There is nothing like it.
I remember walking from the airport to a bus awaiting us. The smog and humidity so thick I had trouble breathing. Dirt kicked up by every car that passed by. The bus was a beat-up, aluminum box. It rattled and shook as the engine started. The windows were large and thankfully, open because it was hot.
We began to drive. It looked just like the movie Slum Dog Millionaire. I could not distinguish if I was in a “bad” or “good” part of town. Everything looked the same. Every building was derelict and crumbling. It was not long before I saw them. People sleeping on the street. Some slept on steps under awnings. Some people slept on top of cardboard on the sidewalks near store fronts. People dotted the sidewalks, just sleeping. I had seen homelessness. I anticipated seeing it. I wasn’t surprised.
But then we turned the next corner and I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. On the sidewalk, laying down; a line of people, side by side by side by side. Women, children, infants, men. Old, young, crippled, well, dying. Side by side by side by side. I began counting them. 40 people. We turned another corner, I continued counting. I couldn’t count fast enough. Once I reached 300 hundred I stopped. Hundreds upon hundreds were sleeping on the street that night, and every night.
My mind couldn’t wrap around anything I was taking in. . . . hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people . . . . just sleeping on the bare ground . . . . with nothing.
At the time, I had no idea that would be my norm for the next month- not being able to wrap my head around all that I would take in.
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In India:
– if you are a person, especially a white person, the cars speed up as you cross the street as if to hit you (and they will) especially if you make eye contact with the driver BUT if you are a COW they will stop dead in their tracks and let you pass.
– if you are a cow, your life is worth more than a woman’s.
– if you are a cow, you are apparently the most sacred and highly revered of all beings in creation, yet you are filthy, you live outside in the elements, and you rummage through garbage all the day long.
– if you have a baby, you put a large black dot in the center of their foreheads to make them ugly because you believe if your baby is thought to be beautiful, then an evil spirit will come and take your baby’s life out of jealousy.
– if you see a baby that you think is beautiful, you never say so; in fact, you may go so far as to tell the mother that her baby is ugly as a way of complimenting the child and keeping evil spirits away.
– if you are a female widow, then more than likely you are no longer burned alive when your husband’s body is cremated (this custom was supposedly abolished 120 years ago), but you do become a beggar. You are made to wear a plain white saree, so everyone knows you are a widow. No good, upstanding citizen will give you anything nutritious to eat because now your life no longer has meaning and you are to die quickly on a diet of carbohydrates. . . . if you are a male widower, you are free to live life as before, and even remarry if you so desire.
– you eat all your meals using a shovel technique with the fingers and thumb of your right hand. Your right hand is your “clean” hand and is the only hand used in eating. Your left hand is your “dirty” hand, and is used with water to clean yourself after defecating.
In India, if you are from Calcutta:
– then you are known as the Bengali people. The Bengali people are known throughout India as the “angry people”. This is because every time you open your mouth, you are yelling. If you are talking about the weather- you are yelling. If you are buying bus tickets- you are yelling. If you are hailing a rickshaw- you’re yelling. If you are buying food in the market- you are yelling. It doesn’t how trivial the conversation . . . you and whoever you are speaking to are yelling at each other.
– and are a beggar on Park St. then you are owned by someone else. You are slave. Your job is to beg from all the passers-by hustling and bustling to and from work morning until noon until night. More than likely you were born a slave. More than likely right now, you are in your middle to late years of life and have only ever known the oppression of slavery. More than likely you are missing one or more limbs. This is because the person who owns you has disfigured you in some horrific way to ensure
you look pathetic enough to help.
– then you bathe and draw your drinking water from a river where waste is dumped and dead bodies are burned- the remains sent off to float down the river. This green, muddy water comes from public pumps on the side of the street. If you are male, then you congregate with other men in the early morning, afternoon, or evening (pretty much whenever) to bathe right there on the street.
– then the patron god of your city is the Kali goddess of death and destruction. She is depicted in many shrines and pictures around the city, and more than likely, in your home. If you do not like a colleague or neighbor, then you pray and sacrifice to her that she may wreak havoc on that person’s life, and ultimately destroy it.
– and are a child more than 6 years of age, growing up in one of the three notorious sex districts; then statistics show that you and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR PEERS 6 AND OLDER HAS BEEN SEXUALLY INTERFERED WITH.
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I remember that most days India overwhelmed my senses. The raw, open sewage, the heat, the beggars, the slavery, the hopelessness. Some days it was all I could handle to walk with my head down until I reached our job site, where I could lift my head, take a deep breath and feel the oppression lift. The business and our hostel; my two oases if only I could survive the chaos that lay in between. I never wanted to look the beggars in the eyes. Mother Teresa’s nuns told us not to give to them. It would perpetuate the cycle, which I understood, but didn’t make passing by them every day any easier when their cries and pleas for help chased you down the street. So I lowered my head and walked quickly. Was I becoming callous? Was I being harsh? Nope. Everyday they broke my heart. I found myself in a catch 22 as I tried processing what I saw day to day. . . .
If I give to you, then I am enabling the person who is enslaving you to keep you enslaved. I am giving him profit. If I do not help you . . . if you do not meet your quota of rupees for the day . . . then what horrific thing will be done to you in order to make you look more in need? more pathetic?
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I remember standing in the holy place one day, where the Hindus burn their dead by the river. A cremation was already taking place when a large caravan of people carried in a new body, hoisted on the shoulders of about six large men. They dipped the cot in the river, as is custom and then laid it atop the wood. As the body began to burn and followers flooded in to pay their respects, tears spilled out of my eyes as one of Jesus’ parables came to life before me. . . .
I was standing at the door to the wide gate. So many people walking in and out, bustling here and there. The body burning on the wood; the soul released to the gods. This man was a good Hindu, believed to be reincarnated into something really great, maybe even a cow. And there I was. I was standing at the door to the wide gate, tears in my eyes, keys to the Kingdom in my hand; standing there silently weeping to myself for the lostness I witnessed before me. Wanting to say something, paralyzed with fear . . . saying nothing until it was apparent on the Hindu Guru’s face that I, a foreigner, was no longer welcome at their sacred ceremony, so I left; keys still in hand, heart heavy. . . .
