Dipika

We arrive in our first village after porting all of our luggage, recreational equipment, and kitchen implements (including gas tank), through heavily vegetated fields from the Kabir Wagh ashram. The sole, modest temple in the village is adjacent to a vast, dusty, approxiamately circular area that serves as the crossroads (times eight) and center of village life. We begin picking up litter, clearing brush and sweeping in its immediate vicinity while Jayesh-bhai contacts a prominent resident in the village. He is impressed by our enthusiasm and points us to a rundown hut that we may occupy for our stay. In the next hut over a thin girl of maybe ten years is busy with chores but looks up long enough to make fleeting eye contact and offer the slightest suggestion of a smile. Her focus on the tasks at hand is remarkable considering that the village, as we are to discover later, has never had any visitors. Period. And now some fifteen differently garbed, variously colored and odd sounding peoples are flying into a cleaning frenzy some ten feet away--so what to do? Clean another pot, sweep the goat droppings and tend to the baby.

Work is barely underway at our new digs before we are made an offer to stay in a larger hut down the path a ways. We settle into the new quarters before heading back to the temple to continue cleaning. I catch additional glimpses of the friendly-faced thin girl over the course of the afternoon. At one point I take a break in the shade just in front of her hut, where she is pulling a smallish rope to rock a baby suspended in a cradle-framed hammock. She smiles when I take over her duty and simply moves on to other work as if my visit is a daily unspoken ritual. The baby snoozes on in the hammock quite oblivious to the fact that the rocking is now administered by a ghostly-skinned, wild-haired demon from a far off land. When the mother appears on the scene she nervously negotiates around the stranger and from within the hut whispers questions to the thin girl. I rejoin the work crew in the intense afternoon heat which is made all the more unbearable due to the trash fires we have started. The thin girl glances over from feeding the bull that is tethered in their backyard.

In the evening I head back to the thin girl's hut armed with a frisbee. I peer in the doorless entryway and see her and her mother busy in the cooking area in the back. I clear my throat to make my presence known and she glances first to me and then nervously to her mother before flashing a smile. I motion Indian style for her to come out (palm down rather than palm up) and she emerges with an expression that says, "And...?" I reveal the frisbee and demonstrate how it is held before lofting it gently in her direction. She fumbles it and it drops in the sandy dirt that defines the ground everywhere in the village. I demonstrate with an invisible frisbee the basic throwing motion and she tosses the dusty disc back to me with a deft flick of the wrist. I waggle my head side to side and clap approval. She claps back at me exuberantly. A single, smart smack together of the hands with fingers spread wide accompanied by a face-consuming smile. With a few more iterations she is both catching and throwing with precision. A crowd of locals grows organically and within half an hour the frisbee is flying recklessly to and fro in the diminishing light. The thin girl shows newcomers the preferred grip and release with limited success and the frisbee, as often as not, careens sideways or upside down into the abundant thorny brush which acts as fence lines. The play is interrupted only briefly to allow goat herds, weary cart-pulling buffalo, and vessel-balancing women safe passage. Village elders gather and look on with approval from a hopelessly slanted stone bench next to the temple.

Over the ensuing days the thin girl and I work out a simple sign language system to communicate when we will next play frisbee. On one occasion we find the opportunity to take a spontaneous break from our respective cleaning tasks to toss a tennis ball back and forth in the shade. When I miss an errant toss she offers up her trademark single, satisfying clap of encouragement. Smack. Sometimes she will talk for a bit, even though she seems to understand something of my self-imposed period of silence (to mention nothing about having mastered nothing beyond the traditional greeting in Gujarati). After our break I venture into her yard to help her finish washing cooking vessels and to sweep the goat droppings that roll under the babies crib. She never takes my help as an occasion to rest, but moves fluidly to the next task and focuses like a laser beam.

One morning I cross the thorn brush into her backyard to continue collecting trash. She breaks from washing and joins in gathering the odd assortment of discarded plastic water pouches, tobacco packs and rags that have been ensnared in the thorns. When I exit her family's yard she stays in tow and continues plucking up the bits of litter that gleam everywhere against the dusty earth. When she has gathered a smallish bag full I circle behind her and lift her onto my shoulder which causes her to chuckle with delight. I march over to the trash pit that John has engineered some hundred yards away and we take turns tossing in our booty--the thin girl from her high perch. The spectacle is noted by other kids who join in the next round of trash collection. What a scene.

On the day I break my silence I can't wait to visit with the thin girl. She barely bats an eyelid hearing me speak for the first time and conveys the impression of having "heard" me all along. I learn her name is Dipika, and with Viral serving as translator, discover the woman I took to be her mother is actually an older sister. Their parents live in a far off village and sent Dipika to live with their eldest daughter only six months ago. She has a younger brother still living at home who will attend school, but Dipika and her sister have never been afforded the chance for any stretch of time. I tell Dipika that I would be interested in sponsoring her if she was interested in giving the academic life another go. She is pensive but offers no response. Through Viral I tell her how impressed I was with the friendliness she extended to total strangers and how effortlessly she mastered the frisbee. I admire her courage and relate how much it meant to me when she helped me collect trash. She blushes but says nothing. I make a plea for her to reconsider schooling and paint a picture of unlimited possibilities. School, I suggest, exposes you to things you didn't even know were there--sort of like having visitors come to your village. More chin-stroking thoughtfulness from Dipika. Her sister tells Viral that Dipika's hesitation is probably related to feeling awkward about going to school having missed so much. She says Dipika is worried about the other kids making fun of her. I express complete confidence in her ability to catch up and make friends. I propose she think it over during the coming 24 hours. Dipika's sister urges her to take up my offer and relates her own regret at never having gotten an education. It's never too late I suggest. Both sisters are pensive now. I offer the possibility that Dipika could come back regularly to the village and teach her older sister what she learns. Dipika finally weighs in. What did she say, what did she say? Viral says she wants to go.

We throw a picnic for the village children under a temple's banyan tree about a kilometer outside the village. The kid's really never have any organized outings and are thrilled to be getting so much attention and to be discovering new games to play. Our crew prepares lunch and serves the meal on banana leaves in the shade of a shed. Almost on cue the popsicle seller emerges from a nearby banana plantation with his styrofoam cooler brimming with premium frozen goodies. I buy a round for the children and they disperse around the temple grounds to savor their afternoon treat. The total cost of some fifty popsicles comes to just over two US dollars. Some nearby children working in the fields take a respite to peer over at the spectacle unfolding under the banyan tree. I purchase two more popsicles and run them over to the kids who don't know whether to run or wilt, but happily accept the "candy ice" when it is offered.

When some of us break for meditation one of the teenage girls joins us and sits motionless for close to half an hour. Two older boys, perhaps in their late teens, also accept my invitation to sit with us after we have finished playing a game of catch where we thread the ball through impossibly narrow gaps in the banyan tree's myriad branches.

Dipika happily hops on my back as we head back to the village under the impressively determined early summer sun. The other children try to usurp her throne, but I run ahead of the pack producing screams of protest and at least one of delight. Sweat uniformly soaks my shirt. Close to the village Dipika steers me to a mango tree that is full of unripe fruit. I promote her to my shoulders so she can pluck the otherwise out-of-reach bitter bounty for herself and the others who have since caught up. A bullock cart rolls astride and I transfer Dipika aboard and bid her and her happily snacking peers adieu.

That evening I join Dipika in shuttling water from the village well to her hut. Girls half of Dipika's size will routinely carry metal or earthenware vessels brimming with water atop broom-handle thin, but evidently steely, necks. More impressive yet are the girls of five to seven years who will carry a younger sibling on a jutting hip and balance a jug simultaneously. Dipika and the woman ahead of us in the queue chat about the odd whitey in their midst and get the giggles. I borrow a small piece of cloth which is first rolled lengthwise and then twirled into an overlapping circle to place upon my head as a receptacle for the metal container. Even lifting the full vessel into place takes some muscle power and I wonder at the skill involved to lift a second container into place. I opt to use one arm as a balancing prop, not wanting stain my gender with the reputation of a water spiller. I am worn out after a couple of runs while Dipika makes four jaunts with seemingly no effort.

Later in the night, at the behest of Dipika's older sister, I return to their hut with Anar-behin, Jayesh-bhai's wife, to work out details of possible schooling for Dipika. The family is fast asleep on two small contiguous cots some ten meters in front of the hut, hidden entirely by a couple of large soiled blankets. I am concerned about disturbing them, but Anar-behin assures me that it is perfectly okay. The organic mass stirs when prodded and differentiates into singular forms, one of which becomes recognizable in the pale moonlight as the ever smiling Dipika. The older sister's husband insists that we sit on the cots with them and in doing so I almost squish the baby who is still entirely occluded under bedding. Be careful. Anar-behin explains that Dipika will have to apply for school in April and then come to Ahmedabad in June when the new semester begins. Dipika is steadfast in her desire to come and the needed contact information is provided to her family. Other villagers emerge from the dusty night and sit with us on the cots. I explain to Dipika, through Anar-behin, that our group will be leaving very early the next morning and tell her I won't forget to come back for her. Her smile stretches from ear to ear.