From: Anya Bernstein
Subject: Fieldnotes on the go
   Date: August 8, 2005 1:22:04 PM CEST
     To: Undisclosed recipients

dear friends,

my first-ever fieldwork took place in India in 2001 and finally i here i return, albeit many miles south from the Himalayas. after a few days in dusty and decadent Mumbai, we were already on the train down south. having woken up the next day, still on the train, and fighting off cockroaches and mice under my bunk, i looked out of the window to what seemed like a sea of palms trees. in fact there was not much else in terms of vegetation. nor was there anything you would call a countryside in the European sense - every inch of this land was densely populated. we were arriving in Thiruvanantapuram, renamed Trivandrum by the phonetically impaired British, which made the city lose its meaning - the City of Sacred Serpent... NEXT PAGE>