One hand is steering his motor scooter, while the other holds a portable radio so Schneider can bark commands over the engine noise to one of his 26 crew members. His voice is hoarse because he's caught a cold after working 12-to-16-hour days for the past month as technical director of the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival. He stops, turns off the scooter, and consults one of two laminated cards he always wears on a lanyard around his neck that list nearly 100 building contractors, equipment vendors, government officials and craft workers. He punches up one of 50 programmed phone numbers he keeps on his two cell phones.

Schneider is not just multitasking; he is mega-tasking. He is a friendly, beefy, 37-year-old ex-carpenter who gave up a university career teaching theatrical design and production to join the Smithsonian. He has worked on large, complicated projects before, including the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. But never anything quite like this. And right now, on a blustery day in mid-May, he has, at minimum, five good reasons to be totally overwhelmed by what lies ahead of him before the festival opens for its run June 26 through July 7:

1) He is the field commander in charge of assembling "The Silk Road: Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust," the most ambitious and elaborate Folklife Festival undertaken in the 36-year history of the event. Five huge structures will be built on the Mall, theatricalized replicas of historic monuments that symbolize the legendary trade routes connecting the Far East to European cultures. In addition, electricity, plumbing, kitchen facilities, 15 stages and 43 platforms must be provided inside more than 90 tents, where some 400 artists and performers from more than 20 nations will entertain a projected record crowd of 1.2 million visitors.

2) At the moment, most of the festival is literally at sea. Tons of welded steel towers, structural bamboo, silk, canvas and other textiles have been fabricated, stitched or painted in India by some 300 native artists, welders and craftspeople. But there have already been shipping foul-ups and dicey weather, so the majority of the 21 giant shipping containers holding virtually the entire production are still somewhere on the Pacific.

3) Not only that, but also among the missing are 15 skilled Indian bamboo carpenters and metalworkers, who actually built (and then disassembled) the five historic "sentinels," and also erected (and broke down) more than 60 uniquely designed Asian tents, framed in bamboo or curved, beaten steel. The carpenters are eight days behind their scheduled arrival date, and Schneider has recently learned that seven welders have been denied visas in New Delhi and may not be allowed to come at all. This news has set off a diplomatic panic at Smithsonian headquarters and sent Schneider scrambling for emergency American backups.

4) Schneider is concerned about how long it will take his workers to dig no less than 1,500 holes in the Mall. The holes can't be too big or deep because of National Park Service rules, but they will have to support bamboo and steel poles that will serve to encase the entire Silk Road extravaganza in a giant south Asian kanat--a seven-foot-high fence made of bamboo, woven straw, silk and other textiles. (All of which will have to clear U.S. Customs.) The kanat will form a continuous wrapper of more than 6,000 running feet that will tie together the whole festival with a variegated display of colorful, elaborate designs in Italian, Turkish, central Asian, Chinese and

Japanese motifs.

5) And on top of all this, Rajeev is coming soon from India, which is enough to make any construction manager anxious. His impending arrival has caused nervous laughter and genuine concern among Schneider and an advance party of three Indian architects who helped execute the project. Rajeev would be Rajeev Sethi, an internationally known "scenographer" who conceives major festivals and who is regarded as a visionary design guru who can be just a wee bit difficult. Sethi, for instance, has been pushing Schneider via e-mails to dismantle some permanent lampposts on the Mall.

For overall difficulty, "on a scale of 1 to 11," says Schneider, who is supervising his third festival construction, "this one would be a 12."

When the Silk Road idea was first raised by Asia experts at the Smithsonian about five years ago, Richard Kennedy, the festival's deputy director, remembers his reaction: "I said, 'Great idea! You're out of your mind.' " Customarily, each festival celebrates life in one or two of America's 50 states, along with a single foreign culture. "It's complicated enough," says Kennedy, "but we have never taken on this breadth of international programming." Between construction and the importation of hundreds of far-flung performers, the Smithsonian would need an estimated $6 million in outside fundraising to pull it off, the highest cost ever.

The concept--and the financing--got its crucial spark three years ago when world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma pitched the same idea to the Smithsonian as part of his Silk Road Project, a nomadic musical celebration of central Asia that has been traveling the world. Ma, like many others, had become intrigued by the role of the Silk Road in transmitting culture: Silk, spices, tea, noodles, papermaking techniques and "china" pottery were carried between continents by traders, monks and missionaries, as were artistic and musical innovations, gunpowder and mathematics--not to mention the religions of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Ma has called the Silk Road the medieval precursor to the Internet.

Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian director who oversees the Folklife Festival and is an anthropologist specializing in south Asia, was enthralled with the idea of trying to embody the Silk Road within the confines of the Mall. "It's a romantic notion of really creating a sense of community," Kurin says. "And the question is: 'Will having

all these people from different cultures feel part of the same community? Will the artists feel it? Will the visitors feel it?

The Silk Road as a metaphor for a global community. Can people from suburban Virginia feel community with a farmer

from Kurdistan?' "

To achieve this lofty sensation, Smithsonian officials became convinced that only one designer could pull it off--Rajeev Sethi, who conceived the 1985 Folklife Festival exhibit on India, which broke all previous measures of attendance and of critical acclaim. Sethi designed the major pavilion at the worldwide Expo 2000 in Germany and has lectured and been honored throughout Asia, Europe and America.

Sethi had set up a nonprofit in India called the Asian Heritage Foundation, which is dedicated to supporting ancient folk arts and crafts that are still practiced by poor and struggling villagers across the continent. Sethi's audacious proposal was to hire several hundred of those artisans to build virtually the entire Mall project in India. Even with huge shipping expenses, the cheaper labor cost would compensate. And with Sethi's grasp of many cultures and his dazzling artistry, says Kurin, "We found someone with a golden eye to match the magical, musical ear of Yo-Yo Ma."

All these noble cultural aspirations have to be translated into reality--by hand. Kurin stops by one day to speak to Schneider's freelance carpentry crew, which is sawing lumber inside a shop tent. The workers are building floors for the performers, but Kurin seeks to inspire them with a larger vision: Remember, he tells them, "You're not just building platforms, you're building culture." The sweaty carpenters get such a kick out of that line that they arrange to have T-shirts made up with that motto.

Like the Silk Road itself, the Mall project is a sometimes-turbulent interaction of East and West. "By the end of the summer, I will know cuss words in Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Uzbek, Arabic and Mongol," Schneider says, smiling. He's built things with his hands since he was a kid in Chicago putting up treehouses, and, in his theatrical production career, has mastered carpentry, drywall, welding, machining, metalworking, hydraulics, automation and rigging.

So he is confident of his technical skills in overseeing construction of 30-foot-high replicas of the landmark Nara Gate in Japan, the Xian Tower in China, Samarkand Square in Uzbekistan, the Hagia Sophia church-mosque in Istanbul and the Piazza San Marco in Venice. He is more worried about whether the Indian workers and materials will arrive on time--and whether the East-West crews will work well together.

"When I explained that we start work at 7 a.m., they freaked out! Freaked!" Schneider recalls of an earlier conversation with Rajeev Sethi's assistants. The Indian crews, who started in January, worked very long hours, but started later and worked into the cool of evening. This cultural difference, like others, is worked out by compromise.

Inside a temporary trailer, Schneider and three Indian architects are huddled over Schneider's notebook computer. From here, high-speed Internet and Smithsonian Intranet connections have kept Schneider in almost constant touch with Sethi's crew in India. Outside, American workers are using nail guns to assemble platforms, and the sound is like gunfire. Inside, the four men are looking at architectural drawings of delicate Asian tents, nomadic yurts, prayer shrines and the five major landmarks.

Problem: Cement footings have already been poured (the first of 29 tons to be installed and then removed from the Mall), but Vijay Kate and Rajeev Lunkad, young assistants to Sethi, are unhappy. They think the concrete looks unsightly and will have to be chiseled, and they worry about losing space inside the tents. They are particularly worried that Rajeev, still back in India, will be unhappy. Rob assures them that a compromise solution will be fine, and tries to lighten the mood.

"We can cheat by six inches and make it work. Are you good with that, Vijay?" Rob asks, "C'mon, smile, man."

Vijay, who at 29 is prematurely graying and often very serious, does not smile.

Rob, who wears a gold earring of rams' heads, laughs at his somber expression. "Ah, c'mon, Vijay. I'll put on some Grateful Dead if you smile."

Vijay manages a half smile, and Rob offers him a Camel cigarette.

They all look over the site plans and agree that it seems like too short a time span to build the whole thing in the next six weeks. "Yeah," says Rob, "about two years too short."

Later, in private, Schneider talks seriously, almost reverently, about the project. He has made two brief visits to India and seen much of the completed work: magnificent Chinese tents that appear to be floating above the ground, large Bedouin tents with exotic curved frames, a giant multicolored steel-and-silk replica of the Bamian Buddhas of Afghanistan, which were blown up last year by the Taliban. "Once you walk on the site, you will not recognize it as the Folklife Festival. You will be on the Silk Road," he says. "I feel like I have this burden of knowing what this will look like. I have a background in visualization, and this is something that's going to surprise a lot of people," he says. "I have an expectation that I know will be fulfilled, but I know what it will take. Oh, man!"

On May 22--with the Indian construction workers still somewhere in transit, the moment comes: Rajeev Sethi arrives. He seems to glide as he moves in brown slippers slowly around the Mall site, wearing what he calls his "Silk Road tunic." It is a kurta pajama, a billowy garment of beige, unbleached cotton, set off by an anga-vastra, a white silk shawl. In a soft, melodic voice, he stresses that it is made of "non-

violent silk." Instead of boiling the cocoons and killing the silkworms, certain Indian tailors allow them to escape first. Sethi smiles beatifically.

In his flowing wrapper, he looks very much the part of artist, visionary, guru. He is a chubby, round-faced man with deep, dark eyes framed by oval glasses and unruly curls of longish black hair. Sethi is in his fifties, but when asked his age, smiles: "I am whatever age you want me to be."

The Mall is dominated by various shapes of white rental tents that will soon be surrounded by his multicolored Asian tents and vivid textiles. He is asked his first impressions, as he studies the sprawling site. He pauses before whispering softly: "I have just come in and I am contemplating the landscape . . . I am still internalizing."

For the next 90 minutes, Rajeev Sethi strolls the site and reflects on his artistic intent, stopping only for an unlikely snack of hot tea and Lay's potato chips. He is at once humble yet adept at name-dropping, quickly allowing as how Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Nancy Reagan have been among his biggest fans. Returning to Washington for this project, he says, holds special meaning.

"I hope this festival will be able to talk about the nobility of sharing cultures, the commonalities of shared traditions," he says. He finds particular poignance in mounting this show in the aftermath of September 11, and while his own country and Pakistan remain mortal enemies. "Currently, there is an ugly, militarized atmosphere in Asia, and it is impossible to do a festival like this in my part of the world. So here we are, in America, to explore the common roots and shared experiences. America becomes a glue, a place where people come to bond together, and this idea has deep resonance here."

As he resumes his walk, Sethi remarks that the afternoon sun is much too harsh for his delicate color schemes, and he wishes aloud that the Smithsonian would change festival hours into the evening. Then he says he realizes he can't change everything--but there is a twinkle in his eye that suggests he might still try.

Finally, in the last week of May, the complicated visa problems are resolved, the first half of the Indian crew arrives, and the more exotic forms of the Silk Road quickly start taking shape after they are pulled from the huge containers that have arrived by ship and rail and air and, finally, truck to the Mall.

Near the Freer Gallery of Art, carpenters Suresh Kumar and Abdul Sattar hoist a 15-foot tent post that is itself a work of art--four thick bamboo poles, three inches in diameter, are bound together by strands of blue and beige jute, woven in geometric designs, making a graceful four-posted support. The Indian work crew, unlike the architects and managers, are in uniform. They wear identical organic cotton shirts of the Asian Heritage Foundation, designed by Sethi, each decorated with a graceful rendition of the tree of life, an artistic motif that is universal to all the cultures in the festival. Beneath the tree is AHF's motto: "Empowering the Poor With Cultural Industries."

Lunch break on their first day: The workers are eating outdoors, standing up at rough wooden tables under a tree. The menu is, of course, Indian food, ordered from a place in Dupont Circle. Matar paneer, dal, bharta and naan. The crew eats heartily, but Sethi declares: "The food is not adequate." Festival director Richard Kurin, visiting the site this day, whips out his cell phone, calls an Indian restaurant owner he knows and immediately changes caterers for the next day. Sethi is pleased. Better food arrives the following days, served on glass plates instead of paper.

The American carpenters and helpers join the lunch, and the physical contrast is striking. At one table, the Indians are all short, dark-skinned, wiry men in uniform. The Americans are taller and stouter, and a mix of race and gender. Everyone exchanges pleasant yet awkward greetings across the barrier of language, but they eat at separate tables this first day.

Larry Jewell and Tony Milby, veteran carpenters with weathered faces, say the festival jobs, particularly this year, are a lot more interesting than most construction gigs. "I volunteered for this five years ago. I live in Stafford, Virginia, and I've never been out of the country," says Milby, who is 45. "But here I've worked with all different kinds of people, from Romania, France, England and India."

The Indian workers have also never been out of their country until now. They are temporarily living in a newly renovated apartment house on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE in Anacostia, traveling to and from the Mall by bus and Metrorail, the latter being a particular source of awe.

"I like the cleanliness. I like the orderliness" of what he has seen so far of America, says Abdul Sattar, speaking through a translator. Abdul is a sixth-generation bamboo carpenter from Ghaziabad, a town outside New Delhi. At 48, he has a gray beard, a weathered face and five children back in India. He marvels most at "how big the people are in America," both in height and heft.

His crew chief, Mohammad Irfan, 25, is most impressed by how quickly everyone in America moves and how people keep to schedules. He marvels at much of the technology. On the other hand, he adds, "ours is a different way of working, by hand rather than machine. And when we are finished, it is less monotonous. And the oddities of imperfection add to the beauty of our work."

Abdul Sattar says he feels proud to carry on hundreds of years of family craft, particularly because it will be seen by more than a million foreigners. "I feel very proud when I see people come and admire it, and they learn that people from India made it, and it makes us proud to show the skills of our generation and our parents."

By early June, Sethi is pleased, calling the earlier problems "only hiccups." His disappointments are minor, such as his request to Schneider for a nifty motor scooter just like the one that enables Rob to zip around the huge site.

Rob, who has been coached by Smithsonian colleagues and who has thought considerably about how to keep Rajeev happy, has anticipated this. "I've been instructed not to give you one," he says, without smiling, "because you might get hurt."

"But I need to play," Rajeev says petulantly.

Rob smiles, but appears uncomfortable.

Rajeev smiles and explains to a visitor, "My job is to keep Rob happy." Rob laughs, nervously.

"There is an advantage to creative tension," Rajeev tells Rob.

"Yes, you learn a lot about people when you work under adverse conditions," Rob replies.

"Yes," Rajeev says. "Yes."