Its now officially 2010 here, and New Year's Day isn't a work holiday, so everybody who was celebrating last night is now working.

We made some food and had some friends over, the first time we have hosted anyone in this apartment. Dolly and I both cooked, and our guests liked the food, so I let Dolly take credit. Dolly is throwing a much bigger party on Saturday evening, where maybe 30 people will come.

Its hard to believe, but I spent more of 2009 in India than in America, and it looks like 2010 will be entirely here!

Today we have an oxcart on Sambav ashram in Orissa, and ruins of a Bhuddist temple

Dr. Binayak Sen was at JSS yesterday, and Dolly and I had a chance to briefly meet him.

Dr. Sen is an ad visor to JSS, and has a long involvement with rural health care and rural issues. In 2007, due to his criticisms of the state government, he was arrested with bail or specific charges. Basically, the state is arming militias (Salwa Judum) who are killing innocent people, and Sr. spoke out about it. In present day Chattisgargh, that is enough to get you arrested. His arrest drew the attention of Amnesty International, and there were protests on both the first and second anniversary of his arrest. He was released on bail a few months ago after his case was appealed to the Supreme Court (more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binayak_Sen)

Dolly, a whirlwind of curiosity, did most of the talking, asking questions. Dr. Sen spoke in a thoughtful, quiet, and steady manner that reminded me of the way Noam Chomsky speaks - a man who has the command of a lot of facts and information, and is carefully deploying them in most effective manner.

Basically, there are areas of CG where the government has never really had control due to their remoteness and/or lack of interest. Now the government is interested in taking control in order to profit from the natural resources. This puts them into conflict with the people living in a delicate balance with the local ecosystems. So to use the Naxalites vs. The State narrative is inaccurate, and helps in justifying the State's response of deadly force and land clearance (the land clearance being what they're after anyway).

Dr. Sen has to be careful where he goes and who he talks to, because the people who come into contact with him are often harassed and questioned by the government, especially in villages and areas where government control is not strong.

Dr. Sen is hoping for peace, and would like to bring both sides into a conversation, using public pressure to bring them together. There was supposed to be a rally currently ongoing in one of the Naxalite districts, but the government didn't allow it. The organizer is currently on a hunger strike.

I also put these up on Facebook, but these look nicer when they're big... click for the full sized ones!

Setting aside land to preserve the habitat of tigers, a highly endangered species, certainly sounds like a good idea, one that I would normally support. However, the government is in the process of setting up a tiger preserve in a nearby forest area, and it seems like a mess all around.

The first issue that although they have claimed the area has a population of 30+ tigers, local villagers and forest officials say its two, possibly three tigers living in the area. The second issue is that the forests they are setting aside are already populated by aadavasis.

Aadavasis are the aboriginal peoples, much like Native Americans, except they are ethnically identical to the rest of the population. Only culture separates them from the rest of India, and even some of that culture has seeped in. The aadavasis rely on the land to provide them with their livelihoods.

Pretty much everybody who lives in the forest area is poor, and some are members of scheduled tribes/castes, officially recognized as groups needing extra help. These people will be getting some assistance in relocating. Others are just poor, but not a member of any of the designated groups, and they will be receiving much less help even though they need it as much.

One of the outreach clinics run by JSS is in a village scheduled to be moved. They are involved in educating the villagers about their rights, as the doctors are literate and not in as vulnerable a position. There is a risk of them being labeled Naxalites, a word thrown around as carelessly as "terrorist" is in America. It has the same effect of raising fears and shutting down any rational argument, and those to whom the label is applied are treated as unjustly and arbitrarily, outside the normal bounds of the law.

One of the doctors has written some about it: http://ramani-fieldnotes.blogspot.com/2009/12/tiger-reserve.html

For both Christmas Eve and Christmas day we were invited to one of the doctor's houses. On Christmas eve, we brought art supplies to make some ornaments - the children had come to our apartment previously and had fun painting with Dolly, so they wanted to make ornaments with her.

There was a Christmas tree, a live one in a pot. It was not the standard American variety, but it resembled a kind of pine tree. The top branches spread wider than the bottom ones which gave it a vaguely upside-down feel.

The next day we went over for a lunch of fried rice, sweet-and-sour vegetables, and soybean kofta in a soy sauce gravy, with fruit custard for desert. It was a nice get-together, but it didn't feel so much like Christmas, between the weather and the lack of familiar rituals.

Later that night we went to the cloth market and picked out a curtain for our living room. The store we went to had a few small, cramped floors with dozens of rolls of cloth to pick from. We eventually picked colors and patterns that we liked, and they should be made in another day or two.

In the US, fruitcake has become a Christmas joke. I think I have only seen one once, given as a joke gift, and have never been served it. Here in India, it seems to be popular. (Though I still haven't seen it)

Whenever we ask what people do for Christmas here, and what they eat, the first thing said is commonly "of course there's cake" and then they say that they just have a meal, with no particular special dishes. It took a while to figure out that "Christmas cake" is actually fruitcake.

I will have to see if on Christmas, there are actually fruitcakes around and being served.

More contenders for band of the 00's: TV on the Radio, Spoon, Modest Mouse. I never got too into any of them.

The albums I played to death were mostly hip hop: Deltron 3030 (Del the Funky Homosapien and the Automator), Madvillany (Madvillan + Madlib), Mouse and the Mask (Madvillan + Dangermouse), though I played a lot of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco) and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (Flaming Lips), too.

I think that Dangermouse is my favorite musician of the decade. He's half of Gnarls Barkley, put together the JayZ/Beatles mashup The Grey Album, produced the Mouse and the Mask and the 2nd Gorillaz Album (both from genres where "produce" means "made the music"). Also produced Beck's Modern Guilt, which is very good, he did an album with Sparklehorse that won't get released, but can be found on the net, and is about to release something with the singer of the Shins.

I don't even know if he plays an instrument, but he makes cool music, and by collaborating with a diverse number of talented musicians, he has managed to create a ton of good and varied music. I think we'll end up seeing more of this in the future - now that everybody with a laptop can make music the line between producer and songwriter will become even more blurred.

Its December 22, and it barely seems like Christmas is coming. Its a much smaller holiday here, trailing the Hindu festival season by a few weeks, so much of the celebratory energy has already been spent. (It does seem as the festival season has finally wound down - wedding season is ongoing, but the disturbances are much more local.) In the main market, there are a few fake Christmas trees for sale, though we go there less than once a week, and this morning we heard Silent Night being played by the church.

This Christmas will be a change for us... for the last 2 years we have gone and cut down as big a tree as we could fit in our house, and then spent Christmas day with family. We have Christmas day off, but

We are told that in the cities (like Bombay) people decorate their houses and generally celebrate more. Though there are some Christians who have cause to observe the religious aspects of the day, I think its popularity is due to a combination of its Westerness and consumerism. Dolly's theory is that Christmas is more popular with the rich, who can afford trees and lights and gifts. This makes sense, and also explains why in this poor area, there isn't much Christmas. The Christian part of Bombay (Bandra) where the most decorations can be seen is also one of the richest neighborhoods.

Not that its a bad thing - Christmas is an over-commercialized holiday in the US, and I don't think even the most evangelical Christian would want only the secular aspects exported. India has a surplus of its own culture, with thousands of years of history, a handful of religions, a dozen languages and countless dialects. The calendar is already full!

We have been a little uncertain about our future plans here, with Dolly switching from agriculture to ???. Happily, some of those question marks are beginning to transform into answers. The doctors have brought up several ideas for what she can work on next, and there is at least some short-term funding available.

The most interesting of the possibilities is Dolly doing detailed case studies of a number of patients with the goal of identifying the socioeconomic factors contributing to their health problems. This would also involve her going to the villages where the patients live to do first hand assessments of the issues they face. She's been traveling to villages for her agriculture work and has enjoyed it, and she's excited about the possibility.

I have not gone to the villages with her, but I have heard her stories. She's not really posting on her blog anymore, so maybe I'll relay some of her stories here in the future.

We have a cook, Choti (her nickname - it means "small") who makes dinner for us. She has a 2 year old daughter Simee, who is also very small and mischievous. She is married to the building's chowkidar (watchman), Shankar, who basically has to hang out in front of the building 24 hours a day. They have a room on the ground floor with no door, and there is a bed in the open area - the rest of the ground floor is parking and storage; the apartments start on the 2nd floor.

Somewhere along the way, the chowkidar became an alcoholic (don't know if it became before or after the mind numbing job). He has run up debts, borrowing little bits from many tenants in the building, to pay for his drinks. At the end of last month, he ran away for a few days taking some of the association fees with him, and Choti eventually went and retrieved him from his aunt's house. A week or so ago, he ran away again, and now no one knows where he is.

Its very sad to see Choti and Simee abandoned, especially Simee, as she is too young to understand what is happening. It also complicates an ongoing issue: Choti isn't a very good cook, and we would like to get a better one - and we have heard of a South Indian cook in the building. All the best food I have had in India is South Indian food, prepared by Dolly's family. It was going to be difficult to get rid of her in the first place, as her family is poor, and on top of that after she started working for us, she quit (or was fired from) her day job, which she said was too far away.

This doesn't have anything to do with India, but as the year comes to an end, I am seeing top albums of the decade, and realizing that most of my favorite music and bands (Fugazi, Nirvana, classic rock) are from the 90's (the years I was in high school and college) or before.

I'm not too into the very mellow tendencies of current indie rock, I don't even know what bands are calling themselves "punk" these days, and most straight-up rock is all Nicklebacky... so that leaves not much left. I could only think of two bands that I would consider for favorite rock band of the 00's: The White Stripes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The other NY-type rock revival bands (Strokes, Franz Ferdinand) seemed to peak quickly and drop off, and the Arcade Fire has 2 good albums, but I often feel like they're playing a Springsteen cover. (Radiohead has probably made the best music in the decade of any band, but a) they were already well established in the 90's, and b) they moved pretty far from "rock"). Modest Mouse would probably be a contender if I listened to them more.

Out of the White Stripes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I think I'd lean towards The YYY's... I like the White Stripes and they were certainly more influential/popular, but I don't really listen to them that often, whereas I can play any of the YYY's albums at pretty much any time.

So, I guess my favorite band of the 2000's is The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Its kind of a lukewarm pick, as I don't have any particular passion for them - they kind of win by default.

Click for big

I knew that they played different sports in India than in the US. I knew cricket was popular. I thought soccer was popular (I was mostly wrong - I think I assumed that soccer was common everywhere but the US). But I had no idea that badminton was so popular.

In the evenings, every well lit area is filled with people hitting a shuttlecock back and forth. They play in the streets under the streetlights. Courts have been set up in vacant lots, and some kids in our building have started to set up a court on the side of the building.

Dolly is an avid badminton fan. She played on her team in high school and went to the state tournament. Last night we played for the first time, though she has wanted to since we've been here. She doesn't think hitting it around in the street is "real" badminton though. She wants to play competitively in a gym, free from air currents. She has heard of a gym down the street that has a women's league in the morning, but its hard to get going in the mornings, so I suspect that we'll just play in the yard.

Not too much happening right now. We have a ton of pictures and videos to go through and post, but Dolly is away, and I promised her we'd do that together. I've been learning how to use Phototshop, though, and here's an image created from a photo that I think looks pretty cool, especially in large size.

It has been a little sad in Bilaspur after out fun trip to Bombay with our American friends. Dolly has been travelling for the past week, and after being home for two days is about to leave again for a week, so I am mostly alone in the apartment.

The bright spot is that the weather has been absolutely gorgeous. This is the nicest "winter" I have ever experienced, and that includes four years in Southern California. The evenings are chilly, but a pair of socks and a blanket is enough to keep warm, and the days are all 72 and sunny. The Bilaspurians think its cold, and often wear hats and sweater vests. Everybody has sweater vests.

I don't know if its coincidence or a seaonal thing as well, but it appears to be the time of year for baby animals. There are a couple of puppies occasionally running around campus, and a couple of kittens hanging around the canteen. The small cows we used to see on the side of the road are now joined by even smaller cows, the size of medium-sized dogs

We did not buy our return tickets before we left, as we were not sure exactly which day we would be leaving. When we went to buy the tickets on our first day back from Ajanta, we were dismayed to find that all the trains were booked! To our disbelief, it was a busy few days because of yet another festival! (The number and frequency of festivals had reached the point where it seemed like a joke over a month ago, and they're still going strong.) Luckily, there is some kind of emergency scheme, where a block of tickets is released a few days before, and we were able to get those, although we had to pay an extra 1000 rupees to have someone go to the station and wait in line at just the right day and time.

We got on the train without incident, and when it made it first stop on the outskirts of Bombay, I was surprised to see a crush of people pushing onto the train. Families and individuals of all ages were packing into the train with their luggage, and many people were left on the platform. From then on the train was filled to at least double capacity, with the same scene being replayed at each subsequent station, although with less room on the train for them to fit.

It was a difficult night, as I was on the lower side bunk, and people kept sitting by my feet and stomach. I didn't get much sleep. People were everywhere, including one man who laid his blanket downin the aisle. The train remained crowded throughout the next day, and is wasn't until 1PM that a conductor came through to check tickets. I don't know if the other people on the train had tickets or if it was just a free for all. But we eventually made it home, though now we miss our friends!