It's Gotta be the Protein.

I just spent an hour lying on my bed, mentally making and re-making the perfect turkey sandwich. A rather odd pastime for a vegetarian, don’t you think? Cold turkey, a little mayo, cranberry sauce, leafy greens, a hearty white bread, this is what I want to eat 4 times a day every day for the rest of my life. Well, occasionally my sandwich fantasy is interrupted by dreams of a bacon and cheese sandwich on a fresh bap, but I’m guessing a lifetime of turkey is a lot healthier than a lifetime of bacon.

I think this unusual yearning for white meat is a result of being sick earlier this week. Did you know that your digestive system actually needs a surplus of water in order to work? Unfortunately, any surplus H2O in my body this week went straight into my pillow and mattress during the night. I was sweating so much at night that I could easily wring moisture out of my bedclothes every morning, making a little pool of wasted sweat on the floor. My room has been—I think quite literally—baking me to death. It is on the top floor of the hotel, and is detached on three sides, so it gets full sun on at least one wall all day long. Plus, the water tanks are on my roof. They gather heat all day long, and release it into my room all night long. The AC unit in my room stopped working a couple weeks ago, and even though I mentioned it to the Hosts, they didn’t seem to really understand what I was saying.

I’ll spare the blogosphere the details, but on Wednesday afternoon, I was suddenly and dramatically ill. For about two hours, I was quite seriously sure that I was going into full renal failure. When I finally dragged myself downstairs to the dining room, I must have looked pretty damn bad, because Mr. Host instantly went to work on my AC unit, and Mrs. Host started pouring glasses of watermelon juice with black salt for me. I managed to add some daal and rice to my stomach, but mostly I just used what little energy I had left to become a two-fisted drinker: water in my left hand, salted melon juice in my right hand.

After dinner, instead of walking across the street to see the doctor, I went back to my room to rest. The floor of my room was so hot, I couldn’t take off my sandals for fear of burning my feet, and the AC unit (actually, the voltage stabilizer, not the unit itself) still wasn’t working. I decided to sit out on the balcony—it was so lovely outside, with a nice breeze. Well, as it turns out, the surprise was that it was still 113F outside. My room was so hot that it made a hot summer evening feel like cool spring. I think even Mr. Host, who was trying to get the AC to work, was shocked by the heat in my room. I had mentioned it a few times, but I think it just sounded like White Person Whining, not a potentially dangerous situation.

Mr. Host couldn’t fix the AC, so he unlocked the room next to mine for me to sit in, with AC going full blast. I was going to sleep there if my AC didn’t get fixed, but just as I was getting ready to go to bed, an AC technician showed up, played a bit with the voltage regulator, and voila! suddenly the AC unit came to life. And I’ve spent the last three days moving slowly, trying to recover, drinking water non-stop, and wishing my body would return to its normal state of being. It’s a struggle, because we are still dealing with three-hour scheduled power outages every day, so even if I stay only five hours at the archives, that is three hours in a small, hot room with no air circulation, in the heat of the day. I can’t drink enough to keep up with the sweat, really.

You have to wonder: is grad school supposed to kill you? I mean literally, and not figuratively, speaking? I feel like I’ve engaged in so much risky behavior over the past four years, in India and the U.S.: falling asleep behind the wheel while commuting, going to conferences with whooping cough, eating tainted food, drinking bad water, riding motorcycles without helmets, playing games with heatstroke, talking to strangers, riding with drunk autorickshawallahs, traveling with people I don’t really know, etc. I know getting a Ph.D. is supposed to be hard, it requires a lot of sacrifice, a lot of suffering and a huge amount of work and worry, but really, should I be dead by the end of it? Because that’s kind of the message I’m getting these days.

Not dead (yet).

It's hard to write in a blog when you have no electricity I think we still have electricity for more hours of the day than we don't have it, but it's getting pretty close to an even split. Up until this week, the power outages were numerous, but random. If there was a storm, the power went out for a couple of hours. If there wasn't a storm, the power went out for a couple of hours. Sometimes the power goes out for fifteen minutes, comes back on for two, then goes out for a couple of hours. Yesterday afternoon, the power went on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on so on. Annoying, but fine, okay, I live in a desert city with poor infrastructure, okay.

This week, we have mandatory, scheduled power outages, three hours every day. Yesterday, it was no power between 12-1:30 and 4-5:30. Today it was no power from 9:30-11:00 and 4-5:30. This regularly scheduled power outage doesn't stablize the grid. We enjoy this darkness, plus the fun described in my first paragraph. The problem these days is that Rajasthan isn't producing enough energy, so they have to siphon off electricity from Bikaner for three hours to send to nearby villages to give them three hours of power. That's all those villages will get for the day. All the cities in Rajasthan are having power siphoned. I think Jaipur might have 6 hour power cuts right now. In Ajmer, it is really bad because not only are they having 6 hour power cuts, there is a water shortage. Not just a shortage, but no water, period. So, it could be worse, I could be stuck in Ajmer.

I think my hosts are afraid I am about to fade out and die. They keep bringing me watermelon and ice cream for lunch. I'll take it!

Right now, I am 15 minutes from the next power cut, so I am stripping down to "take my rest." I don't sleep at all at night, it is simply too hot (yesterday it was cooler, only 115), so that fake nap in the afternoon helps keep me alive. I am drinking way too much bottled water. Sorry, environment, I'm not trying to kill you, it's just that I'm really, really thirsty all the time, and I need clean water. I will stop drinking bottled water when I get back to the U.S. I promise.

My fingertips and the outside edge of my right thumb have been really painful lately, like the nerve-endings are exposed. It took me a few days to figure out why, but I finally realized they were sore because they are burned. My laptop keyboard and touchpad get so hot they are starting to damage my fingers. My laptop has two internal fans, and it is sitting on top of a heat sink with three fans, but the heat still doesn't dissipate. It's just too hot in my room. Consequently, about fifteen minutes after I turn on my laptop, the heat starts leaking out through the keyboard. Not fun, not fun at all.

I think the Hosts worry about me being out here all by myself, because they invited me on two family outings last weekend. On Saturday night, we went to Laxmi Niwas Palace for dinner. You gotta love a dinner with a common denominator of butter: butter chicken, butter paneer, butter naan, butter roti, and a local vegetable. After dinner, we went to the only ice cream parlor in town and had butterscotch ice cream. Aside from the threat of heart disease, it was a wonderful night to be out. We ate outside on the lawn under the full moon. One of the nephews went with us, and he kept us entertained by disobeying every order given to him by Mr. Host.

On Sunday, I dragged myself out of bed at an ungodly hour (okay, 8 a.m.) and joined the family for a trip to a holy lake, Lake Kolayat (my photos). This is a pretty important pilgrimage lake, on par with Pushkar, only not so horrible to visit. It was hot, but really pretty. And all that water! I guess I have never seen lotus before, or I would have known before now how big they grow, right?

On the way back, we stopped at Gajner Palace, just to look around at the luxury. The Hosts are pretty concerned that I see everything there is to see, and this was worth a look. There is probably a lot I could write about these late 19th-early 20th century palaces, but you know what? My fingers are starting to burn. I'll continue this later.

Make Mine a Double.

Was I drunk when I wrote that last post, or what? Typos, weird grammar, repeated phrasing, irregular paragraph breaks...geez. I fixed the misspellings, but I think I'll leave the rest to remind myself of what it feels like at the end of a day at the beginning of summer in Bikaner.

The Desert is Dusty.

It may be my imagination, but it seems to me that we're getting an awful lot of air traffic over Bikaner these past few days. Who is bombing who in my part of the world?

Aside from runs in the evening, I spend most of my time inside. It hasn't been as hot--it was only 109F today--but it can still be painful to be out in all the radiation. I don't mind burning skin, but even with sunglasses, my eyes can only take so much of the glare.

I'm only putting in five hours a day at the archive, for two reasons. First, that about takes me through the maximum amount of material they will let me look at in day. Second, it is physically uncomfortable to stay longer than a few hours. The room is okay as long as there is electricity to run the ceiling fan. They even brought in a window AC-unit, not that it does much good when there is no insulation, the windows don't shut tightly, and the door is left hanging open. Then, too, my back starts to hurt after about three hours, and I just have to grit it out for the last two hours of every day. The worse problem, though, the thing that really gets to me, is that there is no women's bathroom at the archives. There are two men's rooms, and a row of urinals out behind the building, but for women? Nothing. Today, I actually used the men's bathroom, but I got caught, so I guess I won't do that again.

Anyway, five hours max. I'm getting my work done, but I am mostly doing it in a heat-and-hunger-induced stupor.

Another thing that has been keeping me inside my room is the dust storms. Friday to Monday = four days of wind and dirt and heat, so pretty much stayed low the entire weekend. Well, on Saturday, before the late-afternoon winds arrived, Mr. Host took me to KEM Road to get a new pair of glasses. And on Sunday, we went to Deshnok to the Karni Mata Temple (AKA "the Rat Temple" photos here). Otherwise, I spend a lot of time practicing taps, cuts and rolls on the tin whistle, and obsessively messing up my Rubiks cube. It turns out that no matter how long I spend messing it up, it still takes the same 1 minute to solve the damn thing. That's not much of a distraction.

Much tired.

Well, this started off as a pretty lame day, but in the past hour or two I think maybe I managed to turn it around to at least only a *kind of* lame day.

I couldn't sleep last night because my brain was trying to pointlessly solve a couple of problems with my dissertation. One part of my brain was trying to figure out how to work around a problem with the first chapter of my dissertation, and another part was trying to figure out if I really needed to do research in Jaipur, and if so, when? A third part of my brain was yelling, WTF! GO TO SLEEP! I don't lose sleep often to thoughts about my research, so I guess I should be glad it was only one night.

Anyway, I woke up this morning tired and cranky, and that wasn't helped too much by having to eat another parantha for breakfast. I miss the days when they were being slightly lazy by giving me toast and jam for breakfast. Ate breakfast, tidied my room, discovered my autorickshawallah was not waiting for me as he should have been. Ordinarily, Mr. Host would just take me to work in this type of situation, but he's in Delhi, so I had to walk out to the main road to catch a lift. Not a horrible hardship, but it is 107 out right now (on its way to 113), and walking outside is not SO much fun.

And you know what? I only lasted two hours at the archives. I really needed a bathroom, and there is no working bathroom for women there. I wasn't having much fun, anyway, so I came home after two hours only just so I could use my bathroom.

Pretty lame, right?

I came home, sat down in front of my computer, and thought: "JR, you are so lame. You are in Bikaner to do research, not play computer games. Quit being so lame." So, I took a deep breath, brought up the web page with the phone number for the City Palace in Jaipur, and proceeded to try and call the director of the archives there. I don't know if you've ever tried to make a phone call in Hindi, but it can be pretty stressful. The first man I talked to was really nice and helpful, and gave me a second phone number. At that point, things went down hill, because the guy who answered the second phone call started laughing hysterically at my Hindi and passed the phone around to all his friends so they, too, could have a good laugh. Eventually, I got angry (long distance, yaar!), and they finally put me through to the director of the archives. Who was really nice, by the way.

To get permission to do research in Jaipur, I have to write a letter to the director explaining my research agenda, and then he will forward it to the princess, who will either approve it or not. If she does approve it, I guess then I write to SSRC and ask if I can go to Jaipur for a couple of weeks instead of spending my last three months here in Bhopal.

Speaking of SSRC, I spent some time working on the rough draft of my second field report after I calmed down from the phone call. It's not due until 15 May, so I think between that and the phone call (and two hours at the archives), I can say that I have been at least a little productive today. At least productive enough to upgrade my day to only *kind of* lame, don't you think?

Okay, not all people.

You might remember my first trip to India, and how miserable I was living with a host family in Jaipur. Or, you might not, because I didn't blog about it. Let's just say that at 39 years old, I was too old to have a host mother, especially a mother who didn't understand the concept of "allergic to milk."* I mention this now, because my experience living with, or at least near, families this time around has been much better. I really liked the place I was living in Delhi. My room was located in the front of the house, off the sitting room, I had a lot of privacy, and although I'm sure they would have fed me more, I only ate breakfast at home. I enjoyed my freedom, but I also liked it that there were other people in the house. The boys in the house were hilarious, and Mr. and Mrs. Host took very good care of me.

I like this place in Bikaner even better. I am living in a family hotel, so not with the family, but I eat my two meals a day in the main house, and I see and talk with the family members quite a bit. I have a lot of privacy and solitude, but I can also go down to the sitting room whenever I am bored and watch TV (but I have a TV in my room).

Nice things my host family has done for me:

Mr. Host was driving me to work every day, but then he arranged for a local autorickshawallah to take me there and pick me up in the afternoon. This is nice, because I don't have to walk out to the main road and try to flag down a ride in the afternoon.

I asked Mrs. Host if the local store would have soap (both Dettol and Pears), and she instantly called Mr. Host on the cell phone and told him to go to the store and get me soap. When he brought me the soap, he said I couldn't give him money for it, because family doesn't charge family for soap.

Mr. Host has been bringing me boxes of bottled water. Usually, I try to avoid bottled water because the empty bottles are bad for the environment, but I run out of clean water pretty quickly if I rely on the Aero water from the house. I am paying for the boxes of water, but only the marked price, not the "guest price" of 20 Rs. a bottle (which is how it is marked in my monthly budget).

Mrs. Host thinks that I shouldn't do my sightseeing in an autorickshaw, so she has volunteered Mr. Host as a chauffeur. He has taken me to the fort, already, and maybe this weekend we will go to the palace.

Mr. Host sent me a plate of grapes last night, and when dinner was slightly delayed today, he sent me a box of Tropicana orange juice.

Generally speaking, they are just very nice people. I'm trying to focus on this, because it is easy to get so irritated with all the unwanted attention on the streets and work myself into such a fury that I use twitter to declare that I hate all people except Roger Ebert. I often end up in my room at the end of the day just staring at the mattress (because I am flat on my face), praying no one else talks to me for the rest of the week. But, really, Mr. and Mrs. Host are being really nice to me, and it is good to know that I have friendly, helpful people just down the hall from me.

*In order to avoid this during my second trip to India, I stayed in a hotel, but not a family hotel. I really liked that experience, too, as my room became the "happening pad" where we all hung out, but I kind of like having a family nearby, too.

Feed Me, Seymour

At the risk of demonstrating that I am complete and total loser, I think I'll share the list I wrote up today at the archives. There's no AC at the archives, and we sometimes don't have electricity. In the mornings, there are frequently-scheduled power cuts from 9:00 to 12:00. In the afternoons, the power often cuts out for 5-15 minutes, just because. This afternoon, about 30 minutes before my day was scheduled to end, the power cut out. I was already hot, tired, and thirsty, and the loss of electricity just emphasized all those things. Instead of bursting into tears, I started to write a few encouraging words to myself in my notebook: "I can do this!" However, somewhere in between the first and second words, my brain switched off, and I ended up writing "I will do this:" instead. And my brain continued to shut down while my hand kept writing, and by the time the power came on 15 minutes later, I had entire list of things I will do, none of which had anything to do with my research or dissertation.

I'm going to share the list, not because I'm proud of it, but because I'm amazed by how quickly I went from "chin up" to "I'm hungry." Without any changes, here's what I wrote.

I will do this:

visit Washington
eat Nachos
go to Nashville
watch Food Network
pet the kitties
drink lots and lots of really cold water
sleep in my own bed
enjoy doing nothing but looking out at the landscape
have a bowl of popcorn with butter
make one batch of cookies
eat a big salad at Panera
eat another big salad at Outback
have an egg salad sandwich
try Alton Brown's recipe for deviled eggs
ask Catherine to make me some potato salad
ask my mom to make a phyllo tomato tart
watch random sporting events on television
grill salmon and vegetables
shoot baskets every day!
ride Catherine's bike
order a BBQ pizza with onions, thin crust, well done
go to Valpo for Thanksgiving
make grilled pineapple salsa and eat Nachos again
go on a hike

And then the lights came on, and I pretended to work while I studied my list in horror. Those are all things that I *will* do at some point, but nothing on that list is something I will do between now and mid-September (except possibly drink lots and lots of cold water). When I stop controlling my mind, it stops living in the moment and fast forwards to a point where this is all over. I'm not actively unhappy, and I'm learning stuff and doing things, but I think other people enjoy India a lot more than I do. Plus, I'm really, really hungry, all the time, so if you love me, send food.

Three Days Only.

The last three nights have been spent over in Sadul Colony, attending the wedding of a complete stranger. Well, now that I've spent three nights with the family, I can't say that we are strangers, but still, this is not something that you would see happen in the U.S. "Hi, complete stranger, please come to three days of my son's wedding, including the family prayers. Oh, and have some whiskey."

When I was starting to make my research plans, one of my committee members gave me the e-mail address of a senior scholar at another university and told me to e-mail her and ask her for research advice for my stay in Bhopal. I did that, but said senior scholar replied that she had no helpful advice, but that I should e-mail another scholar in the U.K. and ask for her advice. So, I did that, and we made tentative plans to meet while I was in London, but that didn't happen. A month or so ago, I sent a follow-up e-mail asking if she could share her advice through e-mail. She didn't send me any advice, but she did do something better: she sent me the e-mail of an archivist in Bhopal and suggested I ask him for advice (are you following this? That's at least three e-mail addresses).

This wonderful archivist replied with many useful suggestions, but more than that, he responded with an invitation to his son's wedding, which was coincidentally in Bikaner this last weekend. Even more coincidentally, the U.K. scholar, who I've never met, also was coming to Bikaner for the wedding. So, Sunday night, I met U.K scholar and Bhopal archivist at a wedding of a handsome young man I'd never met before. Good times.

It was good times (whiskey aside). Two nights of essentially just hanging out, doing prayers, listening to music, doing more prayers, eating, taking photos. One night of walking (well, dancing) through the streets of Bikaner. I've only ever been on the bride's side of an Indian wedding, so walking with the barat was a new adventure.

I can say with some authority that it is very difficult to do a full day of archival work the morning after the third night of an Indian wedding. I thought I was going to fall out my chair this afternoon. No lie.

Can I take a nap now?

Quite suddenly, I'm exhausted. I don't know if it is just the move from Delhi to the desert catching up with me, or the fact that I'm not eating enough, or maybe I'm using my brain way more than I would like, but something is completely wearing me out. I felt it coming on a bit yesterday, and today it just overwhelmed me in earnest. I couldn't stay alert at the archives, and I finally called it a day at 3:00, about an hour earlier than I usually do. There is no AC there, and only one window, so the room gets pretty stuffy by late afternoon. I'm sure the lack of oxygen surely wasn't helping. Anyway, I am deeply weary, and wish I could just go to bed and sleep for a few days straight.

In regards to not getting enough to eat, I'm trying, I really am. There's nothing wrong with the food, and the hotel owner makes sure it's not super spicy. But after 2-3 mouthfuls, I feel like I just want to stop eating. At breakfast, if it is plain parantha, I force myself to eat two, otherwise, I let myself stop after one aloo parantha or sandwich. I have been forcing myself to eat two chapati every dinner, and along with that, forcing myself to eat something with every bite of chapati. That is, every bite has to have either veg or rice with it, I can't just dip it in the dal and pretend to eat more food that way. That is the Jaipur way of getting through a meal, but it's really not healthy. The food here doesn't taste bad (although you really have to like jeera to eat it), I just don't want it. Thinking about 8 more weeks of force feeding myself isn't very pleasant, but since that seems to be the only down side to living in Bikaner, I guess I can't complain.

Where I live.

The hotel in which I'm living has a website. More importantly it has links to photos of my bedroom, and the room in which I eat breakfast and dinner. Now you can imagine me in my space.

When even the cows are staring.

The first year I lived in Jaipur, there was this stray dog that lived along Big Shopper Road in Rajapark. He was a special stray dog, in that every time I walked by, he totally lost his mind, racing after me, barking and snarling. The locals thought that was hilarious, and the other Americans didn't believe me when I told them about it, until one day a friend saw it happen. I don't know what that dog had against me, but he meant it.

Fast forward just about three years, and look for me in Bikaner. I will be easy to spot, not just because I'm the only white person on the streets, but because all the dogs and cows are staring at me. I am used to avoiding the human gaze*, but not so accustomed to bringing all of animal kind to a dead halt every time I walk by. It's as if the cows had never seen a foreigner before. This can't really be true, because I'm staying in a hotel listed in The Rough Guide to India, so surely other backpackers have walked these streets. Still, I seem to startle everyone every time I go outside, which is--let's face it--not all that often.

I did go out Junagarh Fort yesterday (my photos here), and I walked two blocks to buy some Bisleri this morning. The hotel owner gives me a lift to the archives every morning, and I go out after dark and walk in the park. That is enough outside time for me. It is already getting warm (98 degrees this afternoon, but dramatically cooling off with an evening thunderstorm), and that combined with the attentive fauna makes me want to stay inside. When I feel like being productive, I work on my Hindi vocabulary. When I feel like relaxing, I play the tin whistle or drum (thanks to Catherine, who brought me a set of Susato whistles and a pair of drumsticks when she visited me in Delhi).

So, that's the exciting life of a foreign researcher in Bikaner. Next weekend maybe I will go out to Lallgarh Palace, or maybe to the Camel Breeding Station. Tune in for more exciting news in a few days.

*I think we were at Purana Qila when Claire looked up and said, "Wow, I totally forget that everyone is staring at me. It's only when I deliberately look around that I notice that everyone is looking directly at me." You learn how to walk with your chin up but your gaze pointed off to the right or left so you don't have to actually acknowledge the fact that everyone is staring into your face.

New Home.

So, here I am at the edge of the Thar desert. While the city itself seems to be surrounded by sand and scrub, you can see from the picture above that I am living in a fairly typical suburban neighborhood in Rajasthan. It’s going to be uncomfortable on those days when the weather forecast is for “blowing sand,” but otherwise, it reminds me a lot of Jaipur (also unpleasant in sandstorms). The hotel (the Shri Ram, if any of you feel like sending me mail in the next 10-12 weeks) seems pretty comfortable. In fact, the only complaint I have so far is that I can’t figure out how to turn off the AC.

I stayed last night in Mandawa, and while you’d think the architectural historian part of me would have wanted to see all the havelis I could before nightfall, the freakazoid part of me voted for staying in my hotel room. I had low level anxiety attacks all day during the drive from Delhi to Mandawa, alternating with periods of intense sleepiness, and by the time I got to Mandawa, all I wanted was for no one to talk to me EVER AGAIN. Sadly, I messed that plan up right away by all-but-deliberately locking myself out of my cell phone. I swear, I thought, “If I do this, I’m going to disable my cell phone, and I don’t want to do that because today is the day I am scheduled to call my parents.” But I did it anyway, and sure enough, I rendered my mobile useless. In my panic to get out of my hotel room and find someone to unlock it for me—on a Sunday evening on a festival weekend, good luck with that—I caught my finger in the lock mechanism of my hotel room door. I stopped at the front desk to explain that I needed to find someone to unlock an Airtel phone, and when I looked at my phone, I thought, “Huh. It’s covered with sticky stuff. Why is that?” and tried to wipe it off. Really sticky, though. Then I realized my fingers were also sticky, and when I tried to wipe them off, I realized, no, not sticky, bloody. I had pinched my finger so thoroughly that I had torn the skin, and I had blood dripping from one finger all over the place. I was so focused on the fact that I needed to call my parents so they wouldn't needlessly worry that I didn’t even really notice that wow, my finger really hurts!

Anyway, for 50 rupees, the guys at the front desk not only fixed my cell phone, but bandaged my finger.

The drive from Mandawa to Bikaner only took a few hours, and it was pretty easy to settle in here. I think this is mostly a backpackers hotel, so they are used to freakazoid foreigners. It’s the off season for backpacking, though, so I seem to be here pretty much by myself. Just by asking I got a discount on my room, so I am paying considerably less for this place than I was paying in Delhi. Not sure about the food or laundry situation yet, but it will all work out.

Tomorrow my goal is just to find the archives, and maybe darken the door with my presence. No one has been able to give me an address for the place, so it could take all day just to get from here to there, wherever there is. By Wednesday, hopefully I will be fully registered, and by Thursday, hopefully I will be working. I don’t want to be too ambitious and invite disaster (although I checked my forehead this morning and it seems I will live to see another day), but I am optimistic.