Also, I think my book of Sudoko puzzles is a give away

Hello from Siliguri! Crossroads of Northeast India and jumping-off point for Darjeeling, if they ever stop with their strikes

I’m going to write more about this town in a future post. It is a challenging place to describe. But I wanted to mention something super exciting: BOTH of my first two contacts here mentioned that I might be put under surveillance by the government while I am here!! Because this is a border area and the strikes are still on in Darjeeling (north of here) and they try to keep tabs on all foreigners in the area. Plus, it wouldn’t be too hard to follow me – I am the only white person in town, my residence is registered at the police station, and rickshaws trail me on the street as it is, hoping I’ll change my mind about walking.

Still, I believe that when certain facts inevitably come to public view, they will give me away as someone who is definitely not an international woman of mystery.
1. I have a really lame phone. Seriously, the Vodaphone guys were shocked by it – they didn’t say this to me directly but I know “purana” means “old” in Hindi.
2. I’ve been reading the Bourne Identity. I figure real cloak-and-dagger types probably get annoyed by all the inaccuracies in popular culture depictions of deep cover operations.
3. I checked my luggage on the flight here. Not conducive to quick get-aways.
4. I have a blog.

In limbo

Harrumph! I'm stuck in Kolkata, again. Last fall I got stuck here for a day when I missed my flight because of general strikes against the West Bengal government (http://tinyurl.com/2rrnph); a week or so ago I had an unplanned two-day reprieve from research when the West Bengal government called a general strike against the central government and then the opposition called an "us too" general strike against the central government for the following day (http://tinyurl.com/5aavry); and now I'm stuck here because I missed my flight to Darjeeling. Because the Darjeeling-statehood party called a general strike and asked all tourists to evacuate, then relaxed their stance a bit, at which point the anti-Darjeeling-statehood party called a counter-strike (http://tiny.cc/ODl92).

I feel West Bengal is like a little bit of Latin America in India. Full of anachronistic leftism, overzealous civil disobedience, and totally loony, paranoid anti-Americanism. (I don't mind anti-Americanism, as long as it isn't too UFOs-and-second-gunman-esque. Saturday's interview was all about the Darjeeling agitation is a US plot meant to destroy the otherwise vibrant Indian communist movement and slow the global revolution of the proletariat. I think my Indian Idol theory is better).

The increased urgency of the Darjeeling statehood movement over these past few weeks is generally good for my dissertation -- more to observe. And I really appreciate that everyone here is working hard to make my topic policy-relevant. But it raises problems for me when they get over-enthusiastic and limit my ability to do my research. The general strike is not -- I don't think -- all that dangerous. But, while it's still being strictly observed, it isn't possible to rent a room in Darjeeling, move around, get food, etc. And, the reporters I've been conferring with me tell me, political leaders are keeping a low profile and won't give interviews during the strike.

Actually, that is something I didn't realize: the political parties are technically supposed to be inactive during general strikes, too. If a political party uses cars or keeps its office open during their own general strike, an accusatory article appears in the paper. This is surprising to me because, in my mind, (a) general strikes are inherently political - the one thing they are definitely not is a day off from politics and (b) general strikes are supposed to pressure the government by causing economic losses and inconveniences. But since political parties don't make anything or facilitate anything, what's so intimidating about them not working? The opposition strikes fear into the heart of the government by taking a day off?

The rest of India thinks Bengalis are lazy. I think they've probably just been enervated by sixty years of excessive general strikes.

Hello? Hello?

I have often wondered why I decided I would do fieldwork, knowing that I don’t particularly like talking to strangers. But, now that I’m in West Bengal, trying to interview people in a place where I don’t have many contacts, I am realizing that there is an aspect to fieldwork I dislike even more than talking to strangers: talking to people on the phone.

My best college friend, Michelle from LA, could tell you about how little I like the phone. About how, when we were in college, I would go weeks without checking my voicemail. And about how I still sometimes do that. And about my tendency to not return calls for a long time even after I listen to my messages. And how my phone goes unanswered a suspiciously large percentage of the time. Large enough that, if you didn’t know me, you might start to suspect I was sitting by the phone and letting calls go to voicemail, just because I didn’t want to use the phone. But, since Michelle does know me, she is certain that is what I’m doing.

Now, I’m stuck here making tens of phone calls per day trying to get interviews. I just hate it.

First, there are all kinds of technical oddities with Indian phones—I can’t possibly get into it here, seeing as how the capacity of the internet is finite, but in India you have to dial the numbers differently for cell phones, land lines, long distance land lines, and long distance cell phones. And it has taken ages to master that. And, for whatever reasons, even properly dialed calls get dropped about 25% of the time.

Oh, also, West Bengal has no government phone directly. Full stop. There literally isn’t one, in print or online. In fact, the government of West Bengal website does not list even a single phone number. And, also, so far as I can tell, if you do call the West Bengal seat of government, there is no operator to help you if you don’t know somebody’s extension. The one time I’d like to speak to a person!

When I finally get someone on the line… Well, the next thing I hate is that nobody identifies their office when they pick up the phone. As in “Hello, this is the office of Mr. Singh.” Instead, they just say “Hello” or “Namaskar” or sometimes just “Ji?”—which is a polite form of “yes?” but still seems terribly abrupt to me. I mostly have the rhythm of asking whether I am speaking to such and such an office down, but initially it really threw me. And it is still bad when I’m being transferred. As in:

Me: “May I speak to Mr. Singh?”

Unidentified Voice #1: “Just a moment”

Unidentified Voice #2: “Hello?”

Now, at this point: how am I supposed to know if I’m speaking to Mr. Singh’s secretary or to the man himself? Because, it has gone both ways on me. Which means I’ve talked to secretaries and inappropriately used the second person and to politicians and inappropriately used the third person. I wouldn’t be quite as self-conscious about this were it not for the low quality phone connections. Which mean that when I get someone on the line I antagonize them for the first minute by shouting back and forth about whether we can hear each other. And then I antagonize them by not really having any idea who I’m speaking to. And I go on to antagonize them by not being able to understand about 40% of what they are saying. It doesn’t make me feel confident about asking for favors.

I get two kinds of “no’s” and I’m not sure which one I dislike more. People who have actually said “no” have been, frankly, kind of mean about it. I particularly dislike when someone posts their direct number online and then has this whole “how dare you waste my time?” attitude when I call that number. Because, listen buddy: I know you’re important. I don’t expect you to take your own phone calls. But how am I supposed to know that you’re using some perverse logic wherein your listed numbers are the ones you don’t want people to call?

The other kind of “no” is the handle-my-call-like-a-hot-potato between assistants. With transferring and retransferring, and “why don’t you call back” at this time or on this date. And I don’t really expect people to call me when they say they will, although I can’t help being a little hopeful when they give an actual time and date when they are going to call. Why do people have to embellish when they blow me off? It’s just mean.

What is totally mysterious to me, though, is trying to figure out when “yes” means “no”. In particular, the people who promise to get me meetings with or phone numbers of important people and then disappear. I think it is pretty common to have someone make a promise he does not intend to keep in order to avoid saying “no.” But why would you promise things above and beyond what I even requested? I guess it is about wanting to appear cool. Like telling the other 10^th graders that you have a girlfriend from summer camp...

Which reminds me: once, when I was in 6^th grade, I hung up the phone on someone who had called to ask if I wanted to go out with his friend, Carson. I thought it was a prank and they were making fun of me. It was only in the last few years that it occurred to me that they might have been serious and that, in that case, I may have been a wee bit harsh in my rejection. I believe that my current troubles probably relate to the bad karma I accrued from that early phone misadventure.

When I get back, I think I will get a Blackberry. Then I can enjoy the illusion that I don’t own a phone at all. Evil, evil machines.

The new baby!

I have a nephew! Nathan Robert Thornburg was born June 4. His pictures are up at:

www.thethornfield.blogspot.com

Hurray!