Here’s a podcast of Olakh, well – of the Olakh Counselling Centre. Also at Olakh there’s a Resource Centre and they run various training programmes and campaigns. I found the Counselling Centre is most interesting of all. It’s where you see, for real, why Olakh exists and what it is working for.

Listen to Olakh podcast here

The websites that I got the stats from are in the blogroll.

Listen to Don Bosco podcast

You can email Don Bosco Snehalaya at sneha_node@yahoo.co.in

Listen to Urvashi and Ruchi and through them get to know two Indias. I say ‘two Indias’ rather than ‘India’ because there is no ‘one India’. It’s like being inside an eternally-shifting kaleidoscope. Just when you think you’ve grasped what India is about, you catch another aspect, another idea, another attitude. You are reminded that your understanding is far from complete and you are humbled by the vast amount more that there is to learn.

I’m not giving any conclusions on the comparison of these young women here or in the podcast itself. I want you to listen and decide which points you find interesting and worthy of discussion. If there is anything you would like to discuss or ask my opinion of then get in touch. You can write a comment here or send me an email – hannahratcliffe@gmail.com.

When the academic term resumed in mid-June the students had shifted their focus. Still concerned with freedom of expression they now primarily targeted Manoj Soni, the Vice-Chancellor of M.S.Univeristy (M.S.U.), calling for his resignation for not providing protection nor support to the Fine Arts students and teachers when the Faculty was intruded.

The situation is still to be resolved but the State Governer’s intervention is a step in the right direction. It is at complete stalemate, neither side (students and artists vs. VHP and MSU authorities) are not even trying to consider the opposition’s point of view. Intervention from a thrid party seems the only hope.

Four friends leave Baroda this week. Like me, they have been completing an internship with a company or organisation here. It is funny when these times come and you realise that this is the last of it, an experience that will never be repeated and can never be recreated. You suddenly remember that this is not reality, at least it is not your reality. My time in India was only temporary but now, after being completely thrown by it, India is making sense (most of the time) and after 6 months, its enveloping, suffocating, inescapable self is my normality.

Next week I will leave Baroda, though it won’t be the end of Adventures in India. I still have podcasts to produce. I am in no rush to complete them before I leave because taking them home unfinished will be the closest I can get to taking a piece of India outside of its borders and home with me.

Our conversation turned to marriage, actually that’s not true, it pretty much revolved around marriage. Prital explains her situation. At 26 she is old for an unmarried woman. (Note that when talking about the qualities she hopes for in her husband she means ‘he’ but says ‘she’).

It was not a special occasion nor exciting event but still it was an enjoyable and very interesting evening. Talking candidly with two girls (you will hear that really they are girls not women) whom I am close to in years but very far apart in expectations, experiences and fate.

Listen to Podcast Here

Here is just a bit of what happened over the three days of ceremonies. The links are to 30 second videos, ideally watch them with good speakers or at least the sound turned up!

The first ceremony of the first day was this (slightly odd) Vudi Ceremony. Vudi are the small balls of a processed white bean. The Vudi ceremony, which took up most of the morning, asks to God for best wishes for the marriage and for the proceedings that will take place over the next couple of days. In the afternoon was the Mehndi Ceremony, where the female guests had their hands and arms covered in swirly designs with henna.

On the second day, Saturday, everything stepped up a gear. I had already been impressed on the previous day by the saris but today they were of even more beautiful material and complemented with glittering, gold jewellery with matching colourful stones. In the day was the Pithi Ceremony, where Chintun’s mother, sister and aunts smothered him with tumeric paste. It is supposed to make his skin good for the marriage ceremony the next day. In the evening we celebrated Chintun’s last night of bachelorhood – a sort of Indian stag night only with no alcohol and all of your family present. Despite its perhaps tame image in comparison to the extreme alcohol intake on Western stag nights, the atmosphere was charged by the rhythm of the drum and it was an exciting evening.

Sunday was when things really kicked off. The drumming was incredible. It began with Chintun leaving the house to meet his bride at the marriage hall. We then drove about 200 metres down the road from it. From here we danced Chintun all the way up to the entrance. I have never experienced something like this before. Everyone having the time of their life and not blinking twice at the traffic hurtling past. At the entrance we met Sonya and her family and they first joined in the dancing before going inside for the final marriage ceremony.

It was a brilliant weekend and for three days I was completely enveloped in Chintun’s family and their celebration of his marriage. Sunday evening was quite a come down and as I drove home I realised that I was going back to the real world. For the last three days I had been encapsulated in the cocoon of this family. It showed me really how strongly bonded together Indian families can be.

Runki, a counsellor at Olakh, explains the training.

From the session I learned that the family in Indian society is so strong that it hinders police intervention into cases such as domestic violence. A case maybe filed against a husband or in-laws but then the woman, who has been vicitimsed or abused, will make a compromise within her family. With no longer grounds for the case the police cannot take any further action. Also, they are often not even informed that a compromise has been made.

I wonder about the nature of these compromises that are made within families. How much is the woman pressured into not returning to the police? How much is she bullied into not speaking out about how the violence that she suffers?

Birendra Pani, a visual artist from Orissa, has created an exhibition on Gotipua. It was displayed at the Fine Arts Faculty of the University in Baroda. I went to visit and also watch a perfomance of Gotipua. Listen here to Birendra and one of the dancers whom I spoke to after the performance. (The jingling in the background is the bells that the dancers wear around their ankles.)

Listen here to what we got up to: Gir & Diu