Promethean Refund

Set up:

                As Carrick and I were negotiating the price for the apartment we wanted, one of the issues that came up was the propane tank used to fuel the stove top. It was nearly empty, apparently, and needed to be changed. The landlord agreed that he would get it taken care of along with having the place cleaned before we moved in.

So for the month of November I was taking an intensive Hindi class at a local institute. It takes me about 25 minutes of travel time one way. The class itself was two 90 minute sessions with a 30 minute break in between. On top of that I was still volunteering part-time at the Human Rights Law Network. A typical weekday for me then was: Wake up as late as possible, rush to get ready, walk to the metro, metro ride to Greater Kailash, class, return home, change and go to work, then come home around 6:00 and study until going to bed between 11:00 and 1:00.

                It’s not a very exciting routine, but it is just that – routine. I had two fully-engaging tasks which really dominated my brain space, and everything else sort of turned to background noise.

The con:

                One fine day about three weeks ago I was walking back from class with my mind filled with some Hindi grammatical structure or possibly planning out my lunch. As I was coming up the stairs to our third floor apartment (what would be fourth floor in the States), I heard someone on the steps behind me. Now, there are only three apartments in this building, and I was already at the second floor, so it really only could have been my neighbor or brother. I turned to look and was greeted by a twenties something man coming up the stairs behind me. He told me that he had come by earlier, but that I wasn’t home so he was glad to have caught me this time. He went on to say that he was with the gas company and needed to check the gas cylinder. Remember what I said earlier about the propane tank arrangement we had with the landlord? So did I, so that actually fit with some of my expectations. I let the man in, he checked the cylinder and then told me he would be back in about 15 minutes, he left and came back, to my surprise, pretty much when he said he would. By this time my brother had gotten home, so I let him take care of the rest while I changed and otherwise got ready for work. I heard the exchange through the door of my room, and it was pretty straight forward. The gas guy was going to take the cylinder and come back with a full one in five minutes. In fairness to him, he was completely honest and truthful about the first part. He did take our gas cylinder. It was the second part where he got hung up. It’s now been nearly a month.

The aftermath:

                We talked to our downstairs neighbor, then to our landlord, and they both said the same thing. “Hello.” But then after that they said the same thing again “Okay, talk to you later.” In the middle of those two things they said something very similar to one another, and that was that it was a trick and we’d been robbed. Apparently the gas cylinder had been changed before we’d moved in and now our basically brand new one was gone forever. The next day at work we mentioned this whole situation to our co-workers and one of them said “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that scam. I read about it on Yuni-net.” (Yuni-net is the local ex-pat community website). So it turns out that this is a thing. People come, steal gas, and then resell it for a fairly tiny profit. Oh well, we got duped. It happens.

The bad part:

                Both Carrick and I have a sort of “it’s the principle of the thing” mentality when it comes to a lot of issues in the third world, and Carrick in particular has worked in “rule of law,” so going through the proper channels is rather important to both of us. After this occurred, we went to the local police station to try and file a report. We didn’t expect that anything would come of it, but it’s good to make the report so it’s there. That’s all. I once told the Eugene police about some change that had been stolen out of my parked car. Nothing was broken as the lock on the driver side door was nonfunctional, but it was a crime so I reported it. Maybe it was the start of a trend, who knows?

                We left work a little early to get this thing sorted out with the police and still have some day left on the other side. We went to the police station for our region and found it strangely empty. The receptionist was friendly enough even if she did laugh at me when I explained the theft. I laughed too, it seemed good-natured and not malicious, so no biggy. We were told we would need to wait to file the report, called an FIR here, so Carrick went to grab some food for himself and an ice cream for me. I had a feeling this was going to be a long one.

                Before my brother had returned, an Inspector of the Police, I think his title was, came down to speak with me. I explained my problem to this officer, and he immediately said, “Wait here” and walked off. A short time later a different officer walked over. This would be the man with which I had the majority of the interaction throughout, even though these officers, who are notoriously “overworked”, seemed to have nothing better to do (as there was literally no one other than me and something like a dozen officers in the station) than stand around and watch or ask me to explain, AGAIN, what had happened. This officer was a short, balding man whose uniform begrudged his shape, especially around the middle. I remember that he came to speak to me with a thin sheen of hostility already upon him like one would expect maybe of a detective gearing up to play “bad-cop.” Strange, as I was merely a victim of a crime hoping to file a report. A truly small act which should, seriously, be no more difficult than filling out a piece of paper. I explained the problem to this little man and he went from sitting at a 3 on the hostility scale and jumping, immediately, up to whatever number sits just below physical assault. He immediately started berating me for the incident saying it was not a crime, it was my own fault and how could I be so stupid. I’ll admit that I missed a beat when that was the reaction I got. He began explain all the things I should have done (called my landlord when the gas guy showed up, check for his official gas guy identification which apparently they are supposed to carry). I interrupted him by stating that I’m new to India, and don’t know all the ins and outs. Especially when it comes to gas cylinders, since we don’t have set-up at all like that in the states. Sure there are barbeques, but those tanks you deal with on your own by going to a store or calling your local Hank Hill or something. I don’t know, I don’t have a gas grill! The angry little man increased the severity of blaming me and continued to say that it was not a crime because I’d just let him have it. I explained, not rudely but trying not to appear like I would back down, that what he was now doing was called “victim blaming.” In my case it was a cheap cop-out (get it?) but this is the kind of tactic that is a huge reason such a high percentage of rapes go unreported. Sadly, this is a fairly common occurrence around the world, but India, especially considering that it is the world’s largest democracy, is really behind in women’s rights (Click here to see Progress!). Me as a victim was being told I was dumb for letting someone take my cylinder. Yeah, it was kinda dumb, but it was a con, I fell for it, whatever. If you tell a rape victim that it’s their own fault? That the worst thing that’s ever happened to them was their own doing? Can you even imagine? I certainly hope that you can’t, but still you can see why this is completely inappropriate behavior for an officer whose job is to protect people from crimes, not facilitate them. After a bit more back and forth, the buck was finally passed from me to the landlord because I was not technically the owner of the gas cylinder. I call my landlord and he spoke to the police officer, who then told me that everything was fine because the owner was coming down and I could go home. This seemed much too simple and I was dubious of his dismissal. My brother got back with food and ice cream about this time and I caught him up on what was happening, but stayed right in the station as I did not believe Officer Dismissive McVictimblame. Shortly after I got a call from the landlord asking if he could speak to the officer again. I asked him if he was coming down and he told me of course he wasn’t, why would he? Nailed it. The officer hadn’t even asked him to come down. Haha, jokes on him. He’d blamed me, told me it wasn’t a crime, and then blatantly lied to me to get me to leave so he could continue not doing his job. Little did he know that my Yale Law Graduate brother was now back. Gloves = off.

                We were summoned to talk to the officer yet again, but this time Carrick took the lead. The man begin to explain that it was not a crime and Carrick shot him down. The man began to blame me and Carrick let loose. He wasn’t yelling, or even raising his voice, but you could hear the vehemence in his voice. “You are a worthless piece of garbage. You are what’s wrong with India. Even in America there is a reputation of how awful and corrupt the Indian Police Force is and it’s because of people like you.” Oh, it was glorious. One officer standing nearby had to translate the part about garbage, which was pretty awkward for the messenger. To add the little surreal spin that India likes to put on things, this whole exchange was happening in the room near the back of the station where the officer who was attempting to further bully us was getting undressed. Straight up just taking his clothes off. There was no explanation save the little shower basket on a chair next to him. After realizing he was beaten, he just sort of checked out. He stopped talking and just slunk off towards what I presume are the showers. We went back up to the receptionist area and continued to press. Eventually we talked them down to letting us see a higher up in five minutes rather than two hours (Ugh, you have to haggle for EVERYTHING here).

The resolution:

                This was the turning point. We were seen rather promptly around the promised five minutes. We spoke to the Superintendent who was polite, professional, offered us tea, and above all apologized for our treatment. At one point officer-strip-tease came in and tried to explain to the Super that it wasn’t a crime. Eventually there were four or five officers in the room backing up their comrade, trying to explain to their boss that it wasn’t a crime to con someone, but the Super quietly but with absolute authority put them down. He took our statement and sent us on our way. Later he dispatched three or four of the officers to come over and speak with the landlord, who was the owner of the tank, and we were brought in to have a say in the conversation. One officer referred casually to Carrick as Mr. Angry Man and then tried to explain how the law in India and America is different. Carrick casually explained that it was not because common law and shut up.

                “I just want to file the FIR because it’s the right thing to do and I believe in going through the correct channels.”

“But if you file the report, and we catch him, you will be required to come back to India for the court case.”

“That won’t happen because you won’t catch him.”

“What makes you say that we won’t find this man?”

“Because here all of you are, after all of these hours, putting in all of this work in order to NOT do your job. I have absolute and complete confidence in your not doing your job.”

                In the end the owner of the propane tank didn’t want to go forward with the FIR, but settled for a more easily dismissed ‘complaint’ and we called it a day. We wanted it done properly, but our landlord is actually a really sweet man, and we didn’t want to put him in a more awkward spot than we already were. A week and a half later we got a new tank and all is well. And on the plus side I can now say, without a hint of irony:

Fuck the Police.

Delhi Almost-Cut

Hey all, I typed this up just after it happened a couple weeks ago. Hope you enjoy it.

As I'm crossing the bridge on my way back from the doctor's office, I see a couple of young men up ahead on the sidewalk next to a wall that is solid concrete blocks from the ground to about three feet up and vertical iron posts the rest of the way to its full height of 6 feet. These two men are rough-housing over a white textile bag, the style of which are very commonly used to haul around garbage. These two men are most likely Garbage-Pickers, a job which is common among the extremely poor. As I get closer I see that one of the young men is probably about my age (early twenties), and the other man is actually just a boy, maybe 12 or 13. I'm quite close to the pair when the man pushes the boy onto his back up against that wall/fence and suddenly the scene snaps into an adrenaline fueled focus. This is not happy-playtime. The man-bully has one hand locked on the bag and looks calm and in control while the boy has both hands desperately clutching the bag, his face twisted with desperation, tears, and that legitimate fear that manifests in the eyes. There is something about true fear that really separates itself from just being worried or nervous or even scared – and goddamn if you don't know it when you see it. The first time I remember seeing it was when someone I was eating with started choking on her food. The look that comes into the eyes brings forth survival instincts thought forgotten.

Once again the hibernating portion of my brain came forward and the rest happened as if it had been scripted. Like the event was on tracks and only later on the walk home was I able to look back and start applying conscious thought to what had happened. I hurried forward pushed the man-bully's free arm. It wasn't hard enough to move him, but enough to let him know that I demanded his attention. He turned to look at me, and words tumbled from my mouth. “Hey, man, what are you doing? What's going on?” He responded, of course, in Hindi and started to turn his attention back to the boy. There was little else I could do but give him another rather feeble push and step around to face him more squarely as he tried to turn his attention back to the boy. “Hey, what's wrong with you? Are you hurting him?” He turned back to me and said something different this time, but making the universal gesture for an alcoholic drink, his thumb towards his lips, his pinky extended, and the rest of his fingers curled closed. “Dude, what?” I replied cunningly. It was as I was saying this that I realized this man-bully was drunk. His eye lids looked heavy and I noticed for the first time that his face, which had a worrying number of scares on it, was being held with that lack of muscle tension you only find in those who are stoned, intoxicated, or zombies. He did the gesture again but as he did the kid used the distraction to try and rip the bag out the drunk-man-bully's hand with a full-body, double-handed tug. For all the effort of the kid the only thing he managed to accomplish was forcing drunk-man-bully to take an awkward step to keep his grip. Drunky immediately lost interest in me, turned and took a swing at the kid. It looked like it might have half connected, I didn't really stand there and wait to parse out the details. I stepped between the two, and turned to face the attacker. 

At this point I still don't know the story. I don't know what the hell is going on, only that there was a conflict. The gaps I was filling in were that this man was trying to take the bag from the kid, either because there is alcohol in there, or there is something of value with he deems might bring him alcohol. The kid is most likely the victim of what has quickly escalated from theft to robbery. There was a small chance that the kid was trying to take something from the man, but if you were trying to take something from someone much bigger than you and you got caught, would you keep desperately tugging at the bag and start crying? No, you'd run away. Clearly. 

With that story in my head, and having just watched the man take a swing at the kid, I face drunk-man-bully and push him back. Not hard or with much power (i.e. acceleration), but enough to make him let go of the bag and realize that he now has no say in what's happening. I'm not a big guy, but I'm strong. 5'7”, 175 lbs and about 12 or 13% body fat. Before India and moving got in the way of my regular lifting, I was squatting (below parallel) 315, sets of five; dead lifting 310, set of five; pressing 140, sets of five; and benching 230, sets of five. I have a black belt in Taekwon-do; wrestled in high school; and have trained Jeet Kun Do, Muay Thai, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at several instances in my life since college. I'm not saying I'm a good fighter, I've never even been in a real fight, but as Jeff Winger says in regards to physical conflict: “I've got theories.” So although I didn't lay into the guy, he certainly became aware that he was being moved. He took the three or four steps required of him to not fall as I pushed a little harder to keep myself between him and the kid, while putting some distance between us so I would have time to react if he tried anything. Now that he was a few feet away I chanced a glance over my shoulder to see if the kid was okay. Still with his face smeared with grime and tears, the kid has the bag in one hand, but now slung over one shoulder to free up his other hand which is otherwise occupied – holding a fucking brick. My left hand is extended out towards drunk-man-bully to make sure I've got something between us, especially since I'm mostly looking at the kid now. I quickly point and the kid and say with three parts authority and two parts surprise “No! Put the brick down” and point to the ground. The latter gesture hopefully being clearer than the gibberish my mouth keeps throwing around without bothering to check in with my brain. I glance back to make sure drunk-man-bully hasn't moved, then back at the kid who has now dropped the brick. I swing my hand, tossing my fingers out a few times in a shooing gesture while I, again despite the fact that it is not becoming any less unhelpful, say “Go. Leave”. I look back at drunk-man-bully as he starts to try and walk around me. It's not an aggressive move, just a move as if he is planning on sauntering right past me. I step in front of him and push him back again, pointing behind him “No. Go, go.” Much to my surprise he steps one foot back and reaches his hand quickly around his hip and into his back pocket. I remember that my brain didn't register the fear it probably should have, but rather a heightened sense and a single summary thought. “fuck.” This next part, much like everything else only more so, happened without any consultation of the rational part of my brain. It's really nice that it worked, because the probably-knife he was reaching for wouldn't necessarily win him the fight, but would definitely leave me cut and was almost certainly filthy. I took a quick aggressive step forward and slammed my hand down and forward unto his collar bone. My arm had already been mostly stretched out in a pacifying/warding gesture, and when my hand landed it was open and turned so that it might seem like I was reaching for his throat. The combination of those two things made it less of a strike and more of a proverbial chest-beating. When my hand connected I looked straight at him and yelled “No!” As he stumbled back a few paces I adjusted my footing so that I was facing straight at him, my arms halfway up and ready, but not yet in a fighting stance. His hand stayed in his pocket. I didn't move, but again shouted at him to leave. He turned his body so that he was still half facing me and slowly walked away, his hand not leaving his pocket. I watched him until I deemed he was far enough away and, keeping one eye over my shoulder, turned to go find the kid. He was standing around a corner towards an alley not far from the confrontation, but he was nearer to people now. I again gave him the shooing motion, this time accompanied by my best, and hopefully most cross-linguistic, look of “come on kid, get the hell out of here”. The kid turned and walked down the alley, looking back every few steps (smart kid). I too turned to go, keeping an eye out to avoid being Julius-Caesar'd.

After walking about ten steps I noticed that drunk-man-bully had turned from where he'd stopped a minute ago and took a few testing steps in our direction. I stopped, turned around and starred at him while I, seriously I did this and cannot believe it worked, rolled up my sleeves. I'm really glad I hadn't changed out of my button up after work because the effect would have been completely lost in a tshirt. He had been watching me the whole time, of course, so when he saw this he stopped, turned, and left, walking a bit away and around the corner of the last building before the bridge I had come off of about one or two minutes before.

After that I rode the ensuing adrenaline wave home, keeping my head on a swivel to make sure I wasn't being followed, and finished up my errand by buying medicine and Gatorade for my sick brother.

Here we go again.

Hello hello, my name is Connor and welcome to my blog. I've played around with the travel blog thing before, but I'm thinking of trying something a little bit different here. I'm wanting to start this off as a travel / fitness blog. I'll be posting about my adventures and happenings as I travel, but also things related to fitness, specifically mine. I'd like for this blog to be varied so that it'll keep my attention, and therefore may include anything from links to sites that I find to be useful in the pursuit of health or xkcd comics that I find amusing. This may change drastically in the future, but let's give this a go.

My brother Carrick and I left very early in the morning in the first week of October. My girlfriend was kind enough to drive us to the airport despite the hour and the fact that it's a drive to the airport, for which we were very grateful.

After a sad, brief – to avoid bawling the whole way through security – goodbye, we headed to our gate and on to San Francisco and then Seoul Korea from there. If you or anyone you know is planning on heading across the Pacific anytime soon, I highly recommend Singapore Airlines. The service, food, and entertainment are all quite exceptional. It was a 12 or 14 hour flight, I didn't sleep at all and had no problem with that.

Despite the pampering we'd received, after deboarding the four-star restaurant the travel weariness became apparent. Travel time is such an odd experience. It feels like both less and more time has passed.

As we worked are way through the airport, a kind of surrealistic filter slide down between my tired eyes and manic brain, and continued on all the way through customs, down to the ticket office, and on to the shuttle/train which would take us to the metro station to continue on to the stop nearest out hostel. The best part about all of this is that I got to ride on the Seoul Train. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now, if you're thinking “why bother continuing with the blog, you've already reached your peak. Seoul Train. That's it, man.” then let me just tell you that A: you're probably right, but B: the rest of Seoul was amazing enough to warrant pressing on despite the odds. First off, the trains are quick and clean, which is nice, but they also go everywhere. Everywhere. Just looking at the metro map is fairly exhausting. I'm sure the buses are good too, but honestly we never needed them. Between the metro and walking we got everywhere we wanted to be. Including our hostel, which was of course the first stop we made. From the airport we had to transfer once, but overall it wasn't a particularly confusing or stressful trip. We got to where we needed to be, hauled our bags up out of the metro station and started down the street to the hostel. The first impression I had of Seoul was a lot like my first impression of Tokyo, which was good news. I really liked Tokyo, but my time there was measured in hours, not days. Between that and a few other things that came up, it was a moderately unpleasant experience. Seoul had the potential to be a similar environment, but with fewer of the negative aspects. And the first negative experience I sought to avoid was sleeplessness. We found our hostel, managed to get a room despite the fact that we had accidentally booked the wrong days online, and promptly went to bed. It was a long flight after an early morning after a late night, and I hadn't slept at all since we left for the airport. It was a welcome rest.

The next day we got up early (not that I'm one to get up early it's just how the jet-lag and fatigue lined up). We hit the streets and spent the whole day walking. Metro, walk for several miles, metro, walk for several miles, metro... You get the idea. We covered serious ground. We went through the royal palace, through various centers of different regions of the city, and the old town area. To be completely honest, a lot of it is a blur. I remember the subway, massive streets surrounded by massive buildings, swollen feet, a giant buddha at a temple where we meditated, and a huge vacant olympic stadium with a tourch you could just barely see at the right angle through the bars of the gates. We had less than three full days to see as much as possible, and we definitely got around to seeing a lot. Seoul is an awesome city, the people are incredibly friendly and helpful, the language is both odd and an isolate which appeals to the linguist in me, and much this massive sprawling metropolis is surrounded by high hills of textured rock and deep green trees. It's a beautiful place and I could absolutely see myself spending more time there somewhere down the road. Another reason to consider Seoul as a destination is the fact that for those three days for the two of us doing whatever we wanted it cost around $250. Total. That's food, hostel, travel, and activities. The single most expensive thing was eating out, but everything else was cheap cheap cheap.

Highlights of that trip? Seoul train, The night walk down by the river and longest building I've ever seen (it stretched for... I honestly don't even know. It was about three stories high, was filled with mostly clothing shops, and seemed to stretch on forever. It had breaks for blocks, but the blocks were exceptionally long and the building would pick up again on the other side of the street), and getting to hum the M*A*S*H theme as a military helicopter flew overhead.

Sorry this isn't particularly detailed, but that was almost two months ago and I've been spending a lot of time thinking and planning this but only now got the chance to sit down and crank it out. I'll try to update regularly, but you know how that goes.

Night folks, lots of love

Connor