This afternoon around 5:30 I was sitting down for some tea with a few of the workers and teachers here at the vocational training center. Last night was the watchman's son's marriage party, and we were talking about it. I made some stupid joke about Gautam, one of the groundskeepers, and said something about him getting married.
"I had my marriage already," Gautam said.
"No you didn't," I said.
"Yes, I did," he said.
"Yes, he did," said Gamr, one of the drivers. "Eight years ago."
"What?" I said.
"It's true," said Gautam.
That's when my jaw dropped. I'd heard about child marriage still being practiced in some places around Gujarat, but I didn't realize anyone here had experienced it, or that it was being practiced in villages close to the center (Gautam lives just one or two villages away).
Gautam had been married at age 12, eight years ago. I asked how old his wife was now, expecting to hear that she was a year or two younger than him, but he said that she is 13, meaning she was married at age 5. They haven't seen each other since the wedding, and there are a few years left before the marriage is consummated. How many, I don't know, but I doubt it's more than 3.
Where is the line between inalienable cultural property and cultural deficiency? It must be somewhere. Is it here? Maybe.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Plastic chairs
About four or five months ago, I went to go talk to Martin Macwan, the founder and mentor of many Dalit organizations, and the de-facto director of the vocational training center. He was dictating a document the NGO's secretary, and was sitting on two cheap plastic chairs, one stacked upon the other. I don’t remember what question I had for Martin, but halfway into my sentence he suddenly realized there were no chairs for me to sit on. “Sorry,” he said, “I was being a capitalist. Here,” now standing up, “Take one and have a seat.”
Recently I’ve begun to question the morality of living the “American lifestyle” I had been accustomed to. If I really believe in equality—and make it more than just a word, applying it to my own life—it becomes more difficult for me to justify, for example, spending a few hundred dollars on a snowboarding weekend, when people I have met and become friends with make less money in a year. Put another way, how many chairs am I sitting on? How many chairs do I have in the bank or in my wallet? How many chairs did I blow in Japan on food, drinks, and cover charges? A donation of a few hundred dollars to an organization that knows how to use it properly can make a huge difference, in all kinds of ways. The difference can even be quantified in dollar amount: books purchased, inoculations delivered, children sent to school, etc. Does the amount of fun I would have snowboarding outweigh that difference? A voice inside my head tries to argue away that problem, saying that I already give enough money away, that I spend enough of my time “helping people”, and I’m allowed to splurge. But these days, when that voice starts its familiar argument, a Lauryn Hill lyric from the song “Lost Ones” comes into my head: “Every man wants to act like he’s exempt.”
I don’t think I can keep acting like I’m exempt. I’ve seen so much injustice here that I don’t know what to do with it. On a train to Pune a few months ago, a ten-year-old boy, shirtless and barefoot, was crawling on his hands on knees down the isle, sweeping the floor—strewn with plastic wrappers, and sticky with tea and spit—with a short broom. After he swept by each person’s feet, he held out a dirty hand in the hope that a Rupee or two would be dropped into it. Sitting in the seat across from mine was another boy, also about ten years old. But this one was totally fluent in English because his parents had enough money to send him to an English-medium school; maybe they even spoke in English to him at home, because they had also been to English-medium schools. In fifteen years he will be an engineer or successful businessman. And where will that other boy—the one who is on his knees, now crawling down the isle with the broom in his hand—where will he be? It just feels different when you’ve seen the injustice in front of you, when injustice itself is at your feet and on the seat next to you, talking to you, when you can see the sweat on its back.
When we talk about solidarity, what do we mean? That boy on the floor was probably from the Valmiki community, whose caste-bound duty is to clean other people’s filth. Here in Gujarat and around India, many Valmiki children are made to sit in the back of the classroom, to sit separately at mealtime, and to clean the school’s toilets. What would I do if I were in that situation? Can I honestly say that I would stay in school and face the constant humiliation? When the script is written before a life even begins—when you can almost know how the child of illiterate Valmiki parents will grow up, just as you can almost know how the child of wealthier forward-caste parents will grow up—you want to do something to change that script.
Being a native English-speaker and having a college education made me qualified to be an English teacher in Japan, salary about $30,000, tax-free. My key skill, if you can call it that, was being able to speak my own language in my own accent. I know plenty of other people who can speak their own language in their own accent. Instead of being rewarded, they are punished, held back from decent jobs because they don’t know English well enough. Can I really still believe that I deserve all these chairs I’ve got stashed away?
When I can see in black and white the ways in which society can systematically include and reward—and also exclude, humiliate, and subjugate—it’s harder to keep living as if I’m exempt.
I wrote this for an AJWS assignment on Passover. The question was:
At the same time as we are instructed to experience liberation, we are also instructed to remember the suffering as our own. Because of our personal experience as slaves, we are commanded to recognize and rectify injustice. “You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow’s garments in pawn. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt…therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment (Deut. 24:17-18).” In what ways have you witnessed injustice in your experience this year? Does living this experience make you more obligated to address those injustices and in what ways? In seeing injustice on a day to day basis, do you feel more or less obligated to address those issues?
Recently I’ve begun to question the morality of living the “American lifestyle” I had been accustomed to. If I really believe in equality—and make it more than just a word, applying it to my own life—it becomes more difficult for me to justify, for example, spending a few hundred dollars on a snowboarding weekend, when people I have met and become friends with make less money in a year. Put another way, how many chairs am I sitting on? How many chairs do I have in the bank or in my wallet? How many chairs did I blow in Japan on food, drinks, and cover charges? A donation of a few hundred dollars to an organization that knows how to use it properly can make a huge difference, in all kinds of ways. The difference can even be quantified in dollar amount: books purchased, inoculations delivered, children sent to school, etc. Does the amount of fun I would have snowboarding outweigh that difference? A voice inside my head tries to argue away that problem, saying that I already give enough money away, that I spend enough of my time “helping people”, and I’m allowed to splurge. But these days, when that voice starts its familiar argument, a Lauryn Hill lyric from the song “Lost Ones” comes into my head: “Every man wants to act like he’s exempt.”
I don’t think I can keep acting like I’m exempt. I’ve seen so much injustice here that I don’t know what to do with it. On a train to Pune a few months ago, a ten-year-old boy, shirtless and barefoot, was crawling on his hands on knees down the isle, sweeping the floor—strewn with plastic wrappers, and sticky with tea and spit—with a short broom. After he swept by each person’s feet, he held out a dirty hand in the hope that a Rupee or two would be dropped into it. Sitting in the seat across from mine was another boy, also about ten years old. But this one was totally fluent in English because his parents had enough money to send him to an English-medium school; maybe they even spoke in English to him at home, because they had also been to English-medium schools. In fifteen years he will be an engineer or successful businessman. And where will that other boy—the one who is on his knees, now crawling down the isle with the broom in his hand—where will he be? It just feels different when you’ve seen the injustice in front of you, when injustice itself is at your feet and on the seat next to you, talking to you, when you can see the sweat on its back.
When we talk about solidarity, what do we mean? That boy on the floor was probably from the Valmiki community, whose caste-bound duty is to clean other people’s filth. Here in Gujarat and around India, many Valmiki children are made to sit in the back of the classroom, to sit separately at mealtime, and to clean the school’s toilets. What would I do if I were in that situation? Can I honestly say that I would stay in school and face the constant humiliation? When the script is written before a life even begins—when you can almost know how the child of illiterate Valmiki parents will grow up, just as you can almost know how the child of wealthier forward-caste parents will grow up—you want to do something to change that script.
Being a native English-speaker and having a college education made me qualified to be an English teacher in Japan, salary about $30,000, tax-free. My key skill, if you can call it that, was being able to speak my own language in my own accent. I know plenty of other people who can speak their own language in their own accent. Instead of being rewarded, they are punished, held back from decent jobs because they don’t know English well enough. Can I really still believe that I deserve all these chairs I’ve got stashed away?
When I can see in black and white the ways in which society can systematically include and reward—and also exclude, humiliate, and subjugate—it’s harder to keep living as if I’m exempt.
I wrote this for an AJWS assignment on Passover. The question was:
At the same time as we are instructed to experience liberation, we are also instructed to remember the suffering as our own. Because of our personal experience as slaves, we are commanded to recognize and rectify injustice. “You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger or the fatherless; you shall not take a widow’s garments in pawn. Remember that you were a slave in Egypt…therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment (Deut. 24:17-18).” In what ways have you witnessed injustice in your experience this year? Does living this experience make you more obligated to address those injustices and in what ways? In seeing injustice on a day to day basis, do you feel more or less obligated to address those issues?
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Transportation in Gujarat
Getting around in India is hard to describe, and even harder to experience.
In auto-rickshaws—basically three-wheeled go-carts—I’ve had strangers practically sitting on my lap, because the rickshaw is moving 11 people instead of the 4 for whom seats are actually available. I’ve hitched rides in trucks, the front cabs of which are so crowded with travelers that the manual gear shift is between my legs, substantially too close for comfort when in 2nd gear. And I’ve ridden in buses that seem to have been welded together from scrap metal, with no shocks, seats missing, the diesel engine roaring so loud that it actually comes close to drowning out the passengers yelling on cell phones, the crying babies, and the angry conductor.
At the same time, though, traveling the way my friends and colleagues do has given me a lot to think about.
Once I was heading out on a long bus ride over to one of the NGO’s primary schools. It was supposed to have been an easy journey, because the bus would pick me up just a minute outside of the vocational training center where I live and work, at the local village’s bus stand, and take me directly to the town by which the school is located.
That direct bus comes once a day, at 2 pm. I waited there from 1:45 to 3, and the only vehicles driving by were massive trucks hauling timber or cotton, the local buses, and the local auto-rickshaws, which function as shared taxis with people hanging out of every opening.
I had just about cancelled my plans when the bus finally came a little after 3. I told the conductor where I was going, and bought a ticket for around 100 Rupees, or about 3 dollars—not bad for a four hour journey of a couple hundred kilometers.
Throughout the trip, different people got on and off the bus, and on and off the seat next to mine. For a while, a rather fat woman with flesh rolling out of her sari parked herself against my shoulder, her young son playing on the bus floor. Later, when she left, a man of about 25 took the seat next to mine. His hair was slicked back, and he wore scratched sunglasses, blue jeans, and a faded, stained collared shirt. He took out his cell phone and immediately began cycling through every ringtone stored in the phone from start to finish, as if the syncopated beeped muzak were anything resembling music. His phone was the same model I use now, a Nokia of the kind that was common in America about six or seven years ago. It sells for about forty dollars new, or twenty used.
After getting tired of the ringtones, he turned to me. “Iscon Mall,” he said, bringing up one of the huge malls that have sprung up out of the dust in Ahmedabad over the past three years. “Best mall.” He stressed the word “best” as if to imply that he had been to all kinds of malls, and Iscon had topped them all.
“I’ve never been there,” I said.
“Oh yes, yes,” he answered, feigning understanding. “Shopping is best.”
I had no ipod with me, and no cellphone or camera visible, but the man had seen my white skin and associated me with a kind of lifestyle that he did not have, but clearly was trying to emulate. The mega-mall and chain-store era has begun here, and people want to prove their success by establishing a connection with both.
I continued one of my favorite bus-ride pastimes—people watching—when the man got off. Many of the women on the bus wore so much gold on their ears that the top of the ear literally sagged from the weight. Each ear had at least five or six rings and ornaments in it. Maybe the permanent ear-sag is a mark of prosperity, showing everyone that you possess enough gold to accomplish the sag. Like almost all of the other women on the bus, they wore bright, sparkling saris with part of the cloth pulled just over part of the head. They could adjust the amount that they pulled the cloth over their head, so that the extremely thin cloth could function as a veil, a way to block the sun, to wipe away sweat, or any one of a number of other uses.
Though the rule has exceptions, unmarried girls and women more often wear the salwar kameez, a knee-length cut dress with matching slacks and long, flowing scarf. Schoolgirls like the ones who got on the bus on their way home from school typically wear a salwar kameez, adding the scarf once they reach about 12 years old. Girls and women constantly adjust the scarf to a position that seems appropriate; often, it is used to preserve modesty, and is pulled down over the chest.
Most middle-aged or old men on the bus wore all white, usually a long cotton kurta with white cotton pants. Many were proudly mustachioed; mustaches are a symbol of strength and manhood in India, and nearly all police officers have huge, curled and oiled mustaches. Some wore turbans, the style of which depends on the caste to which they belong. If the turban is brightly colored and the man is wearing big gold earrings, he is probably a Bharvad, or shepherd. In that case, he is probably also wearing a bright blue or green skirt-like lower body wrap, has a big mustache, and holds his head high. If the man has a white turban, no gold earnings, but the same kind of bright lower-body wrap, he is likely a Rabari, another caste.
Another time, I was on my way back from the visiting my friend Prakash’s village. Prakash is one of the tailoring instructors here, and he was with me at the time. We didn’t get to Sanand, the nearby town eight kilometers from the vocational training center, until just about midnight. After about seven or eight o’clock, the only way to get to Nani Devti, the village next to the center, is by hitching a ride in a truck. I’ve done this a bunch of times, but never as late as midnight.
As trucks pulled by, we flagged them and shouted, “Devti? Nani Devti?” But none slowed down to listen. Two trucks pulled over and stopped, but that was because the drivers were resting for the night. Apparently, drivers are worried about picking people up after a certain time. The hitchhikers always give the driver 5 or 10 Rupees for the ride, but at night it may not be enough.
Finally, after one o’clock, we got a ride in the front cab of a truck with one more hitchhiker. When we were about one or two kilometers outside of Nani Devti, we took a right onto a sandy path, and the driver turned off the engine. Construction was being done, and his dump truck had to change places with a full dump truck. We would get into the full dump truck, which would take us the additional kilometer.
We watched as a big caterpillar construction shoveling machine (I know there’s a better name for it, but I don’t know it) finished filling up the dump truck that we needed. Once full, however, it wasn’t able to drive up the sandy hill to the level path. The construction machine took out some of the sand from the truck, but that still didn’t help. So the machine got behind the dump truck, and used its shovel to push the back of the dump truck all the way up the hill. It seemed like a very India Moment.
Our new truck stopped and picked us up. “Who are these guys?” the new driver asked the old one.
“These guys are going to Nani Devti,” our original driver answered, “and the other one’s going to Bavla.”
“Fine, but who are they? Are they all right?” The new driver seemed worried that we might injure or rob him, but our original driver reassured him that we were safe, and we finally got back to the center a little before two in the morning.
Usually when I want to get to Sanand, I take one of the shared rickshaw-taxis. The twenty-minute ride costs 5 Rupees, and is really the only way of getting into town. If I’m lucky I get a middle seat. Sometimes I have to squish myself onto three inches of seat, next to the driver and three or four other men in the front, holding onto part of the rickshaw frame to make sure I don’t fall out. If it’s really crowded, I have to stand on the back rack, holding on to a different part of the frame. That’s the only way that seems really dangerous, and I try to avoid it when I can.
The trip to Sanand goes by two or three other villages, and the scenes are very much typical of rural India: women and girls carrying head-loads of water, bundles of sticks (for use as fuel), or weeds and plants (for fodder for cows and buffalos), young men tending to a herd of water buffalos and cows, a few wandering goats, and, if it is harvest time, women in the fields cutting the rice or wheat with a sickle.
Most of the houses that we pass by are small, one-story, made of brick with either a clay-tile roof, corrugated tin roof, or plastic tarp roof. As the rickshaw moves closer to Sanand, though, the Darbar houses appear on the left. Darbars are a dominant land-owning caste. Hundreds of years ago, they were local lords and nobles. They are mostly still very wealthy because of their land inheritance, and their huge, two or three-story houses testify to that fact.
I’m about typed out for now, but I hope you can get a kind of idea of what traveling has been like for me here.
In auto-rickshaws—basically three-wheeled go-carts—I’ve had strangers practically sitting on my lap, because the rickshaw is moving 11 people instead of the 4 for whom seats are actually available. I’ve hitched rides in trucks, the front cabs of which are so crowded with travelers that the manual gear shift is between my legs, substantially too close for comfort when in 2nd gear. And I’ve ridden in buses that seem to have been welded together from scrap metal, with no shocks, seats missing, the diesel engine roaring so loud that it actually comes close to drowning out the passengers yelling on cell phones, the crying babies, and the angry conductor.
At the same time, though, traveling the way my friends and colleagues do has given me a lot to think about.
Once I was heading out on a long bus ride over to one of the NGO’s primary schools. It was supposed to have been an easy journey, because the bus would pick me up just a minute outside of the vocational training center where I live and work, at the local village’s bus stand, and take me directly to the town by which the school is located.
That direct bus comes once a day, at 2 pm. I waited there from 1:45 to 3, and the only vehicles driving by were massive trucks hauling timber or cotton, the local buses, and the local auto-rickshaws, which function as shared taxis with people hanging out of every opening.
I had just about cancelled my plans when the bus finally came a little after 3. I told the conductor where I was going, and bought a ticket for around 100 Rupees, or about 3 dollars—not bad for a four hour journey of a couple hundred kilometers.
Throughout the trip, different people got on and off the bus, and on and off the seat next to mine. For a while, a rather fat woman with flesh rolling out of her sari parked herself against my shoulder, her young son playing on the bus floor. Later, when she left, a man of about 25 took the seat next to mine. His hair was slicked back, and he wore scratched sunglasses, blue jeans, and a faded, stained collared shirt. He took out his cell phone and immediately began cycling through every ringtone stored in the phone from start to finish, as if the syncopated beeped muzak were anything resembling music. His phone was the same model I use now, a Nokia of the kind that was common in America about six or seven years ago. It sells for about forty dollars new, or twenty used.
After getting tired of the ringtones, he turned to me. “Iscon Mall,” he said, bringing up one of the huge malls that have sprung up out of the dust in Ahmedabad over the past three years. “Best mall.” He stressed the word “best” as if to imply that he had been to all kinds of malls, and Iscon had topped them all.
“I’ve never been there,” I said.
“Oh yes, yes,” he answered, feigning understanding. “Shopping is best.”
I had no ipod with me, and no cellphone or camera visible, but the man had seen my white skin and associated me with a kind of lifestyle that he did not have, but clearly was trying to emulate. The mega-mall and chain-store era has begun here, and people want to prove their success by establishing a connection with both.
I continued one of my favorite bus-ride pastimes—people watching—when the man got off. Many of the women on the bus wore so much gold on their ears that the top of the ear literally sagged from the weight. Each ear had at least five or six rings and ornaments in it. Maybe the permanent ear-sag is a mark of prosperity, showing everyone that you possess enough gold to accomplish the sag. Like almost all of the other women on the bus, they wore bright, sparkling saris with part of the cloth pulled just over part of the head. They could adjust the amount that they pulled the cloth over their head, so that the extremely thin cloth could function as a veil, a way to block the sun, to wipe away sweat, or any one of a number of other uses.
Though the rule has exceptions, unmarried girls and women more often wear the salwar kameez, a knee-length cut dress with matching slacks and long, flowing scarf. Schoolgirls like the ones who got on the bus on their way home from school typically wear a salwar kameez, adding the scarf once they reach about 12 years old. Girls and women constantly adjust the scarf to a position that seems appropriate; often, it is used to preserve modesty, and is pulled down over the chest.
Most middle-aged or old men on the bus wore all white, usually a long cotton kurta with white cotton pants. Many were proudly mustachioed; mustaches are a symbol of strength and manhood in India, and nearly all police officers have huge, curled and oiled mustaches. Some wore turbans, the style of which depends on the caste to which they belong. If the turban is brightly colored and the man is wearing big gold earrings, he is probably a Bharvad, or shepherd. In that case, he is probably also wearing a bright blue or green skirt-like lower body wrap, has a big mustache, and holds his head high. If the man has a white turban, no gold earnings, but the same kind of bright lower-body wrap, he is likely a Rabari, another caste.
Another time, I was on my way back from the visiting my friend Prakash’s village. Prakash is one of the tailoring instructors here, and he was with me at the time. We didn’t get to Sanand, the nearby town eight kilometers from the vocational training center, until just about midnight. After about seven or eight o’clock, the only way to get to Nani Devti, the village next to the center, is by hitching a ride in a truck. I’ve done this a bunch of times, but never as late as midnight.
As trucks pulled by, we flagged them and shouted, “Devti? Nani Devti?” But none slowed down to listen. Two trucks pulled over and stopped, but that was because the drivers were resting for the night. Apparently, drivers are worried about picking people up after a certain time. The hitchhikers always give the driver 5 or 10 Rupees for the ride, but at night it may not be enough.
Finally, after one o’clock, we got a ride in the front cab of a truck with one more hitchhiker. When we were about one or two kilometers outside of Nani Devti, we took a right onto a sandy path, and the driver turned off the engine. Construction was being done, and his dump truck had to change places with a full dump truck. We would get into the full dump truck, which would take us the additional kilometer.
We watched as a big caterpillar construction shoveling machine (I know there’s a better name for it, but I don’t know it) finished filling up the dump truck that we needed. Once full, however, it wasn’t able to drive up the sandy hill to the level path. The construction machine took out some of the sand from the truck, but that still didn’t help. So the machine got behind the dump truck, and used its shovel to push the back of the dump truck all the way up the hill. It seemed like a very India Moment.
Our new truck stopped and picked us up. “Who are these guys?” the new driver asked the old one.
“These guys are going to Nani Devti,” our original driver answered, “and the other one’s going to Bavla.”
“Fine, but who are they? Are they all right?” The new driver seemed worried that we might injure or rob him, but our original driver reassured him that we were safe, and we finally got back to the center a little before two in the morning.
Usually when I want to get to Sanand, I take one of the shared rickshaw-taxis. The twenty-minute ride costs 5 Rupees, and is really the only way of getting into town. If I’m lucky I get a middle seat. Sometimes I have to squish myself onto three inches of seat, next to the driver and three or four other men in the front, holding onto part of the rickshaw frame to make sure I don’t fall out. If it’s really crowded, I have to stand on the back rack, holding on to a different part of the frame. That’s the only way that seems really dangerous, and I try to avoid it when I can.
The trip to Sanand goes by two or three other villages, and the scenes are very much typical of rural India: women and girls carrying head-loads of water, bundles of sticks (for use as fuel), or weeds and plants (for fodder for cows and buffalos), young men tending to a herd of water buffalos and cows, a few wandering goats, and, if it is harvest time, women in the fields cutting the rice or wheat with a sickle.
Most of the houses that we pass by are small, one-story, made of brick with either a clay-tile roof, corrugated tin roof, or plastic tarp roof. As the rickshaw moves closer to Sanand, though, the Darbar houses appear on the left. Darbars are a dominant land-owning caste. Hundreds of years ago, they were local lords and nobles. They are mostly still very wealthy because of their land inheritance, and their huge, two or three-story houses testify to that fact.
I’m about typed out for now, but I hope you can get a kind of idea of what traveling has been like for me here.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Fish on Bakari Eid
I wrote this a few months ago, and just noticed it again, so I thought I’d post it. I should warn you, though: it contains graphic depictions of slaughtered goats and stinking fish.
Because of the Muslim holiday of Bakari Eid, the director of my NGO decided that fish should be bought for dinner. Bakari means goat, and on this holiday it is traditional for Muslims to have a feast of goat. Goat meat, however, is more expensive than fish, and there are few Muslims here anyway. I had to go to Ahmedabad to pick up some English textbooks, so I went into the city with the vocational training center manager and one of the drivers.
After picking up the textbooks, we went to a Muslim market to find some fish. The market was a street on one side of which were shops and on the other side of which were some stalls. Wherever I looked there were parts of recently slaughtered goat: skinned goat torsos hanging from iron hooks, legs resting on shop floors, a few heads resting on the dusty ground outside. Some people were busy hacking at chunks of meat, and others were roasting legs. By one stall I saw a family—all barefoot, dressed in rather dirty-looking clothes—of a mother and her children roasting some nearly meatless legs. All around their stall were scattered hooves; there must have been about 15 or 20 of them. A few goats who had managed to live another day wandered around sniffing at trash as usual, seemingly nonplussed by their newly deceased brethren.
It was already 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and all the fish shops on that street had closed because of the holiday, so we couldn’t buy any fish at that market. We left for another market which had less goat and a few more fish stalls. The stalls stank, and the fish were kept on the stone counter or on the shop floor. There was no ice to cool them, of course. Dozens of flies buzzed all around. A woman weighed the 15 kilos of fish that the manager of the vocational training center ordered, and threw them to her sons to skin and chop. The process was agonizingly slow, as the fish were whole, and none had been gutted, skinned, or filleted. They worked like this: first the mother cut off the tail, fins and head. Then her sons skinned it, chopped it, gutted it, and threw the product in black plastic bags. Altogether, we must have waited more than half an hour, though it took a few minutes of waiting before we were able to place our order. Once the bags were ready, they were put in a large, blue plastic barrel that the manager had brought with us in the truck for that purpose. The fish didn’t stink quite so badly once the fish was in with the top on.
Once the cooks at the center got the fish, the finished product was only thirty minutes away. Knowing where the fish came from made me a bit intimidated, but I ate it anyway. It wasn’t bad, but picking out the bones was annoying since it hadn’t been filleted.
When it comes to food in India, there are a lot of “pretend you didn’t just see that” moments. Last week I ordered an omelet at a little stand in the nearby town of Sanand. The omelet was fine, but after I returned my used plate to the shopkeeper, he wiped it with a rag, and then put it on top of the stack of supposedly “clean” plates.
So far in my life, I’ve only had food poisoning once, in Israel. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Because of the Muslim holiday of Bakari Eid, the director of my NGO decided that fish should be bought for dinner. Bakari means goat, and on this holiday it is traditional for Muslims to have a feast of goat. Goat meat, however, is more expensive than fish, and there are few Muslims here anyway. I had to go to Ahmedabad to pick up some English textbooks, so I went into the city with the vocational training center manager and one of the drivers.
After picking up the textbooks, we went to a Muslim market to find some fish. The market was a street on one side of which were shops and on the other side of which were some stalls. Wherever I looked there were parts of recently slaughtered goat: skinned goat torsos hanging from iron hooks, legs resting on shop floors, a few heads resting on the dusty ground outside. Some people were busy hacking at chunks of meat, and others were roasting legs. By one stall I saw a family—all barefoot, dressed in rather dirty-looking clothes—of a mother and her children roasting some nearly meatless legs. All around their stall were scattered hooves; there must have been about 15 or 20 of them. A few goats who had managed to live another day wandered around sniffing at trash as usual, seemingly nonplussed by their newly deceased brethren.
It was already 4 or 5 in the afternoon, and all the fish shops on that street had closed because of the holiday, so we couldn’t buy any fish at that market. We left for another market which had less goat and a few more fish stalls. The stalls stank, and the fish were kept on the stone counter or on the shop floor. There was no ice to cool them, of course. Dozens of flies buzzed all around. A woman weighed the 15 kilos of fish that the manager of the vocational training center ordered, and threw them to her sons to skin and chop. The process was agonizingly slow, as the fish were whole, and none had been gutted, skinned, or filleted. They worked like this: first the mother cut off the tail, fins and head. Then her sons skinned it, chopped it, gutted it, and threw the product in black plastic bags. Altogether, we must have waited more than half an hour, though it took a few minutes of waiting before we were able to place our order. Once the bags were ready, they were put in a large, blue plastic barrel that the manager had brought with us in the truck for that purpose. The fish didn’t stink quite so badly once the fish was in with the top on.
Once the cooks at the center got the fish, the finished product was only thirty minutes away. Knowing where the fish came from made me a bit intimidated, but I ate it anyway. It wasn’t bad, but picking out the bones was annoying since it hadn’t been filleted.
When it comes to food in India, there are a lot of “pretend you didn’t just see that” moments. Last week I ordered an omelet at a little stand in the nearby town of Sanand. The omelet was fine, but after I returned my used plate to the shopkeeper, he wiped it with a rag, and then put it on top of the stack of supposedly “clean” plates.
So far in my life, I’ve only had food poisoning once, in Israel. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Friday, February 29, 2008
A Gujarati Wedding
Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted anything. I’ve been teaching four classes a day, conducting a study on why the students here at the vocational training center dropped out of their schools, and editing a book all at the same time, six days a week. But the last batch of students just ended, so I’ve had some free time. I spent two days at one of the three primary schools (the last one I hadn’t visited) run by my NGO, teaching English songs and having fun with the kids. Then I went around Gujarat for two days to see some historical sites. Civilization has existed in Gujarat for around 5,000 years, so there are lots of old temples and ruins. It was a nice chance for me to relax and be a tourist for a little while, and gave me an opportunity to see some of India’s history.
What might be more interesting for you, though, is if I write a bit about the marriage I attended last week. The groom, Raju, is a coworker, and works as the furniture course instructor here. For the occasion, all of the vocational training center staff crammed into two or three cars, and drove two hours to Raju’s village, somewhere in the middle of rural Gujarat.
The sun was already going down by the time we pulled onto a narrow dirt road off of a main highway, and parked the cars next to a wedding tent set up outside Raju’s home. A couple dozen relatives were lulling around, the women in their finest saris, the young men in slacks and shirts, and the old men in kurtas (a loose, long shirt) and lungis (a white wrap thing, part pants, part skirt, and part loin cloth). It didn’t take long for anyone who could speak 10 words of English to find me, shake my hand and ask me “where you coming from?”
Raju soon came out of his house (one-story, concrete, maybe three rooms), bedecked in a turban, a sparkly wedding kurta, pointy shoes, and carrying a faux-golden dagger. His skin looked a sickly yellow-green because his female relatives had been bathing him in turmeric, which is apparently considered auspicious. Raju, who typically leaves his shirts un-tucked and is pretty laid-back, looked somewhat uncomfortable covered from head to toe in formality and wedding tradition. I exchanged a few words with him, but soon the procession started.
This was not a wedding procession in any way that you might imagine. It was led by a pushcart on which rested a cheap electric keyboard and the car battery used to power it, along with three megaphones set on the top. A few teenagers pushed the cart while the local “talent” yelled into a microphone and pounded on the keyboard. It might have seemed more musical if it hadn’t been forced through the megaphones, which distorted whatever chance the sound had of coming through cleanly; imagine it all coming through the loudspeakers of any train station. Leading the cart were two or three men with drums, banging away and keeping the beat to which everyone danced their way through the village. At one point, the cart and drummers stopped and played in once place, allowing a garba dance circle to form. To the delight of all, I joined in, my garba skills coming back to me from the Navratri celebration a few months earlier.
Raju marched alongside some older male relatives, a coconut in one hand and the fake gold dagger in another. The coconut, I’ve learned, is a symbol of purity. The procession marched on. At a few houses, some old ladies gave Raju a coin, threw some rice on his hair, put a dot of red powder on his forehead, and then moved their hands from his head to theirs, as if forcing something from his mind into their own. I learned later that this symbolizes their desire to take all the bad luck away from the groom and to bring it on them instead.
After the music, everyone returned to Raju’s house for dinner. There were vegetables, rice, lentils, and about five different varieties of sweets. As is typical with all Indian sweets, they were basically pure sugar, thinly disguised with food coloring. After dinner and a short break, the garba dancing continued anew, this time under the tent outside Raju’s home. I danced with everyone until about 1 in the morning, and then went to bed at a neighbor’s house.
The next morning was when the real action started. I was surprised that the bride or her family hadn’t even made an appearance at Raju’s house, but this is all part of the tradition. After one last march through the village, everyone boarded a bus to the bride’s village, about 30 kilometers away. Once there, everyone seemed kind of lost. I drank tea at a random person’s home and sat around until someone started playing a drum. I got up, and saw that it was a kid of about 11 or 12 years old playing drums with his father. Some relative of either Raju’s or the bride’s told me that they were “doing their traditional duty” as Valmikis. Valmikis are considered the lowest caste in India’s caste system, and are usually relegated to the most menial and degrading of tasks, like dragging away dead animals or cleaning excreta. Strangely, they are also assigned the duty of playing drums, apparently because drums are usually made of animal skin, and making them is/was considered an unclean task. This boy and his dad, though, were playing store-bought drums that were not made of animal skin; regardless, the “traditional duty” remained.
In any case, to the beat of the drums, the bride’s sister came out of her house, surrounded by female relatives, and carrying a coconut covered in beads on her head. Team Bride confronted Team Groom, and the bride’s sister put some red powder on Raju’s forehead. Raju was now wearing a different turban and carrying a fake gold sword in place of the fake gold dagger, all of which stood in contrast to his 1970’s style suit and loafers. The priest, dressed all in white, said some prayers. All the while, the bride’s female relatives sang songs ridiculing the groom, which is my favorite of the Gujarati wedding traditions. The random relative who spoke English translated some of them for me. In one line of the song, the women said Raju was short and ugly. In another, they asked if all the people standing around him were blind. And then in my favorite, they called everyone who came with him monkeys.
Despite the ridicule, Raju and his entourage were granted permission to approach the bride’s house. At the doorstep, the bride’s mother gave Raju some more red powder on the forehead, and then Raju sat down on one of two purple plush chairs waiting on the porch. Because of my status as an outsider with much-revered white skin (I really hate that Indian people value white skin so much, and it bothers me that if an American with darker skin were in my place they probably would not be treated as well), I was able to get up on the porch and watch the whole ceremony, and take lots of photos. For the first half an hour or so, Raju just sat on the plush chair looking bored while the priest drew designs on the floor with white and orange powder. Eventually, the bride came out, wearing a beautiful red and gold sari, her hands and arms covered in henna, her face and hair elaborately made up. No words or even glances were exchanged between her and Raju, despite the fact that she sat down on the second purple plush chair directly next to him.
The priest continued his chanting, setting out some copper pots around his powder design, and then putting a coconut in the middle of it. Then Raju and the bride stood up and marched around the coconut a few times. Someone guided her hand onto his, and some money was placed on it. Her sari was then tied to his scarf, the coconut was dipped in oil and lit, and once again they marched around the coconut, now flaming.
When the ceremony was over, the old men got together over a pot of crumpled bills, apparently collecting donations from the community to cover the cost of the ceremony and the forthcoming meal. Lunch was good, and was similar to dinner the previous night.
So that was the first Indian wedding I’ve seen. I’m thinking of introducing a flaming coconut into my own wedding, whenever that happens, but I haven’t yet decided about the turban or dagger.
What might be more interesting for you, though, is if I write a bit about the marriage I attended last week. The groom, Raju, is a coworker, and works as the furniture course instructor here. For the occasion, all of the vocational training center staff crammed into two or three cars, and drove two hours to Raju’s village, somewhere in the middle of rural Gujarat.
The sun was already going down by the time we pulled onto a narrow dirt road off of a main highway, and parked the cars next to a wedding tent set up outside Raju’s home. A couple dozen relatives were lulling around, the women in their finest saris, the young men in slacks and shirts, and the old men in kurtas (a loose, long shirt) and lungis (a white wrap thing, part pants, part skirt, and part loin cloth). It didn’t take long for anyone who could speak 10 words of English to find me, shake my hand and ask me “where you coming from?”
Raju soon came out of his house (one-story, concrete, maybe three rooms), bedecked in a turban, a sparkly wedding kurta, pointy shoes, and carrying a faux-golden dagger. His skin looked a sickly yellow-green because his female relatives had been bathing him in turmeric, which is apparently considered auspicious. Raju, who typically leaves his shirts un-tucked and is pretty laid-back, looked somewhat uncomfortable covered from head to toe in formality and wedding tradition. I exchanged a few words with him, but soon the procession started.
This was not a wedding procession in any way that you might imagine. It was led by a pushcart on which rested a cheap electric keyboard and the car battery used to power it, along with three megaphones set on the top. A few teenagers pushed the cart while the local “talent” yelled into a microphone and pounded on the keyboard. It might have seemed more musical if it hadn’t been forced through the megaphones, which distorted whatever chance the sound had of coming through cleanly; imagine it all coming through the loudspeakers of any train station. Leading the cart were two or three men with drums, banging away and keeping the beat to which everyone danced their way through the village. At one point, the cart and drummers stopped and played in once place, allowing a garba dance circle to form. To the delight of all, I joined in, my garba skills coming back to me from the Navratri celebration a few months earlier.
Raju marched alongside some older male relatives, a coconut in one hand and the fake gold dagger in another. The coconut, I’ve learned, is a symbol of purity. The procession marched on. At a few houses, some old ladies gave Raju a coin, threw some rice on his hair, put a dot of red powder on his forehead, and then moved their hands from his head to theirs, as if forcing something from his mind into their own. I learned later that this symbolizes their desire to take all the bad luck away from the groom and to bring it on them instead.
After the music, everyone returned to Raju’s house for dinner. There were vegetables, rice, lentils, and about five different varieties of sweets. As is typical with all Indian sweets, they were basically pure sugar, thinly disguised with food coloring. After dinner and a short break, the garba dancing continued anew, this time under the tent outside Raju’s home. I danced with everyone until about 1 in the morning, and then went to bed at a neighbor’s house.
The next morning was when the real action started. I was surprised that the bride or her family hadn’t even made an appearance at Raju’s house, but this is all part of the tradition. After one last march through the village, everyone boarded a bus to the bride’s village, about 30 kilometers away. Once there, everyone seemed kind of lost. I drank tea at a random person’s home and sat around until someone started playing a drum. I got up, and saw that it was a kid of about 11 or 12 years old playing drums with his father. Some relative of either Raju’s or the bride’s told me that they were “doing their traditional duty” as Valmikis. Valmikis are considered the lowest caste in India’s caste system, and are usually relegated to the most menial and degrading of tasks, like dragging away dead animals or cleaning excreta. Strangely, they are also assigned the duty of playing drums, apparently because drums are usually made of animal skin, and making them is/was considered an unclean task. This boy and his dad, though, were playing store-bought drums that were not made of animal skin; regardless, the “traditional duty” remained.
In any case, to the beat of the drums, the bride’s sister came out of her house, surrounded by female relatives, and carrying a coconut covered in beads on her head. Team Bride confronted Team Groom, and the bride’s sister put some red powder on Raju’s forehead. Raju was now wearing a different turban and carrying a fake gold sword in place of the fake gold dagger, all of which stood in contrast to his 1970’s style suit and loafers. The priest, dressed all in white, said some prayers. All the while, the bride’s female relatives sang songs ridiculing the groom, which is my favorite of the Gujarati wedding traditions. The random relative who spoke English translated some of them for me. In one line of the song, the women said Raju was short and ugly. In another, they asked if all the people standing around him were blind. And then in my favorite, they called everyone who came with him monkeys.
Despite the ridicule, Raju and his entourage were granted permission to approach the bride’s house. At the doorstep, the bride’s mother gave Raju some more red powder on the forehead, and then Raju sat down on one of two purple plush chairs waiting on the porch. Because of my status as an outsider with much-revered white skin (I really hate that Indian people value white skin so much, and it bothers me that if an American with darker skin were in my place they probably would not be treated as well), I was able to get up on the porch and watch the whole ceremony, and take lots of photos. For the first half an hour or so, Raju just sat on the plush chair looking bored while the priest drew designs on the floor with white and orange powder. Eventually, the bride came out, wearing a beautiful red and gold sari, her hands and arms covered in henna, her face and hair elaborately made up. No words or even glances were exchanged between her and Raju, despite the fact that she sat down on the second purple plush chair directly next to him.
The priest continued his chanting, setting out some copper pots around his powder design, and then putting a coconut in the middle of it. Then Raju and the bride stood up and marched around the coconut a few times. Someone guided her hand onto his, and some money was placed on it. Her sari was then tied to his scarf, the coconut was dipped in oil and lit, and once again they marched around the coconut, now flaming.
When the ceremony was over, the old men got together over a pot of crumpled bills, apparently collecting donations from the community to cover the cost of the ceremony and the forthcoming meal. Lunch was good, and was similar to dinner the previous night.
So that was the first Indian wedding I’ve seen. I’m thinking of introducing a flaming coconut into my own wedding, whenever that happens, but I haven’t yet decided about the turban or dagger.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
From village to village...
Last month I had a very interesting trip to about six different villages around Gujarat, and I didn’t have time to write about it, so I'll try now. I should say this this particular day really blew my mind wide open. If you feel like this entry jumps all over the place and covers more than one blog entry really should, that's because this particular day was that full.
Thursday, December 8th is the anniversary of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s death. (Dr. Ambedkar was the most significant Dalit leader in India’s history, and was the primary framer of the Indian constitution, a document which provides numerous legal safeguards and a job reservation system for Dalits.) As a result, my organization—which is at root a grassroots network of fieldworkers—organized a variety of programs in the villages. The organization has set up hundreds of “Bhimshalas”—Bhim from Bhimrao Ambedkar, and Shala for the Gujarati word for school—which are basically extra-curricular education centers run out of a volunteer’s home. The volunteer is trained by the organization in strategies to combat discrimination at school, and also gives the kids academic support. The organization also provides the volunteer with a library for the children to use.
Anyway, the programs on December 8th were coordinated through the Bhimshalas. When we drove into the first village, we had to spend a bit of time looking for the Dalit locality. We stopped and the director of the organization asked a villager where the Dalit locality was. The villager looked puzzled; Dalit is a relatively new word, and is preferred by the Dalits themselves, while non-Dalits still just use the traditional sub-caste terminology. So the director asked where the weavers and leather-workers lived (these two communities form the biggest part of the Dalit community). The villager waved us on, and said “all the way down”.
The road was narrow and unpaved, and our van was bouncing quite a bit in the potholes, but me made it eventually. When we arrived, we were introduced to the Bhimshala volunteer, a Christian man from the Vankar (weaver) community in his 20’s. He knew a bit of English, and told us about the classes he runs. I also saw the library in his home, which was composed of a small bookshelf and a few dozen books. We got a brief tour of the Dalit locality. A two-minute walk from the volunteer’s home, we met a young man now in the local high school whose protest had resulted in the de-segregation of Dalit and non-Dalit children during the mid-day meal at school. Mid-day meal segregation of Dalits from non-Dalits is typical, because non-Dalits traditionally believe Dalits “pollute” food by their touch or presence, and would not want to even eat while looking at a Dalit. Of course, no child is born with this idea, but the notion is reinforced by their parents and by the school itself, which often enforces the segregation.
We continued walking around the village a bit, and met some local women, about 40 years old. They told my organization’s director that they work as day laborers in fields owned by village Patels (a relatively wealthy non-Dalit caste) for Rs. 40 (one dollar) per day, despite the fact that the minimum daily wage is Rs. 53. They themselves own no land, and are therefore economically dependant on the Patels, and feel powerless to protest their meager wages. The Patels are under no obligation to hire them, so if the women strike or protest, they could lose their only source of income. This type of situation is one reason why my organization has led numerous campaigns on Dalit land rights.
We also went into the Valmiki community. I hadn’t realized that even Dalit localities are divided into clusters of houses based on sub-caste, but this is clearly the case. The Valmikis are the manual scavenger and sweeper caste, and are considered to be the absolute lowest in the caste hierarchy. Even today, tens of thousands of them in Gujarat alone are employed to manually remove and transport human excreta from dry latrines, which are often nothing more than an open area surrounded by four walls. Anyway, a family sat us down on some plastic chairs and gave us some tea, and we talked to some members of the community. They actually seemed to be doing fairly well. One woman we met there was a college graduate now working as a social worker with a different organization, and her daughter is now in college studying English. Her daughter was a bit shy, but when we called her over was able to use the opportunity to practice speaking English a bit. The houses were decent, and made of concrete. They said the government had given some money for their construction.
We then went back to the Bhimshala. Students were sitting in rows, and a fieldworker of the organization was leading them in call-and-response chants related to Ambedkar and equality. My favorite chant was the Hindi, “Hum sub ek hai”, which means “We are all one”. After about 10 minutes of organized chanting, they marched to the village primary school. The kids had been given little signs to hold, which had messages of gender and caste equality printed on them. This little march took us through the non-Dalit part of the village. The villagers looked at us a bit oddly, but I tried to smile at them. Many smiled back. It was a conscious decision on my part to smile; the chants the kids were saying went against the village status quo of caste segregation and gender discrimination, and the villagers probably felt somewhat threatened and surprised that several foreigners were a part of it. A smile can go a long way towards reducing any tension, and also help a cause more than any chants can.
Thursday, December 8th is the anniversary of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar’s death. (Dr. Ambedkar was the most significant Dalit leader in India’s history, and was the primary framer of the Indian constitution, a document which provides numerous legal safeguards and a job reservation system for Dalits.) As a result, my organization—which is at root a grassroots network of fieldworkers—organized a variety of programs in the villages. The organization has set up hundreds of “Bhimshalas”—Bhim from Bhimrao Ambedkar, and Shala for the Gujarati word for school—which are basically extra-curricular education centers run out of a volunteer’s home. The volunteer is trained by the organization in strategies to combat discrimination at school, and also gives the kids academic support. The organization also provides the volunteer with a library for the children to use.
Anyway, the programs on December 8th were coordinated through the Bhimshalas. When we drove into the first village, we had to spend a bit of time looking for the Dalit locality. We stopped and the director of the organization asked a villager where the Dalit locality was. The villager looked puzzled; Dalit is a relatively new word, and is preferred by the Dalits themselves, while non-Dalits still just use the traditional sub-caste terminology. So the director asked where the weavers and leather-workers lived (these two communities form the biggest part of the Dalit community). The villager waved us on, and said “all the way down”.
The road was narrow and unpaved, and our van was bouncing quite a bit in the potholes, but me made it eventually. When we arrived, we were introduced to the Bhimshala volunteer, a Christian man from the Vankar (weaver) community in his 20’s. He knew a bit of English, and told us about the classes he runs. I also saw the library in his home, which was composed of a small bookshelf and a few dozen books. We got a brief tour of the Dalit locality. A two-minute walk from the volunteer’s home, we met a young man now in the local high school whose protest had resulted in the de-segregation of Dalit and non-Dalit children during the mid-day meal at school. Mid-day meal segregation of Dalits from non-Dalits is typical, because non-Dalits traditionally believe Dalits “pollute” food by their touch or presence, and would not want to even eat while looking at a Dalit. Of course, no child is born with this idea, but the notion is reinforced by their parents and by the school itself, which often enforces the segregation.
We continued walking around the village a bit, and met some local women, about 40 years old. They told my organization’s director that they work as day laborers in fields owned by village Patels (a relatively wealthy non-Dalit caste) for Rs. 40 (one dollar) per day, despite the fact that the minimum daily wage is Rs. 53. They themselves own no land, and are therefore economically dependant on the Patels, and feel powerless to protest their meager wages. The Patels are under no obligation to hire them, so if the women strike or protest, they could lose their only source of income. This type of situation is one reason why my organization has led numerous campaigns on Dalit land rights.
We also went into the Valmiki community. I hadn’t realized that even Dalit localities are divided into clusters of houses based on sub-caste, but this is clearly the case. The Valmikis are the manual scavenger and sweeper caste, and are considered to be the absolute lowest in the caste hierarchy. Even today, tens of thousands of them in Gujarat alone are employed to manually remove and transport human excreta from dry latrines, which are often nothing more than an open area surrounded by four walls. Anyway, a family sat us down on some plastic chairs and gave us some tea, and we talked to some members of the community. They actually seemed to be doing fairly well. One woman we met there was a college graduate now working as a social worker with a different organization, and her daughter is now in college studying English. Her daughter was a bit shy, but when we called her over was able to use the opportunity to practice speaking English a bit. The houses were decent, and made of concrete. They said the government had given some money for their construction.
We then went back to the Bhimshala. Students were sitting in rows, and a fieldworker of the organization was leading them in call-and-response chants related to Ambedkar and equality. My favorite chant was the Hindi, “Hum sub ek hai”, which means “We are all one”. After about 10 minutes of organized chanting, they marched to the village primary school. The kids had been given little signs to hold, which had messages of gender and caste equality printed on them. This little march took us through the non-Dalit part of the village. The villagers looked at us a bit oddly, but I tried to smile at them. Many smiled back. It was a conscious decision on my part to smile; the chants the kids were saying went against the village status quo of caste segregation and gender discrimination, and the villagers probably felt somewhat threatened and surprised that several foreigners were a part of it. A smile can go a long way towards reducing any tension, and also help a cause more than any chants can.
When we got to the school, I was surprised to see that all of the school’s students were sitting in rows, apparently waiting for us. The school’s staff was sitting in front of the main school building, on the school’s open hallway that provided a kind of makeshift stage. The students who had marched from the Dalit locality (mostly Dalits, but apparently a few non-Dalits as well) joined the other students in rows. We sat on the school floor “stage” facing the students. Some speeches were made, including by my organization’s director. The organization’s fieldworkers helped as well, and all the students joined in chanting “Jay Bhim”, a chant of support for Dr. Ambedkar, which really surprised me. Even some of the school’s staff said “Jay Bhim”, though the principal was more stoic. He had been against the boy who protested the segregated seating at mealtime in school. I made a short speech in Gujarati, in which I said my name, where I’m from, and told the students to read the children’s books brought by the organization for the school; those books deal with gender and caste equality in a way children can relate to. As the event ended, I told the principal that he had a very good school, and shook his hand. I wanted to be overly friendly in order to try to assure the success of the organization’s message.
After the event at the school, we went to another village where we had lunch at someone’s home. There are no dinner tables in the villages, so people sit on the floor, always Indian style, with legs folded. After lunch, four girls who had gotten dressed up for the occasion performed two song and dance numbers for us. They were really impressive, and very well choreographed and rehearsed. One involved throwing flowers, and the other was about how life today differs from life “in the old days”. For example, they said “In the old days women wore saris, but we wear jean pants”, and “In the old days people drank water, but we drink Pepsi”. I recorded the first one, but unfortunately I didn’t get the second. I should say that I didn’t understand much of the song, but it was translated for me after they finished.
Then we went to another village and sat in on their Bhimshala program. Some kids gave us flowers to welcome us, and we put a garland of flowers on Ambedkar’s picture. A volunteer read the children’s books protesting gender and caste inequality. It was interesting to see the women’s and men’s reactions to the points about gender equality. The men weren’t too keen on it, but they perked up during the book about untouchability practices. 
One man in particular—the peon at the town hall—stood up and started passionately explaining how separate water is kept for him because he’s a Dalit. He said it had been that way all the 28 years he’d been working there. I've added his photo just to the right of this text.
We had another interesting experience at yet another village. We were shown a cremation ground about which there had been a protest a year or two back. The ground was built with public funds, but had been used only for upper castes. After a story was published in the newspapers about the discrimination, they were forced to serve Dalits as well. But when we got there, we saw that a new sign proclaiming that the ground was only for Patels had been put up. Also, in a sign explaining the rules for using the grounds, the words “without caste discrimination” had been painted over. You could still see them under the fresh coat of beige paint. We took some photos, and then walked to the area where “lower” castes are forced to cremate their dead. You have to hike through a path into the bushes for a few dozen yards. We saw one place where a cremation had taken place. It was simply a hole in the ground. Some bones were still visible in the ash. The bamboo poles used to carry the body were lying next to the hole. Below, I've posted a photo of the discriminatory sign, with the words "without caste discrimination" painted over in a dull yellow. Unless you can read Gujarati, you'll have to take my word for it. I've also posted a photo of a cremation pit for Dalits, since they cannot use the new facility.
Then, in that village, we joined an event in the Dalit locality. A table was set up under a tent, and we were invited to sit on chairs behind the table, while everyone else sat on pillows in front. The occasion for the meeting was the establishment of an Amebedkar youth club in the village. A bunch of different people spoke. One woman wearing all white—the sign of a widow—worked as a member in the village council through the reservation system that is maintained for Dalits, part of Ambedkar’s constitutional legacy. I misjudged her because she looked so meek, and kept pulling her veil over her face. Also, when a fieldworker asked her if she wanted to make a speech like many others at the gathering, she said no, and the director had to insist that she speak. So I thought, “Wow, this woman is so weak…look at her hiding behind her veil. I’m sure the non-Dalits in the village council walk all over her, and she never speaks up.” But when she spoke she became very passionate, even starting to cry, and the director said she spoke very well. I was angry at myself for judging her before knowing anything, and without even thinking about what might have happened in her life to make her so afraid.
After the event, we had a snack of rice, sauce, and sweets in someone’s house. Then we left for yet another village. This Bhimshala was also holding an event, similar to the other ones. One little girl MC’d the program, others did a dance, the director spoke, and the children’s books were read. The village women were totally engaged in the books, and really connected to it. They nodded, finished sentences, and made sure their kids listened. The men were not enthusiastic about the messages of gender equality, but they became engaged when the book about untouchability was read. One moment that has stuck in my mind happened when the woman reading the book on untouchability asked the kids if they, as Dalits, were allowed to sit in the village square. It's very hard to describe a look in someone's face, so I won't try. But I will say that I have not forgotten the expression on the face of one little girl, maybe 9 years old, when she shook her head no.
Finally, around 11:30 PM, we had dinner in someone’s house. The food was good; potatoes, eggplant, lentils, chappati (Indian bread), and rice. The director had to fight with the woman of the house to be able to wash her own plate. I understood it; it would be hypocritical to push a message of gender equality and then leave plates to be washed by a woman. We all washed our own plates. As I washed mine, a small crowd of boys crowded around, and some practiced their English with me. It was a very positive atmosphere, and everyone wanted to shake my hand or hear me speak some Gujarati. After seeing me wash my own plate, the grandmother of the house suggested to the director that a marriage could be arranged between me and a Dalit girl. I laughed, but the director said she was serious.
Then we left, and I was exhausted. I got back to the vocational training center a few minutes before 2 AM, and went to bed.
So, that was my day. There was plenty to think about, but I was so exhausted that I don't think I was in bed for 10 minutes before I was snoring. It's taken me some time to digest some of the things I saw and learned, but I think it's been sinking in. I've read all kinds of different accounts of discrimination practiced against Dalits in Gujarat and India, but it of course resonates in a different way when it's written on the face of a little girl.
After the event at the school, we went to another village where we had lunch at someone’s home. There are no dinner tables in the villages, so people sit on the floor, always Indian style, with legs folded. After lunch, four girls who had gotten dressed up for the occasion performed two song and dance numbers for us. They were really impressive, and very well choreographed and rehearsed. One involved throwing flowers, and the other was about how life today differs from life “in the old days”. For example, they said “In the old days women wore saris, but we wear jean pants”, and “In the old days people drank water, but we drink Pepsi”. I recorded the first one, but unfortunately I didn’t get the second. I should say that I didn’t understand much of the song, but it was translated for me after they finished.
Then we went to another village and sat in on their Bhimshala program. Some kids gave us flowers to welcome us, and we put a garland of flowers on Ambedkar’s picture. A volunteer read the children’s books protesting gender and caste inequality. It was interesting to see the women’s and men’s reactions to the points about gender equality. The men weren’t too keen on it, but they perked up during the book about untouchability practices. 
One man in particular—the peon at the town hall—stood up and started passionately explaining how separate water is kept for him because he’s a Dalit. He said it had been that way all the 28 years he’d been working there. I've added his photo just to the right of this text.We had another interesting experience at yet another village. We were shown a cremation ground about which there had been a protest a year or two back. The ground was built with public funds, but had been used only for upper castes. After a story was published in the newspapers about the discrimination, they were forced to serve Dalits as well. But when we got there, we saw that a new sign proclaiming that the ground was only for Patels had been put up. Also, in a sign explaining the rules for using the grounds, the words “without caste discrimination” had been painted over. You could still see them under the fresh coat of beige paint. We took some photos, and then walked to the area where “lower” castes are forced to cremate their dead. You have to hike through a path into the bushes for a few dozen yards. We saw one place where a cremation had taken place. It was simply a hole in the ground. Some bones were still visible in the ash. The bamboo poles used to carry the body were lying next to the hole. Below, I've posted a photo of the discriminatory sign, with the words "without caste discrimination" painted over in a dull yellow. Unless you can read Gujarati, you'll have to take my word for it. I've also posted a photo of a cremation pit for Dalits, since they cannot use the new facility.
Then, in that village, we joined an event in the Dalit locality. A table was set up under a tent, and we were invited to sit on chairs behind the table, while everyone else sat on pillows in front. The occasion for the meeting was the establishment of an Amebedkar youth club in the village. A bunch of different people spoke. One woman wearing all white—the sign of a widow—worked as a member in the village council through the reservation system that is maintained for Dalits, part of Ambedkar’s constitutional legacy. I misjudged her because she looked so meek, and kept pulling her veil over her face. Also, when a fieldworker asked her if she wanted to make a speech like many others at the gathering, she said no, and the director had to insist that she speak. So I thought, “Wow, this woman is so weak…look at her hiding behind her veil. I’m sure the non-Dalits in the village council walk all over her, and she never speaks up.” But when she spoke she became very passionate, even starting to cry, and the director said she spoke very well. I was angry at myself for judging her before knowing anything, and without even thinking about what might have happened in her life to make her so afraid.
After the event, we had a snack of rice, sauce, and sweets in someone’s house. Then we left for yet another village. This Bhimshala was also holding an event, similar to the other ones. One little girl MC’d the program, others did a dance, the director spoke, and the children’s books were read. The village women were totally engaged in the books, and really connected to it. They nodded, finished sentences, and made sure their kids listened. The men were not enthusiastic about the messages of gender equality, but they became engaged when the book about untouchability was read. One moment that has stuck in my mind happened when the woman reading the book on untouchability asked the kids if they, as Dalits, were allowed to sit in the village square. It's very hard to describe a look in someone's face, so I won't try. But I will say that I have not forgotten the expression on the face of one little girl, maybe 9 years old, when she shook her head no.
Finally, around 11:30 PM, we had dinner in someone’s house. The food was good; potatoes, eggplant, lentils, chappati (Indian bread), and rice. The director had to fight with the woman of the house to be able to wash her own plate. I understood it; it would be hypocritical to push a message of gender equality and then leave plates to be washed by a woman. We all washed our own plates. As I washed mine, a small crowd of boys crowded around, and some practiced their English with me. It was a very positive atmosphere, and everyone wanted to shake my hand or hear me speak some Gujarati. After seeing me wash my own plate, the grandmother of the house suggested to the director that a marriage could be arranged between me and a Dalit girl. I laughed, but the director said she was serious.
Then we left, and I was exhausted. I got back to the vocational training center a few minutes before 2 AM, and went to bed.
So, that was my day. There was plenty to think about, but I was so exhausted that I don't think I was in bed for 10 minutes before I was snoring. It's taken me some time to digest some of the things I saw and learned, but I think it's been sinking in. I've read all kinds of different accounts of discrimination practiced against Dalits in Gujarat and India, but it of course resonates in a different way when it's written on the face of a little girl.
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