William Kanner ’00 was awarded a one-year post baccalaureate fellowship by the Fulbright Commission to complete a research project entitled “The Biophysics of DNA and Proteins” at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. He recounts one of the aspects of Kolkata life that fascinated him the most:

My favorite activity in Kolkata was to ride those massive, intimidating, crowded, and dangerous buses. Why did I love risking my life to ride the bus to work? The buses were king of the road there. No rickshaw, pedestrian, bicyclist, or taxi would dare get in the way of a bus. If I could figure out where the bus was going, I would get to my destination not only rapidly, but safely, since nothing competes with the buses. Jumping on the bus was itself an experience. Rarely do the buses stop. I usually found myself running alongside, shouting where I wanted to go, waiting for the ticket man to nod, and then grabbing the bars to pull myself on. After getting in, I loved hearing the familiar shout of the ticket men (wallahs) when they wanted to signal the driver to move on. At times the wallahs wouldn’t yell, but would bang on the side of the bus or smack some panel in the bus. Other times, they would ring a bell using a crude, but useful, contraption. I normally would just recover from entering the bus only to find the passengers staring at me. The looks would usually be of amazement that someone like me had dared to forgo the comforts that the dollar brought, and would rather travel the local way. Or, the looks would be of amazement that I even understood the complicated bus system (I never did, nor did anyone really). It was for those feelings that I loved the bus trip. For a brief moment, I would feel a part of the culture. The bus ride itself--well--rarely would I ever have a chance to sit, so it was a matter of holding on to something, anything, as the bus weaved through the streets. Street lanes don’t exist, so one can imagine how exciting that would make the drive. There would be brief periods of calmness in the traffic, however, and during those periods I would take notice of the intricate decorations inside the bus. There were normally garlands; pictures and paintings of gurus and gods; Bengali, Hindi, and English writings; old wood floors and seats; incense holders; and amusing lighting systems used after dark and when the bus would stop. And when the bus stopped (ha!), and I jumped off, I would always feel enthused to go on with my day. One time, I looked back to see the wallah smiling at me. When he bent his head slightly to the side (a common action of approval in India), I felt a sense of accomplishment.

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Kyrgyzstan Diary

by Roshni Nirodi ’00

Roshni Nirodi ’00 was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to travel and study the sustainability of nomadic cultures in the 21st century. Her travels took her to Mexico, Ireland, Nepal, Thailand, Burma, China, and Kyrgyzstan.

My watch beeps twice in the dim light, and everyone looks up in surprise. It is seven o'clock, but I am the only one who cares about that sort of thing. Alandin and his wife, Mergop, still have not gotten over my beeping wristwatch. When I first arrived in the village, I tried to explain why I wore the funny looking thing, but only the twins had taken an interest. They spent that entire day pressing the Indiglo button, the illuminated numbers sending them into fits of gurgling laughter. The whole family still gets a kick out of the alarm.

Yet, despite the timelessness of summer on the steppe, everyone always seems to know when dinner is. I am sitting in the same place I sit every evening, on the raised platform that occupies most of the round, sheepskin tent. The carpeted stage is where the family sleeps, eats, and escapes from the bright afternoon sunlight. The yurt's walls are covered with glossy photos of Mecca and centerfolds from Pakistani gossip magazines. A Central Asian couple, all decked out in their wedding attire, smiles at me from the opposite wall as I place dry brush in the cooking stove. Once, I asked Alandin who they were, but he did not seem to know. The pin-ups add some color to the raw, earthy tones of Kyrgyzstan. Life here is bathed in the golden light of the fading sun, which does not add much to the yellowish grass and the wheat-colored mountains that frame the lake.

The nomads' collapsible yurts, or sheepskin tents, are roughly the same size as the waiting room of my dentist's office back home in New Jersey. However, Alandin’s home is decidedly a much more happening place. The family's few possessions are crowded into one corner of the circular space, leaving more than enough room for all of life's activities. The platform on which I sit has hosted the conception and birth of three children, the death of Alandin's mother, countless afternoon tea parties, meetings of Mergop's sewing circle, and infinite hours of meaningless chit‑chat. Lives have been created and snatched away right here, in the tiny space where I sit, feeding the insatiable stove.

Above a pile of hand-knitted blankets, an ongoing project of the village women, and old bottle of Southern Comfort rests on top of Alandin's radio. Apparently, he found it two years ago while riding his horse along the Karakoram Highway between Bishkek and Kashgar. Alandin seemed to enjoy taking such trips when he was not busy tending his herds of sheep or taking care of the other animals. He occasionally took off on his horse for a few days at a time, always remembering to bring back a souvenir for Mergop and the twins. Usually, the memento was nothing more than a piece of garbage thrown away by a trader carrying goods across the old Silk Road traveled by Marco Polo centuries ago. Whether he came back with a wolf’s tooth or an old liquor bottle, it was always welcomed by the others and prominently exhibited until Alandin’s next trip, when it was given away to a neighboring family to make space for a new novelty. There was no room for packrats in the community, as the entire village folded up its yurts and move to warmer climes in the winter. Anything that was not essential would be given away or discarded, so Mergop’s constantly changing museum exhibit was a luxury admired by the entire community. Every time a new find appeared on top of the radio, neighbors would come to admire it or speculate on various uses for the object.

The nomads’ summer home is on the China-Tajikistan border, on the banks of an enormous, glacier-fed lake. The snow-capped mountains looming in the background resemble a Swiss postcard, except for the yurts at their base, of course. Very early in my stay with the nomads, I realized just how difficult living so close to nature is. All the children in the village have horribly sunburned and raw faces, as at this altitude the sun's powerful rays have easily scorched right through their chubby cheeks. I can feel my own skin sloughing of after only a short time in the area, though the condition of my face pales in comparison to those of the village kids. Many have constant colds and fevers from the drastic changes in temperature. The lack of running water and adequate sanitation only further contributes to the ubiquitous runny noses and illnesses.

Finding food is always hard work, as the soil, frozen throughout the winter, is dry and rocky. At the moment, the village has a well-established trading network that allows it to obtain a steady flow of vegetables and flour. I am not sure how it works exactly, but Mergop always manages to get a cabbage or an eggplant from somewhere, and no one in the village seems to be suffering from malnutrition. Cooking utensils, food, tools, and clothing are readily shared between families in the village. However, it seems as though each yurt is a separate and isolated, family unit. There is little privacy for individuals in the village, since each yurt is one room housing an entire family unit. Nevertheless, each unit seems to appreciate a certain degree of isolation and space, as yurt doors remain closed and visitors always announce themselves in advance. Preparing meals is a time-consuming chore in a world without electricity, and most of the village women spend a considerable part of their day cooking and boiling water alone inside the yurt.

My camping stove broke on my first day in the village, and ever since I had prepared and eaten dinner with Alandin's family. I kept the fire going while Mergop attacked a head of cabbage with her cleaver and her sister made noodles from flour and water. The ritual lasted nearly two hours, as it took the icy, lake water forever to boil on the rudimentary stove. I often wondered how the family would react if they came across a package of instant ramen noodles, ready in 3 minutes. By the force with which Mergop releases her aggression on the cabbage and her sister pounds her fists repeatedly into the noodles-to-be, I decide they probably would not take it very well.

My search for some slow burning weeds in the pile of brush I collected earlier today is fruitless, so I recline against the sheepskin wall after stoking the flame once more. Every morning I walked three or four miles into the valley with a wooden cart to gather dry brush for the stove. Normally, yak and sheep pies are used to fuel the village stoves, but sometimes there are not enough to keep the fires going long enough. I close my eyes and am about to fall asleep to the steady rhythm of Mergop's cleaver, when I feel a set of little fingers in my nostrils. It is the baby. She has plopped herself in my lap and is exploring the various crevices of my face. Mergop shaved her head yesterday to discourage lice, and somehow her large green eyes seem even more huge today. Even at her young age, she has developed the wrinkly, wizened look common to most Kyrgyz people. As I wipe her nose, I realize that she even has her father's thought lines etched into her tiny forehead. The hardships of nomadic life and the strength of these mountain people in the face of powerful sunlight and intense cold manifested themselves on the faces of even the youngest Kyrgyz villagers. Mergop’s four year-old twins already had deeper crow’s feet and more squinty eyes than most elderly people I knew at home.

The lake is too cold to enter, so bathing is infrequent, if not impossible. Although I am probably the only one in the village who had had a decent wash in the past month, I can feel several layers of grime clinging to me after my weeks wandering over the dusty landscape. Travel has desensitized my awareness of hygiene matters, and no one in the village pays much attention to cleanliness. Somehow though, despite our rough lifestyle, the baby always manages to retain her pleasant scent. As her eyelids droop and her pudgy cheeks settle against my shoulder, I inhale her peculiar cologne of wildflowers and yak butter. To me, right now, there is no sweeter smell, especially since most of the villagers reek of boiled mutton. In this rough country, where sheep are the lifeblood and staple of the entire community, their distinctive aroma greets the nostrils twenty-four hours a day. The intense smell of mutton is lodged in every quilt and article of clothing in every yurt, in hair, skin, and seemingly even in the mountain breezes that waft across the village. The baby’s smell is not only a relief for the senses, but also a supernatural phenomenon in a land ruled by sheep.

Mergop and her sister continue the elaborate ceremony they perform like clockwork every night: shuffling pots, mixing together the vegetables, and boiling the water. Alandin, back from a long day of tending the yaks, is making a pot of yak's milk tea. Yak’s milk, which is typically either fermented or consumed as a tea, is an acquired taste I cannot bring myself to embrace. I pass my share of the salty, yellow ooze to one of the twins and place the sleeping baby on one of Mergop's flowery quilts. It is time for my evening ritual of fiddling with Alandin's radio. Despite it's broken antennae and crappy exterior, it has proved to be a treasure chest of surprises. Although we are in the middle of nowhere, the machine always picks up a transmission from some random corner of Asia. On my first evening, we listened to ear-splitting Chinese opera until the poor baby woke up and started howling in fright. Hindi film songs, elevator music, and Russian news broadcasts followed, each eliciting a completely different response from the family. It was always fascinating to witness their reaction to the evening entertainment. One time, when the radio picked up a Thai language lesson, the twins found the strange sounds so funny they mimicked the instructor's voice for hours, keeping the whole village awake until the early hours of the morning with their cacophonous laughter. But Sunday is always Lawrence Welk. And after toying with the dials for several minutes, the familiar sounds of big band music emerge magically from the static. Mergop and her sister pass around bowls of noodles as I stick a lit candle in the Southern Comfort bottle. When the last curl of cooking smoke has escaped through the small vent at the top of the yurt, the first stars are visible to us. As the meal commences in silence, darkness peeks through the open flap, concealing the world and revealing the universe.

I am helping Mergop's sister with the dishes when Welk's final selection starts. Alandin, emerging from post-digestion laze, stands up and grabs his wife, who is huddling under a pile of blankets and a huge, fur hat. The two begin dancing, hobbling around much quicker than the music, as though they are following a completely different rhythm. The twins, only pretending to sleep, are inspired by their parents. They kick off the blankets and run over to me, one climbing on my shoulders and the other grabbing my knees . With the little monsters clinging to me with all their might, I stumble around the room even more precariously than Mergop and Alandin. I trip and land on a pile of quilts just as the music fades out, the little fists finally peeling themselves from my clothing.

I say goodbye to the family and head out into the cold, windy night, ready to retire to my own yurt. My old, horseshoe crab shaped tent is not as warm as the sheepskin abodes of my neighbors, but it is a fitting home for a temporary nomad. Made in Tibet and purchased for the same price as a sack of apples, it is constantly forming holes in the most unlikely places. Nonetheless, its odd shape and crooked roof seem appropriate for the surreal landscape.

My watch beeps nine o'clock as I sit in the tent, watching the night sky through the open flap. Within minutes, the yellow halo over the snow-capped mountains develops into a huge chunk of glowing moon. It is so bright I can see the profile of the yurt village, outlined against the lake and the dripping glacier. Suddenly, a woman clad in a headscarf and billowy housecoat comes running out of one of the yurts across the lake, screaming at the top of her lungs and swinging a broom. A frightened sheep, yelping almost as loud as the woman, runs out beside her. She pursues it for a few seconds, waiting until the intruder is out of sight before she disappears inside again.

When silence returns to the village, only the wind and the brainless call of the sheep can be heard. I close my tent flap and go to bed. After almost a year of living like a nomad, I have come to the conclusion that I have only thrown myself face-first into the real world by avoiding work and graduate school. Nothing can be more real than this. I am living in a reality where watches, electricity, and manmade conveniences do not exist. With the exception of the occasional musical interlude by Lawrence Welk or Lionel Richie, life with the Kyrgyz is the same now as it always has been. And despite the grime and the yak milk and the sunburn, it is kind of nice.

The Thomas J. Watson Foundation inaugurated the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 1968 to give college graduates of unusual promise the freedom to engage in a year of independent study and travel abroad following their graduation. For more information, go to www.watsonfellowship.org or contact Professor Jeff Barnett in the Department of Romance Languages.

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