Interesting news....

Some guys tried to kidnap a girl into a car from campus last night near the social sciences faculty in the University. Fortunately the security was alerted and stopped the car from fleeing the campus. The car with the men was brought back near to the girls hostel, and the girls from the hostel, in a rage of fury, bashed up the men and overturned the car. Some of them broke the windscreens with their hands too. Woah. 

Got to realise not to take my safety here for granted and be careful while walking in dark areas of the campus. O_O 

Pray for God's protection too. 

Icky Worms....

Some icky worms that we see all over campus... They form together in a pile and move in a pile.... O_O 

Bits and Pieces of Campus Life

Our hostel (Tagore International House) is about 3.5km away from our classroom, so every morning Amy and I will have to try our luck in catching the "ninja" shuttle bus (pictured below). Do not underestimate its size and its seemingly fragile outlook. This bus can go over any terrain and carry more people you can imagine. We always feel happy if we can catch this bus, if not, it will be a long walk..

 Cows and buffalos are everywhere on campus. We often see them grazing at the bushes and leaving their "cakes" on the footpaths. The white cow happens to be at the "shopping complex" of our campus. The shops behind the cow are our shopping complex. Though there are no more than 10 shops, they have almost everything we need. =)

Poori!!! This is my favourite breakfast ever since I came to Hyderabad. Even though we get breakfast in the hostel, I will sometimes eat Poori instead. As you can see, there are no tables and chairs, so we just sit on the rocks at the side of the road and have our breakfast there. The poori costs about 25 cents and is really filling. It is not healthy at all though, but it is hard to resist something so simple yet nice. =p The second picture shows the canteen where we normally get our chai and poori from. It has since shifted to a newer building down the road. The uncle who owns that shop is a fierce looking and gruff man. But he is quite nice la, he never accepts me getting just 1 item from him, he will just put 5 on my plate and says he has no change for 1 item. =p

India's Independence Day!!

India celebrated her Independence Day on August 15. We had no classes so we went to a small field for the Independence Day program, together with our hostel mates. The program was short, a speech by the Vice Chancellor of the University, a drill exhibition by the kids in the campus school, and an dance item after that. We had fun taking pictures with our friends and enjoying a day off from the pressure of studies. Here are some of the pictures we took.

Me trying to give a "speech"

Group picture. (The cool thing about Indians is that they are happy to take photos with anyone, even with complete strangers)

Super cute kid!!

Drill exhibition

Amy with Surenda (the guy on her left whom we met on the shuttle bus in campus during our 2nd day) and Surenda's friends.

Hiroaki giving a "speech"

Our Hostel Friends

The 2 Thai Ladies, Ath and Ow with The Twins, Kamal and Rittu

Me with my Japanese Friend, Hiroaki, and the 4 ladies

One Month Update

My thoughts after being in HYD for one month..... 

School Life

It has been one month since I left Singapore and arrived at Hyderabad. I guess falling sick is part of the acclimatization process here. I am feeling much better now and have adapted well to the food and water here. Lessons have begun and we are currently taking 4 modules and having a 4-day study week. The modules we are taking are Physical Anthro, Indian Society, Archaeological Anthro and Intro to Social Anthro, a total of 16 hours of lectures in a week. It took me a while to get back into the groove of studying again but I am thankful for API as it has kept my grey cells active. My classmates are really nice and we have a multicultural class. We are close friends with a British guy named Thomas, an Indian from Mumbai named Ojas and a Naga named Meren. It seems so appropriate that we are doing social cultural anthropology and we have classmates from different backgrounds. God is good!

Our classmates are shy in class, but conversations outside of class are certainly filled with intellectual discourse. A couple of us would normally go for chai after class and sit around to talk. It is interesting how random strangers can just talk about politics, anthropology, sociology and exchange views freely. It is amazing how they can just quote theories from various academics, even to the point of remembering which book or article the quote is from, to further bolster their point of view. This tells me that they are really passionate about what they are studying and they know their subject matter really well. This has further convinced me that even though University of Hyderabad is not ranked as high as NUS / NTU, it does not mean that their standard is lower. In fact, I have learnt much more and to be more critical in my understanding of theories and concepts as I study in University of Hyderabad, as compared to rote learning and memory work in the past. It is quite educating and enlightening hearing people share their views and discuss issues. It is a challenge to catch up with them and to be more confident to voice my opinions, but I believe that with God's grace and wisdom, I will be able to do so.

A couple of days ago, I attended a talk that was held in the library lawn. The professor giving the talk is the HOD of the Political Science Department. It was an eye opener that a professor would not have any qualms sitting on the grass and talking about Gramsci's discourse on civil society. You would have assumed that he might book a room or a lecture hall. Yet, by sitting on the library lawn and sharing, it meant that anyone could come and listen, even though you are not a Political Science Student. He even took the trouble to answer questions from students. It was really a nice experience just sitting there and hearing him speak. I guess even though we do not have air conditioned classrooms or state of the art lecture halls, I do not feel shortchanged at all. In fact, I feel that I have more freedom to share what I think and to learn from my fellow classmates and lecturers.  

We have three internal assessments, in which the grades for two out of the best three assessments will be taken to form 40% of the grade and the remaining 60% will be from the final examination. The assessments will most likely be in September / early October, so do keep us in prayer. =)

Hostel Life

There are 2 distinct groups of people in the International Hostel; the first group comprises international students like us, taking Masters or PhD programs. There are about 12 to 15 of us. The other group is made up of the Study in India Program (SIP) students; they form the majority of the students here. Amy and I hang out with the International students more often.  We have made friends with 2 Thai ladies, 2 Punjabi ladies, one Ethiopian, one Japanese, one Nigerian, one Iranian, one Emirati. They are really nice and friendly people and having meals with them is often a fun affair. Speaking of meals, we are given three meals a day and one tea break.  The meals are not too bad, mainly South Indian food, with occasional surprises like pasta or falafel. The food can get a bit boring here so we sometimes eat in the campus. We are considering canceling our meal plan for a month and having our meals in the campus or the canteen nearby our hostel.  We have our own rooms, equipped with Internet, Air-con etc.  There are power cuts for a couple of hours a day, sometimes in the day and sometimes at night. It’s an inconvenience but still bearable. I’ve brought my coffee machine over and have treated some of my hostel mates and classmates to nice coffee. It is a good way to break the ice and make good friends.

Church Life

Amy and I are attending two churches every Sunday and we are out from 8am to 6pm. In the morning, we take a 30 min bus ride to a town near the Telugu church headed by Pastor Moses. The church service starts at 930am. As we have not picked up the Telugu language, we are helping out in the Sunday School. We are given a small space, no bigger than the Chariskidz storeroom and we have about 8 to 12 kids of varying ages. We would share a simple Bible story; teach them some English songs, play games and do Arts and Craft. The service would end around 1230pm, after which we would then attend a short fellowship for the youths. During that fellowship, we would help in teaching them to sing songs and pray for them.

Pastor Moses and his family are wonderful hosts and they have a daughter doing her medical studies in Ukraine and a son doing his college studies in Hyderabad. The daughter is here for her summer vacation and she has become good friends with Amy. Pastor Moses has also shown us the places in which he has his ministries. He brought us to a school that teaches women in the slums tailoring as a means of income. He also brought us to a slum settlement on top of a hill where the people lived in small tents.  He holds a service there for the slum people as well, and runs a tuition tent for the kids in the slum. Seeing all the slum children and the state of poverty made me realize how important these people need God in their lives.

After lunch, Amy and I would take another bus to another church where the Naga Christian Fellowship (NCF) holds their service at 3pm. The service is in English and we have made quite a few Naga friends there. They really remind me of Mong Li and are really friendly and warm people. The NCF is mainly made up of students and young working adults and their attendance is about 100 persons each week. The sermons are in English and they sing a mixture of hymns and contemporary Christian songs. It helps that there’s a group of them that goes to the same university as us, so we would take the bus together with them and talk to them during the 1-hour bus journey back to campus. Suffice to say, we feel really tired from all the travelling on Sunday but we are grateful for the opportunity to meet fellow Christians and serve in what ever way we can. Pastor Christopher Chia and his mission team from ARPC visited NCF last week and we had the privilege of hearing him speak. We were really happy to meet other Singaporeans because Amy and I are the only 2 Singaporeans in the university. It was a joy hearing a familiar accent =) Pastor Chia said he was surprised to see Singaporeans studying here and said we were “crazy”. He encouraged us to press on and do God’s work. We are hoping to visit some more churches and see where God wants us to stay. As for now, this seems to be the arrangement every Sunday.

Concluding thoughts

The first month in Hyderabad has been filled with many ups and downs. It is by the grace of God that we are finally settling in and making good friendships. I do miss the food, my family at home and my church family, but I believe God has sent Amy and me here for a purpose.. God is amazing and we feel blessed to walk this journey of faith with Him. Though our peers are taking the more conventional path, we know that God’s timing and purpose is perfect and are striving to do well both in our studies and in our ministry. We humbly ask for your prayers and look forward to seeing you all soon.

A pilgrimage for the city soul

Physically detached from the familiar

The comfortable, the habituated…

The sights and sounds of an increasingly cosmopolitan city,

The materialism, the indulgence in luxury,

The engagement of lives in the city, family, friends,

Thus fades to a corner of my consciousness

The surroundings of the strange, of the unfamiliar take over;

Away from the cleanliness, away from order,

Into chaos, into dust, flies, people of other clothing,

Salwars of all colours draped by women on the streets

I become the Stranger, the one whose peoples gaze are on.

The orient faced, strangely clothed female,

 In the midst of traffic chaos, people transiting,

Beggars and children spot me quickly and ask for alms.

Scenes from documentary channels become real before my eyes.

Over packed buses with men hanging out of the doors,

Buses with cracked wind shields,
Bus conductors going around collecting bus fare,

Buses that existed in my childhood but no longer more,

I became the very passenger in the bus.

A passenger of overcrowded public vehicles;

Sitting by the ledge or on the laps of other girls on such journeys

Gripping tightly onto whatever I could,
Stabilizing the swaying of the creaky old bus 

Unfinished buildings, rocky paths,

Cows on the roads, cow dung here and there,

 I dodge and watch my path.

Countless power cuts day and night,

Learning to make do without lights and internet;

Showering in the dark with only a torchlight.

Sitting out under a tree, on a rock drinking chai and chit-chatting

Sitting by the road side chilling with classmates and friends,

Lying on the lawn listening to lectures about the world

Walking through old school buildings since the 1970s

Un-barricaded 3-storey rooftops with piles of wrecked furniture at the corners 

Classrooms with chalk boards, dusters and ceiling fans 

Walking back to hostel daily on a rocky dirt road,

Smelling the scent of the peppermint plants and eucalyptus trees,

Seeing beautiful birds and peacocks strutting by,

Flying ducks in a V-shaped formation,

Black bats hovering the evening sky

Sneaking a hand-hold

Getting chai from the hut under the giant tree along the way,

Chai and samosas cooked on firewood

6 rupees a shot glass, sitting with the rest on road sides and make-do benches,

 Feeding mosquitoes, patting dogs, chatting the evening away

In life, we lose some, we gain some.

We lost in the race in the pace of the concrete jungle

But gained a glimpse into another facet of the world