By Joseph Burke

Agora doesn’t have hundred foot tall mausoleums, massive statues of Hanuman the monkey god, or the headquarters of the Indian government like Delhi does, but in my time here I have learned more about Indian history, religion, and society just through conversations I’ve had with the people here. If I asked the manager of the Hotel Grand Park Inn in Delhi how the caste system worked, I probably would have gotten a confused stare or an “I don’t know, look it up. I’m busy.” Or if I went to one of New Delhi’s many museums I could have seen as much information as I wanted to, but sometimes museums can make people feel unsatisfied because there is little emotion or personality attached to the facts and figures.

In Agora no question is refused and every answer comes with a personal story attached. Chai is a really popular drink in the village and we wanted to learn how to make it ourselves. Instead of a villager sending us a link to a recipe website, some of us got to make the drink first hand. They taught us when the water was ready, the correct amount of tea to put in, and why water buffalo milk tastes so good with it.

Hinduism is a very important part of the village and of the culture of India as a whole. In Agora you can see the significance through the temples—the largest one being right next to the town square. Hinduism is a fascinating religion, but it is hard to grasp just by reading about it in a book because it is so complex. Luckily, one of our group’s hosts was Shivam, a 23-year-old artist who painted the side of the temple. He told me about the temple being dedicated to the snake avatar of Shiva, Nag, and how the different ceremonies take place. In Agora I also got to see many people passing through who I was told were pilgrims traveling a trail through the village to a holy lake. We would end up doing the same hike the pilgrims did and participated in a pooja, or blessing, at the temple of Ganesh by the edge of the lake where we burned incense and the priest placed saffron on our foreheads.

Conversations and real context have also helped me understand the caste system, which is complex and difficult to grasp through facts and figures alone. In our meetings before the trip Mr. Alter told us that the caste system is understood by most Hindus as part of their journey through time; to fully understand the universe it is necessary to live through experiences in different castes. This was a difficult concept to wrap my head around until we saw this play out in the village in real life scenarios. We saw that the village was split into higher caste and lower caste sections and that certain jobs are performed specifically by members of one caste or another. Sanitation is reserved for lower caste and religious services are performed by the upper caste members. One interesting exception: the drums used for religious ceremonies like the ones performed when Suman’s grandmother died. Because the drums are made from animal skins, it is the lower caste’s role to make the drums and play them because it is considered unclean for higher castes to work with animal skins. Even though the drummers perform in a religious sense in that situation, they are still prohibited from entering the temple. Despite fairly rigid separation between castes, the Indian government tries to increase diversity in representation. For instance, it requires local political leadership to rotate among categories: sometimes it is open to everyone, then to a woman of any caste, then to any member of a lower caste, and finally to a lower caste woman.

Being in Agora has given the group such great opportunities to learn through experiences and conversations. I will remember what I have learned here way more than anything I could’ve learned in a book or museum.