Journal Week: In the slum

April 4, 2009

Kolkata, India

"Walk to Work"

To get to Mother Teresa's house, we leave our hostel and walk down a long lane for close to 15 minutes. The street is lined with shops of all kinds and intersected by many dirt lanes and one large paved road that the tram rides up and down in its grooves on its line. It is always busy, even at seven in the morning. The taxi drivers are all lined up washing their cars, the cows are already busy on the sidewalks chewing their cud.

Boys and men are wrapped in their dhoti at the waterspouts, rubbing their bodies into a white froth of soap that seems not to clean anything. Old men are already lined up at the shop counters for their daily betel leaf smeared with paan, which will ensure a red smile all day long.

We walk down this dusty lane, avoiding the motorcycles, bicycles, and cars that zoom by. There is a butcher section where large sides of meat hang, dazzlingly red and white in the early morning sun. The smell is already overwhelming, the insides of animals being unceremoniously exposed

to the outside world, then hacked, chopped, and ground. I try not to look too closely because I can't stand the thought of the animals that used to be whole, healthy, wearing their guts inside their skins. I also don't want to feel sick. The smell is almost too much.

There are too many dogs. They are almost as numerous as the beggars, lying alongside them in the gutters and digging with them through the piles of trash swept out of the street. Today, one dog had stopped on the side of the lane. He was brown, with perky ears and his tongue interminably hanging out the side of his mouth trying to find some relief in the Indian heat. He was simply standing, alert. Perhaps he, too, couldn't escape the smell of fresh meat, blood still dripping off knives into drains. He was facing us as we picked our way through the lane.

A young man wearing a white tank top on top of his blue dhoti came walking in our direction, swinging a long thick chain. The links were close to 2 inches long and were round, thicker than a pencil. Both ends of the chain were in this man's hand as he walked down the street. He came up behind the dog- the frozen, all-alert dog. He first brought the chain up, his hand reaching back toward his ear, and then down onto the back of the dog, the long graceful curve of his spine breaking the chain into a squiggle. the dog jumped up and let out the most heart-rending squeal, a plea for mercy and a cry of confusion.

The man who hit the dog was amused by the pain he inflicted. I immediately yelled, "Why?" and turned around to look at the man who had just passed us seconds after his crime. I looked at him as if he were the devil and Kenny also watched him. He was laughing, a full open-mouthed smile on his face, truly filled with glee at his power.

The moment I turned back to continue walking to work, I was undone. could not stop thinking about how unprovoked and senseless the act of brutality was. I cried almost the entire way to Mother's House, unable to stop imagining the way the dog's back must still be stinging from that metal kiss. Everything else was thrown under the bus of this impression- this completely colored my day. Kenny says that my compassion for animals far exceeds my compassion for the people here. And perhaps that is true. I have always felt that as humans, we can understand and rationalize our pain, a gift that dogs don't have.

When the bottom of society are treated as less than our pets back home in America, when the poorest of the poor have less property than my sister's dogs, and the babies sleep on a sidewalk I wouldn't let my cat nap on, how do I expect these people to treat animals well? The dogs are competition. They compete for food and for attention from foreigners. And maybe the dog had won and the chain empowered a man to feel like more than an animal.

What the Crap Wednesday: India Edition 1

India abounds with What the Crap Moments. Here is a small collection of the best from our time traveling:

• When Kenny and I arrive in Delhi, we are prepared. We have already booked our hostel in advance and we know not to take a rickshaw because despite how far away the driver may claim it to be, we know Paharganj, the backpacker's slum, is across the street from the train station. We are also tired of arguing, bickering, and being bothered. So we have adopted a strategy called The Silent Treatment. This has been working since Agra. Instead of telling rickshaw drivers that we are walking and do not need their assistance and still being pestered all the way to our destination, we simply put out one hand flat as if to receive a gift and then walk two fingers of the other hand across it without uttering a single word. It's amazing. No one bothers us after we give them The Silent Treatment. On the back of a business card, Kenny wrote the word "BOOKED" and underneath it, just in case, "WALKING." So, as we pick our way down Paharganj, avoiding eye contact with all the vendors and rickshaw men, we show our card to all the hostel pimps out to snare guests. And guess what! It works. Almost. One man approaches us and tells us he has a great place we can stay, clean and cheap. Kenny shows him the card. He looks at the card and says, "Oh no! I know that place. It's full of cockroaches and dirty." Um, what the crap? We just laugh it off. Illiteracy runs rampant and is best friends with Lying Through Your Teeth.
  

• A rickshaw driver is following us down the street. We want to walk to our destination because our cash is dwindling and it's just faster to follow the map in the guide book than have a driver stop and ask every one of his friends how to get to where we want to go. One driver does not fall for The Silent Treatment. He knows we're walking, but he really wants to know where we're going.

"Where you going?"

"We're WALKING." Plus Silent Treatment hand gestures, not to be misunderstood.

"I KNOW. But where you going?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Where?"

"It's a secret."

"What?"

"A SECRET."

"Oh yes, Secret! I know, I know! Get on, I take you there!"

Gotta love it. This is Lying Through Your Teeth coupled with Feigned and Insistent Knowledge. Say it with me now (think Wheel of Fortune): What! The! Craaaaap!

• While we're in Delhi, we decide we'd like to go to the zoo and check out the white tigers. We have learned to negotiate prices with the drivers before ever getting into the autorickshaw. So, as we come out of the tiny alley our hostel is in, past the two albino boys who cook chicken on the corner and the two urinals that I hold my breath by, we hail a driver and offer our price. Kenny does some haggling. We agree that 80 rupees should get us to the zoo. We hop in and we go. But after a few minutes, perhaps 5, the driver pulls over and stops. We look at each other and then Kenny asks what the problem is.
  

"80 rupees here."

"What? No. We want to go to the zoo."

"Yes, I take you zoo. 100 rupees."

"No way! You said 80. 80 rupees to the zoo."

"No. 80 rupees here. 100 to the zoo."

Can you believe this guy? What the crap is going on? We are only about halfway to the zoo and it is freaking hot and the cars on the roads make it even hotter. But we are travelers of principle! We refuse to be duped (well, any more than we already are) and so we get out and just tell him we'll walk the rest of the way. And we do. So TAKE THAT Mr. Lying Bastard Autorickshaw Guy!

• In Dharamsala, I bought this awesome elephant ring. I have a thing for elephants and it has only been encouraged since The Day of the Elephants happened. So, I buy this ring. It is cool and rather large and I'm sitting on the pot, thinking about some things if you know what I mean, and all the sudden I hear this popping sound. (No, you goobers. Not that sound. That's plopping, with an l. Get it right or pay the price!) I look down and my elephant has popped in two! I think, well, maybe I can still wear this cool ring because now it just looks like it's one of those that goes not quite all the way around your finger. No biggie." So I finish thinking about some things, and I go to read a bit. I'm sitting on the bed reading my book and POP! goes the piece of crap elephant ring. In three pieces now, and no longer around my finger but in my lap. Okay, I know I only paid a dollar for this ring, but this is really ridiculous. So the next day, I haul the three pieces of ring up the steep stairs and to the guy who sold it to me. I show it to him. And do you know what he said to me? And I quote:
  

" 10 more rupees you can have different one."

Hold up, Martin. (Martin? I know. It's a new thing. I just pick a name and throw it in there. And if your name is Martin, you feel special, eh? Blame it on Norman Mailer and Why are We in Vietnam?) You want me to PAY you because your piece of crap broke while I was sitting on the toilet? I think maybe he misunderstood so I explain to him that I don't want to pay for another one. I'd simply like to get one for FREE.99 because it wasn't my fault, obviously. So then he gets mad and says I broke it on purpose, obviously, look at the places where it's broken, I definitely forced it. What the crap, times one million and thirty two! How can you reason with this guy? Turns out, he is UNreasonable. And I walk away very angry and Kenny follows me saying that he talked to the guy next to UNreasonable Weirdo Guy who Sells Rings the Break for No Reason while You Sit on the Pot's stall, and turns out, this guy is UNstable, for reals. All the vendors around him advise us to avoid him like you'd avoid a man who sells crap that breaks. So we do. And I am still mourning my elephant ring.

Journal Week: At Mother Teresa's House

April 3, 2009

Kolkata, India

Modern Lodge Room 21, aka The Sauna

I was nervous about my first day @ Shanti Dan. I picked a home for mentally challenged women because I wanted to love them. And it was very easy to love them. When I walked in the door with 2 other workers, we were smothered by hugs and kisses and "Good morning, auntie!" coming from all directions of the courtyard. There was one woman with her hair very short, sticking out in small tufts all over her head. Her face was severely disfigured, most likely by fire, her left eye wide open without the protection of an eyelid. Her bottom lip was turned down and melted into her chin giving her a baby's line of drool running down her front. But she showed her teeth and her wrinkled, scarred skin became even more creased and pulled taut across her cheek bones as she gave us her own sort of smile. She came straight to me and wrapped her arms about my waist. I hugged her to me as she lay her head on my shoulder and stared up at me with her eternally open eye. What a warm and lovely greeting. I felt that these women were taking care of me. What could I possibly do to take care of them?

My morning assignment was to clip nails. I was given a super-duper large pair of clippers and one of those hospital issue half-moon bowls you throw up in. When I walked out the door of the Sister's office, there was already a line of women waiting on me. I felt awful cutting their nails. I was overwhelmed by my inability to do it well, something so simple as clipping nails! I can't even clip my own nails without making a mess. But I kept at it, sometimes clipping just for clipping's sake because some of the women had recently had their nails trimmed.

Later, an elderly frail woman whose nails I had clipped, hands and feet, was sitting outside on the concrete balcony that ran round the inside of the 2nd floor of the complex. Many of the women lay out on this balcony instead of their beds. Perhaps it was much cooler in the open air. She was sitting and reached for me as I walked by. Being generally lost as to what my exact task was supposed to be, I sat down next to her. She was wearing a scarf, sari too, over her head. This made her head look even smaller. Her gray hair was pulled back at her neck underneath the scarf. Her blue eyes were sunk very deep into her face, her cheekbones scaring them back into her head. She was weathered.

She began to speak to me, holding my hand. Of course I couldn't understand her, but I felt it was only my duty to listen. I nodded at her and looked into her eyes and hugged her and listened. She began to become quite agitated and began to cry. I felt she was begging me for something. I just hugged her and rocked her tiny frame back and forth. I held her face and her head, feeling how small she had become. She was so tiny.

One of the other volunteers came to fetch me. I unwrapped myself and hugged her once more and squeezed her hand. I told her that everything would be okay. But maybe it will never be okay. I will remember her. It was my only day to work with the women and I was shy and uncertain about what was appropriate behavior. I was terrible. But I listened to her. And maybe she hasn't been listened to in a long time.

Journal Week: At the Planetarium

This week, I've decided to share more of my travel journal with you. Most of the entries for this week are from our time spent in Kolkata. 

April 2, 2009

Kolkata, India

Modern Lodge Room 21

"The Angry Old Woman"

Because Thursday is the day of rest for the volunteers at Mother Teresa's house, we had the day to ourselves. So we decided we'd go to the Planetarium in town to amuse ourselves. The review in the guidebook wasn't great, but it would be indoors with AC, so that was that. I expected some really cheesy light show, but it was an extremely formal affair. We got there just in time for the English show to start. 

We fell back into movie theater-like chairs that reclined way back, but somehow weren't comfortable. A few seats down, a white woman and her 4 or 5 year old son and an Indian man came in together and sat at the end of our row. The ceiling was a big dome with black cut outs of the cityscape around the bottom where the dome met the walls. The seating was circular as well, following the shape of the ceiling. In the center of the room was a large unattractive machine. Balanced on the end of a long arm was what looked like a disco ball.

The lights were dimmed and an aged voice with a hint of a British accent addressed the audience, her R giving away her native Indian tongue. She was first just a voice- the lights were off completely. She made a very stern announcement about turning off your mobile phone and keeping it off until the end of the presentation. The voice was extremely measured and I felt that perhaps the speakers' back was very straight and that maybe she had to fight to keep her shoulders from creeping up in tension around her ears. 

The lights come on as the disco ball in the middle of the room reproduces a sunset. The stars eventually appeared in all their pinpoint glory. Sometimes the voice called forth lines that connected certain stars, making the constellations, turning the ceiling into a grid of lines and dots. The voice patiently tackled each constellation in its turn and in the middle of a sentence the voice immediately grows even more authoritative and suddenly shouts, "Who turned on their mobile?"

She pronounces mobile with all the vowels long so that she chops it in two: mow-bile. The voice continues, firm and righteous: "Did I give you permission to turn it on? Why would you switch on your mow-bile? Who gave you permission to turn the mow-bile on?" 

By this time I am extremely uncomfortable because the voice is direct, instead of being politely neutral and addressing the entire audience. I am embarrassed for this great trespasser of the mow-bile rule but am also annoyed because he has brought the show to a complete halt. I look down the aisle and see the Indian man with the white woman and boy, his face aglow in the green light emitted from his mow-bile screen.

The voice switches on the house lights, enraged by this person's defiance. She appears, an old woman with her grey hair parted down the middle and clasped tightly into a tense bun at the base of her neck. She glares through severe glasses with eyebrows as crumpled and disapproving as she can manage. With the lights turned on and an usher standing at the end of the row, the man finally becomes intimidated enough to drop the phone into his pocket. He makes eye contact with no one, not even the woman he accompanies. The voice is still very indignant, the dignity of her proper and perfect presentation now disturbed. She shouts, "I think it's a disgrace! Turn. It. Off!"

Lights are switched off and immediately the voice is restored once more as she continues, "This most beautiful nebula here..."

A few minutes later she interrupts herself once more. "Keep your child quiet," she snips to the woman at the end of our row with her son. The little boy had cooed and then spoken out loudly, "Wow! Look at that! Look at that over there. Whoa! What is that?" while jumping out of his seat and pointing wildly at the twinkling presentation above him. Later, while explaining the milky way in detail, she stops again and asks about the mow-bile phone. This time, abusing a patron across the room. She abandons her proper English and begins to shout forcefully in Hindi. She finally resorts once more to turning the house lights on, erasing the stars, planets, and milky way, causing the little boy to groan in disappointment. After a good verbal thrashing, the voice switches back to English and its presenter's tone, continuing on about the marvels of the milky way splashed once more across the hemisphere above us. 

It was impossible to enjoy the show, we were both so nervous about the boy who wouldn't be quiet and the apparent idiocy of the mow-bile toting patrons. And I wonder about that woman, her staunch pride in her work of explicating the mysteries that move above us in the dark. I don't think I'll ever be able to look at a constellation without hearing her voice screaming at me to turn off my mow-bile.