It's All About the Culture Clash. Well, Mostly.

Whenever I write something negative about India I struggle with whether I should write something positive too. To provide balance. To strive to see the positive. To make space for all the good I did experience that doesn’t sit at the front of my mind, and for all the good that surely exists that I don’t know and couldn’t see from 4 months of living as a foreigner in its most mega megalopolis. What I realize now is that much of what I write about is driven by culture clash. The intense feelings I had when my American culture hit Indian culture.

I see India through a lens, for sure, and the main tint of that lens is my Americanness. My culture prizes direct communication and, at its outer layers anyway, treating people with equality. Much of the focus of my writing here, and a major driver of my experience in India, is the culture clash I experienced: trying to understand what people were really saying when they spoke because the subtext was so nuanced and difficult truths were never actually said out loud but expressed in other ways, trying not to be shamed because I was a woman alone and by virtue of that was supposed to be, etc...

I’m sure there are many good things to say about India but, here’s the thing, I don’t have them to say right now. What stood out for me was the hardness of cultures colliding and the unfairness of major aspects of Indian culture, viewed, of course, from an American-centric point of view. 

What I have said here has very much been from a place of feeling. How I felt when my culture hit India’s culture. I haven’t gotten to a more objective place yet and I think that’s fine. What I write is very valid in that it accurately represents layers of my experience but, at least at this point, those layers are still very much about the challenges of two cultures colliding.

India, a Colorful Scar

A friend asked me about India today. I half jokingly told her I was scarred and didn’t want to talk about it. Lately whenever someone asks me about my time there I smile wryly and say it was “colorful”, daring them to continue their questioning. They usually take the hint that I’d rather discuss something else, which is good because nearly 2 months after returning I’m still overwhelmed and saddened by what I experienced and not ready to revisit it. I hope someday I can think about India again because there is a lot left for me to learn from and share about my experiences there.

I was Skyping with my friend Shoshana last night, a Canadian who lived in New Delhi for roughly the same period of time I did and who became a dear friend, riding the ups and downs of life there with me. She too has a blog about her time in India and has much left to write about but can’t seem to get started. Maybe she is afraid to go back there too.

While I don’t want to revisit India, literally or figuratively, anytime soon, I also get frustrated with Westerners who think they understand what it is like to live there – especially in New Delhi – a city most Indians find hard to live in - because they have a friend who visited the Taj or a co-worker who grew up in Kerala.

I talked with one such woman today. She seemed generally likable; outgoing, cheery and genuinely interested in me. Had our conversation started off better I probably would have liked to talked with her more, but when she responded to my sharing that I lived in India for 4 months with a shrug, as if to say “that doesn’t seem too hard”, I got mad and lost interest.

Mad because she thinks she knows what that means but she doesn’t. Mad because I’m left with this weight from my experience in India – a weight I haven’t figured out how to transmute into something good yet – and I just got dismissed by a woman who thinks she understands that. Mad because there are people who have no real sense of the human suffering in the world and no sense of responsibility for it. It doesn’t figure into their worldview in any substantial way and, truthfully, that makes me feel scared for the future and lonely on my chosen path.

I want it both ways. I want to know what I know from my time in India but I don’t want the psychological and philosophical burden of that knowledge, of the witnessing of mass human suffering, extreme poverty, profound sexism and soul-shaking human inequality.

I feel mad because I am clinging to my life back in the U.S. but part of me thinks I don’t deserve the solace of it. I’m uncomfortable with my privilege but certainly not ready to relinquish it. I have a feeling that mine is a pretty normal reintegration process and that I’ll always have some sadness in my heart about India. I do hope I find a way to turn it into something useful though.

Delhi-cum-American Blues

My best friend left town this mornin'

My boss critiqued my work

for 2 hours in a 2 hour meeting

I got the Dehli cum American blues

A special someone don't call

when he ought to

Silence sure says something

but words are much clearer

to me

I got the Dehli cum American blues

I'm traveling to paradise

I'm lucky to be able go

But I am lonely

and I just wanna to go home

I got the Dehli cum American blues

Vulnerability, Connection and Existential Angst

The other day I was sitting on a park bench, having a candy bar for lunch, when this tall, skinny girl of about 9 years walked up and asked me for money in a whisper. A younger, spunkier boy was by her side. He kept shaking his head from side to side – the version of the Indian head bobble I usually see in Delhi – which in this case implied a question: Will you or will you not give my sister(?) and I money for a meal?

They were malnourished. The girl’s hair was a dull auburn, rather than the black that it should have been. Most of the street kids have reddish hair. I thought it was because they put henna in it, which many Indians do to color and nourish their hair, but then I read that red hair is a sign of nutrient deficiency.

The girl was very thin. She was the skinniest girl and future basketball player in her 4^th grade American class. In another life or another universe anyway.

She stood about 4 feet away from me. Further than most Indians would in this context and much further than most street children when begging. Did she get my culture that quickly? No, she’d probably begged from a few hundred white girls in her short 9 years.

She stared at me and I stared at her as she kept whispering her request for money in Hindi and I kept denying it in English. It went on like this for a couple minutes, with her little brother impatiently hanging at my side not understanding all this silence and more and more boisterously asking for money. Transactions probably usually didn’t take this long.

I guess the girl could tell that I cared that she was suffering or that things were otherwise shifting in her favor. She seemed to read through the layers of my response: my stern No’s, but also my unwillingness to not look at her and empathize some. Beggars are emotional geniuses. Their lives depend on it.

As she stared at me I had the urge to cry. I stared back and finally let her in my heart and gave her some money from my wallet. As I did I began to feel a little lighter. Less angry or depressed, which is the landscape I’ve been spending a lot of time in recently. I got to feel a little effective in a time in my life when I rarely do. I got to feel seen, instead of stared at, as I usually do. I don’t know if I was. That poor and glorious girl probably just wanted food and would have implied anything she thought I wanted her to so she could get it. Or maybe not. Who knows? I felt shame that I had the power to feed these two kids and they didn’t. It was a power I shouldn’t have had and an indignity that they didn’t deserve.

India keeps breaking my heart, pushing me to my knees and making me feel again. I want to run away. I want to hide from the throbbing humanity. But even hiding is painful because I also want to be a part of it. In the end I’m left there on the ground and all I can say is: Why? Mumbling like a crazy person or whispering in need like a starving 9 year old girl.

I keep coming back to why I both love and hate, treasure and fear, these interactions with street kids, begging mothers with infants and 14 year old boys who do my laundry instead of their homework and I think I understand it better now. Street kids can’t hide their vulnerability like the rest of us. They’re dirty, ill-fitting clothes and matted red hair clearly say: I need. Many of us, maybe most of us in this wide world, can and often do hide our need, our vulnerability, our pain, loss, failure and brokenness. When we see it in someone else, so clearly and with such immediacy, we remember it in ourselves and we want to reach out and heal it. In them and in ourselves.

A phrase has been running through my mind the past few weeks: Every time we save someone else, we save ourselves. In helping, we become that person who would save us were the tables turned, creating with our act or acts a world we want to live in, a world worthy of our lives. One where we care for each other. One where people are the social safety net. One where what we have to give and what we choose to give is sufficient to meet what is needed.

And in doing this, in helping someone in whatever way we might, we’re brought back into our deeper feeling selves. We get to experience all those feelings we usually lodge a few inches below the surface; sometimes painful, sometimes joyful and, at least here, often both at the same time.

The other day I was riding in a rickshaw. As the driver and I were pulling up to a stop light I looked out of the vehicle and my eye caught a little girl’s who was standing on the side of the road. When she saw me her face lit up, her body became erect and she gave me a broad wave Hello! I watched her as she gathered up her tiny bundles of roses wrapped in cellophane and headed over to the rickshaw as it came to a stop. She smiled alternately sweetly and impishly up at me. She was a tiny 5-year old. She gestured toward her flowers and asked me to buy some. I told her No, I didn’t want to buy any flowers.

She persisted and dialed up the adorable like any great child saleswoman would. We went back and forth: No. Adorable. No. Tilt of head and smile. No. Tilt of head and frown. No. Hand to mouth to signify I need food. No. Head on seat next to me, staring up at me, bouquet bobbing side to side, silently saying: buymebuymebuyme! No.

The driver kept telling her to go away as he, like I, became increasingly wooed by her significant charms. And then the light changed and the driver demanded that she leave. She asked one more time and I said No one more time. She started walking away and left my line of vision. And then, suddenly, gently, out of nowhere, a bouquet landed on my lap. She had thrown it into the rickshaw and ran away.

The driver grabbed the bouquet from my lap and craned his neck outside the vehicle to look for the child so he could give it back. Smiling broadly and shaking his head when he couldn’t find her, he handed the bouquet back to me. I took it in awe, in disbelief of what had just happened. As the auto started up and we pulled away I held it gently in my lap and started to cry. A kid with no food, no home and apparently no family had just given me, a woman with all of these things and more, a gift. Why? Because she had a need to give? Because it wears on the soul to always be begging and never giving? Because she saw that I wanted to help but didn’t know how, so she helped me instead? Why? Why? Why?

Why for all of it? Why are kids starving and without parents? Why do I have 6 pairs of shoes and 20 tops in this country alone when this little girl’s wardrobe likely consisted of what she was wearing?

Why was she, despite her poor material circumstances, so joyful?

Why?

Sometimes the world breaks our hearts. And sometimes it should. How alive are we really if it doesn’t?

Indo Pity Party

Boohoo for Amanda
She's a slice of white in a sea of brown bread
She can't look, she can't smile
lest all stare for an eterni-while
Boohoo for Amanda

Boohoo for Amanda
When she arrives at the office
all the girls get quiet
Little do they know, she's a f-ing riot
Boohoo for Amanda

Boohoo for Amanda
She met a great guy
but in a month it's goodbye
Really? WTF? Why?
Boohoo for Amanda

To be an Indian woman, and poor

Right now I’m in a hotel room in Dholpur, a city in the state of Rajasthan about a 4-hour train ride southeast of Delhi. Rajasthan is popular among tourists because it is home to the palaces of many former kings. The typical tourist circuit for visitors to India is Delhi, Agra (where the Taj Mahal is) and Jaipur, the latter of which is in Rajasthan. Taken together this is known as the Golden Triangle, because the three points vaguely form an equilateral triangle.

The once home of kings is today home to some of the poorest people in India.

Over the past few days I visited some of the villages outside of Dholpur, talking with people my organization works with; families that make $500 U.S. per year, if they are lucky. It has been an incredibly moving experience. It is hard to put into words, partly because it is still fresh in my mind and I have not fully processed my thoughts yet, but there is one thing that keeps pushing to the front of my mind: Indian women.

I have been no less than shocked to learn some of the numbers and phrases that make up Indian women’s lives. 78. This is the percentage of married women in India who need permission from their husband in order to go visit a family member. This number rises to 89 if the woman is going to stay overnight, which is common and considered respectful, especially during festivals.

93. This is the number of women in India for every 100 men. If nature were allowed to run its course, there would be 103-105 women for every 100 men (because women outlive men). What the number 93 means is that girl infants are killed at birth because the family does not want them and would rather try again for a boy. It means that women who have had boy children begin practicing contraception, because they have already had the baby/ies they, and society, most want.

It means wife burnings, where husbands set their wives on fire, killing them for the most mind-bendingly small and subjective of infractions, such as cooking dinner poorly. Wife burnings are often disguised as accidents and some say that for every wife burning reported, 250 go unreported. There are also dowry deaths, bride burnings and widow burnings, with the ultimate result in each case being the death of a woman.

While it is shocking that women are killed frequently enough for there to be common phrases for their murders, most women do not face such grave circumstances. Most women do, however, believe that it is OK for a man to beat his wife. That is, across all of India, looking at everyone from women from economically-advantaged, urban, high-caste, college-educated backgrounds to women from poor, low-caste, rural backgrounds who have had no schooling at all, most women believe it is OK for a husband to beat his wife. Indian society is publicly debating wife beating right now, in the aftermath of a high level Indian diplomat, Anil Verma, beating his wife until her face bled.

When I first got to India and was reading some of these statistics I was shocked. I knew that India was a strongly patriarchal society, but the numbers breathed shape into that reality. And then I went on this trip and met some of the most marginalized and oppressed women in the country. And it was surreal to meet these women. Because they were so present and so open. Talking about their experiences, sharing their joy over a stranger being interested in them, telling me about the comaraderie and sense of social and emotional support that being part of a self-help group (this is the Indian name for microsavings and lending groups) brought to their lives.

I asked one group of women to share the single biggest change they have experienced as a result of being part of a SHG. One woman, who looked to be about 40 years old, shared this story:

Before the SHG, my husband bought all my clothes for me and the saris that he bought were very thick. When I had to cover my face (women here practice purdah, requiring that they pull their sari over their face when in the presence of a male elder, keeping it covered as long as he remains, which can be seconds or an hour) I could not see. After the SHG, I gained the confidence to go to the market by myself and began doing my own shopping. Now I buy sheer saris and when I have to cover my face I can see.

I was shocked by this woman's story. As she was telling it, my brain slowed down to a putter and I just stared at her, trying to take in what she had said. The idea of her being cut off from the world every day, for decades, and for such a simple reason, was hard to understand.

...

I often ask myself what I am doing here, half a world away from home. I am still so fresh to this culture and it is so different from my own that I frequently feel like a puzzle piece trying to fit into the wrong puzzle.

I am here because it is exciting to discover and navigate a new culture. It makes me feel alive. Just as hearing that woman’s story did. And I am here, and doing the work I am, because being a part of her story, and women like hers’, infuses my life with meaning.

*This was partially written 2 weeks ago, when I was still on this trip, and finished today.

5 Things I Hate

I haven’t written in a while. Partly because I feel a need to be positive here, writing about a country that isn’t my own and is some of my friends’. But I’m a critic at heart. It’s just my natural state. So I’m giving in. If you are Indian or otherwise know Indian culture well, your weigh ins are welcome.

1. Air Pollution: I love the outdoors, but not in New Delhi. This city of some 14 million people has the worst air quality in the world. Seriously, number one. I did some research before I came here and nowhere did I come across this little berry of a fact. But after living here for a couple weeks I decided to look into it and was relieved to find that New Delhi wins the award here. Relieved because I was glad that no place inhabited by humans has worse air quality. I couldn’t imagine it. I often can’t believe that so many people live here and breathe this air every day. I guess, like everything, you get used to it. People are adaptable.

2. Dirt: Instead of grass, parks have beds of sandy dirt. It’s rare to see to grass. It’s rare to see the color green. There are many trees in New Delhi but they are all covered with smog and dirt. In fact, everything is covered with smog and dirt. Colors don’t exist for long in their pure form. Orange quickly becomes Dusty Orange. Green, Sooty Green... Sad.

3. Men Staring at Me: Indian society is very patriarchal. Across India, most married women need permission from their husbands to go to the market or visit friends or relatives (this is fact, from a nationwide government study). It’s uncommon for women to walk around unaccompanied. On any given day, I would estimate that 80% of the people that I see on the street are male. Sometimes I see more feral dogs than women.

Anyway, I like to take walks on my lunch hour. To get out of the office, see some sun, etc. Men constantly stare at me when I do. And stare. And stare. And stare. I read in a guidebook that eye contact from a woman to a man is considered flirtatious, so I have taken the tact of averting my gaze whenever it meets another man’s. But an American friend who has lived here a long time told me that she just stares back, so one day I did too. And I started returning the dirty looks that accompany some of the stares. And, who would have guessed, but it’s actually effective. They look away and often even act mildly ashamed in the process. It’s wonderful. I fantasize about telling people to F$%@ off quite a lot. I wonder what the outcome would be there.

4. Feral Dogs: At first I was afraid of the feral dogs that are everywhere. They sleep during the day and bark and occasionally fight at night. They all look the same too. All birthed by the same mother, I like to imagine. The great wild dog mum – mother to all and none at the same time. The only variations among the dogs are their coloring and whether they are profoundly, as opposed to just slightly, malnourished. After a while I let my guard down with the dogs because they generally do not even seem to take notice of people unless you are someone whose hand is attached to a rock aimed in their direction.

Then one day at lunch when I was going for a walk in the park (see 1, 2, and 3 to get some of the ambience of this situation – 3 because only men sit in parks, and from the looks I get in parks in particular, parks may be the equivalent of a public man cave, so unwelcome am I and my heightened estrogen levels) I saw a dog that had just had pups. I could tell she had just had babies because here teets were full of milk, swaying heavily as she walked. I felt bad for her, wondering if she had been separated from her pups against her will. She didn’t look at me and I turned to exit the park because I had had my fill of stares, dirt and smog. And then she briskly trotted up to me and bit my leg. Really. Just like that. She didn’t break the skin but now I am dangerously afraid of Delhi Dogs. Dangerous because they can smell the fear, right? Now I am a bigger target. Now I cross the street when I see a dog trotting even vaguely towards me. I try not to make eye contact. Who knows what sets those scarred canines off?!

5. Social Hierarchy: I have a maid. He is a 14-year old boy. He works primarily for my landlord and every other day comes upstairs and dusts my apartment. My landlord refers to him only as “the boy”. From what I can tell, he works for her all day. Cleaning, cooking, watering plants, fetching things... He does not go to school. This is not uncommon.