Why I keep coming back

I wrote about my motivations for keeping on coming back to India a few months ago for an application. For one reason or another, this essay didn't make it into the final application submission, but I wanted to share part of it, in case any of my experiences touch you as they have touched me, and make you want to come here and do something.

I waited outside a doctor’s office with a baby dehydrated from constant diarrhea and vomiting. Her parents drink every day—her mother drank throughout her pregnancy. She threw up on me as we waited, but afterward, as I sang to her and made funny faces, she smiled up at me. Her smile is the reason I want go back. Rohan is an 8-year-old, deaf, blind, mute orphan who I obtained a disability certificate for from a government hospital. I sat with him for hours in line for days and shuffled him from department to department, all to obtain two signatures for his certificate. He felt the watch on my wrist and my monsoon-inspired afro and broke into giggles as he recognized me. His giggles are the reason I want go back. Ashvin is a 9th grade slumdweller* who I taught English to. He saves every rupee he earns to help his family. He carefully safeguarded a 1 Rupee coin that I accidentally left lying by him to give back to me the next day he saw me, telling me I should really take better care of my money. His sincerity is the reason I want go back. I walked by Shantamaaji, an 80 year old woman who lives alone beneath a tarp, every day on my way to the community center in the middle of her slum. She greeted me with a “namaste” and big, toothless smile every time I walked by. Her open heart is the reason I want go back.


Rohan.

*I was told by some advisors that the word "slumdweller" may be "offensive" to the committee reading my application. I was surprised and became more and more annoyed by this idea as I thought about it. Why should a committee of influential academics, policymakers, and generally well-off people be offended by this term? In fact, I think it's politically insensitive and incorrect to use euphemisms or broader terms that aren't so specific (not that slumdweller is that specific anyway, but I suppose it is more specific than "the impoverished," which was one of the terms suggested to me as a replacement for the word I was using) for people that are leading entire lives of hardship in slums. The more people try to obscure these "harsher" or more specific words, to make ugly things sound less ugly, to not give a face to specific realities, the more the general public will forget about them or brush them aside. The less people will work toward eliminating the horrible inequalities in societal, political, and economic norms that lead people into lives of devastation. Finally, the UN Global Report on Human Settlements 2003--The Challenge of the Slums uses the word "slumdweller," as do Indian newspapers. It's time we all recognized that slumdwellers, millions of them, exist all over the world and the gross inequalities that lead to their living situations, not the word slumdwellers, should offend us.

HOLI HAI!!

A little late, but it's definitely necessary for me to document my absolutely wonderful Holi (March 1). I took Claire to Ahmedabad for our 4-day-Holi-extravaganza-weekend. (read about her experience living at my grandfather and great-aunt's flat for the weekend: http://claireinindia.tumblr.com/post/424435788/eat-to-live-live-to-eat)

The morning of Holi, Ajaybhai and Sunilbhai texted/called me to let me know that everyone had gathered at Manav Sadhna. As soon as Claire and I arrived, Sunilbhai was waiting behind the gate door, greeting everyone that entered with a face-full of color. We danced around to the dhol beats, celebrating with the NGO kids and staff.



Then, we departed, 2 or 3 to a motorcycle, to go to Virenbhai's house. Virenbhai is one of the founders of Manav Sadhna--he lives for a year in the US, managing Manav Sadhna's Chicago branch, and a year in India. Anyway, as we rode down the street, we shouted "HOLI HAI!!!" to any other well-colored person we saw. The chant was always reciprocated immediately. We stopped by a couple houses, picked up a couple more friends, piled them on the motorcycles, and our gang reached Virenbhai's, slightly wetter and slightly more colored than we had been before.


Sandeepbhai, Sunilbhai, and I, respectively, are on the far side. Ajaybhai and Claire in the middle. Raghubhai, a volunteer I just met, and Anjali closest.

That's when the fun really started. Little did I know that Virenbhai's house is pretty much perfect for masterminded Holi attacks. Shaped in rectangle, the terrace is the perfect place to line up buckets of colored water and target people down below. The corners seem to be made for hiding around, and the little shades popping out of the side of the house are perfect to make a naive first-timer think s/he is safe by standing underneath (really, there is a perfect terrace position for a bucketful of water on anyone's head down below). Right outside of the gate, there is a perfect little ditch where mudwater collects in exactly the right amount to form a mud puddle in which to dunk people. There are ample sources of taps and hoses and buckets and drainwater all around the house, and if those are all taken, don't worry, you can just jump the wall to the neighbor's house and get some water there. Once you have some water, just mix it with anything you can find--I made a lovely concoction of pink color, flower petals, and mud, and the resulting consistency was glorious for coloring others.

'

Some good ole' fashioned mud dunking: Bhaskarbhai and Sandeepbhai

After about 2 hours of coloring and alliance-shifting and drenching each other from head to toe (and the guys forcibly dunking each other in the mud pool), Virenbhai very convincingly said "prathna time!" So, we all gathered around to say an all-religion prayer before, we thought, food was going to be brought out. Of course, however, Sunilbhai was hiding up on the terrace, and a huge bucket of water poured down on the entire circle of people and the Dhuleti continued for another hour. Then, finally, a real prathna was said and big pots of pav-bhaaji were brought out, with M&Ms and Kaju Katri for dessert. We sat basking in the sun, drying off, and sharing big thaalis of food, as we always do at Manav Sadhna. Of course, the eating didn't last long--buckets of colored water started pouring even as there was some food left on the plates, and everyone ducked for cover.


Ajaybhai, Bhaskarbhai, me, and Jigneshbhai.

A few latecomers from the Indicorps team arrived, right after our lunch. They made the mistake of calling beforehand to announce the fact that they were coming, which allowed us to make some great plans for accosting them, allowed us to ready the terrace buckets, etc. All the boys in the group were given the ceremonial mud dunking and I am proud to say I got some lovely color and bucketwater drenchings in as well.

All in all, we played Holi for about 5 hours straight, and then walked to the nearest tea shop where we had little cups of delicious chai. Claire and I went home and took hour-long showers, though some remnants of Holi were sure to remain for the next few days--a green spot on the elbow, pink nails, a little blue behind the ears...

Though celebrating Holi was a wonderful time, what made it amazing were the people I was celebrating with. Manav Sadhna has truly become another home to me. Being at the NGO and with the people who work at it makes me feel like I am in the safest place in the world, with the best people in the world. Sunilbhai, Ajaybhai, Jigneshbhai, Sandeepbhai, Bhaskarbhai, Raghubhai, Anjali, all of the children, and everyone else at MS are no longer my friends or my students, but rather my family. Any new volunteers I meet each time I go just become part of this ever-growing parivar. I can't think of anywhere else I would have rather been for Holi.

*Pictures: courtesy Mira.

WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT TO MASTER ENGLISH?

A lovely chain email going around here:

We must polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
The farm was used to produce produce.
The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
This was a good time to present the present.
A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when the does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer line.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of injections my jaw got number.
Upon seeing the tear in my clothes I shed a tear.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I read it once and will read it agen
I learned much from this learned treatise.
I was content to note the content of the message.
The Blessed Virgin blessed her richly.
It's a bit wicked to over-trim a short wicked candle.
If he will absent himself we will mark him absent.
I incline toward bypassing the incline.

:)

My International Women's Day

All I want to do right now is punch someone in the face. More specifically, I would like to hit and curse at a man wearing a jeans jacket that says "fanaa" in red letters on the back. I'd like to push him right off his motorbike and then slap him. But I know violence is not the answer. So, I guess I'd like to MAKE him listen to a lecture about women's rights and to make him attend these lectures DAILY for years to come. And have him cook food for the women in his family every day and take care of the kids in his household. And I suppose that while I'm playing god, I'd also like to bless him with a uterus and a menstrual cycle.

I was walking down the street of the neighborhood I'm currently living in with my classmate, Samia. It's a nice neighborhood, there are watchmen in front of some of the gates, big houses etc. It's located right off the main road. Anyway, we were walking toward the main road at 4pm, and there were a couple men a little further down the road. I heard a slow-moving scooter idling behind me, but didn't look back in case there was a man on the scooter (normally when you make eye contact with them, the "Eve teasing" happens). Plus, I didn't really think anything of it, since vehicles drive very close to pedestrians in India anyway, and it was broad daylight on a safe neighborhood street and I was walking with a friend and there were other people out in plain sight. Right as I heard the scooter come up behind me, as I was about to look back and glare at the driver for driving so close, a hand reached out, and groped me, as the man the hand belonged to drove right by. By the way, it's International Women's Day today. I was so mad. No, I AM so mad. I yelled as I watched the jeans jacket that said "fanaa" on the back get smaller and smaller as he drove lazily down the street but people didn't realize why I was calling out (there are many yells and loud noises and horns on the streets in India; people barely look up at loud noises). I joined a couple of friends down the street, and was just telling them what had just happened when the man on the scooter in the jeans jacket that said "fanaa" on the back DROVE BY AGAIN. He came close, but not too close because I was standing with 3 others by now and backed away from his scooter, and he looked straight at me as he drove by slowly. I glared. Then, I started telling the watchman and other man on the street what had happened in my broken Hindi and we all watched on helplessly as he grabbed another woman walking up the street. He drove away again. Too angry to think straight enough, I only got the last 4 digits of his license plate, 1222. The watchman told me to just pick up a rock and throw it at the man's head if that happened again, but that's REALLY not the solution I want (plus, he was wearing a helmet). It is SO unfair that this happens to women in India every single day. My friend Amanda, got groped by 3 boys on a bike when she was walking on the side of a busy street--what a great welcome to Jaipur. All of the girls in my group have been whistled at, creepily smiled at, tauntingly sung at, and stared at shamelessly by men of all ages. Tourism books on India all have "Eve teasing" warnings in their introductions. The newspapers have stories of gang rapes by men who just catch girls walking or even riding on their scooters in broad daylight, and violate them right on the side of the street. If you go out past sun down, you will barely see any women on the road. On any given street, the ratio of men to women will literally be 50:2 (the 2 being me and the female friend I'm with are walking down the street) or higher.

What's worse is that sex ratios in India fell according to the last census (the next census will come out next year). The sex ratio is defined as the number of females per 1000 males. In India, in 1991, the sex ratio was 925. In 2001, it became 897. In Rajasthan in 1991, it was 916 and fell to 909 in 2001.

Between 2000 and 20001, the Christian Medical Association of India conducted a case study in which it recorded sex ratios in accordance with the sex of the previous child at 1 public hospital in Delhi, recording 11267 births. These were the results:

-If a couple was having its second child and the first child was a male, the sex ratio at birth for the second child was 959. If the couple was having its second child and the first child was a female, the sex ratio at birth for the second child was 542.
-If a couple was having its third child and they already had 1 male and 1 female child, the sex ratio at birth for the third child was 558. If the couple was having its third child and they already had 2 female children, the sex ratio at birth for the third child was 219.

(An informative Economist article detailing the extent of this missing women phenomenon all over the world (thanks Mariette): http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15636231)

Other blood boiling factors (many not just applicable to India):
-It is so easy in India to find out the gender of your child and abort it if the fetus is female, even though this is illegal.
- On legal medical forms for children in India, only the father's name is asked to be filled, as if the mother has no role in the guardianship of the child.
-Women who wear anything above the knee are often seen as "asking for it."
-Women who are raped are often looked at as impure and made outcasts of society.
-Girls and women that are menstruating are, in many families, not supposed to go to a temple or touch anything or are sent away to a hut for menstruating women located far from their homes because anything they touch during this period of time will be considered "impure".
-The PRINCIPAL OF A SCHOOL, a supposedly well-educated man, had his pregnant wife go to a "baba" to get a pill that will make the baby be born male, and when the baby was a female, abandoned his wife and child. A girl on my program is living with a host-mother who is currently living alone because her husband wanted their baby to be a boy, but it was a girl, so he wanted more children.
-Many girls are looked at as a financial burden--not only do their parents have to save up for dowries, but their daughter grows up (or is married off as a child--60% of girls in Rajasthan are married before the age of 18, leading to extremely high maternal and infant mortality rates, which are correlated with larger family size) and leaves and becomes the daughter of her husband's household. She won't be able to help support her parents in their old age.
-Many believe that last rites are only allowed to be performed by a son--otherwise, apparently, the soul does not go to heaven (bullshit.)
-Men's indiscretions and inappropriate sexual gestures/acts are overlooked because men's "needs" are natural, apparently more natural than women's and men just can't help it, whereas similar actions on a woman's part label her as a woman of "loose morals," and other worse labels.

Another extremely troubling fact is this: "In a national health survey, 51% of Indian men said that wife-beating is justified under certain circumstances; more surprisingly, 54% of women agreed--if, for instance, a wife burns dinner or leaves the house without permission. More than 100,000 young Indian women die in fires every year, many of them 'bride burnings' or other instances of domestic abuse." (Super Freakonomics)

I'm still mad. I am mad that women in India are so disempowered that more than half think that they deserve to be beat, under ANY circumstance, much less burning dinner and leaving the house without permission! I am mad that we are treated as lesser beings--with lesser needs, wants, desires, and goals, and we deserve lesser things, lower seats, lesser power, lesser education. On a lower rung. I'm mad that I feel so vulnerable. That a man can violate me out in broad daylight and have the nerve to come back for round two a couple minutes later. That I took a rickshaw back to my house instead of walking through the neighborhood at 6:30 pm (before sunset) because I did not feel safe. That I keep looking over my shoulder when I heard the sound of an engine anywhere behind me (aka every time I'm on the street), and that that will probably continue for a little while. That some more independence was taken away from me today.

I can't imagine how a woman who has been raped feels. What an utterly unthinkable and horrifying violation! Watch and listen to Sunitha Krishnan, an inspiring woman who was gang raped and has been working against sexual trafficking and harassment (and has been beaten up 14 times and had a co-worker friend who was murdered on rescue missions):
http://www.ted.com/talks/sunitha_krishnan_tedindia.html
http://www.ted.com/speakers/sunitha_krishnan.html

I am enraged. I want to shout and make a ruckus and do something about these gross human rights violations. And you should feel the same way. Don't be sad. Don't say it's too bad this is how society is. Be mad that this is how the society YOU live in is and do something about it. If you are a man, treat women with the same dignity and respect you have come to expect from others. If you are a woman, accept nothing less than the dignity and respect you deserve, and if you don't get it, don't be afraid to shout.

"The sense that thousands and millions of children and young people are being sexually violated and that there’s this huge silence about it around me angers me."
Sunitha Krishnan

By the way, Rajya Sabha voting on the Women's Reservation Bill was deferred today.

The God of Small Things

It was ____. In a heart-wrenching/I-didn't-really-realize-it-was-____-until-a-few-hours-after-I-finished-it sort of a way.
I might have liked it in the same way that I liked All The King's Men. It might even be a little like All the King's Men, except in South India. It's kind of about everything. Corruption, Christianity, caste and untouchability, communism, democracy, Hinduism, the desire to ruin other people, good smells, bad smells, factory conditions, sexual harassment, jealousy, violence, disempowered women, police brutality, flowers, authority, the unfairness of adult decisions, the inability of adults to understand the minds of children, innocence taken away....but more than all of these things, it's about love. Fatherly love, love between twins, motherly love, desire, forbidden love, incest, love between cousins, an uncle's love, inappropriate love. It's about breaking the "Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much."
And more than about love, it's about the way it's told. The plot twists are kind of sad and horrifying and ugly and throat-lump-y. But the prose is funny in the way where you laugh and then feel bad about the fact that you laughed out loud and are glad that no one knows what you just read and laughed at. Because the parts you laugh at are the ones told from the children's points of view--the painfully honest and hilariously sarcastic or ironic observations that only children can make and describe out loud because taboos and social norms and adulthood keep you from outwardly observing or talking about or laughing at such awkward or hurtful or vulnerable things. The narrator and the children point out, very clearly, both the ugly things and the beautiful things that end up being the most powerful human motivations, which propel the entire series of events of the story. Arundhati Roy did pretty ____ with this novel.

I still haven't quite absorbed or processed the whole thing. Maybe I'll be able to fill in the ____'s sometime.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story."
-The God of Small Things

"And the air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside."
-The God of Small Things

"If you're happy in a dream, does that count?"
-The God of Small Things

Excursions and Adventures

Bharatpur and Agra was a whirlwind weekend trip. We went to the Keoladeo Bird Sanctuary in Bharatpur, but ended up seeing very few birds. Because of the dry monsoon season last year, the parts of the sanctuary that are generally wet have all fried up. We ended up biking on gravely paths for 6 hours and getting accosted regularly by bands of monkeys. The bike riding was interesting--the "one-size-for-all"bike was so big for me that at the lowest point the pedal goes, my toe barely reached. However, I am proud to say that I learned to mount the bike rapidly, and got pretty good at falling sideways to dismount! At night, staying at the Falcon Guesthouse with an energetic Punjabi hostess, was delightful.



Agra was a fast day. Marty, Claire, and I boarded our train, got to Agra, and went straight to the Taj, where foreigner price is 750 Rs. and Indian price is 20 Rs. They assumed I was Indian and I was very happy to receive the 3750% discount. Instead of waiting in line, we paid a man who has connections with the men that tear tickets at the gate (who does this professionally) and skipped the long queue (cutting in front of everyone else). The Taj Mahal was as majestic as promised, and looks just as stunningly fake in real life as it does in pictures in books, on pamphlets, and on the internet. Though I had braced myself for the worst surrounding environment possible, I found that I was not nearly as harassed as I thought I would be, and got to the Taj with Claire and Marty relatively without a hitch. We took all the necessary tourist pictures and had a good time.


Next, we went to the Agra Fort, from which one gets more views of the Taj from across the river. The Agra Fort itself is gorgeous, with manicured lawns, gorgeous archways, and different types of architecture everywhere.


From there, we boarded a bus back to Jaipur, making it back around 2am.

The next weekend, we went to Haridwar and Rishikesh. We reached Haridwar on the day of Shivratri, one of the holy days of the Kumbh Mela. Our bus ride was surprisingly lovely, but as soon as we stepped out, we were in an entirely different world. All buses coming into Haridwar had been re-routed to stop in the middle of a huge dirt field right outside of the city. We stepped right into a sea of yelling, begging, and general crowded chaos. The entire city had been closed, due to the fact that approximately 5 million pilgrims were walking through it to get to the holy points of the Ganges. "According to Hindu mythology, Haridwar is one of the four places where a drop of the nectar of immortality or 'amrit' fell from the pitcher or 'kumbh' when Garuda, the divine bird of Lord Vishnu, was spiriting it away from the demons after a pitched battle. " (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Thousands-of-devotees-at-Maha-Kumbh-for-Mahashivratri-bath-/articleshow/5563997.cms) THe pilgrims are to start their holy dips in the Ganges after midnight. Anyway, as soon as we got off the bus around noon, we were informed that no buses were really coming in or out of the city anymore, which posed a bit of a problem, since we had hotel reservations for Rishikesh that night. Luckily, as we went around trying to eavesdrop on conversations our fellow passengers were having over the sounds of the loudspeakers repeating "dhakka-mukki bilkul mat kijiye! (Do not push each other at all!)", we heard a couple of people talking to a police man nearby mention Rishikesh. We decided to attach ourselves to them. The very sweet brother and sister (both probably in their 20s) took care of us as if we were family. We alternately took cycle rikshaws (the only form of transportation available then) and walked with them (and with 5 million other pilgrims) in Haridwar for about two hours, and the brother told us that he would not leave us until he had us on an auto to Rishikesh, which is exactly where he got us. We boarded the lovely huge autorickshaw with 5 others and the driver, and made it to Rishikesh in 30 minutes!

We fell in love with Rishikesh as soon as we reached it. Nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganga, surrounded by Ashrams, locals, and new-age hippies just trying to find themselves, we seriously contemplated never leaving. We wandered around the Lakshman Jhula area that night and scouted out the white water rafting place, Red Chili. We woke up early the next morning, and had the best breakfast of our lives at the Flying Tiger Cafe, a new-age restaurant owned by the woman from Chicago who wears lovely plaid-shirt-and-saree or saree-and-blazer combinations and serves the most amazing food. We came back for lunch (papaya lassis, tofu and mushroom burger with avacado and yak cheese and beet cole slaw and chips) and breakfast (thick whole-wheat bread with liberal amounts of butter and apricot jam; pancakes with ginger, cocoa powder, butter, and bananas) the next day.










That day, we white water rafted (with Bheem and jeevan as our guides, +3 men in kayaks as our rescue team) through rapids with names such as "Hugs and Kisses," "Three Blind Mice," "Crossfire," and "Return to Sender." We body surfed some of them, too and were, you know, cleansed of all our sins! Then, we jumped in from some boulders about 20 feet high. The latter part of the day, we explored more of the area, sat on the banks of the Ganges listening to an old man with long hair and beard play beautiful flute pieces, and went to an amazing terrace restaurant with unreal views of the Ganges for dinner. Oh, and then we learned that the bus we booked back to Jaipur was canceled.






So, the next morning, we left early (first to the Flying Tiger Cafe, of course) and found a bus to Delhi, hoping to get back to Jaipur from there. When we got into Delhi, a few rickshaw drivers followed us around as usual, and took us to a travel agency. We booked a bus back to Jaipur, but had to be driven to the boarding place of the bus. We got back into a small rickshaw (Claire, me, Ali, and Katie in the back, Amanda in front with the driver and a man from the travel agency). On the way to the boarding place, our rickshaw...hit a cycle with two men on it. Our rickshaw driver jumped out, and from there, everything happened fast. About 20 men gathered, the ones on the cycle had their belts off and hands around our rickshaw driver's neck before I could even blink! We stayed in the rickshaw, hurriedly discussing whether it would be safer to jump out and run, or to stay inside, but as this was going on, our rickshaw driver jumped back in, only to have a man come on the other side of the rickshaw, where Amanda was sitting, and trying to punch our rickshaw driver by reaching over Amanda (but really, he would have hit Amanda in the face in the process). Protective mother-lion side kicking into gear, Claire pointed very emphatically at the aggressor, shouting NO! Which apparently was enough for him to top and stare confusedly at the rickshaw packed full of foreigners. Shaken up and yelling, our rickshaw-walla drove us to the street where we were to be picked up. This narrow street, we realized, was pretty much in the middle of the Indian version of a ghetto, and the sun had just set. There was no sign of a bus, but thankfully, as we discussed this fact, it drove up, barely fitting in the skinny lane. We boarded the bus, which seemed very nice, and hoped for the best. An hour into the trip, we realized that the goal of the bus driver/travel agency was to pack the bus with as many people as possible, most of whom apparently wanted to keep the windows open all night. In two sweaters and a sweatshirt, I shivered through the night as the man in front of me coughed up a lung every few minutes (and went out for a smoke at every stop). Cold, tired, and back in Jaipur at 5am, we crashed in our beds to catch a few hours of sleep before going to class, after what was perhaps a little-too-eventful of a trip!

I am so never leaving my bedroom door open again.

From the corner of my eye, I saw my bedroom door opening, and something small peeking its head in, and thought it was the boy that stays at my host family's house as a live-in servant, Shiv. About to ask him to come in, I looked up to see a big, hairy monkey. The monkey hopped right in and onto my desk (two feet away from where I was sitting at the edge of my bed), extended his long arm and lightly plucked the bag of chips and snacks right off my desk. Then he stared at me for a second, as I stared back dumbfounded (the news story about the pet monkey that ripped a woman's face off in the States was playing through my head). I slowly stood up, about to make a run past the monkey for the door, but the monkey, who probably thought I was coming for him, was faster. He nimbly hopped out the door, bag of snacks in hand, and disappeared back up the stairs. I ran downstairs to my host mother, shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush, and sputtered that a monkey had just taken snacks from my bedroom. She laughed at the shaken look on my face and called Shiv, asking him to make sure to shut the terrace door next time. Hopefully, the monkey is out of the house now...