By ATIBA ROUGIER, 7/25/2015. Being an ethnographer you are required to be in situations deviant from the (your) norm.  You find yourself in places studying people and things that are foreign, some may even use the contaminated and politically charged word ‘exotic’—personally, I like the word exotic, it’s you know, well, exotic! As my friend Brad mentioned, travellers (ethnographers) often find themselves in spaces that are both “frightening and refreshing” and no ethnography is effective unless both criteria are met. Being here, on my own, but not alone (clinic staff, researchers, patients etc.), I am forced out of my comfort zone. I have done things that, last week, I would have rolled my eyes at the mere thought and I have eaten things that I would have said “I’ll pass”…with this, I have also met curious people and it is only six days! I am one who learns something from almost everyone I come across and I view life as a lecture hall where one is constantly learning and re-learning. Being anonymous in a foreign place comes with a freedom only experienced in action and in doing—existentialism at its finest, right Sartre? I am reminded of how adaptable, resilient, open-minded, and strong-willed I can be and these are all characters shared by the people of Bhopal. The last time I was this self-reliant was when I studied abroad in Ireland for a period of months. I was reflecting this morning on the ten year gap between my twenty-first birthday in Ireland and now being thirty-one in India…the ways in which I have changed and the ways that I am the same (but as the old saying goes, “one can never step into the same river twice”…am I really the same? Food for thought). Self-reflexivity is essential for any ethnographer if he or she hopes to be ethical in the practice of deontology.

There is something so sacred about the mornings here. Besides the sound of the prayer horns and the singing/humming of prayers, the air is different, there is a calmness, an air of a new day, of new possibilities…of excitement, or it may just be me, though, I highly doubt it is just me, rather, it is us—the City and me, together, we are jiving. It is 5:20 am, and it just started to rain…the rain is now competing with the dying sound of prayers over the distant speakers. Emerson says, “Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour.” Today, I commence my first kurta! Like I said, I am immersing myself fully—as the old saying goes, “I’m going native” (Neni, if you are reading this, I hope you’re laughing-out-loud).

Today, I will also read through MA thesis of a few students from the Social Science College in Bhopal. They have done extensive research on a range of topics, for example: Comparative Study of Bio-socio Impact between Non-exposed and Exposed Children of Survivors of Bhopal gas Catastrophe and Socio-Economic Status of Women Domestic Servants among the Survivors of The Bhopal Gas Disaster. For some reason, sitting in a library surrounded by books, maps, and written artefacts is the equivalent of going to Church—it is my sacred space, I am at ease and at home in this space. In boyhood, I spent many evenings glossing through books, maps, and encyclopaedias gazing at faraway places and reading up on foreign customs and cultures, it’s no surprise that I end up studying philosophy, religion, and anthropology.

I made a visit to the Bhopal Remembrance Museum with Pri. It was further than we anticipated but worth the trip. The cab driver was blasting Backstreet Boys and that made my day, obviously. BSB uniting the East and West shows me that 90s pop is alive and well, queue the rampage music! Maybe at the next political summit BSB can do a twenty-minute set of their best chart topping hits, music is a healer and who doesn’t want world peace, or at least, broadmindedness.