DATED JULY 26: Mandawa, Rajasthan

It pains me that in just four days (I am writing this on the 29th) I have already begun losing any sense of clarity, of orderly memory of each day’s events. Instead, I remember the small details, the feelings, the faces. This account attempts to describe day 2.

We were awoken at the crack of dawn. Some of us were jetlagged, some of us were cold from the excessive air conditioning, and some of us answered early wake up calls. We dragged ourselves to breakfast, still barely knowing each other, and then set off on our first of many adventures.

Our first educational experience was in an educational institution. We visited a school for physically challenged children. We were initially hesitant, scared of being sad, scared of being scared, and generally unsure of ourselves. But the students themselves welcomed us into their lives. In shrill voices, all of the children bowed down in an unsynchronized “Namaste” before they started to show off their skills.

One girl stood up and sang. One boy recited his numbers. Upstairs, in a classroom for deaf and mute children, two boys recited the alphabet in sign language, which was different in Hindi than in English, and then one proceeded to describe in sign language kids in our group as tall and skinny, or too fat. The school was a bit rundown, small, and the classrooms were dingy. But the students were incredibly excited, and the teachers, who didn’t get paid, were incredibly impassioned.

The institution is funded primarily by private donors, with supplemental government assistance. (Any human or monetary contributions would be greatly appreciated. Go volunteer your time!) As we were about to leave the school, we saw that the students in one classroom downstairs started to dance. The organizers of group were in a tearing hurry (a sensation that one feels immediately upon stepping on Indian soil) but we were all drawn by the music and started dancing, too. Forgetting where we were or who we were supposed to be, all of us, regardless of age, size, disability, or any other characteristics listed on the back of an NJTransit ticket, threw up our hands in delight.

After our workout, we visited some bricklayers beside a farm. While we watched, they systematically, without pause, hauled large red bricks into a truck. They made 50 rupees each for every thousand bricks in the truck. Per day they managed to load 5 or 6 trucks. Their practice of laying bricks had been used for generations. Nothing had changed. Life was completely static. The same sect of people, the same location, the same tools. The efficacy of the methods used denied any need for reform. The timelessness of it all rendered our concerns, our reforms, our ideals, and ourselves obsolete. We just stood watching.

The infamous havelis of Mandawa were next on our Yatra. They were splattered with fading frescoes, missing gems, and dusty halls. We felt estranged from a glorious era, from a past we would never know. Cracks in the walls split the frescoes into distorted images, denying us access to any sort of comprehension. An old man was crouched down by the entrance of one of the havelis repainting the thin vines across the wall. He was retouching the walls, history, and promised us with the soft strokes of his brush the potential of the future.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to visit a potter. Unlike some of the farmers and bricklayers we had met, this family spoke no English or Hindi, and preferred animated gestures supplemented with Marwadi murmurs. The potter, an old man with a wrinkly face, thin voice, and clear eyes, took a lump of clay, water, and smashed it all down onto a pottery wheel, a perfectly round slab of cement and a rock. Out of one shapeless lump of clay, he managed to make vase, a piggy bank, a tea cup, and a diya. There was absolutely no wastage, and he effortlessly molded the obscure pile of dirt into delicately crafted, functional pieces of art. It was another timeless work—his father was a potter, this man had been a potter all his life, his son was a potter, and his grandson, the little boy running around the place without his underwear, would soon learn the trade.

We got back to the hotel exhausted, sweaty, and grimy, and ready to finally become friends.