If you're reading this, perhaps you, too, are procrastinating

With the pace of my interviews slowing, I really need to be committing my thoughts to writing. So my goal for the coming week is to lay the story of each of my four areas of study out in words. But, as always when I am faced with writing, it is excruciatingly difficult to start doing it. It just requires so much concentration. You have to think really carefully about the sentence you are turning out while holding back the paralyzing sense of overload that will set in if you let yourself consider about how many caveats and layers and asides are going to need to be written and tied into this section in order to finally make your argument. Of course, as I write this from the air-conditioned comfort of Barista coffee shop, I can see a group of men squatting in the sun, using small hammers to split bricks into smaller pieces of rubble, and then tossing these aside so they can be mixed with cement in order to resurface some of the road outside. So I’m aware of how small these complaints are. And, yet, threatening myself with a life of brick-splitting is totally ineffective as a means to ending procrastination and inducing a start to writing my case studies. I mean, seriously, how could I be a brick splitter? I can’t even do a pull-up.

So I thought I would share some of what I’ve been doing to put off writing. I don’t flatter myself that this is that interesting, but it is all I have been doing lately. You’ll notice, first, how much I owe to the internet and, second, how field work is allowing me to spend more quality time thinking about American pop culture. I still don’t know the Hindi past tense but, by God, I know what’s new this year on FOX. You wouldn’t think somebody could become more provincial by moving to India, but the thought of a tired sit-com trying to pass Kelsey Grammer off as a ladies' man... well, it just feels like home.

Checking on Intra-India Airfares.
Time successfully diverted from writing case studies: 15 minutes.
Tangible benefits: Some. I am planning to leave for Meghalaya—one of my little areas that wanted to be a state—next week, and I do need to take a plane there. But I was ultimately too confused by the website to buy a ticket, so the benefits cannot be called high. Does anyone know what a “check” fare is? It is an economy class seat, but I am wary of ordering it in case it means something like “once you get to the airport, we’ll check if we have a seat available.”

Re-doing my website, www.stanford.edu/~blacina.
Time diverted: 10 hours.
Tangible benefits: Highly questionable. I was foiled in my idea for using my pictures as more creative design elements, and proved too lazy to try to add a discussion of my dissertation to the site, and thus it was not much improved. Also, this was a complete non-priority, as I don’t use my professional website in any professional way, except for when I can’t find my CV on my hard drive and so I download it instead.

Figuring out commute times between Stanford and San Francisco on public transportation.
Time diverted: 45 minutes.
Tangible benefits: None. I have done this at least half-a-dozen times now. Yet it is like I keep compulsively looking for some wormhole that will allow me to both live in San Francisco and make it to Stanford without sacrificing two to three hours per day. When I get bored of looking for places where the Caltrain takes advantage of rips in the space-time continuum, I sometimes switch to looking for a smart phone or ultra-portable laptop that would allow me to use my commute time to great effect. These can be pricey, though, so perhaps I will look into whether the North Koreans are selling any warp cores.

Listening to the Books on CD that I copied from the Menlo Park public library before I left.
Time diverted: Many, many hours.
Tangible benefits: High enough to ward off guilt. My current book-on-CD is on listening to and understanding opera, which I think will be good for me because I enjoy operas but my mind often wanders during them. Example: last year, my sister Merideth and I took this special trip to go see the LA Opera and I fell asleep during Tannhauser. But, in my defence, that was by Wagner, so whole civilizations had risen and crumbled back into dust in the time it took for the opera to finish.

Searching internet to determine what kind of bird the Road Runner, nemesis of Wile E. Coyote, is supposed to represent.
Time diverted: 5 minutes.
Tangible benefits: Nil. The answer, to save you the trouble, is that there is actually a bird called a "roadrunner" (Geococcyx californianus and, also, it's smaller cousin the Geococcyx volex) and it really does live in deserts. And can run at speeds of up to 15 miles per hour or more!

Reading all available blog commentary on latest episode of Top Chef: Season 3, which determined the finalists who will travel to Aspen thanks to the Glad family of products.
Time diverted: 3 hours.
Tangible benefits: Low. I know no other Top Chef fans here to spend time debating the show with. And I suspect my heart will be crushed by the eventual loss of chef-testant Casey and a resultant third-straight male Top Chef. On the other hand, I learned what sous vide means. If I ever cook something sous vide, then I can upgrade these “Tangible Benefits” to medium.

Eating Doritos, which are miraculously every bit as delicious in their Indian guise as they are when made in the United States.
Time diverted: None, really. I surfed the internet while eating them, so there was no additional loss of time due to the Doritos, except maybe the moments it took to open the bag.
Tangible benefits: Negative. My arteries were making small, unheeded cries of distress with every chip, and my fingers turned to that characteristic orange.

Looking through the Neiman Marcus website for a suit that I can buy, bring back to Delhi, and have an Indian tailor copy in several other colors and weights of fabric, turning me into a well-dressed professional for decades to come.
Time diverted: 4 hours.
Tangible benefits: Possible, if I actually go through with the suit-making plan and I am happy with the results and I get a job outside of Californiawhere suit-wearing will be required. Also, the website allows you to browse by fashion designer in a pretty efficient way and that was kind of fun. And it increased my enthusiasm for the upcoming season of Project Runway.

Cleaning Albert.
Time diverted: 10 minutes.
Tangible benefits: High for me. I think his fur looks much whiter now. Very low for him—I don’t think he enjoyed the vigorous toweling off that is so important after you moisten a stuffed animal, so that you don’t want to ruin the nice, plush feel of the fur.

Signing up for Stanford Commute Club.
Time diverted: 10 minutes.
Tangible benefits: ~$250! However, I am wondering if it is unethical to claim the benefits this year. I checked most of the boxes without compulsion (Registered student? Yes. Will not have a parking permit? Yes.), but wasn’t sure about the “will commute to Stanford” box. How often do I have to commute to make it okay to take the university’s money? I mean, I’ll be on campus a couple of times this year. Then again, if people don’t sign up for the program, the University might cancel it, thinking that the incentive to not drive to campus isn’t working. And that would be bad. So I’m really just doing my part, right?

It is only with a serious investment in procrastination that one can come up with thin rationalizations like that.

Fool me twice...

You will not believe this: it happened AGAIN!

I can accept that anyone could interview the wrong person once. Probably even Barbara Walters has made this mistake at some point. But to do it twice. In the same week???? What in the name of all that is good is the matter with me????

I can hardly bear to go into this, but the gist is that there is a think tank in Delhi, with a gentleman on staff whom I would like to speak with. Retired general, used to work in some of the places I’m researching, terribly germane to my topic. But, unbeknownst to me prior to this afternoon, this think tank also enjoys the affiliation of an economist, whose name differs from that of the ex-serviceman in question only in that the vowel in the economist’s last name is “ai” and the vowel in the good soldier’s last name is “ay.”

You see where this is going? Not so long ago, I called up the think tank, asked the secretary to connect me to Mr. “ay”, went through my song and dance about wanting to meet up, set an appointment, and congratulated myself on another interview landed, not realizing I had been connected to Mr. “ai.” Granted, there were clues. I could have said “General” instead of “Mister” and perhaps that would have clarified things for the secretary—but I wasn’t sure if ex-generals still use that title. (Am trying to think of references to Colin Powell and am unable to pinpoint whether “General” is used.) I should have been tipped off by the jolly “I’m more of an economist myself, but I’ll be happy to talk to you.” I just sort of figured the good general had development issues nearest to his heart. I mean, he was never a politician, so maybe that was what he meant, right?

Fortunately, I figured this gaff out before the interview began—I saw the name on the door, felt my tummy travel to my toes, blinked several times, and then realized what had happened. And, again by the grace of the universe, Mr. “ai” has some regional economic interests, so there was the thinnest layer of plausibility about me seeking out his advice. And he happily recommended multiple works on federalism I might peruse. We both could have used the thirty minutes in a more productive fashion, but no serious harm was done.

Except to my confidence as a field worker. I don’t know if I am unfit for interactions with real people, or unfit to schedule my own time, or pathologically bad with names, or what. Realistically, I know I am a bit careless about names/dates/places/details in general. (I blame my high school history teacher, who taught me for 3 straight years and was very into learning concepts instead of facts. Damn holistic education.) But, right now, instead of being full of resolve to improve myself in this respect, I just feel ridiculous.

I think in all my future accidental interviews I will try to take more detailed notes. Then maybe by the time I’m done I’ll have enough for a whole parallel dissertation about “people whose names are quite similar to the names of people who are important to the study of Indian federalism.” Kind of a linguistics/anthropology hybrid study.

Off to drown my sorrows in bottled water…

Not what I meant to do

I just set my new personal low for stunningly botched fieldwork. I am still, frankly, reeling.

As you know, I’ve been interviewing members of the Indian parliament lately. This has been going pretty well and has had the nice side-effect of quadrupling my consumption of very sweet and milky tea and various sorts of biscuits. In fact, I was considering myself practically a Girl Friday as of a few days ago. The interviews are fairly formal and they usually cannot be too long—one to one-and-a-half hours. And I try to write fairly narrow questions about specific junctures in the person’s life because I’ve found my “big think” queries don’t really go anywhere. And I’m mostly just hoping the respondent will drop one or two political factoids that will be helpful to me as they give me what is otherwise a fairly well-rehearsed line. (I will mention that it is entirely by design that I am doing rather cerebral interviews with not-particularly-representative Indians, as opposed to, say, trying to go into the Indian countryside to get an accurate sense of the life of the man on the street. The notion that I could possibly do the latter has always seemed ridiculous to me. Let’s face it: I am the sort of person who knows the names of many kinds of cheese and no professional basketball players. In short, I’m not even good at understanding real life in my own society, how would I understand it in India?)

I have, of course, wondered how honest my respondents are being. I definitely wonder if the people who seem sincere are merely the most accomplished liars, and I have similar questions about the respondents who seem dim or persistently confused in their facts. It is particularly difficult to square the people I interview with the rather nasty deeds ascribed to Indian politicians in general and/or to the respondent in particular. And questions in that vein are hard to phrase in a delicate manner: “so, tell me about the time you broke with your coalition partners and restarted a civil war…” or “How’d you get so good at bombing trains?”

My interview today, for example, raised just such a delicate issue, in this case because the politician I was going to talk to—let’s call him Mr. Morgan Thomas Mitchell from constituency X (Stanford Human Subjects would be so pleased with me)—had both his legs blown off when an insurgent group he once had ties to tried to assassinate him. I prepared for this interview earlier this week because I thought I was going to get in to see him on Wednesday. But when I got there I instead spoke to a secretary who found out what I was doing and then told me to go to the MP’s residence on Sunday. This actually put me in a pretty good mood, because if this Mr. Mitchell was important enough to have a secretary who screened his appointments (unlike the usual MP taking his own calls), well, who knows what fascinating political facts he’d have for me?

Interview day arrived, and I made my way to the house maintained by Mr. Mitchell’s state to be used as a residence for politicians and official guests. Let me note that part of the reason the corruption of my respondents is always a little hard to gauge is that they live in pretty modest circumstances. I mean, again with the upholstery ecosystem that could, at any moment, support the emergence of vertebrates. The whole place, like so many buildings in India, somehow managed to look simultaneously like it is still under-construction and falling apart from old age, and had the eerie-bombed out feeling of, well, a place where there are no signs of life other than men who are either repaving or destroying the driveway and a group of people who do not seem to have anything in particular to do except sit on the very dirty couches, waiting for the power to come back on so that the single fan will begin to make the dust stir again.

The same secretary I had seen on Wednesday showed me to a somewhat nicer room and sat down to take a phone call. I assured him that I knew I was a bit early and that I was happy to wait, and I pulled out my newspaper. Then the secretary said, “Well, shall we start?” And I wonder to myself, “Is he going to do the interview for the MP? Is he the MP? And, how can that be? He is most clearly not a double amputee. Is it possible that this is some kind of a con job, that I’ve been lured into an interview with an impostor? And who would try to impersonate someone in a wheelchair without attending to that small detail?” (Keep in mind, constituency X is in one of the scarier places I study and perhaps this is all some kidnapping set-up). I was, in short, totally flustered. In the best case scenario, where this guy is the MP, I have, first of all, been talking about “Mr. Mitchell” consistently over two meetings now, so it’s not like he won’t know I was mixed up and, second, I know nothing about this man. The guy I prepared to interview was not only legless, the political career that led his opponents to hire his estranged rebel supporters to attempt to blow him into his next incarnation was pretty distinctive—even in a pretty violent place like India. And, given my chosen interview style, I do not really have any all-purpose questions prepared. But, then again, I’m not completely sure that this man isn’t Mr. Mitchell because, after all, maybe the reports of the extent of the damage to his limbs were exaggerated or maybe I’d somehow become mixed up about that detail. In short, I had nothing.

The interview never really recovered. After an excruciating hour or so, I stumbled back through the Sarajevo-by-way-of-Haiti state house, and into the Delhi sunlight. I rode home in a daze, wondering with almost an idle curiosity what had just happened.

I am sure that someday I will find this hilarious, but the answer to the question turns out to be that there are two high-profile Parliamentarians in constituency X with rather similar names. One is Morgan Thomas Mitchell and the other is Thomas Morgan Mitchell. In fact, they are in the same political party. And, naturally, in newspaper articles there are often references to Mr. Mitchell, the honorable member from X, and it can be a bit hazy who the referent is. And, well, Mr. Thomas Morgan Mitchell is, it seems, still in his home state recovering from the rather nasty attempt on his life, while Mr. Morgan Thomas Mitchell and I just enjoyed some sweet tea, Ritz crackers, and not terribly high-quality discussion of Indian federalism.

Whoops.

Another day in India, another notice from my bank that my account is going to be frozen...

Perhaps I should not have relied so heavily on the globalization of financial markets. But, on balance, I think it is still probably easier to periodically have no money in India than to open a bank account here. It's what the locals do, anyhow.

I have started my interviewing of Indian MPs. This is surprisingly easy to schedule because MPs all have not only their home phone numbers but their mobile phone numbers on the Parliamentary website. Second, they mostly answer their own phone, and always their mobile. Third, their secretaries are happy to give you other numbers you might try—say, if they are out of town—even before you have done your whole “bright young thing from Stanford” talk. Fourth, although they do go to legislative sessions, time constraints still seem largely soft. I get a lot of “Okay, do you want to come over now?” To which the answer is, “Well, no. You see, I was actually making this call not only unshowered and still in my pajamas but without having finished an interview script because I thought I would be begging your secretary for a date three weeks from now.” I don’t know whether to admire the accessibility of India’s political class, thank the dissertation gods, or to just ask the guy on the other end of the line “isn’t there something else you could be doing right now?”

When I’m not pursuing that, I’m still going to the National Archives. Next week, though, I’m going to try to get into the Parliamentary Library because I have about finished with what is really useful here. I only hope the library staff spends more time at the office than the MPs do.

…

Of the many dualisms India presents, one of the most interesting to me is the middle class’s enthusiasm for both imported technologies and a revivalist Indian folklore. The first is the kind of gung-ho materialism mixed with enthusiasm for scientific innovation that I associate with 1950s America. It’s the desire for home appliances, SUVs, slimming programs, and nuclear weapons. It is the enormous popularity of coffee shops despite the fact that most Indians—raised, as they are, on chai sweeter than liquefied CareBears—appear to dislike coffee and so almost the whole menu of such a café has to be devoted to ice cream drinks (YUM!). Yet all of that exists in parallel with an anxiety that local culture is being diluted and a resultant maudlin nostalgia for a potpourri of Hindu folkways. It has a certain vapid quality, incorporating only what is most convenient from the past, but no more so the chubby Pilgrim & Indian decorations of Thanksgiving.

Exhibit 1: Indian QVC has a special program devoted to the sale of household gods and goddesses (“This exquisite, individually numbered bronze Kali can be yours for not Rs. 2500, not Rs. 2000 but Rs. 1449. Now, we only have a few left…”) but, to avoid blasphemy, a very reputable-looking guru opens and closes each episode with a blessing, and makes short, edifying explanations of the spiritual import of the various items for sale. I should admit that by reputable-looking I mean old, with a long beard, and a yellowish-orange dot of something on his forehead. Whatever, I’m not a religious studies scholar.

Exhibit 2: Last week was Little Lord Krishna’s birthday and, to celebrate, a new cartoon about his childhood adventures was aired, in which he looked remarkably like a bright blue addition to the animated Gummi Bears clan. I have no idea if he had unusual powers of bouncing. I suspect not, as I seem to remember that the gummy berries so essential to bouncing elixir grew in deciduous forests.

Exhibit 3: This week I had a RiteBite Smart nutrition bar, which not only has PowerBar-esque packaging, it contains Shankhpushpi (“Over the centuries, this herb found in the northern plains of India is believed to help improve memory.” Though, since I’ll be lucky to live one century I’m not quite sure Shankhpushpi is going to work for me.); Brahmi, an herb to improve the intellect; and Ashvagandha, a root extract that will increase one’s sense of well-being. Makes that Vitamin Water you’re drinking seem pretty lame-o, doesn’t it?

Correction: I unfairly maligned Bank of America and I apologize. My latest email was a fake, I learned when I called in. Not only was Bank of America not trying to cut me off, this is evidence that their concern was, in fact, warranted.
I think there is a dissertation to be written about how Nigeria can possibly be so poor when the country has such a verifiably an enterprising people.

"Political Science and Beyond!"

My post this week is from the Department of Unexcusable Self-Pity. Because (a) my tummy hurts and (b) all my political science friends are at APSA this weekend and I’m stuck here in stupid ol’ India.

For the uninitiated, APSA is the American Political Science Association and when I say “at” APSA, it isn’t that everyone is on a tour of some august institution where the Association has, for example, a museum of famous political scientists through the ages. (Which is not to say such a thing shouldn’t exist, complete with gift shop. Imagine a Sam Huntington plush doll! It could even make inflammatory racial claims, totally uninformed by empirical investigation, when you pressed its belly!) No, what I mean to say is that all my political science friends are at the Annual Meeting of APSA, being held this year in Chicago.

Surely you can see the delights this affords? The aggregated awkwardness of hundreds of people who, out of all the options afforded by their greater than average intelligence, thought long and hard about where they would be most likely to succeed and chose the one career path upon which social skills have no bearing whatsoever.

The Meeting is also titled—and I wish I were making this up—“Political Science and Beyond.” Now, setting aside that the cultural reference this brings most strongly to mind is the catchphrase from a children’s film about talking action figurines, exactly what does “beyond” refer to? I mean, political science is not the most readily-applied degree. What beyond political science are we qualified to do? Is APSA going to expand into selling face cream? From now on, will they publish Perspectives on Politics and 1001 Gardening tips for faculty housing?

Examining the meeting statement, however, I see that “beyond” refers to the conveners’ aim “to embrace the extraordinary potential of linking political scientists with researchers, teachers, and scholars from other disciplines.” If they have specific examples in mind they are not letting on. The meeting statement refers only to the “cognate disciplines” which—seeing as how we are a “social science”—must mean anything informing us about “societies” or “science.” Which is, hmmm, let’s see, everything. That IS extraordinary potential!

One hypothesis is that the meeting theme has no significance whatsoever - the theme has to cover everything in political science, so it always ends up being vague. A second hypothesis is that the theme might be code for “Sure, what you do doesn’t really look like what I think political science is, but I'm still totally interested in [insert academic discipline].” Because, in the past, there was a lot of ink and maybe even a little blood spilled over what disciplines political science should emulate.

The back story, briefly: Fifteen or so years ago [correction: about 7 years ago. NB - correction strengthens plausibility of hypothesis] , a group of political scientists dubbed themselves the “Perestroikans” and attempted to split/take-over APSA in order to resist what was then a trend toward a style of political science more closely aligned with economics and psychology than with anthropology and cultural studies. A cause which, obviously, was of a moral and historical significance such that it could only be compared to the dismantling of the most extensive police state humanity has ever known.

Perestroikans—for reasons that mostly have to do with the kind of tenure battles that form the background of such happy tales as To the Lighthouse and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?—largely lost. But this was no Tienanmen Square-style repression of such brutal force as to banish the movement from view. Rather, this was the tenuous and blundering occupation of Tibet, plagued with continued guerrilla violence. Thus, APSA, like a well-meaning and perhaps naive team of Norwegian peacemakers, watches uneasily over its oft-quarrelsome flock, appealing to mutual tolerance.

And to think that, budding conflict scholar which I claim to be, I am not there to gather data!

Further notes of correction: Perestroika began with an anonymous email circulated in 2000 (By the way, the phrase "FAILED Africanist" is a reference to my advisor) & its history is described here & here.
Perestroikans also self-style their movement "Glasnost," again revealing an admirable ability to give a detached assessment of the scope and import of the issue at hand, and have a sister movement with the even more tasteless name "Post-Autistic Economics."

Truly, hell hath no fury like an academic scorned by the more visible journals in his discipline.

Note on the Admittedly Less Exotic Local Fauna: Rakhi, the Indian festival of brothers and sisters, was August 28^th. The gist is that a sister ties a red piece of thread around her brother’s wrist, and then he gives her a present. Perhaps, for example, the gift of happiness, the gift of an i-Pod. (See picture)

The odd role of rakhi is that young women will “tie rakhi” on young men they think of as brothers in addition to their biological male siblings—the obvious candidates for this being cousins. But once a girl has tied rakhi on a guy, the incest taboo is sort of extended to that relationship. So, it can be a way to discourage a suitor – make him a brother and suddenly he has to defend your honor instead of continuing his attempts to sully it. There is even a TV show about it. It’s called something like Rakhi Sahib and the main character is the sort of typical “nice guy” who always ends up being the shoulder his female friends cry on instead of the one they date. Except, in this case, his crushes always tie the Rakhi on him.

Note on Life Imitating Art: Major R.A.M. Major was the last Political Officer to His Majesty’s Government in India to serve in Khasi State. But, obviously, his true accomplishment was to have the startlingly silly name “Major Major,” a la Catch-22.