Joy

Usually there are moments every day where I feel exuberantly joyful. There is something newly refreshing about joy during my stay in India. Maybe it is because my joyful moments in India are always directly associated with a very simple interaction with another person. Today was filled with those moments.

It was a busy day, beginning at 7:30 and ending after dinner at 9. Here are just a few bits of my day…

I started with my favorite breakfast at 8:00. Puttu, param, and panchasara. Imagine something between grits and couscous, made of steamed rice flour and fresh coconut flakes, add some sugar and mush some banana to make a delicious concoction.

I spent the morning at the Lower Primary school, which is always equal parts exhausting and fun. Today it was my post-lunch lesson with the Lower Primary school teachers that was truly meaningful. They asked me to do two spoken English clases for them each week. I bring a short article from The Hindu newspaper and we discuss that along with some basic conversational tips. Today these teachers must have had their favorite breakfast too, because they were hilarious. I asked, “what will you do today?” One of them responded along with a list of other future tense misshaps, “I will go home with my husband.” Everyone burst into laughter. I didn't understand. “Jealous,” Salama Miss said. Apparently the husband of Achamma Miss, the headmaster, is out of town and they make fun of her being lonely and jealous of the other happy couples. “Why is he away?” I asked. “To make more money. Two months in Dubai.” They laughed at that too. In answer to the question, “What will you make for dinner?” Achamma Miss retorted, “Salama Miss makes canyee because she’s poor.” Canyee is rice boiled and served in the rice water. I'm not particularly fond of canyee. Salama Miss laughed, “I’m poor. Always canyee.” I turned to Beena Miss, “How are you?” “I’m suffering from chikungunia, pain in my joints,” she said. This is a shock for me. Chikungunia is a very serious viral infection passed by mosquitos and is a big problem in Kerala right now, especially for the poor. It is painful and there are only antibiotics that take a few weeks to work. She laughed, “I joke now. I go to bed and cry.” Their honesty and laughter was refreshing.

It was the evening spent with the kitchen staff that I most enjoyed. The kitchen is my new favorite place in the hostel. I now help to make chapatti on Monday nights. Last Monday I rolled misshapen circles with a rolling pin. “America! Australia!” They laughed that my chapatyi looked like countries instead of circles. Today I did the first step of separating the huge blob of dough into tiny balls to be rolled. This time they laughed at my overly ambitious dough-balls. “Othiri!” (too much!) they said.

I asked Ammachi, the 70-year-old, bent-backed woman with silky skin draped over strong bones, “Evide orangio?” (where do you sleep?). “Va,” she replied, motioning with her hand to follow her. She led me to the back room, behind the kitchen, where three beds without mattresses were located, seemingly unused. As I tried to ask, “Where the heck are your mattresses?” the power went off. It was completely dark. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. I squealed in surprise and groped for Ammachi’s perpetually shaky hand. She led me to one of the beds, hacking in laughter all the way. I sat down and she held my hand. “Yelli?” (mice?) I nervously asked. She said yes. I squealed again, in the pitch black, and raised my legs from the potentional onslaught of furry friends. Her enjoyment of my vulnerability increased and I realized that I too was enjoying this moment with her. She kept repeating “Yelli! Yelli!”and pretending to be scared. Ammamma came with a flashlight and I ran for “safety.” Ammachi slowly followed, I think she was still laughing and muttering “yelli!” Ammamma said, “You learning?” I said, “Yes!” The power returned.

After dinner they asked, “param venom?”(Do you want a banana). I accepted, I hardly ever say no. Usually they hand me a banana, this time they pulled out a white plastic bag of newly purchased bananas. Not really sure how to grab one from the dangling bag, I took one handle to peer inside. Ammamma handed me the entire bag to let me grab one and I seized the opportunity. I pretended to take the bag and make off with all the bananas. They started to squeal and I laughed. I put the bag on the table and I took one banana. They said, “Randu!” (Two!) and I said, “Madhi, onnu” (Enough, one), and smiled at them. They’re getting used to my antics and they’ll know who to blame for missing bananas.

Faith in Action and Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. I am waiting at the Chengunar train station for the Kerala Express south bound to Trivandrum. I will meet the American contingent on the train where we will begin to share stories and treats from our respective villages and towns. I have a small vanilla breadcake and a bag of mysterious cylindric snacks to share. I will surprise them later with a pack of Twizzlers.

I am feeling very Thankful. My community is strong and supportive both here in India and at home in the U.S. But foremost on my mind this Thanksgiving is the image of Ashley's mother, who I met yesterday, fighting back tears while talking to the Lower Primary school teachers. Her husband left her and married another woman. He is not providing alimony to help support their three daughters. Ashley and her family live in a Dalit colony (slum) neighboring the hostel where I live. In January, Ashley will miss out on the school trip to Vigaland, a water park, because her mother cannot afford to pay. The family has larger worries than a trip to Vigaland missed. Food, safe shelter, medical payments for her mother who is a heart patient and impending dowry costs for three daughters are some of her concerns.

I am afraid for Ashley's future. She smiles and dances each time I see her but in her 10-year-old eyes I see maturity that frightens me. Resilent eyes that watch the “real world” like an enormous weight on her mother’s shoulders, a fist clenching her mother’s heart.

This Thanksgiving I will give thanks for what I have, but I will be thinking of what I can do. Faith without action seems meaningless to me. God doesn’t demand only our love, he demands action. There are many Aswathi’s in the United States too, forgotten people.

To my friends, to my family and to my home church, Luther Memorial: I challenge you to consider deeply what you can do to make positive change in your town. Here are some ideas:

-Support local farms by regularly shopping at farmer’s markets
-Commit to a type of volunteer work each week
-Limit your waste and recyle
-Don’t shy away from politics, confront realities
-Recognize an unmet need within your community and begin discussing logistical solutions
-Read a newspaper from outside the United States for a wider perspective (The Hindu is linked on my blog)
-Work with young adults; be a mentor, support and encourage their passions, most importantly LISTEN to them

Please add more to my list in the comments area below!

On Writing and Inspiration

Each new book I open has provided a goose-pimply sense of inspiration. I’ve chosen, very intentionally which books to read this year, knowing they’ll help frame my journey and provide possibly much needed respite from reality.

A moment of inspiration strikes and I run to my room or search hurriedly though my bag for my lone mechanical pencil.

Inspiration is strange. Shashi Deshpande in Small Remedies writes about the awkwardness of moving into a families home for an extended stay, which is often how I feel at the hostel or while visiting a friend’s family. She says, “This is like my first few days in the hostel, when the thought of being with so many strangers was daunting, my loneliness emphasized by being in their midst.” Within the first few pages of her novel, I was hooked.

People often ask what inspired me to volunteer in India. What planted the idea? I think my mother is right; it began with our world map shower curtain. Pastel colors delineating each country, some of which were renamed and lines re-established in those years of my childhood. I remember being scared of Berlin after hearing about the wall coming down. Africa was a vast and confusing place, bigger than the United States but mysteriously powerless in my mind. India was not on my radar.

Freshman year of college I did a research project on the Indian and Pakistani population in Chicago, focusing my study on the Devon area, filled with restaurants, fabric stores and ornate jewelry shops. During one of my excursions, I bought a non-English Indian newspaper and was asked by the shop-keeper in honest, dumbfounded curiosity, “Are you Indian?” Maybe that was the moment for me. My strange moment of inspiration.

Now I’m in India and I experience strange moments daily. Waking up to the fusion of melodies that collide when the neighboring temples and churches all celebrate simultaneously. Smelling the next meal being cooked. Cinnamon colored sunsets and green, fruit-filled landscapes. The man who delivers curd by bike and the woman who cooks rice for the kids at the Lower Primary school in a tiny wooden hut over a huge pit of fire.

Inspiration comes as a mix, a masala containing beauty and harshness, pleasure and frustration.

Many of the women I live with are in the hostel because their houses and families were hurt by the Tsunami. The teachers at the LP school are from the poorest class in India, most are members of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) because they say, “that party supports the poor.” Recent rains flooded streets and homes. “Special Economic Zones” (SEZ) are being constructed on prime farmland, bought at a low price by companies from farmers deep in debt. Chikungunia hurts the poor children and senior citizens with already weak immune systems. Women can’t leave their homes after six in the evening. College students study what will afford them the best job rather than what they find interesting.

These are inspirations in a different way. These moments make me feel lucky to have a United States passport. I realize that being a citizen of a superpower affords more opportunities than I can list. But my “Western” world view is extraordinarily limited. India is teaching me about extremes: happiness and sadness, hunger and fulfillment, need and desire.

The other day as I read “The Hindu” newspaper, Ammamma said, “Hair is darker. You are becoming an Indian.” I stood up to eat lunch, spooning rice into my mouth with my fingers and slurping curd from the palm of my hand. I cannot believe that I am in India…

Searching for Social Justice

October 2, 2006

Today one of my favorite Lower Primary students (4th standard), Ashley, came into the office with tears streaming down her face. She had a toothache. I had previously told Beena Miss, one of the teachers, that I wanted to visit the homes and meet the families of my students, so she invited me to join her to take Ashley home in an auto-rickshaw. We drove off the main road and onto the tiny dirt path that winds through the Dalit colony. Her home is a few yards from the dirt path. A hut made with cement walls and a holey thatched roof that leaks in the rain. Three small rooms, beds everywhere to fit the entire family; Ashley and her two sisters, her mother who is a heart patient and her grandmother who works as a cook for three families (I cannot fathom the time it must take to cook for three families). Ashley told me once, “Father illa” (No Father), so I responded, “Njaan Father illa” (Me no Father). Ashley's father left her mother for another woman, my father passed away when I a bit younger than Ashley.

Ashley dances. She calls to me, “Miss! Miss!” takes my hand in hers and leads me to an open area of the school or to the shade of the one large tree in the schoolyard. She brings me a seat or points to a spot to sit and then she dances. The children soon form a circle around her, the boys pop their heads in and show off a bit (but no one can dance better than Ashley) and the girls clap their hands and play with my hair. All of these children are Dalits. All of these children live in tiny cement homes with a roof that leaks and an outdoor latrine.

I am angry. I am angry about the bribe my friend feels obligated to pay to ensure she’ll receive future paychecks from the university burser. I am angry that some Christians feel evangelism is a necessary part of “serving” the community; a bowl of rice isn’t really free. I am angry that the elementary student with down syndrome will face years of abuse from his peers under the eyes of oblivious teachers; I am angry, more than anything else, because no one else seems to be.

I have taken people off-guard with my forcefully announced opinions, but in the past I have also sensed disappointment from others when I sat silent and unmoved. Passionate beliefs must simmer before they erupt. I am struggling with how I can teach my students about “leadership,” “vision,” and “social change,” themes throughout my high school and college learning that helped me in my path to self-actualization. I sense a lack of social duty on the part of many students with whom I speak. Their college experience is not one where they debate and discuss “burning issues,” rather they listen to lectures. They are not expected to critically analyze what they study, they are supposed to memorize it. Is it any surprise then, that that on Gandhi’s birthday, the college’s National Service Scheme (NSS) chose to clean the front lawn of the District Court instead of installing fans in the local Lower Primary school (though they did receive from the attorney’s a pretty plaque and “points” for their NSS team). When NSS ate a snack at the District Court, they left their paper plates strewn on the lawn to the left of the kitchen. Where is the thought connected to their intended service project? I was asked by one of the District Court judges if Americans have programs such as NSS, but his mind was already made up when he asked, “Americans do not do things like this, do they?”

My brother built houses in Appalacchia. My mother has the wisdom only possibly attained during a career as a social worker. My college mentor inspires young people to discover “where you true passion and the worlds deep hunger meet.” My pastor spent time working on a Southside Ministry in Madison, WI with a community forgotten by the self-heralded city of which it is a part. My previous boss teaches the first service-learning class at the John Felice Rome Center, where up to twenty-five Americans volunteer through out Rome, experiencing a Roman reality that all tourists obliviously miss. I am proud of the Americans I know who are doing service all around the globe.

My college students are pressured by their parents to study a topic that will earn them the best prospects. One student is studying a science but would much rather study Social Work; she said she must convince her parents to let her. My students define “leader,” as someone who is politically active, like Sonia Gandhi, but stared blankly when I asked in what ways they consider themselves to be leaders. They are never asked to consider that.

Ani DiFranco, the American folk singer, says it bluntly, “If you’re not angry, you’re just stupid, you don’t care.”

 Anger, maybe especially in the United States, is a red-hot “no-no.” Emotions that are associated with tension are repressed. Men shouldn’t cry and women who are angry are just being “hysterical.” But what drives hunger strikes? What compels hundreds of people from all backgrounds to march across the countryside for hours in protest until they reach the guarded site of the Narmada Dam, which will submerge their farmland and homes in water? I think it was anger; anger that encourages positive, constructive action. Anger that inspired change. Untapped anger undoubtedly can be a dangerous, explosive emotion. But let us not deny the positive power of the kernel of anger that allows us to act, to sing, to read, to write, to organize—in order to make change.

I am glad that I feel anger; if I was not angry about some of the injustice I witness each day, I would be horrendously oblivious to my surroundings and my neighbors. My anger, not violent, aggressive anger but rather anger based on my compassion for the injustice my neighbors face, fires my faith into action.

“Vendu”

I was bombarded with saree fabric choices and decisively picked out the muted rose colored material, silk fabric with gold-colored trim. I have no trouble saying, “vendu” (I don’t want it) to clothing (food is a different matter). Ammamma and Ambily voted for bright royal blue and teal. “Vendu!” They took me to the tailor to have my rose-colored blouse stitched. I waited a week and when it was ready, the show began! Ammamma was folding the pleats into the draped shawl while Ambily tucking the skirt. “Oh, you are veeeery short. I must tuck sooo much,” she direly announced. It took twenty minutes to tuck, pleat drape and pin. I didn’t know what to do, so I put my hands in the air and clapped whenever they did something that somehow made it look more like a saree than one huge piece of fabric. “Chirikuduka!” (Laughing girl) they called me and smiled when they saw my excitement. Previously I told Ammamma how I do not like when people call me “Madama,” the general title for any white foreigner (images of the missionary I fear or an authoritative, powdery old British woman come to mind). “Ishtamala,” I said and she laughed saying, “Chirikuduka, your nickname, is better.” I agree. They were finished and I looked in the mirror. The difference between a churidar and a saree is incredible. I felt like I should be doing something powerful with graceful confidence (like leading the Congress Party?).

After a day of walking I changed my mind. Graceful confidence turns to mush when you are stuck between a truck and a puddle in 9 feet of silk held together by pins. Churidars allow for freedom, and that wins over grace all the way. For my second shopping outing, I decided to get one less formal saree and another churidar. Sounds easy, does it not?

I visited Ambily’s home in Pala for the weekend. On Saturday we were taking a special road trip to Ernakulam for shopping. Ambily had just received her first paycheck in a year and had promised all the members of her family a special treat care of her. At the time, I did not know this was the goal of the day. We entered Saree Heaven. It was six stories of saree splendor; the world’s largest saree showroom, apparently. We quickly separated, Ambily, I could tell, had a mission to fulfill. I found the cheap saree rack and began digging, soon to find a salesperson at my elbow pulling from piles and showing me sarees. “Vendu,” I think I said it fifteen times until I looked at her and had to be honest, “I am very picky. I am a difficult customer. I am sorry.” She understood, smiled, but continued to throw sarees at me to my frustration. I knew what I wanted: Cheap price, good quality, unique pattern. She and I were not on the same wavelength. I finally found one I liked. “Venom” (I want this) and she seemed relieved. I then went to the churidar floor and things got worse. Another salesperson dragging out fabrics when I just wanted to browse in peace. I think I searched for an hour. Things were much more expensive than I had expected and I didn’t like the colors. After an hour with a salesperson, I felt awful saying, “Eh, no thanks” so I opted for a churidar that was out of my price range but very unique. Her relief could not be contained. She whisked me off to the cashier.

Two weeks later I have yet to get my new saree and churidar stitched. Maybe I am afraid of what unexpected debacle might occur. Maybe I do not want to open the bag and remember the day of shopping 9AM-5PM that got the better of me.

Fibs and Respect for Giraffes

When I first arrived, I was lost in the sights, smells and sounds. I only now am beginning to notice how my senses have been constantly bombarded during the last two months. Why it took me so long to recognize this, I do not know. Each day I experience a moment of serenity in the surreal beauty of India: the sounds of neighboring temples, the smell of green chili plants or a curry being cooked, the reddish hue of dusk.

In September I was also lost in sadness and loneliness. Never before, after two years of life away from home, have I felt such desire for the familiar. I knew India would be an incomparable experience to those I have had. I was not naïve when I flew here. I re-read my journal from the days of training and I am surprised at what difficulty I knew to expect. But writing in my journal, in an air-conditioned conference room in a Chicago seminary, is much different than living the reality. My post-training journal entries almost reflect a sense of regret, of fear that I will not make it through a full year.

I did not miss hot dogs or hot showers, surprisingly. I missed being understood, both verbally and emotionally. I missed the companionship of friends. I found myself writing two or three letters daily, sending them like clockwork on Mondays and Wednesdays. I needed to express myself, to tell stories to someone who could empathize. On my first day at the hostel, I was shown to my room and given the day to relax and unpack. I did not know when the meals would be, where to get drinking water or who spoke English well enough to ask. Like the shocking first day of school after moving from York to Madison when I ate lunch standing because I had no idea where to sit, I felt physically lost.

No longer am I lonely with the same overbearing weight that I experienced in September. I know to whom I can vent. I trust my fellow volunteers, all struggling through a similar experience. We know that we need each other. I still do not miss American food or most American “comforts” (except Western toilets, oh how I miss Western toilets). I find comfort and restful sleep on my wooden-board-of-a-mattress, I can whip through a cold shower faster than a marine, and the animals I find daily in unexpected places in my room are respectfully removed (I usually only kill the ants and mosquitos). It is easy for me, knowing that I will return to Wisconsin in due time, sleeping in my plush bed, taking warm baths in the winter months and hardly every crossing the path of an animal – even in my backyard.

It is now November and I feel lost in India in a new way.

From the very first day of my arrival, like a child, I needed the help of Achen, Ammamma, Kochamma and Prabhaa Miss for rudimentary things. Because of this I immediately began to miss independence. That lack of independence did not end when I learned where to throw my trash, how to get drinking water and how to put on a saree. It continues because I am a woman, a young woman at that. I am an innocent, naïve, unmarried young woman and therefore I will not experience true independence here.

I crave the company of strong, expressive women (though Prabhaa Miss and Kochamma in particular are women of unusual self-assurance from others I have met). I daydream about laughing too loud, telling crass jokes and wearing fitted, show-off-your-curves clothing. I feel repressed by the sexism that surrounds the women in the hostel and I.

These young women, most at least twenty years old, are more protected than I was when I was in my mid-teens (and my mother is what my friends consider “protective”). A curfew of 6:00PM, mandatory prayer each evening (for those of all religious backgrounds), no freedom of movement outside of the walk to the college and the return walk to the hostel, a bell rings signaling each daily activity: a meal, study-time, free-time (2-hours each day), tea time, bedtime.

It is stifling and rigid. Most of these women have more freedom at their homes, but not much more. They go from father to husband, always under the “protection” of a male figure. I fear for the young woman raised under the protection of a loving father, who is married to an aggressive, abusive husband. To whom can she turn?

It is in this world that I am now becoming lost. The world of an Indian woman. I recognize that I am lucky to experience this. How many American women of my age truly understand sexism? I proudly profess that I am a feminist. Many of my male and female friends feel the same way. But I did not understand how lucky I was to read an essay by Bell Hooks and afterwards put on my pants and go to my internship at a law firm, winding my way through the subway with confidence and spending my own money on a coffee. I do not wear pants here. My desire for solitary walks educe confused looks from Ammamma, “Where are you going? What are you doing? How are you getting there? When will you return?” She always asks. In desperation for a false sense of autonomy, I have started to fib. “I am going to the Internet Point by auto-rickshaw,” I say, and instead I walk the long way past the train station, through Buddha Junction and Mitchell Junction, stopping at the fruit stand or the magazine store. I browse through a churidar shop or stop for a tea and pastry (outside food is definitely against Ammamma’s rules). I stop and talk to people. Sometimes I end up at the Internet Point, sometimes I do not.

Those solitary walks provide my only sense of liberty. I feel free from the overbearing sense of womanhood as a powerless, fragile existence that infests itself here. I cannot stop thinking about it; I have lost myself in this frustration. Sometimes I reluctantly put on a churidar in the morning, feeling that I am only giving in to Indian societies wish to cover up “their women.” One of the volunteers laughed at my choice in stitching (I had chosen the new “modern” style of stitching with tight pants and a mock-turtle neck), “It looks like something you could find at The Gap,” he said (he was wearing the typical Indian man’s outfit: khaki pants and a collared, button-up shirt). My Gap churidar is my favorite, as embarrassed as I am by the association of such an American brand name during my time in India. I recognize that in my Gap churidar I am free from the usual loads of fabric and a purposeful separation from tradition – a tiny sense of liberation. Sarees are out of the question for me. How could I run in 9 yards of fabric? I could never dance or jump in a saree. And forget defending myself, I can hardly avoid puddles wearing a saree, let alone give someone a good kick in the knees.

I hear George Michael belting out “freedom!” as I daydream about returning to an apartment of my own after going dancing in the city, realizing that when I return to “the city” I will be daydreaming about eating parota and chicken curry under cinnamon colored skies. As a child I once saw a giraffe in a zoo with all four legs splayed precariously as he stretched his neck to its capacity to munch on a patch of grass on the other side of the fence. Yes, “the grass is always greener,” we laughed. But I respect that giraffe. He saw a good piece of grass on the other side of the fence and though caged he managed to find a way to enjoy it. Maybe my Gap churidar is my way of remaining caged while munching on the greener grass.