The Life of a "Brand Ambassador"

Recently I was employed by the Ministry of Tourism of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir as a "Brand Ambassador."

"What the hell does that mean?" you ask.

Exactly.

J&K state, as most Indians refer to it, is something of an awkward stepchild of the main subcontinent. The state is comprised of three (no, not two, as the name would suggest) distinct regions which are separated from one another by steep walls of Himalayan peaks. Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh each have their own distinct language, ethnic makeup, religion, and culture. Ladakh is a high-mountain dessert bordering Tibet and inhabited by bhuddists who speak Ladakhi. Kashmir is a muslim valley region straddling India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan where the inhabitants speak Urdu and are of of Aryan descent. Jammu is the region just to the south where the flat expanse of the Deccan Plateau crumples into the Himalayan foothills. It is religiously Hindu, hindi is spoken and the people generally fit the ethnic sterotype of "Indians."

Jammu and Kashmir have been mired in both international and intranational conflict for the past three decades, taking turns skirmishing with Pakistan and each other (in the form of the Kashmiri struggle for independence from India). It appears that the governors of Jammu and Kashmir were so busy squabbling that they forgot to include Ladakh in the state's name but i guess thats beside the point.

The fighting in the region has kept tourists away from Jammu and Kashmir (Ladakh not included) for the past thirty years. And whereas Kashmir was previously a world-renowned tourist destination, Jammu's has always been far, far from any beaten path. The rural reaches of Jammu have essentially seen no foreigners in recent history. The state has recently decided to try to attract more tourists, so naturally they contacted me.

Ya, just kidding. But its not so far from the truth.

My friend Mike who works in tourism development had been in touch with the J&K Ministry of Tourism in the past and so when they decided to innagurate a new trekking route to parts of Jammu that had never before seen tourists, they recruited his help to get some foreigners on the inaugural walk. And so Me, Mike and another friend from Delhi set off to be official "brand ambassadors" to the J&K ministry of tourism.

The three of us were greeted at the train in Jammu City with strings of flowers around our necks and lots of hand shaking, earnest introductions and hearty welcomes. The trip was off to a lovely ceremonious start.

I knew that the beginning and end of our 8 days in Jammu were going to be highly ceremonial. Any time anything in India happens worth noting, there is almost certainly a prolonged, highly regimental program of speeches, announcements, forced applause and lengthy, dazzlingly regal, introductions of each speaker. This is especially true when public officials are involved, and especially true in those many places where officials don't actually have all that much else to do.

And so at various venues, on various stages we sat through various speeches. There was the Minister and the Deputy's Minister and the Minister's Deputy. Each had their associates make proper introductions and then there were thank yous to be extended. the minister's assistants, and the specially appointed task forces' leaders that made all the ministrations possible. Many speeches were in Hindi, and that was OK. And many others were in shades of English that didn't make much more sense to me than the Hindi. And that was OK too. Every five minutes or so words like "especially to our trekkers from the USA" or "and the Americans" would make their way into the speeches and robust applause would sound from the crowds. I took to the habit of standing up and giving a princess-diana-style wave every time i thought it was appropriate. This garnered more applause and occassionally i even blew a kiss.

On the afternoon of the first day in Jammu city, we three brand ambassadors were dressed in loud yellow turbans and flowers and instructed to lead a march through the streets of the old city. The parade in tow was composed of about 15 college girls in matching purple saris and then just a bunch of plainclothes people in the back. Onlookers in the storefronts and on the sidewalks gave us looks of utter confusion or indifference depending on how much noise we weere making up front, but it was pretty damn fun.

The first day of speeches and waiting for the trek to start led to another day of speeches and waiting for the trek to start. We moved from Jammu city to Udhampur, the provincial capital of the region that we were purportedly going to be trekking in. On the third day in a row, I started to get pretty pissy and shouted at the trip leader in front of one of Udhampur cheifs of police who thought the whole thing was hilarious and kept patting me on the back. Causing the commotion got swift results though and we were given the freedom to go visit a "traditional village" which i thought might be pretty cool, of course once we set out, a cadre of official escorts were dispatched to accompany us and they wouldn't let us have any fun so that was more frustration.

Our final morning in Udhampur we played a ceremonial cricket match against a team of local ministers, minister's assistants and associates of assistant ministers. The foreigners team (the three Westerners and the Indians from outside Jammu) lost, but the game was actually insanely fun. I get cricket cravings now whenever I see a pitch and wickets.

In the long round of congratulatory speeches that followed the match, I stepped up to the mic as well and made a speech that began: "On behalf of the People of the United States of America, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to the Udhampur authorities for making this great and historic day possible." That morning I had been on the front cover of the Udhampur newspaper dancing like a maniac at one of the previous day's ceremonies, so I was feeling pretty self-confident.

After the cricket match we headed off for a long haul drive into the mountains. Finally the trek was going to begin.

The Parade Begins



This is the end of our stop at the Taxicab Driver's association. I delivered what i hope were inspirational remarks about the use of meters in place of of the trickery of bargaining fares.

I signed a lot of autographs

"This is Trekking!"

...this post is t.b.c. as always