singingBarely settled in Jaipur, I'm off again on another adventure. Time for another "drop off" and this time I'm going to Delhi, then to Varanasi. Not terribly excited about Delhi as I have some bad associations with the city itself—but the lectures and activities look fabulous!
The "drop offs" are a unique part of SIT's program which I resented at first. Since then, I have realized how useful they are at building self-reliance and confidence and for giving us the skills we will need later to go around on our own. It is too easy to go around hermetically sealed, so to speak, sidestepping much of the hassle—but also much of the "real" India. A "drop off" is just what it sounds like: we're divided into small groups, given an assignment and dropped off to complete it on our own with minimal instruction. The first one was a scavenger hunt on one of the main roads in Jaipur. Newly arrived, this was terrifying. Now though, I go there almost every day for shopping, to get coffee, or to run errands. In fact—I can't wait for the weather to cool down so I can walk around and do some more exploring on my own. The newest challenge was to "get to Delhi by Sunday at 6pm." I was feeling poorly (a touch of food poisoning had me spending quality time worshiping at the throne of the porcelain god) and so missed the lecture—but the task seemed fairly straight forward. Since there is only one train leaving on the day in question, and it leaves at 5am, my group opted for the bus. One of the guys in my group and I went to pick up our bus tickets. The hardest part was crossing the street—I nearly got creamed by a pair of busses passing in opposite directions on each side of me. They were so close that I had to turn sideways and I held my breath and sucked in my tummy as they flew by. Getting the tickets was a breeze! Rather than the long queue and hassle with language issues which I was expecting, we had our tickets in minutes and were back at the Center in half an hour. Yay! Now I just need to get myself to the bus stop by 8:20AM on Sunday and everything will be groovy.
I AM looking forward to Varanasi, however, as it is an AWESOME city with many cool features including the ghats, architecture, and fabulous silks!
I had a long and frustrating day today—but maybe I'm finally maturing. There was a lot of stress about getting papers in and having computer issues, but I managed to hang on to my good mood most of the day. I did have a little flurry of tears over missing my singing lesson again (Wednesday I was ill, as I've said.) It wasn't truly my fault. I guess traffic was really bad today. The heat seems to make people irritable and there have been riots all over the city. I have a great driver and wouldn't even have known if we hadn't been warned to be careful. (So don't worry—I'm perfectly safe!) Yesterday it was students near the center—the day before it was over some encroachments (shops that had been built illegally) which were being torn down. It seems that there are some issues with Hindu-Muslim relations—but that is not exactly new as similar things have cropped up ever since India's independence and the partition of India and Pakistan.
At any rate, there was miscommunication with my host mother who I had planned to go out with and who was to drop me off, and I was also late getting home. When I arrived, she had already gone and it took my driver an hour and a half to come back to pick me up because of the traffic situation. By then I had already called and made apologies to the Mrs. Bhatt, my singing teacher. I was so disappointed—I cried!! I really LOVE singing and I've been practicing a lot and after my initial issues with the teacher I really want to show her that I can sing and that I really DO want to learn!! I feel HORRIBLE for missing another lesson! Especially as I want to ask her if she would accept me formally as a long-term student, if I can arrange to come back and stay.
Trying to learn to take it in stride—but I really wanted to "prove myself" to her and I wonder if she thinks I'm a terrible student and/or not trying. The issue we had at the beginning was mostly miscommunication—I would be lost or I wouldn't know what to sing and when I tried to tell her this she interpreted it as saying "I can't sing." This upset her greatly and she told me " I am the teacher, I will be the one to decide whether or not you can sing. You definitely cannot sing if you do not try. You have lips and tongue and breath—you can do anything! If you want to sing—sing! Otherwise do not come." I know she was actually trying to encourage me, she said this in a very nice tone—but it made me feel miserable! Everytime she would stop the class and single me out (there are only two of us) my voice would just dry up. I became so nervous that no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make a sound! Luckily I hit upon the idea of asking for something specific—if she was singing a part faster than I could manage I would ask her to slow down, if I didn't understand, I would ask her to sing it for me. I've tried this in our last few classes and the improvement has been 10,000%! She seemed to take my improvement as a matter of course, and I was trying not to let this discourage me—after all, I'm not there for her to stroke my ego—I’m there to learn to sing! I need to practice every free minute of our Delhi-Varanasi trip, and try to make up for whatever ground I have lost! I just wish I wasn't so darn shy! It's almost impossible for me to sing if I think someone can hear, until I know the piece perfectly. Working on it.
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