Monday 4th December 2006: Udaipur

Sumita has struck again. I was an idiot to assume that by the end of today’s meeting I would be happily fixed up with a new project. I should have foreseen that Ms Ahuja would invoke procedure and protocol and all the other dark arts to impede my progress. She greeted me this afternoon with a frown of puzzled half-recognition, as if I reminded her of someone she might have sacked once. A few sparse preliminaries later, she got down to business: there is no obvious new project for me to move on to and she will need to speak to the various department heads.
   “What about NRD?” I asked. “Dilip said there might be another microplan to do.”
  “Dilip is just one person,” she said, a little redundantly. “It is not considered suitable for you to take on another microplan.”
   “Is that what the people in NRD say?”
   “I can’t really...”
She tailed off unapologetically, and there was an awkward pause while my mind ran through the implications of what she had said. Had I been ditched by the NRD department? Was it Dilip who was behind this?
   “I could be magnanimous and give you a project to fill your time, but that wouldn’t be fair on the department managing the project.”
   “No, I understand that.”
  “You’ve been here three months anyway. Do you really want to stay on? You’ve completed one project. Wouldn’t you prefer to leave now?”
   “I’d like to stay.”
My voice sounded funny as my whole body tensed at the realisation that Sumita might be on the verge of ejecting me from Vikas Samiti.
   “In that case you can write a list of your skills.”
   “OK,” I exhaled with relief.
  “In general European volunteers can best make a contribution with their writing skills. I have gone through your microplan report and it is decent.”
    A compliment, from Sumita!
   “What about fieldwork?” I asked.
  “Without relevant skills and a good knowledge of Hindi, volunteers can be an encumbrance rather than an asset. But I’ve heard you speak Hindi and it’s quite decent actually.”
  I am not one of those people who have a great deal of respect for teachers or managers who withhold compliments except in extreme circumstances, but I felt an involuntary warm glow after Sumita’s second use of the word “decent”. Something tells me that this is the nicest thing I will ever hear from her. Moreover, she has a point. My limitations in Hindi and my lack of technical experience were both hindrances to my progress in the Maal project. Her request for a list of skills has set me off on a mild bout of soul-searching as to what my skills, the relevant ones at least, actually are. Yes, I am intelligent, enthusiastic, a quick learner, good with people, good at languages (up to a point) but where is the real meat here? I am not a medic or an engineer or an agricultural specialist. Until today I thought I had something to offer Vikas Samiti; now I’m not so sure.
  In any case our meeting concluded unsatisfactorily, with Sumita re-iterating her need to talk to the department heads before anything could get underway. When I asked her politely how long she expected this process to take, she scowled and muttered something testily about the “next day or two”.

*

Prior to all of this, I had a very interesting morning. After the concert the other night I spoke briefly to Dr Nirmal Khandelwal and he told me to come and visit the university music department. Having no work to do I went there this morning, getting a tempo out to Delhi gate, and then travelling a long way east over the river (yes! Udaipur has a river, the Ahar or Ayad, a fairly unprepossessing splash-of-water-over-the-rocks affair that has not had a mention yet chiefly because I’ve barely seen it) to the large and impressive campus of Mohanlal Sukhadia University. With little difficulty I located the music department, which occupies only two rooms – a medium-size teaching room and small office belonging to Dr Khandelwal. Classical music does not seem to be a popular subject, with a current grand total of ten students, barely outnumbering the teachers.
  After waiting for a while in the main room, listening to one of the teachers sing to a tabla accompaniment, I went to Dr Khandelwal’s tiny office. Away from the glamour of the concert stage he seemed to be more lumbering and less impressive, although there was a constant stream of students and staff coming in to talk to him, all of whom immediately made to touch his feet, whereupon he waved their deference aside with an indulgent “Bas bas bas” (enough, enough) [14]. A servant came in with chai which we drank as we discussed the possibility of my taking some singing lessons. He started giving me directions to his house, slowly drawing a detailed map which he explained in formal tones: “You will follow this road until you come a bridge, after which you will proceed along the same road until…” For one giddy moment I thought he was volunteering to teach me himself, until he shattered this dream by saying “My daughter takes classes for beginners.” Still, it will be a great entry into the Khandelwal household and I am extremely happy to have located the throbbing heart of Udaipur musical society. He also insisted on showing me vast numbers of pictures from the last “Udaipur Music Lovers’ Association” concert, where all the great and good of Udaipur society – a former mayor, various businessmen and endless orthopaedic surgeons and dentists – stood up and entertained the assembled illustrious company with light music. Yesterday, apparently, Dr Nirmal Khandelwal had to sing for three hours at a high-powered fertiliser conference. This, then, is where classical music is to be found in India today – background entertainment for the agrochemical fraternity! Nevertheless, Dr Khandelwal has promised to e-mail me about future concerts and happily there is a vocal performance tomorrow night that I shall certainly go to!

 Footnotes:

[14] Bas bas bas immediately became a catchphrase back among the volunteers, and in particular it gave Ellen and me no end of amusement.


Next Post - Tuesday 5th December 2006: Udaipur (will be posted Monday 5th December 2011)