Life beyond chow mein at the school's big, fat annual program

Every year, Asha Deep School pulls off probably the biggest and fattest school program in Varanasi (Banaras) on one of the most popular ghats on the Ganges River. And I got to sit in the middle of it.

First act, a kattak dance, at Asha Deep School's annual day show on Assi Ghat

The school's program was a couple of days ago. Traditionally, every school in India (mostly the prestigious ones) have a show of their kids doing music, art, dance... translation.... BOOOORIIIIIING.

But Asha Deep's annual program is one of the most over-the-top shows in Banaras: fire, loud music, hilarious drama, fire, unicycles, juggling (did I mention FIRE?) right on Assi ghat. So it attracts at least a thousand people. (Am I exaggerating? I don't think so.) The kids are trained by a circus group from Europe called Performers Without Borders (PWB), which raises the cool factor of their annual day show by about a million compared to other schools. (Did I mention FIRE?)

The school's vice principle, Siddharth, was worried that the kids wouldn't be ready. He had run around and around the city just to get permission for the kids to do the program on the large new ghat area. Of course the day before the program, we saw that someone else had put up huge bamboo scaffolding on the new ghat area. Siddharth then pleaded with the police, but they said that since it was a government program that put up the scaffolding, they could not take it down. Ugh, for the first time the government decides to set up something early. Now, we had to scrunch the stage onto the the old ghat.

But this brought on another problem. The old ghat is the site of the nightly aarti (worship of the Ganges using fire). Our program was planned for 5 to 8PM. Aarti runs from 6:30 to 7:15PM. So, who got assigned to make a slideshow during our 45 minute aarti break?

Me.

So I thrust myself into making of a slideshow/video. The goal: A fast-paced, silent 40-minute video of Asha Deep's greatest moments that keeps the audience in their seats. The product? Uh... a barely 20-minute video of whatever photos and spliced up old videos we could find that at times made you dizzy since clips were shifting and spinning in overdrive. It was perfect... if the whole audience had ADD. (Side note: We ended up showing it twice, meaning stopping our program twice, because the aarti pundit did not show up on time!)

It was approaching 5PM and the dance guru had not yet arrived. Siddharth frustrated said, "We are starting. We are going to start without him," even though the guru and our dancing students were the first act. Surprisingly, even with the craziness that is Banaras, Asha Deep's annual program on the age old Assi Ghat facing the sacred Ganges River starts nearly on time. Let's not talk about ending on time, but starting... they're pretty good at that.

The sound was up, the kids were on stage, out of nowhere the dance guru was on the tabla (Indian drum) and we were starting. They opened the stage curtain (which is something that usually no outdoor performance in India has--an actual stage curtain)... so as I was saying... the stage curtain opened and there were our girls all in beautiful, bright, shining, colorful saris and flowers in their hair and the guru struck the tabla, the girls struck the stage floor with their bell-chiming feet and we were off.

It was one performance after another with hardly a breath in between. Each performance was neither too long, nor too short. One thing I like about the Asha Deep's annual day show is that they choose songs that make the audience's hips move... maybe a bit too much. Like, is it kosher for Radha (the cohort of Krishna) to move her "sexy body"? Hmm.

Since the first time I saw Asha Deep's annual day performance on Assi a couple year's ago, I recognized the brilliance of it. Usually, annual programs are within a school's walls, so that it is exclusively for school faculty, students and their hobnob.

However unlike these exclusive schools, Asha Deep's kids come from slums where their lives are constantly on display; so Asha Deep's program puts the kids back into their element, but this time not as poor kids on the street, but confident students in the coolest annual day show ever. This, I believe, was the brain child of Asha Deep's principal, Connie. These kids perform in front of hundreds of not only their family and friends, but tourists, ghat workers, their neighbors, foreigners, police, priests, etc. In front of everyone, they show what they can accomplish. And, it's impressive.

One of the small highlights for me was one of my classroom headaches--Suraj. Suraj is one of the most talkative students in school. He just can't stop talking. I suddenly got slotted to teach 8th grade English. (I'll talk more about it in another post.) Suraj is in 8th grade. Compared to the other students, Suraj's English isn't very good, so he's spewing out Hindi left and right during my "English" class.

I had to put my foot down with him. (OK, if you know me, putting my "foot down" actually means, like, not smiling or not letting the kids eat me for breakfast... maybe just nibble me for breakfast.) We did get through the lessons though.

After class I talked with Siddharth and the issue of Suraj came up. I mentioned that he's a bit of a handful. Siddharth chuckled a bit as if he was glad. I looked at him funny. He said, "You know, I let Suraj play around in class a bit when I teach. Suraj told me once that at home in the slum he has to manage the chow mein stall. At school he likes to play around because it's the only chance for him to act like a kid."

Ack! My heart hurt at that very moment.

It was Suraj's time to recite a poem on stage at the annual program. The hilarious and confident former students, Anil and Kaushal, announced the next act, calling Suraj "chow mein walla" (the chow mein man).

"Now Suraj will recite a poem," announced Anil.

"Suraj? The one who sells chow mein on the corner?" interjected Kaushal.

Suraj appeared from behind the curtain. Lights were on him. He recited a poem by Kaka Hathrasi. Here's my unofficial translation slathered with liberal-er than liberal poetic license:

Moving in a stopped train, eating choo-choo
Donation of rupees ten, a nice seat for you
Every stop this ritual offering to Lord Ticket T.
All hail, all praise to dishonesty!

Unemployment, starvation, inflation pours
Beaten, worn are these words, stop the noise
In this moment, what we need are people's blood and pleas
All hail, all praise to dishonesty!

The poem, of course, went on, but you get the idea. Since Suraj served every line with a side dish of sarcastic wit, the audience laughed after every stanza. Not too bad for a kid who serves Chinese food on the street.

Suraj on stage, reciting the poem

Suraj also played the "hero" of a play brilliantly put together by the vice principle, Siddharth. This skit was a topsy-turvy Bollywood drama where the "hero" and the "heroine's" roles were reversed. The girl "eve-teased" (cat called) the boy on the street. The mother of the girl went to meet the boy, asking him to walk around the room and show her his fingers and feet. (I thought this was an over-the-top gesture for the play, but according to my friend, yes, parents of the boy do at times ask the potential bride-to-be to show her hands and feet and walk around the room in real life!) The mother of the bride then demanded a dowry, later almost shutting down the wedding because the dowry wasn't enough. The girl arrived with her party of females dancing down the street to the boy's house.

As the wedding ceremony came to an end, the father of the boy told his son that he no longer belonged to his family; that the boy must not shame his home, but be faithful to the traditions. The boy then wailed, crying, telling his father that he would do what was necessary. The audience was already on the edge of their seats, chuckling and smiling from ear to ear. I noticed that mothers and women were particularly interested as they crowded forward, squatting down in the "blocked off" front area for a closer look. When the boy started crying, the whole audience burst out in laughter.

The boy ended up at the girl's house with his wife and mother-in-law constantly barking commands at him. In the end, it was Suraj on the floor with broom in hand, saying, "My life is now a living hell."

With all sincerity, Suraj then explained that this play was just for fun, but he asked the audience to imagine if it really was this way; and actually, how it is this way for many women in our society.

Not bad for a chow mein walla.

If there was one "mantra" of the night it was that Asha Deep School doesn't just teach kids how to be better students but how to be better people.

And this is the brilliance of the annual day show of Asha Deep.

It proves to their parents, neighbors, relatives and friends that these kids are not just poor, slum dwellers, but they do have a chance to be more.

And it shows the audience, that they themselves can be more, too.

Update: How to donate to Asha Deep in India, contact me to donate from the US or other countries


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A dip in the Ganges. Did I die? Eh.

Let me tell you a secret about the Sangam. When you bathe there, you're not really bathing in the Sangam. Well, that's what my friend told me anyway. But I didn't mind.

It was 2am. I stripped down. And took my place among the thousands.

Note: This is the first blog post with my actual photo in it. Read to the bottom.

2am. India. The last day of the Kumba Mela, the largest gathering of humanity.

Last weekend, my friends and I finally took that trip to the Sangam, where three holy rivers converge in India. OK, basically we're talking about two rivers (the Ganges and Yamuna), since the third is apparently mythical. So when my friend told me that the actual convergence area was blocked off to the public, I wasn't too disappointed, since the "three" rivers are basically conceptual, so goes the Sangam.

The rivers converge in the city of Allahabad; a three-hour train ride from Banaras. (General class, remember?) The plan was:

• Arrive in Allahabad at 9pm. 
• Sleep at a hotel. 
• Take a dip in the Sangam at 4am. 
• Tour the city during the day.
• Go home in the evening.
• Throw away this list.

Ha ha ha. Actually, the last thing wasn't part the plan, but it might as well have been, since we ended up not doing anything according to the plan.

First of all, we arrived closer to 11pm. Since special examinations were going on, and oh since it was Shivratri (huge Hindu festival for river dipping), and oh since we arrived closer to 11pm (did I already mention that?), everyone and their mother wanted to stay in Allahabad, filling every single hotel. We walked around and around until beyond midnight, looking for a place to stay. After eating at a hole in the wall, we plopped down by the side of the road, observing the other fine saps looking for hotel rooms. We watched as cycle rickshaw drivers would tell these poor souls that they'd find them a room, fully knowing that every hotel was booked. They'd get to a hotel and say, "Booked? What to do? Ten rupees for the ride."

No hotel? No problem. We went to the Sangam early. 2am. Beat the crowd.

Beat the crowd? Sure. If "beat the crowd" means being accompanied by thousands of people.

Us. Beating the crowd.

We took a shared tempo (think of an auto rickshaw on steroids) to the Sangam. OK, I mean the "Sangam," since the drop off is 2 kilometers away from the Sangam and, as I said, you don't actually go to the Sangam. So we took the 2K midnight walk-a-thon accompanied by the throngs from nearby villages: Cohorts of sari-clad women, deftly balancing duffle bags on their heads. Families with babies. Some of the seemingly oldest people in the world, barefoot, who started walking toward the Sangam since the day before. For them, this 2K was but a hop, skip and where are my dentures?. We passed by large screens, projecting the history of the Kumbh Mela and the achievements of the government.

Wide-eyed tourists and dizzy hippies would imagine the walk to be like a trail of peace and chanting with the scent of vanilla incense wafting in the air.

Sorry.

The whole area was highly policed. Since it was the last official day of the Kumbh Mela and millions had thronged to the area for the past two months, oh and no port-a-potties, you can imagine what at times was wafting in the air.

As we got closer to the Sangam, you could hear something over the sound system. What? Om Jai Jagadish? Or the Gayatri Mantra? Nope. It was the constant blare of announcements. A woman in a loud, desperate, hardly discernible voice, shouting, "Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Come to the tower!! Your child is here!! Anshu Tiwari's mother!! Anshu Tiw..."

I would have almost preferred a dozen tone-deaf old guys, chanting the Hanuman chalisa... I emphasize almost.

Ah, finally. The river and our Sangam uh... proxy.

I said in the first post of this blog that I would someday get to the Sangam and I would die. Conceptually, of course. What I really meant by that I would only discover when I got there. OK actually, I'm still trying to discover it, and hopefully I will find it by the end of this blog post. Trust me, I'll find it.

So there we were. Me and my two Brahmin friends—one fish-eating, one non-fish-eating. (More about that in another post.) On the train, the non-fish-eating one asked me, "So what is your wish? If you take a bath in the Sangam on Shivratri, you will definitely get what you wish for."

I looked at him thick with skepticism.

I was about to ask him, "So if I wish for a million girlfriends, will I get that? How about a million dollars?" But I didn't. And I was too tired to be clever, so I just said, "I just want peace for everyone."

He looked at me knowingly. "You're like that [Bollywood] film, 'Oh My God!' You don't believe you have to go to temples and rivers. You believe that God is everywhere. That's okay."

He knew me too well. However, these days I'm not always sure if God is everywhere. That's another thought bubble for later.

OK, this story is getting lengthy, and I haven't even touched the water.

We meandered through the crowd (which was apparently not the crowd since thousands more would be added by 4am). Two of us stripped down among the wet saris, broken flower petals, women singing folk songs and soggy old people. The government had laid down hay on the banks and layers of sandbags. Actually, it was sandbags all the way until the fenced off area in the middle of the river. We never touched the actual river bed, so the water was never higher than chest level. This was a good thing, since one of my friends (fish-eating) can't swim.

Our feet scrunched on hay as we approached the water. I carefully guided my bare feet around smoking sticks of incense, poking out of the muddy edges of the river. Massive wobbly women and the elderly grabbed at me, trying to balance their way up or down the banks.

And we were in.

I was greeted by floating flowers and coconuts. My friend threw a spiky piece of fruit at me. He immediately took twenty frantic dips into the river. We were at one end of the fenced in area so you could look toward the other end and see the whole crowd.

It was cold, but not as cold as I expected. I was not clean, but not as dirty as I expected. It was a place of worship, but also a place of water play. It was a river, and I swam in it.

Eventually, I changed places with my other friend, taking pictures from far off, while keeping watch over our stuff.

As I took photos, I noticed how happy and energetic at 2am my friends were. For my fish-eating friend, he hadn't dipped in a river like that since he was a kid. He made up for it, taking multiple dips in a row. After years of knowing him, it was the first time I noticed that he actually wears the sacred thread reserved for Brahmin boys.

I noticed the wide expanse of people on the river bank. Each small group figuring out how exactly to undress, worship, bathe, watch your stuff, dry off, change clothes, collect the holy water into containers without falling in, chant, sing, take photos on your mobile phone without the police thinking you’re just taking photos of the women, listen for important announcements over the loud speaker just in case your child is lost and you didn't notice, and sneak past the police (like we did) into the restricted VIP area closer to the real Sangam.

I’m glad we went at 2am. While it was still dark. Before an even bigger crowd entered. Before the naked sadhus (holy men), tourists and VIPs took over.  The people who came to dip in the Sangam at 2am were not there for the circus of the final day of the Kumbh Mela.

The people that went at 2am were like us. They came, did what they needed to do, and left on the next bus. Some came because of cultural obligations. Some came to help their mothers and grandmothers. And most came because they had a wish, and this was one way to make sure it came true.

And I guess what I’m realizing now is that a part of you needs to fully die to believe that any wish will come true. Perhaps a part of me is jealous of my friend who believes so much in wishes, even if they seem unlikely.

But really, the power of the Sangam, the Kumbh Mela, the Ganges is not that people’s wishes come true, but that somehow people all come to the same place and wish together.

Like the convergence of rivers, the power is in their combined journeys.  And for that expanse of time, everyone’s story is the same: I am here because I am incomplete.

And if only we could realize that what makes us complete—is not exactly the water or wishing or bathing but—has, in that very moment, converged everywhere around us.

3am. Me. At the convergence.

I'm hit by Banaras

It's my first day back in Varanasi and I've only been hit by a motorcycle once.

Well, first the disappointing news. We did not get to go to the Kumbh Mela in the morning. My friend's father had an accident, so we needed to rush to get to Varanasi.

Ah. My first day back in Varanasi, and my Master's friends and I keep saying, "It's like we never left."

Almost a year after our classes finished, now we have our convocation (i.e. graduation). Yeah, I do admit, it's like we're picking up right where we left off, except that some of us are skinnier and some are fatter... like me.

We picked up our robes for the next day's ceremony and went to see the Ganga River. On the way, I got hit by a motorcycle. No big deal.

Traffic is a re-shock. I couldn't remember which way side people drive, left or right. I kept forgetting which direction to look because my brain couldn't process which way the traffic was going, since vehicles were going either way on both sides of the traffic divide. In the end, I realized it didn't matter, just continually look both ways as you cross. It didn't do that one time, so I go hit. It was fine.

After "Ganga darshan" (seeing the Ganges), I had my first Banarasi (Varanasi) chai in a clay cup. My friend's father from Rajasthan asked, "Is there any dirt in this chai?" I explained, "Yes, uncle. That gives it the Banarasi taste."  Everyone laughed.

It was a long first day. My friend's father wanted to finish the day with real Banarasi "paan" (chew). See photo.

Time to time throughout the day, my friends would ask me, "Why are you so quiet? What are you thinking about?"

I would sigh and think, "I'm back."

To be born again... again, again

In a few short hours, I will be flying back to India.

It's not like I've never been there before, but this is the first time in over a decade that I've been away from India for so long. Almost a year away. To be honest, if you know India, then to be away for so long changes your language, culture, social mores and intestines in a way that shocks you when you return.

I am going to write about that shock. I am going to write about it despite getting too busy to write about it three days from now when making excuses as to why I will not be writing about it, because we aspiring bloggers habitually start and stop blogs mid-thought. But the thing is... I have started.

And the thing is... in two days I will be in the middle of the Ganges, in the middle where three rivers meet at one of the largest gatherings of humanity, the kumbh mela.

Will that be a shock?

As my friend says to me, "Leave it. Arrive and then it will all be clear."

As I said, I've been living in India for over a decade. I'm no newbie. I know that once I arrive that everything that made sense before will forever have a nonsensical edge to it. And when I enter that water, a part of me dies in the dipping.

And that is a good thing.