Today I had my first real exam of the semester. After arriving at the SIT program center by our usual autorickshaw, we were broken up into groups of 7 to take the written exam. What was supposed to take 2 hours ended up taking most people 40 minutes. I felt pretty good about my Hindi exam — it wasn’t too difficult. Then again I am learning a completely different language, alphabet, and writing system. I’ll be pleased if I retain what I’ve learned. After the written exam and an hour break, I took my oral exam with one of my Hindi teachers, Goutam-ji (aka Mr. Mehr). He is extremely hilarious around the classroom and is always cracking jokes with us on all of our excursions. For the majority of the time he is our teacher, but he also serves as a translator when he goes on field site visits with us. I feel really lucky to have such an involved group of Hindi teachers who try to get to know us as individuals rather than just as students.
During the oral exam, we had a short conversation and Goutam-ji asked me a number of questions regarding the size of my family, the occupation of my father (not my mother interestingly enough — the patriarchal nature of the society really does shine through, sorry mom), my hobbies, what I am studying, etc. He asked me vocabulary questions and we went on for more than the assigned 15 minutes. At the end of the session he asked me to write different words on the white board, something I am much weaker at. Spelling in the Devanagri syllabary is extremely difficult. There is just the slightest difference between retroflex and dental sounds, aspirated and unaspirated inflection.
In the afternoon we had a lecturer who spoke on the future of Indian urban planning and thoroughly went into the issues of caste and religious segregation in the cities. He spoke of how Muslim and low caste communities are regularly located on the outskirts of the cities away from the amenities provided by government municipalities. The issues of real estate negotiations, transfer of property between communities and the prejudice intertwined in all of this is unfathomable. In the afternoon, I went with my friends Katie, Chloe, and Kedryn to a 70% off sale at a fancy saree boutique near the Lakshmi temple in Jaipur. I have never seen so many women swarming over clothing in my entire life. Gorgeous, posh women dressed to the nines were pouring over all sorts sarees, salwaar suits, individual cloth pieces, and scarves. I felt extremely awkward in my heavy backpack and short kurta next to these sophisticated women. I ended up buying several salwaar materials and a two scarves. After the sale, I met my friend Josh for a run around our neighborhood. We met at around 6:30 and discovered a beautiful part just near our house. We ran about two miles around the complex and watched the sunset. I can definitely say that it was a good day.
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