MMM: Men, monkeys and mosquitoes…

So these three m’s are abundant here. I feel like I have never seen so many men, monkeys and mosquitoes at one time and in one place.

Men… us women, we love them and we hate them, we take care of them and we want them to appreciate us, we would like to be independent and happy without them, but we always find ourselves seeking and falling for them… Some of them hurt us when we get involved too deeply with the ones, who don’t deserve it, but others make us feel so loved and beautiful, that even if the passion is short-lived it justifies the seeking and helps to heal old wounds... At least, it did for me…

Well, men in India are much luckier than many men in the West. Indian women are beautiful, caring, devoted for life and much more submissive than most of us western girls. Whenever a guy is ready to settle and marry, his parents or the agency will easily help him out, and that woman will do her best to keep that man happy to the end of her days. It still amazes me that it works as well as it does here, although, of course it’s not always perfect. And now it’s slowly changing especially among educated and working women. I am realizing that these arranged relationships mostly work due to the strength of marriage institution, very strong family values and housewife mentality. But men rarely show in public love for these women.

Public display of affection (PDA) among men and women is almost inexistent here, which is so different from Brazil J. Indian men who are so cuddly and touchy inside the house will keep distance from their wife/girlfriend in public. On the other hand, PDA between two men is very common, more common than I have ever seen anywhere else (doesn’t help that I’ve mostly lived in very macho cultures). You can frequently see two men with mustache holding hands, fondling each other, sitting in each other lap and being so cozily affectionate with one another that sometimes I feel I am back in Castro district in SF. It also doesn’t help that pink (various shades of it) is a very common and popular shirt color among men here. Homosexuality, of course, “does not exist” in India… Yeh, right… But these men whom I am writing about are usually not gay couples (at least not openly), but just good friends, many of them married or hoping to marry one day. I am saying this with confidence, because many of them are my friends. Enough about men, lets talk about monkeys.

Monkeys… For years I’ve been traveling around Latin America always searching for them, hiking for many miles to be able to spot them in Brazil and traveling to the distant lands to get a glimpse of them in Costa Rica. Guess what, India is just as packed with monkeys, as its streets are abundant with men (women are inside the houses), and cows. But I do love monkeys! They are so entertaining to watch and they remind me of us, humans, very much. Honestly, I have seen more street monkeys here than cats (there are still quite a few dogs roaming around the streets). And they stick close to temples, train stations and roads, knowing that that’s the easiest way to get food. Traveling on a miniature train from Ooty on my way to Kerala, I saw a monkey finishing a cup of tea (that was tossed by one of the passengers on the train stop) and another one looking very sad when it realized that there are no more potato chips in the Lay’s bag handed to it by a passenger.

Although, they are so cute and entertaining when they look for flees on each other, drink tea or beg for food, they are more dangerous than malaria mosquitoes. Each year 30,000 people die in this country from rabies transmitted through monkey bites (stats taken from Lonely Planet). So even though, I would love to pet one of them I am resisting the temptation and limiting my PDA to monkeys with photography. Fine, enough about primates, lets talk about insects.

So mosquitoes… These vicious and annoying bugs are everywhere, India, Ukraine, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica… I still remember the sleepless night in Brazil after we finished two-day track in Chapada Diamantina, swollen and bloody legs of a Canadian volunteer at Costa de Oro in Costa Rica and my poor x-boyfriend and my mom always fighting with mosquitoes in Ukraine. These creatures have never particularly bothered me, and I would have hardly even noticed them if they didn’t make any noise. But here, in India, I fear them as much as I fear auto-rickshaws and motorcycles hitting me when I am crossing the street. After seeing my roommate in bed for two weeks with dengue and reading all the scary stories about malaria, I cannot just watch them suck my blood and be ok with it. I joined the paranoid mosquito haters and now spend 10 minutes every night killing those damn things before I go to bed, caring repellant with me everywhere I go and even succumbed to taking anti-malaria meds, which, regretfully, contrary to my expectations, did not make me hallucinate.

Well, those three m’s… India has definitely changed my perception on all them…

Madhya Pradesh

Even though, it’s a little overdue I want to dedicate this post to Akhand, my wonderful research assistant, housemate, and dost (friend in Hindi). When Srikumar, CMF administrator, sent me an email with my tickets to Bhopal for July 2nd, I realized that my fun and social life in Chennai is coming to an end. I was going alone to backward Madhya Pradesh to conduct various interviews for my financial inclusion project. Suvojit, project supervisor, kept telling me not to worry because Akhand Tiwari, RA for the project, lives in Jabalpur and will help me out with everything. He was right; my worries were groundless.

I arrived in Bhopal with my entire luggage after 27 - hour train ride from Chennai, which wasn’t very pleasant due to my rude co-travelers. Akhand arranged for his friend Parikshit to pick me up from the train station and show me around Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) campus where I was staying for next few days. The difference between Bhopal and Chennai was drastic. IIFM campus is located on top of the hill in the middle of the beautiful lush forest with great lake views. Fresh air and ability to go for a jog helped me to get over the nostalgia for fun times in polluted Chennai.

Exercising has been very difficult for me in India. In Chennai, although I couldn’t go for a run outside, at least for two weeks I had access to a small gym in my apartment building. Later when I came to Jabalpur and started looking for a yoga studio or a gym, I found out that most of the gyms in the city were for men only (Akhand told me that the gym for ladies does exist but it’s very far from where we lived). The alternative was to get up at 5 am to go for a jog through dirty city streets before the motorcycles, trucks and rickshaws start aiming for my life. I managed to get up that early only once during the whole time in Jabalpur. My exercise life became limited to a jail workout (sit-ups and push-ups in my room). But this was later, after I left Bhopal and realized that not all MP cities are that green and running friendly. Walking to places is also not an option, in Jabalpur it was mostly scary motorcycle rides (with Akhand driving against one-way busy traffic) and in Bhopal I had my private rickshaw driver whose name was Babloo and who always charged me 100rps no matter where I went.

Some of the most memorable moments for me in Bhopal are fun times with local students, who showed interest in hanging out with a foreigner and showed me places around Bhopal. Parikshit took me to Bhopal State museum, Rewasa entertained me with her fear of water and paddle boats on the lake, and Ritwajit played tennis with me, rode double seat bicycle in Van Vihar watching tigers and took me to eat meat (first time in 3 weeks). Speaking of eating meat, I never knew that I could survive for so long being vegetarian. Most of my local friends in MP who are Hindu from higher casts do not eat meat or fish or eggs, but Ritwajit who happens to be from West Bengal (carnivore state) saved me from turning vegetarian. When I returned to Bhopal for the second time for interviews we went to a great restaurant to indulge and savor chicken and mutton. On the other hand, I can’t complain about great vegetarian dishes that Akhand cooked for me in Jabalpur. Fresh made chapattis by his made, chili pepper omelets and pressure-cooked basmati rice with vegetables were my favorite. In those days I also discovered my love for pannier (tofu-like hard cheese), which replaced my protein need for meat. Today some of my favorite dishes are pannier tikka, pannier masala and palack pannier. Later in Chennai, I was even putting it into my egg scrambles. So back to MP…


Back in June when I found out I will be spending most of my India time in MP, I was excited about an opportunity to visit some of the most famous national parks in India for spotting tigers. I had these wild plans to ride elephants and look for tigers… That excitement was a little rushed. There is this thing called monsoon, and every year all the national parks are closed from mid June to mid November. But one weekend Akhand organized a fun day trip to marble rocks, Bandi damn and famous river, which name I can’t neither remember no pronounce. We had a great time getting soaked in the boat, walking through the river and shopping. His friends Phart and Joety who came visit for a weekend were a great company. Even though language barrier was a little problem, Joety and I became great friends and it was a weekend when I learned most of my Hindi vocabulary.

Overall, the month of my field-work in MP was very memorable and fun, mostly thanks to Akhand’s effort and kindness, and other great people that I met during my stay in MP (Ashish and family, Mahesh and his wife, women in villages, professor Biswas, madam from Pradan…)