Last day in Mumbai

With mixed feelings it is time for me to leave Mumbai. I have been here for almost a year including my 5 months internship with Vacha, travel and now the 10 weeks of MFS. So I have quite made myself a second home here.

As a last event with Men Against Violenca and Abuse (MAVA) I was invited to come to their arranged film fest in Goa called Sambhav, meaning possibility in Hindi. The fest is a two-day film festival on gender, masculinity, sexuality and relationships in 8 cities and 4 districts.

Attending the first day of the festival was the Swedish ambassador in Mumbai, Ulrika Sundberg. I had the pleasure of talking and discussing with her on some of the topics above.

Swedish Ambassador Mumbai India – Ulrika Sundberg

A few documentaries and short film that was screened included: 

 

And of course the documentary that has been made on MAVAs work.

If you live in Sweden the documentary is available to stream here:
https://kunskapskanalen.se/program/15348/killarna-som-vill-forandra-indien

Now it is time for me to finish up packing and later tonight catch the flight back home to Malmö!

India, don’t you worry (well I know you have more important things to worry about but..)!
I will be back sooner than you know!

 

Coming to an end

Now I find myself in paradise. No kidding. Dolphins swimming, palm trees swaying, waves crashing and birds singing. So, once we landed in Arambol we realized what a crazy place it was. Filled with drunken Russian kids, harassing sales men and loud clubbing music. Not really our scene. We succeeded in getting up early to watch the dolphins and hide from these obnoxious masses, but soon they would fill the beach and shopping areas and we were overwhelmed again. In the midst of this chaos I got sick, but was ok with spending my days in my room with AC away from these intense cultural chasms. Agnes hated Arambol even more than I did and took a train from north to south Goa. She said it was a lovely quiet ride and recommends it to future visitors to this south west coast. Once I was feeling better I took a taxi ride down with a frustrating driver who continuously asked me to date him. I lied and said I was married with kids, but this had little or no effect on his advances. In my mind I was ready to smack him silly if he tried anything, but thankfully this was not needed. Soon however I made it to Agonda where a wide white beach, calm sweet cows, more dolphins, and wild horses greeted me in the sun. I felt as if I had gone from party-ville to paradise. Here Agnes and I were able to focus and finish our analysis. It was a complicated procedure since we had 12 pretty individual and long interviews, but we managed after some time to categorize our material and then lay them in themes. If one wants to visit Goa I recommend visiting Agona, its quiet and beautiful. We stayed at a guest house called Monsoon, run by a German guy and a sweet Nepalese family. I made friends with adorable calves who rule the beach and learned to love paneer tikka. After ten days in the Agondan paradise Agnes flew back home and left me to fend for myself in the beach life. I bunkered down for three days and worked until my bum was sore from sitting, and finished my results. Or rather the first draught of part of the results. Then I took a day off, nice. After diving into Agonda it was time to move to my next destination. Little did I know it would be an even more secluded and surreal paradise beach. Its called Little cove beach or Little Cola beach, depending on who you talk too. I met Nina, my fellow nurse colleague, and we have been soaking up the sun, eating yummy food and learning to stand on our heads. I can’t complain. It’s an awesome place to spend the last couple weeks of my India adventure. Also a pretty good place to try to finish this paper before I go back to Sweden. Im hopeful that I’ll succeed even though its extremely tempting to just space out and watch the waves and palm trees. So, yeh, needless to say I recommend coming to this little gem of a place if you like the quiet things in life.

Jul i Indien

Hej! Det har varit ont om el och internet de senaste veckorna men efter mycket jobb och mindre fritid har jag äntligen unnat mig lite ledigt och har hamnat i Goa. Även om inte många firar jul i Udaipur där jag bor i vanliga fall så är det väldigt svårt att få något gjort under jul, de flesta har ledigt eller åker bort och då blir det svårt att få något jobb gjort. Men de senaste veckorna har varit produktiva och jag har börjat få in min data i SPSS. Skönt med ledigt nu i alla fall!

Goa är fantastiskt, underbart med sol och bad. Dessutom var det väldigt lugnt och skönt på julafton vilket passar mig utmärkt eftersom jag generellt inte gillar att fira jul. Tror att jag har hört totalt tre julsånger och inte sett röken av julmat. Tre andra tjejer från organisationen har också kommit hit så vi är ett gäng som umgås. Goa är underligt på så vis att det är Indien fast det samtidigt absolut inte är Indien. Här finns till exempel sallad (!) och de serverar biff, vilket känns jätteunderligt. Dessutom hör man svenska överallt och det var längesen!