A Poem Excavated from a Summer in India: "Pilgrimage"

"Pilgrimage"

Follow me, walk these paths, step where I step.
The rocks under your feet are ancient,
Worn by the bare feet of pilgrims before you.
The city's noise is worn away by your steps; today
You are the pilgrim. And I, the spirit guiding you
Up the mountain and then down the other side.
Pay your respects--press rupees into the palms of
Beggars who ask for chocolate, "namaste" the sadhus,
Touch your forehead and then heart as you pass
Smaller mandirs, feed peanuts to the monkeys.
Good karma, madame, good karma.

The holy water from the Ganges
Pools up where the steps meet, where monkeys swim,
Where pilgrims bathe all filth away,
Redefining baptism for the pale-faced visitors
Who snap inauspicious pictures of monkeys
And jokingly call it the "bandir mandir."

Assume this: every Indian is a Hindu.
Assume this: every American is a Christian.

Sadhu, darshan, prasad, puja, pandit--
Wonder at the context of your textbook Hinduism
Here in the corners of these mountains. The cave
Wall is painted orange and silver--Hanuman, the
Monkey god, found in the cave and brought to life.
You too are brought to life, but not by the exchange
Of gaze, of sight (darshan),
But by the journey (yatra),
And by the people who approach you (pandits, sadhus, bakhari, tirthyatri).

"You believe in God?"
Certainly, but which one?

We are moving from angry tears
Cried on second floor balconies with our hands
Pushing into our eyes to mountain top temples
Made of painted cave walls and millions
Of muttered prayers. I am trying
To imagine myself as a mountaintop temple
Wearing marigold garlands and perching
Barefoot on the crags, toes curled protectively.
I catch sight of everyone else perched on their
Mountains and wave, stretch arms out
Like a crucifix and take flight.

From India to America: Who Needs Feminism?

The end of any journey usually falls prey to the hectic, frenzied drive to do ALL the things. My last week in India, I was delirious with a fever (and telling myself jokes I didn't understand as I napped away precious hours), but I managed to revisit some of my favorite places, spend a little extra time with my host family, complete my final project for class (a collection of short stories about the women I met), and feel panicked about returning home. A month later, I'm a little more removed from my life there, and, as Sara Marie Chilson told me, CLS doesn't feel real anymore. The deep effects my two months in India have had on my life, however, feel very real. Every single day.

People ask me the questions: How was India? How's your Hindi now? Weren't you there on a mission trip? Do you want to go back? Your questions are all wrong. Take them back please.

I once asserted, in a casual conversation, that it would take 300 lifetimes to understand everything I experienced. How true that feels today...so I am working through piece by piece. And I want to start with a piece that is less-than-pleasant, but a piece that has been eerily relevant to me back here, at home in the brick sidewalks of the College of Charleston campus. It starts with this picture:

Here I stand, putting on my dupatta, which always gave my trouble, as I wait with three of my peers to go into Albert Hall on one of our Saturday excursions. The art exhibited inside was phenomenal, although I only took pictures of the pigeons that perched amid the gorgeous architecture. I gaped in fascination in the rooms of ancient weaponry and stroked my fingers along the glass cases that held calendar art. I made a friend in a pre-teen boy who was surprisingly unperplexed that I spoke Hindi and who kept bringing his friends to meet me. This is the truth of my day, but it is missing a very routine piece that shaped everyday life for me. Here's the bigger picture:

It's the same concept--me putting on my dupatta and talking with my friends. Now, though, observe why my back is turned. I didn't know about this picture, and I don't think the woman who took it was trying to make a statement, but there it is: the reality underlying many of my experiences, the small herd of men staring. Sometimes they had cameras. Sometimes they called out to us (I kept a record of some of the funnier comments I heard). Sometimes they approached us. Infrequently they would make a move on one of my friends. 

The euphemism used in India is "eve teasing," but let's call it what it is: sexual harassment. Foreign women face it everyday. So do Indian women. And don't get me wrong, for every herd of rude men, there were ten other men who averted their eyes--the respectable thing to do in Jaipur--and who were willing to shoo those men away from the rickshaw where we waited while the rickshawala asked directions. 

At first, I was afraid to walk alone, but I learned how to walk with purpose. No one bothered me if I gave off the vibe that I was not a stranger to those parts, that I knew where I was going. 

Then, I was enraged when my friends faced more overt harassment than the random catcalls. 

A few times, I was proud when my friends took action, calling the police, creating a scene, making the men delete pictures of us from their phones. 

Eventually, I grew accustomed to the situation, accepted that every time I would walk to my favorite coffee shop, I would be hassled or stared at. It was as habitual as brushing my teeth. I ignored it all. I lived my life as I wanted to, careful always but no longer afraid. 

A friend back home in the States messaged me one day telling me the story of how she had been sexually assaulted the weekend before...yes, in the States...while she was with her friends. And there I was in a major city in India, perfectly protected as far as I was concerned. Perhaps that should have prepared me for transition back into American society. It didn't.

The worst culture shock I have ever experienced in all my traveling was coming back to the United States after my two months in India. I burst into tears the first time I walked down Calhoun St. because 1) there were just so many women (most public spaces in Jaipur were male-dominated) and 2) I realized how much the day-to-day harassment had indeed impacted me. I walked with my eyes down, moving quickly. But there were no men paying me any attention at all. Oh no, the harassment of women here in America tends to be much more subtle, hiding in the subliminal messages of media and in the expectations of how we look, disguised in jokes (which, when I interrupt, are explained to be "just jokes, come on, Elizabeth!") and in the statistics (women continue to make 77 cents to every dollar a man makes...and this is 2013). The culture shock was so extreme, not because I realized how terrible of a place India was for women, but because I realized how similar Charleston, SC can be to Jaipur, India. That hurts me deeply.

I'll admit it. I'm a feminist. I was a feminist before I went to India, and guess what...I still think women's rights are important simply because they are not yet equal to men's rights. And the entire time I have been writing this, I have been thinking, Maybe this is too harsh. Maybe I should convey more optimism, less pain. This is my reality, has been my reality for a few months now. It has affected me, my relationships, my future plans. I'm okay with it changing me. I am not okay with sexual harassment continuing and I will interrupt it when I see it. 

I write this to maintain my integrity because I can talk all day about my time in India but it remains incomplete if I do not include this. I write this so that you can hear it and be aware that this happens in India and in America. I write this because it is part of my story and because I want to open doors to conversations about this not-so-pleasant but oh-so-real subject. 

Ask your questions. Challenge my words. Tell me your stories. 

They Don't Call It Barefoot College Because You Have to Take Your ShoesOff (Even Though You Do)

I have grown to dislike urban India--the blaring traffic, the excessive shopping, the lack of natural green spaces. This is a problem because I am living in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan and an important city for history and culture. I know there are pros and cons. I know that urban India offers me European-style toilets, access to Oreos and coffee, (mostly) paved roads, a more progressive look at many relevant social issues... But I feel so much more alive when I escape the city streets and find myself in smaller towns and villages.

On Saturday, I field tripped it with the rest of the CLS students to Tilonia, by way of Pushkar. Tolonia is the most rural place I've visited here so far, but it is home to Barefoot College, a truly remarkable organization. We spent the day exploring the two campuses of Barefoot College, surrounded by fields, trees, mountains, and even a small concrete platform where three men were randomly working out. (The are always surprises.) Some of the other students were not so thrilled, made comments about "poverty tourism," or just grumbled about having to stomp through the rain and mud to get from building to building. At first, the cynic in me searched for problems with this organization, things that were not on the up and up or were damaging the community. But I managed to turn the cynical voice off and just be amazed by this inspirational place. I'm sure there are faults, there are better ways to do what they're doing, but I wasn't there to diagnose or change. I was there to learn and let myself be changed.

Barefoot College was started in this rural village as a place for people from rural communities as a place that provides basic services and sustainable solutions. It was founded by the "poor" and is fully run by the "poor." I didn't see a single foreigner there other than the other students and a few interns from NGOs nearby who were taking the week to learn from Barefoot College. Everyone there is from a rural village or community. 

Okay, so I lied a little. I did see foreigners, but not in the way one normally sees foreigners at an international NGO. Typically foreigners are there running programs and making decisions (usually to please foreign funders).  On the first campus we visited, there was a building where groups of women were learning to build solar powered lights. I first noticed the Tibetan prayer flags strung near the ceiling on one end of the long, rectangular room...then I realized the women were clearly not all Indian. Some were from Tibet, Myanmar, Panama (Yes! Spanish! Unfortunately all my Spanish is disappearing into my Hindi...), Sudan, and other places that escape me right now. According to one of the men who teaches there, these women come from their villages, stay at the College while they learn this skill, and then return home, bringing knowledge about solar powered lights back with them. In one of my cynical   moments, I scanned every face, searching for a sign that something was amiss, but I found nothing...

There was another room where people turned old materials into new useful products: journals, toys, bags. There was weaving happening in an old church left behind from British rule and clusters of mirrored ovens calibrated to follow the sun. At the other campus, we saw the women's development center the College runs, a building where women were making sanitary napkins (that aren't exported or sold but given to nearby hostels and clinics for use in educating women), and a health center complete with a "barefoot dentist," several acupuncturists, and a homeopathic pharmacy. The grand finale was a room lined with stringed instruments and an assortment of puppets. It was the communications department, naturally. Apparently theater has a huge influence when it comes to informing the public here, and so the people in the communications department use their creative skills to ensure that nearby villagers know about information, such as their right to a living wage. Our time in that room may have jumped the shark a bit when we sang a bilingual version of "We Shall Overcome." But still, it was a beautiful moment.

The entire tour was in Hindi, except for the man who works in the women's development center and who got a little carried away with English as he was talking with us. And much to my surprise, I actually understood almost everything, not because it was especially easy Hindi but because I was interested in what they were saying and managed to outsmart my ever-shortening attention span. I am completely inspired by how non-condescending their model is, the way people learn from one another and then go back and teach their villages. Barefoot College emphasizes the fact that formal education is not necessary for people to make a decent living, which is an idea that wouldn't stand up well in the States, but in Tolonia, it seems very effective, empowering, revolutionary. I left feeling so energized. It seemed like such a dignifying place, maintaining the Gandhian spirit of service...

The only thing I was left wanting was a conversation with someone other than the leaders we met. I would have loved to employ my Hindi skills and talk to one of the women sitting on a stool in the long room creating a panel for a solar powered light with tools I'd never seen before. I would have loved to hear their stories from them. But that's what I always want: Story.

In classic Alternative Break form, I feel it is necessary to ask, "Now what?" What do I do with this experience, this space, the inspiration? I don't know yet. I have a few thoughts...but they are very incomplete. As I am working on my proposal for a Fulbright research grant, I'm now seriously considering applying to research women's roles in NGO work. I talked with the man leading us around and he explained to me that about 40% of the fieldworkers are women, but very few women are actually in a leadership role. He says they are trying to raise up women leaders in the community, so that decisions about their development actually rests in their hands. 

Still thinking, hey, this girl is nuts...there's no way that place is making a real difference because it was started by uneducated people with no experience running an NGO...? Watch this TEDtalk and please suspend your cynicism and disbelief. Let yourself be inspired to act as I have been. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qqqVwM6bMM&sns=em

Off the Well-Worn Tourist Trail for a Day

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." -Thoreau (props to Dad for the inspirational quote)

Enter through the Sanganeri Gate. Resist the urge to walk straight along the main road toward the Hawa Mahal and the touristy shops. Take an immediate right. Lose yourself for a moment in the unexpected and out-of-place crowd surging into a bazaar on a Sunday. Remember yourself again when you catch a number of locals staring, calling out "Hello! How are you?" Notice only locals' faces around you and deduce that videshis must not frequent this market. Look left and right. See everyday wares--the plastic buckets, bangles in clear cellophane wrappers, piles of men's button downs, packages of steel wool, striped underwear bound with rubber bands--instead of the usual Rajasthani themed souvenirs. Lose yourself again in the crowd...

In case you haven't picked up on this little detail yet, I like finding pockets of India (well, just Rajasthan for now) in which tourists haven't yet left their mark. It's in these places that I get the most stares, but it lets me feel less like a tourist and more like a traveler. I know I'm only here for two months, but unlike the majority of tourists, I am here with the sole purpose of learning the language and culture, which is difficult to do when I'm just another face in a flock of 35 Americans being shown the polished, upper class side of Jaipur. 

Today I set off for the Old City with one of my friends, Sara, and we found ourselves in the unpolished bazaars and side streets of Jaipur. It was wonderful, exhilarating, and actually a little nerve-wracking at times. We encountered so many characters:

A man wearing all purple who, to be sure we saw him, jumped in front of us with his hands out on either side of his head like moose antlers and said something along the lines of "Ah!"...A boy selling bangles who didn't know to give us the foreigner price (100 rupees, everything everywhere is 100 rupees if you are a foreigner), but instead gave us the Indian price without any bargaining on our part. Can you even imagine?!...A man who stopped us to ask us in accented English where we were from. Sara promptly replied, "Germany," to get him to leave us alone, and he immediately switched to a similarly accented German...Another man who came up to ask if Sara played basketball (bahut lambee! he says)...And of course, the hordes of kids that look up at us wide-eyed and wave or smile bashfully, tugging at their mothers' sarees...

It's tricky to negotiate how to respond to the characters we meet. So many people look, call out, somehow try to get our attention all the time. I could never respond to everyone, and it's often wise to not respond to certain people. But I spent the first few weeks shutting myself down to the people around me because that is what I was told to do. Today, as I have been in the practice of doing lately, I let myself be open. And it felt very good to actually meet eyes, hear the blend of Hindi and English, return the smiles of little children...

To my delight, Sara and I decided we had managed to find the Muslim section of the city. We kept passing men selling the hats Muslim men wear on the crowns of their heads and books in both Hindi and Urdu with Islamic themes. We stumbled upon three of the most beautiful masjids I've ever seen. I was under the impression that masjids in the city were few and far between...and mostly disguised. But that was just not the case at all. I had my touristy moment for the day and stopped to take a picture.

Here in Jaipur, instead of the lone minaret that towers above all surrounding buildings that I saw on each mosque in Morocco, the masjids have two rounded towers framing the building. I think I could lose myself studying the architecture of all the different religious buildings here. Whether Muslim, Hindu, Jain, or Sikh, people do not mess around when designing the intricacies of their houses of worship. 

Anyway, Sara and I did some shopping but mostly explored until we both reached our limit of heat, sweat, and crowds for the day. We actually used Hindi. Well, she successfully used her Hindi and I attempted...my accent is still not very good. And I feel like I saw the most honest picture of the culture here yet. I am going to make a point of getting out of my CLS and Raja Park bubbles because this new picture of Jaipur is much more the life I have imagined than the one on which I currently reside.

This Just In...

It is certainly strange to hear important news from home while I'm in India. I have more frequent Internet than I ever expected for my summer in Jaipur, so not only have I been trying to keep up with the happenings in people's personal lives via the Facebook, but I've also been reading about national news. And a lot has been going on, to say the least. Don't get me wrong. It's not that the Internet is a strange medium to receive important news. I live in a college bubble most of the year, and that is often the only way to find out news. It's more that my life here in Jaipur is a strange setting to receive a lot of the news I'm receiving. I'm wearing my India goggles and they make things feel stranger, fatter, and harder to get my mind around.

Okay, that's enough vagueness.

I'm writing this in light of the recent news that George Zimmerman was declared not guilty of second degree murder of Trayvon Martin. From my perch in the common area of my host family's house, I've also read about the Supreme Court decision regarding marriage rights, several friends' engagements and marriages, news of illnesses and death, movies' success at the box office, and the everyday ups and downs of my closest friends' lives, among other things. This post is not a revelation that people's lives are going on and changing even while I am an ocean and a continent away. No, instead, this is a realization at how strange it is to process all of this news in a different culture and language, surrounded by a collection of people unlike any I've ever been surrounded by before this summer. 

With the Supreme Court decision to recognize marriages between people of the same sex, I was struck by how different "marriage rights" are in India compared to back home. Here, heteronormative culture is rampant and seems unchallengeable. Marriage rights involve the ages of the man and woman involved, the discontinuation of the traditional dowry paid to a husband's family, marriage across caste lines, gender roles within a marriage, and arranged versus love marriage (I've had the latter conversation with so many different locals). But with both India and the States' contemporary concepts of marriage rights, there are people who are privileged to not have to think about it and there are people who come face to face with it everyday. I have met some women at the women's center where I've been teaching English who have been directly affected by the rights they are allotted in marriage as women. I both love hearing their stories and am crushed by the reality they deal with. On the other hand, one of my host sisters recently got engaged and is fortunate enough to be marrying a man she loves and truly wants to marry. Just like any relationship, I know she has faced some controversy, some obstacles. But I don't believe she has to think about marriage rights on a daily basis.  Back at home, I have friends who are not so fortunate and who have had to think a lot about laws and social expectations regarding marriage. I wonder how their lives will change because of this new development. I wonder how this new decision will affect the culture, the religion, the social climate...I am antsy to see it first hand!

With the Zimmerman trial, I can watch the racial tensions play out on my Facebook news feed. Racial tensions exist here in India, too, but they don't hit so close to home for me (well, that expression works on so many different levels). In this moment, I wish I could be back to hear the frustrations, the controversies, the thoughts about what this means for different communities...because I worry it will blow over by the time I return (in less than a month). I worry that the cries of "Where has justice gone?" will have been silenced by time and acceptance of the turn of events. For now, though, I will watch and wait. Maybe I will let this news open doors here to talk about the complex relationships between people of different races, religions, castes, etc. as they affect people in Jaipur. 

Today my heart is heavy for all that I feel like I am missing--not the food (oh my word, I want waffles so badly) or the AC, not Starbucks or blue jean shorts (where I come from, we call those "jorts"), but the experiences, conversations, and presence that I am not able to share. Let's be real, though. I'm in India, a place I've wanted to be for quite some time now. I'm not having the same experiences and conversations as my community back home, but the ones I am having are great, most excellent, very very good, madame! Sorry, that's what all the shopkeepers like to yell at me about the quality of their wares. I digress. 

Well, I'm off for some more Sunday adventures. Until next time, may your mango chutney always be unexpectedly spicy. 

A Day Out of Jaipur

Sunday adventures strike again!

I got up early and caught a rickshaw and then a bus with Coco, Sara, Catherine, Liz, and one of my host sisters, Aastha, to a small town about 100km from Jaipur. The bus ride itself was quite the experience because it was crowded, not air-conditioned, and quite bumpy. With my knees jammed into the seat in front of me, I stared out the window for the entire hour and a half, watching as city became countryside when we went through a tunnel cutting into a mountain. My eyes picked out of the green fields women working and wearing orange scarves. When we got off the bus, I breathed in the cleanest air I'd breathed in almost a month, which isn't saying much really. A nearby shopkeeper gave us directions to the Mehandipur Balaji Mandir, the exorcism temple dedicated to Hanuman which was our intended destination, and we began the 3-4km walk. It was my first time out of Jaipur, and I was a little surprised at how much more attention we attracted in this rural area than we do in the city, which is saying a lot because a group of foreign women turn a lot of heads even in the big city. 

After getting some water and exploring the main street of the city, we got in line to enter the temple, and I couldn't resist comparing it to waiting in line at Carowinds. I was covered in sweat as we packed into a lane divided by metal fencing and the overhead fans oscillated so quickly they threatened to spin out of control. I let my hand wander along the pieces of thread and padlocks people waiting in line before me had attached to the fence. Within the first fifteen minutes, the atmosphere of the line shifted from calm and casual to aggressive and surging. I lost touch with the fence, and found myself surrounded by people--a writer's dream come true! There was so much to see and overhear. I noticed for the first time how much "visual" diversity there is here among the people. Chanting broke out frequently ("जय बालाजी!") and the two hours that we spent in line were almost more eventful than our actual experience in the temple. It was so intriguing to be part of the crowd, although as a distinctly non-Indian, I will never be truly part of the crowd it seems. At one point, one of the women in my group got overheated and almost passed out, swaying slightly as she tried to maintain her ground in the river of people. We got her cooled down and seated for a bit, but people around us frantically told us to go ahead into the temple, thinking that she was possibly possessed. It was an exorcism temple after all. 

Inside, the temple was smokey and fairly dark. Now, it all feels like a blur--the unexpected hallways, the dust on my feet, the dizziness I felt because of the smoke filling the space around my brain, the murti that was (to my surprise) painted with silver and yellow wiggling stripes, the coconuts brought as puja piled up behind the fences that contained the visitors, people stooping to touch their foreheads to the ground along the way. The crowd ushered us through a hallway and back outside where we climbed some stairs to enter a large room. Inside the large room, a couple exorcisms were taking place, and I was overwhelmingly curious about the women who were screaming and gently tapping their heads against the floor, supposedly spirit possessed. People sat on the floor around them either watching or participating. I wish I knew more, could have lingered in each moment for longer...but suddenly I was back in the sun waiting for the rest of my group. As I waited, I watched goats eat rice and a little girl carefully imitate her mother's kneeling outside the large room. I don't possess the language to accurately talk about all that I experienced, but it was definitely thought-provoking and memorable. 

After the mandir, we got some rocking food from a street vendor with a sweet face and a little girl helping her. For what felt like the hundreth time that day, we drew a crowd. Other street vendors teased the woman who was making our food, saying how it must be her lucky day and asking if she was running a five-star hotel now. It's so interesting to be a foreigner here but also be able to understand a lot of what people say about and around me. 

Reenergized and overly full, we got a rickshaw. The rickshawala took us about 10m and told us that we had reached the bus stop. Nope. We hadn't. It became a rather vicious argument, yet again drawing the crowds. But we walked away and found a better, more respectable rickshawala to take us to the actual bus stop. From there, we got a bus and had a peaceful ride home. I couldn't tell if it was the overwhelming amount of newness in my experience or the overbearing sun that made me sweat through so many layers of clothes, but I was more exhausted than I've been in a long, long time when I finally made it back to my room. I was also dirt-encrusted. We weren't supposed to bring our shoes back but leave them at the temple. Probably needless to say, we still wore our shoes home. And so, as my teacher explained to me, we brought back twelve spirits. One shoe, one spirit. Ek joot, ek bhoot.

Leave your shoes on the stairs

To enter into the auspicious air.

My feet bare find flowers crushed in the dust.

The locks left on the fence now sealed forever by rust

Ward off the spirits and entice my wondering fingers.

Chants push the crowds forward, closer, and singers

Catch nasally melodies with their smokey voices. I fend

Off nasty men while the surging devotees send

Puja sweets to the image, wave smoke over their heads.

I feel connected to the screaming women by the threads

Tied onto the gates and the piles of rice dumped in the streets

For the goats while children nearby beg for something to eat.

On the stairs, leave your shoes

Or bring the spirits back with you.

Maintaining a Sense of Self in Jaipur

One challenge about learning a new language in another country with 33 other students I just met 4 weeks ago is that I have been stripped of myself in so many ways. I don't have the vocabulary yet to talk about much more than daily happenings, food, shopping, Bollywood movies, and religion. This is definitely more of a range than when I arrived in Jaipur at the American Institute of Indian Studies, but it's still frustrating. I'm experiencing so much in the classroom and out in the city that I want to have in depth conversations about, but I feel limited by the fact that I'm supposed to be speaking Hindi or that the people around me haven't known me for long and have very different interests. 

I had one small success today, though! In my weekly literature class we always discuss a Hindi short story that is usually absurdly difficult for my group to comprehend. For the past couple weeks, our conversations have been purely about the plot and the characters. And I have felt like a complete idiot because my contributions have been so limited. I spent two years at College of Charleston studying English literature, so naturally I have a lot more to say about the Hindi pieces than I can actually articulate in Hindi. But today my classmates and I (I have the best group ever) went above and beyond our adhyapak's questions, reaching into the depths of the relationship between American bosses and Indian employees, the generation gap and how it fits into the cultural expectation of respecting one's parents, and the exoticism of India by Westerners. We also dipped some into our English vocabulary, but I was nevertheless excited and proud to be having a meaningful conversation mostly in this language that I still struggle to get my tongue around sometimes. Our teacher wasn't quite as impressed, and at one point, after we diverged off into our world of themes and symbols, he stopped us to repeat his question, "But what does the mom do?" I laughed because laughter is the first answer to language frustration and cultural awkwardness. 

I am feeling trapped by my limited vocabulary, by being a foreign woman in Jaipur, by the program rules and schedules. But it seems okay as long as I can hold onto conversations like the one in my literature class today and as long as I can return to my business of asking questions and challenging ideas. 

Also, I found dark chocolate and a park to read and write and think in, so I feel much more myself again.

He who by virtue of his rank, his actions,

And qualities, effects no useful purpose

Is like a chance-invented word; his birth

Is useless, for he merely bears a name.

--Indian wisdom