portions that can feed a family of 3 :) and this ain't even Texas. Walked back on the 45 degree incline and contemplated the fact that if you lived here, you'd never need Reetones.

Its Saturday night and my night shot of the skyline tells me lesser people are at home today. Unchained melody on the radio and I am awake, still running on India time.

America...fuck yeah!! (from the team America soundtrack ;)

The fruits are blemish less and the tv is full of patriotic ads, and so far America has been a multisensorial overload. The air is fresh and crisp. Driving down from the airport into nob hill, where we are staying, I smelt roasted garlic and baking dough and then the salty humidity of the bay as we drove past it. :) It's a beautiful country, pristine and kept like that. The streets and buildings are like what they show us in the movies. People dress fabulously and yet, unlike Europe, there is a wonderful sartorial diversity. From where I live now I can see the sea on the horizon and every store I love is stone's throw from where I am staying. The wireless networks here have crazy names like 'scooter pimp', 'Arnold Schwarzenegger' and 'you are jus confused'. The bathroom in my room is built for midgets, with towels for tiny people, in a supersize country, imagine that! The pharmacies here are the size of ur warehouses... :)  took a train and went to the suburbs yesterday to pick up a laptop that varun had ordered for his office. I was jus thinking that suburbs anywhere in the world are all the same. Maybe the collective energy of all the people tired and weary of the commute from where they can afford to live to where they need to work to afford that, makes suburbs a collective tired energy pool. Transport and connectivity here is amazingly simple, as a matter of fact all design here is universal. Ramps for the handicapped, signs in Braille and seats reserved for seniors and handicapped on the trains.

California is best summarized by an ad (for garden equipment) I heard on radio, "for all those of you who have a backyard in need of some looking after, what are you waiting for? Spring? It's California, spring is a mere formality.....unless your car is under a snowdrift." :) the radio has a great local flavor and listening to it you feel like you have heard it before even if the songs are not familiar. it reminds me of the video of that ramstein song, we all live in America cos even if you've never come here everything seems familiar and that's probably cos we have all grown up on a staple diet of America beamed straight into our homes on tv. 

You can make out the tourists here from the locals cos they are the only ones puffing and panting up and down the steep roads. The roads here are at a 45 degree incline and I watch in amazement as folks here saunter up and down smoking away. Phew!  

I love the way the tram, cable cars as they are called here are turned around. So, when they come to the end of the line, they land on a circular wooden base. The driver hops off and rotates the base 90 degrees and viola! the street car turns the other way! :D 

Met a punjabi cabbie yesterday, another American movie stereotype, I had forgotten I would encounter. Chatted with us in Hindi and told us how only in America will he get an appointment with the local sheriff, who will actually call if he's gonna be late for that appointment. Hmmm..we didn't have much to say to that in reply. Our cabbie came back to pick us up, a special favour, when he realized we would be going back late and didn't have transport figured and refused the tip we gave him. 

I heard a black man answer his phone with 'Yow!'. I saw another playing the drums on upturned dustbins and wine bottles stuck into a cola crate by their neck. I watched as two jets flew in formation over the blue californian sky, four plumes of jet smoke following behind them and I toasted my toes in the sunlight streaming through  the picture windows in my room while the radio plays the best of the 70's......Mmmmmmmm......

Tap water here is potable. While I knew this, it is still strange to fill a glass at the sink. And if you live in India, every time you shower here your skin and hair will feel like raisins soaked in water, moist, fresh and spa-clean. :) Everyone here has an i phone. At the risk of Jobs rolling over in his grave, it's the Nokia of America. In my stay here I had been meaning to experience every American icon featured in the movies and popular culture, the microwave dinner, bagels for breakfast, a supersize slice of pizza, Starbucks coffee, a new York cab ride and a picnic in a park. So after a visit to the suburbs on the BART, (bay area rapid transport) we bought beers and 2 microwave dinners and went back to the apartment-suite, where with a view of the san Fran skyline with the fog slowly rolling in, we listened to radio and contemplated the mystery of the awful-tasting thing called a microwave dinner and crashed out after swearing we weren't jet lagged.

Still Learning

Ever since i first started teaching freelance, I have been meaning to write about my classroom experiences.

The nervousness in facing a bunch of 17 year olds fresh from school (!?) The learning not to react or wonder if the snide chuckles and shuffles in the back rows pertain to you in some way...the first time you get that look of blank incomprehension when you have raced ahead and have an entire sea of confounded faces staring at you....the first time when they ask you something on the one topic that you haven't the faintest clue of and are too embarrassed to admit....teaching for me, really has its days!

There probably isn’t a bigger cliche line about teaching than the one that goes, that to be a good teacher, you have to be a good student....But seriously the things I’ve learnt when I have taught!!

I’ve learnt that students are far prompter about sending you friend requests on Facebook than they are ever gonna be about mailing you assignments. I’ve seen that when I sound unsure about how they will receive what i am saying, they too seem unsure about how to react to that information.
I've seen the importance of setting context before starting. Why are we learning this? How will we use this? and How is it relevant? are questions you should take time out to answer.

There are days when i am discouraged by the quiet in the class and there are days i have gone with no prepared lesson and made up a class on conversation and real time examples and come back charged and high on the class’ participation.

I’ve observed that I make a far better impact when I stray off the prepared lesson and draw from what they are saying and build the lesson around it.

I’ve also learnt that they are probably gonna learn far more from each other than from me as long as I can spark off an interesting debate between them.

I’ve come around to realise that as a teacher its more important that students learn to arrive at an informed viewpoint about the subject rather than have thorough knowledge of the topic.

I’ve come to believe ‘google it’ or ‘i will get back to you on that’ is a good response to a question you cant answer.

I’ve realised that a significant part of teaching has to be devoted to one on one interactions with students who come up to you.

I’ve learnt that to be one of those rockstar teachers who can keep disinterested students up at 2:00 p.m on a sunny afternoon after a heavy lunch takes practice and straight from the heart involvement with what you teach.

I’ve learnt (from a really inspiring teacher himself) that the core of a subject is in the first line of the textbook (an NCERT one, in many cases) and that as a teacher its your job start there. Biology, for example, is the study of living things. And once you know that, you really cant actually hate the subject, you know.

I’ve watched it makes a world of difference when you ask people to use their hands and fingers to do stuff than just cut copy paste on the computer. Draw, write, cut with scissors and stick with glue.

But the most important thing I think I learnt, was from my dad. About the time i started teaching, I came home one evening wondering if it was worth my time to teach a bunch of disinterested students who’ve shown up for the sake of attendance, a grade and a paper diploma. After hearing me talk about my first class he remarked to no one in particular that there is no such thing as disinterested students, It just means that the teacher hasn't yet figured out how to engage them.