In an effort to create a refuge of quiet John and I secure a flat in a relatively anonymous, yet centrally located area known as Mithakali in Ahmedabad. Ahmedabad is really a collection of forty or so villages that over a span of many years grew and spilled into one another. The majority of neighborhoods are known by their original village names and their former borders are hazily outlined by variations in architecture. Neighborhoods are further divided into collections of apartment buildings and bungalows known as societies. Nearly all apartment buildings have a plastered masonry wall around the perimeter (with or without barbed wire) and a watchman posted at night by the gate. These walls serve more as general guidelines for dogs and cows to recognize than human barriers, as children or five years can easily scale, or walk atop these singing Hindi filmy songs, no problem.
Our five-story building according to the sign out front is Swarg Flat of Maharaj society. In fact it is in Maharastra society (Maharaj is a painto) and is for Jains only, though no one seems terribly put out by the presence of two Americans of Christian descent. Once you enter the gate you proceed five yards to the front of the building and then walk under the building, through the parking lot to where the sole staircase and elevator are located. Each flight of stairs leads to a new level, so in essence there are five stories on each half of the building, but they are offset by a half floor--making ten possible elevations for living quarters. A placard just in front of the stairwell lists the owners of each flat. Ours is Shilpaben Sanghavi's flat 101. To get there requires ascending no fewer than three flights of stairs--an anomaly of the British numbering scheme I am told.
Unlocking a fat brass padlock and opening the door for the first time reveals an apartment of contemporary design covered with a year's worth of dust and paint peelings. Almost immediately I notice the property just behind our new building through the rear window. It features two attractively designed, albeit age-worn structures. One is a charming two story that appears to be of British-influenced design with a corrugated metal roof overhang that is oddly suggestive of a pagoda. Each floor is close to fifteen feet in height and a stairs runs on the outside of the building to a second story veranda that wraps around three sides of the building. Another steeply inclined stairs leads from the veranda to a terrace on the roof. It appears from the weathered paint that a three-toned blue scheme was used many years back with the windows and trim a darker shade than the walls. To its right a concrete gray, single story building makes an L-shape around a patio completely covered with dirt, dust and fallen leaves. With a barred portico and windows it has the appearance of a condemned jail from Alcatraz. In this light, it's not hard not to imagine the first building as the abandoned officer quarter's and watch tower. Both buildings are marked with lightening-like cracks frozen in time, uneasy reminders of the 2001 earthquake. Two trees decapitated mid-trunk provide the only greenery in the yard other than the few leaning interlopers of flora from neighboring yards.
The yard between the two buildings is completely be-spoiled with refuse. Plastic bags, crumpled paper, shredded foam, old underwear, tangled kite string, broken bricks, coconut husks, shattered glassware, and all manner of partially burnt debris creates a man-made, wall-to-wall ground cover. By comparison the inside of our flat looks almost clean, save for a heavy coating of dust, mold and cobwebs. We find buckets in both of the smallish bathrooms but no water. The upper-flat dwelling and English speaking Jinesh is recruited to address the water issue. He is a good inch over six lanky feet in height which is no small feat coming from a gene pool that favors the five foot five and below. Like so many college-aged male Ahmedabadis he wears the ideal camouflage for a botanical garden--an outrageously colorful floral shirt with earth-hued dress slacks. When he speaks his shoulders involuntarily churn the air and his head bobbles. "I and a Kinisha can a speak English, so whenever you need a help with anything, just a come up to the top floor and I can help you. Are you a thinking my English is a very good?" It turns out the water to the entire building goes off several times a day for reasons I still do not understand. Jinesh is the keeper of the key to the room where you flick some switches to turn the water on and must turn it back off after a half hour or it comes cascading from a pipe on the top of the roof to the parking area. With water at our disposal and a couple of rags it takes us less than three hours to remove the vast majority of mold from the walls and mop the floors. After we transfer the previous-occupant's seldom-used luggage to the master bedroom for storage the flat is looking ready for occupancy if not a little under-furnished. During our cleaning the Gujarati-speaking neighbors generously offer refreshment in the form of Aqua-guard water and limu pani (Indian lemonade, or literally, lemon water) and even an additional, albeit reluctant helper, Raju, who we later discover is a servant on loan from one of the upstairs flats.
Taking a break from cleaning in the ground-level parking area I am surrounded by the resident children of the flat, who tirelessly pepper me with questions in Gujarati despite my injunctions for them to speak in Hindi or English. A veiled girl glides into the Swarg compound on her Kinetic scooter and is clearly distracted by the odd interloper. She unwinds her dipurta, one twirl at a time, and shakes her hair out, ultimately revealing an attractive, now-smiling face of unblemished complexion. A small, solitary mole draws one's attention to the tip of her nose. In a cheesy seventies film the frame would be frozen here and her name, Kinisha, would be revealed left-to-right in flowery pink script. But this is real life Ahmedabad, 2005 and she asks, "Who are you?" in an impossible to reconcile accent. Introductions are made and I give the usual lowdown on the India trip. We're here for one year to do seva of any sort, yadda, yadda. What? Seva, say-vaah, service work. Oh, say-vaah! Kinisha takes me up to meet her affable father, mother and two younger siblings Nisharg and Malvi. John and I are soon adopted as older brothers. "Our" family begins to provide us with fresh water on a daily basis as we lack any filtering means in our flat, just as we lack a stove and refrigerator. Pillows, sheets and a fairly regular supply of limu pani are also provided for.
John's and my days are filled with meetings with the who's who of Ahmedabad's governing administration, or "corporation." (When people talk about the Corporation doing this or that here, it still sounds slightly ominous to my Americanized ears--a faceless antagonist in a John Grisham thriller.) At night we return home to re-cap the days events with Sanghavi's and then play games in the parking lot with the increasingly differentiable rug-rats of Swarg Flat. In no particular order there is Prahchi, the ultra-feminine waif that likes to bat her eyelashes Bollywood close-up style; Prahchi's older sister, Saloni, the reserved, super athlete; Saloni's best friend Bhoomi, the competitive, shy girl with large, transparent ears; Bhoomi's younger brother, Manan, the ultra-small daredevil with eyes set at slightly different angles; Manan's tormentor, Kevan, the devilish, television addict with preternaturally hairy arms and a penchant for throwing sucker punches; Kevan's sister, Reeti, the gesturing, mugging and posing wisp of a girl with a similar pugilistic disposition; Reeti's sparring partner, Rajwi, the attention-starved, cherub-faced youngster; Rajwi's brother, Raj, the perpetually smiling Campbell's Soup kid; Raj's best friend, Darshan, the disciplined, organizer of game time with the no-nonsense demeanor; Darshan's older sister Pooja, the equally intense child subject to bouts of unexpected giddiness.
As for the Sanghvi's, Kinisha at nineteen, considers herself to be far too old to be playing downstairs and spends her time either glued to her cell phone or watching horror serials, and very frequently does both in concert. Her sister Malvi, too, tends to shy away from the game arena, choosing instead to shuffle about their flat distracting herself with odd sections of newspaper, or sitting on the couch and staring off into space. While Kinisha has fleshed out into womanly proportions, Malvi, at sixteen, is still rail thin and opts for spectacles over contacts. Their younger brother Nisharg, like Malvi, is exceptionally thin, bespectacled and a bit on the shy side. In stark contrast to their leanness, both parents are amply padded. In India extra poundage is still, in the main, seen as a sign of health and/or wealth, although increasingly less so with the ideal of beauty peddled by Madison Avenue or its Mumbai equivalent. The father, whose girth relaxes in abundance over his belt line, is not at all too self-conscious to pad about their flat sans shirt. When Raj and Rajwi's father happens by the Sanghvi's door he is enthusiastically introduced to me as a fatty. I expect him to be at least be a wee bit disgruntled at being described as such, but he smiles his approval and even seems to puff his stomach out a bit more in confirmation. I am told he makes 20,000 rupees every day in the stock market. "He is a real fatty," Yashvant offers again. He probably outweighs his neighbor by a few kilograms, but no matter.
Yashvant, himself, makes a living on the ups and downs of the Sensex, India's stock exchange. You can retroactively read the stock market's moves in his body language: when it's down his shoulders droop and he squints his eyes as if suffering from abdominal pain; when it's up he bounces into the flat on tip toes and his face blossoms. Discovering how transparent his reactions to the market are he playfully tries to contraindicate the day's events, but is far too over dramatic to pull it off. He is quick to point out that he is a day trader and not an investor. The difference, he explains, is in the amount of money you have. "You can only be an investor if you have lots of money. I am only day trader." Over time I begin to suspect his claims of poverty are primarily for Kinisha's ears, who largely isn't convinced and continues to demand a personal computer for the home.
Dipikaben (aka Mrs. Sanghvi), like all the other women of Swarg flat, is in charge of managing the home. This includes food acquisition and preparation, general cleaning and frequent child wrangling. In many cases a naukar (Hindi for servant) is hired to help out or take over these duties completely. Two of the servants, Raju and Khushoo, spend nearly all their time at the apartment building and try to integrate themselves in the play time when they can sneak a few minutes here and there. Many of the Swarg men too, it seems, spend nearly all their time at home, which makes one wonder how cash flow is generated. Some will exit the building at odd times during the day saying something to the effect, "I think I will go into work now," and then return thirty minutes later looking especially unruffled. The effect is reminiscent of Hjalmar Ekdal in Ibsen's The Wild Duck dutifully working on his wholly imaginary "invention," except in this case the wife isn't earning any income either.
The property behind Swarg Flat continues to intrigue me. Enough so that I start to make inquiries and am told that the owner lives in America and that the dwellings have been vacant for many years save for a ghost. "How do you get back there?" I ask.
"No. You don't. It is haunted," Nisharg tells me.
"I know. It's okay. I'm just curious where the entrance is. Do you know how people got in?"
"It is from the other road. But you can't go back there, because there is a ghost."
The next morning I tell John of my plans and head out with a half-full Nalgene bottle and a broom. Darshan sees me leaving the building and shakes his hand, palm upward, to inquire where I am going. "For cleaning," I answer in Hindi leaving him in dumb bewilderment within the confines of Swarg. Around the corner and just down the street I locate the entrance to the ghost's compound--a large wrought iron gate, slightly askew on its hinges with bars clawing menacingly in both directions. The perfect gateway to a nightmare, but with the sun overhead pushing the temperature well in excess of 100 degrees it is hard to generate any anxiety buzz. The gate is locked so I sashay to the side and scale the wall, pause momentarily on top to assess loss of knee skin, and then plop to the parched earth on the other side. I walk past the lower of the two buildings where it appears the earth has been swept in the not too distant past and into the yard which is covered in rubbish. I make my way to the impressively tall two story bungalow and find circumnavigating the locked door to the outdoor staircase to be as easy as holding on to it and swinging around to the stairs. The steps are narrow and covered with steeply ramped dust--the accumulation of untold years. All of the windows are shuttered and latched offering no opportunity to peer in. I make my way around the similarly dirt and dust occluded second story balcony and finally up the ladder-like stairs to the rooftop terrace. The feel of the yard is that of an abandoned set from Indiana Jones complete with large stone swastikas that serve as windows in the terrace wall. When I close my eyes it is not hard to imagine a time when the bungalow was an idyllic hide-a-way from the din of the surrounding city. The two trees would have been towering back in the day, and provided ample shade to the terrace and opposite building's patio area.
Back on the ground I grab a couple of discarded plastic bags and easily stuff them close to the point of breaking without making any discernible dent in the amount of trash. An empty concrete well serves as a nice dumping ground. I start making piles. When cleaning making piles is always a feel-good first step. One pile is for the considerable thorny brush that is entangled everywhere with the man-made refuse. Man and nature have cooperated here in the cruelest of ways to maximize entropy. Untangle and pile. A second pile is made for glass and broken bottles. A third pile is started for all broken, crumbling or about-to-be-broken-and-crumbling-after-I-toss-them bricks, ceramic pipe and stone. I think it is the sound of this pile taking form that gives rise to The Spectacle.
"Oh, Mark. Mark. No!" Dipikaben, the matron of the next door flat (and Dipika #4 of this saga if you're counting), is shouting from her back window. She waves a prohibitive hand in my direction and and shakes her head vigorously. At first I am concerned that her demonstrativeness is the result of some unforeseen transgression I have made, above and beyond trespassing. But after some Gujarati-English-Hindi mixed dialog I am able to determine that she is thinking I should just not be cleaning, period. Soon Bhoomi and Manan's father appears at his window and joins Dipikaben's pleas with equal vim.
"Noooo Mark. Not this. Nooooo!"
I pretend to not fully understand their objections and continue with my pile making. John comes over the wall and I point out the onlookers which have momentarily fallen silent to watch my efforts. When he too starts plucking up the varied refuse the hue and cry recommences promptly joined by two, then five and ten more voices.
"No Mark, John. Noooo! What are you doing? It's dirty. Mark! John! No!" Gujarati injunctions are joined by those in English from a few of the upper flat dwellers. "Mark. Hey a Mark, what are you a doing?" Jinesh queries in his unmistakable voice.
"Just cleaning for a bit," I yell, pausing to look up.
"But, why here?"
"It's our backyard and it's a mess."
"But you shouldn't a clean here," he begins, "It will just a get dirty again in a couple of days. The people will just a throw their trash here again."
"But maybe it will look nice for a couple of days," I counter, chucking another brick pile-ward.
All the rear windows of Swarg are barred, some with with protruding cages. About four feet separate the back of the building from the wall that surrounds the abandoned property. In an effort to get as close as possible to John and I, Bhoomi, Manan, their parents and several other kids climb into the cage surrounding their double window. The smaller children stand while the adults squat in the cramped quarters of the cage and arms are thrust out at us in protest. Another cage is filled and arms extend between bars from windows everywhere Broadway musical style. I worry that one will give way under the unnatural weight it's being subjected to.
John pauses from collecting bits of styrofoam and assesses the unfolding chaos of which we are the focus. "It's like a zoo," he muses, in disbelief, "I wish I had my camera."
"It's like a prison riot," I add, "Only they want us to get back in jail." Actually it's hard to come up with an adequate simile, as is so often the case at the intersection of Western perspective with the wild and wooly Indian experience. On the one hand you have the odd, increasingly emaciated, Americans doing the work suited to the lower castes in the mid-day heat, seemingly unable to comprehend even the simplest Gujarati sentences. On the other hand you have a building burgeoning with howling protesters at barred windows crying out on a yard that appears to have a vacated jail and officer quarters with occasional monkeys (the tailed kind, in addition to John and I) marveling at the commotion. Just weird and weirder.
"Hey a Mark." Jinesh has come down and scaled the wall to reiterate his appeal in person. "Don't do this because they will a just a throw their waste again."
"There's a chance that once they see how nice the yard can be they won't throw their trash anymore. In any case it might look a little bit nicer for a few days and even that's okay with me."
"Yes, but this is a dirty work. Some sweeper can be a found to do this."
"It's okay. I enjoy sweeping."
"And a Mark. This a place is haunted. There's a bhoot . . . a ghost."
"Even ghosts need lovin'," I counter.
Jinesh, arms akimbo, stares on in frustration as John and I continue to grow the various piles. Dipika-behin reappears at her window with a couple of burlap sacks which she throws down into the yard with unerring precision. Hmmmm. "Hey, use!" she says pointing to the bags at our feet. She comes back once more to throw a hat down to John who is at the mercy of the searing heat of the sun sans bandana. The two small acts represent a crack in the previously unified front against our cleaning and are appreciatively acknowledged with smiling politician-like waves. The others continue to rattle cages and shake bars while pleading with us to cease and desist from our madness. Over the next hour their vigor wanes as the heat waxes against the unshaded Swarg and the novelty of our impropriety begins to wear off. An occasional new voice will offer a few shouts of disapproval until, brought up to speed by the other Swargites.
As the temperature peaks in the 110 neighborhood we decide to call it a day. I am covered in fine dust from big toe to bandana and the cool reprieve of a shower is supernal. Peering between the glass slat's of the bathroom window I survey our handiwork. There is still a healthy amount of litter scattered about, but things are definitely looking better. One result of removing so much litter is that the dirt covering the buildings has become more noticeable. It seems like all cleaning is that way--once you start your attention is simply refined to find subtler uncleanliness.
The following day I head out early and once more run into Darshan in the parking lot where again he probes my intention the hand shaking "where-are-you-going" thing that I have only encountered in Gujarat. "Cleaning?" he asks with the grave intensity of a brain doc.
"Hanh. Saaf karne ke liye," I confirm. He nods his head soberly and stares at the ground lost in thought. Finally he looks up frowning. "I come?"
"Sure, why not? Chalo!" I am a little nervous about what the reaction of the Swargite's will be upon seeing one of their own in the cleaning dome. With a bag in one hand I start collecting from the thinning layer of trash in the yard. With the other hand I scoop and toss the bits of brick and tile to their now pyramidal pile. Darshan is intent on exploring the property and does so calling out to me periodically from different vantage points. Satisfied at having found no obvious signs of a ghost, he joins me in the dirt and adds to my trash bag and the masonry pile.
The perpetual smile that is Raj is the first to spot us from his back window. "Hi Mark!" he bubbles.
"Hey Raj!" I call back. He pauses at the window smiling daffily before disappearing inside his flat and then reappearing ten minutes later in the yard. Like Darshan he explores for a while before joining our cleaning efforts in the growing heat. John is the next to arrive and is pleasantly surprised to see my young comrades in cleaning. He is followed in short order by Nisharg who comes armed with a rubber ball which abruptly disrupts the nascent impulse for cleaning. Pooja comes to the window to yell hysterically at Darshan and while her blistering diatribe is in Gujarati it is not hard to catch her intent which is to have her brother get back to their flat double-time before their mother sees him in the yard and flips out over his dirty clothes. Her warning is prescient as almost immediately, tipped off by Pooja's shouting, their mother sees him in the yard and flips out over his dirty clothes. Darshan bids us adieu and exits stage left, head hung low. Nisharg and Raj continue to bounce the ball off walls unperturbed by the loss of their partner in play. Occasionally they toss a few stones and bricks into the pile utilizing some of the skills honed with the rubber ball--which leads me to my theory: all human play is simply skill building for cleaning and other mundane tasks.
Scattered objections are shouted down at us during our hour or two of cleaning, but not nearly to the degree of opening day. Nisharg is kind enough to serve as intermittent translator when pressed. "They are saying, 'Don't do this,' because it is dirty work." "He is saying this will never be clean." "She is telling you not to work in the sun because your skin will grow dark." "They are saying a sweeper can do this and you should not." I acknowledge each protest with a single wave and squinting smile which serves only to solidify my reputation as the crazy American. Of all characteristics to be ascribed to oneself, craziness is best because it leaves the scope of future operations wide open within the bounds of classification.
Back in our flat, I note, not for the first time, how the vivifying aspect of a shower is on a whole different order when one is covered in the sweat and dirt engendered by intense physical labor. Once again I conduct a post-ablutionary survey of the day's clean up from between the slats of the bathroom window. The ground is nearly ninety percent litter free, but the collection of dust on the building now screams for attention.
The following day Darshan and Nisharg procure brooms and we set about creating a vast cloud of fine dust and ash. In the process of dust removal, I am surprised to discover the taller of the two buildings sports an eight-foot apron of concrete and a small walkway. Another frenzy of sweeping by the jail-like building reveals large diamond-shaped concrete tiles that comprise the floor of a walled patio. I feel like an archeologist steadily uncovering the long-unseen handiwork of not-so-ancient Ahmedabadis. My daydream paints the yard with lush greenery and strings variegated lights between uncut trees. The quick rhythm of a tabla lays a bed of sound for a sitar and laughing voices to dance upon. A swirl of saris explode in color on the patio while men in kurtas gather on the veranda to discuss the latest goings on in the world of cricket. Packs of chattering children run between the two groups tugging on fingers to get attention. My fanciful reverie is cut short by a well-dressed, middle-aged man motioning for me through the bars of the front gate.
"What are you doing here?" he asks.
"The yard was dirty so I thought I'd clean it," I say, "The owner lives in America so no one is taking care of the property and the people from our building use it as a waste bin."
"I am the owner."
"What?"
"I own this property. The two buildings are mine."
"Oh, are you just visiting from America?"
"I stay just here on the other side of Swarg."
"How often do you come to Ahmedabad."
"I live here only."
"Oh."
It is slightly whimsical to be conversing with the owner through the gate, he unable to enter his own property and being challenged by a trespasser as to his place of residence. With a mind hell-bent for metaphors again I am at a loss to find the appropriate fit and instead concentrate on masking my growing amusement at the situation. Laughing, I figure, will only further complicate a topsy-turvy situation. As fortune should have it the owner is completely understanding and even appreciative of my efforts.
"These people have no manners," he explains pointing over to Swarg, "My wife has told them so many times not to throw their waste back here but they will not listen."
"Maybe they will stop if we make it look really nice," I offer, "Anyway it's really amazing that the kids are helping out. They came on their own."
The owner scrunches his lips and nods his head slowly, apparently reluctant to cede any credit to the Swargites and then, after a pause, invites me to his house at my convenience. I agree to come soon and we part with a handshake through the bars. Nisharg and Darshan have long since scaled the wall in a remote corner of the property and disappeared. I return to cleaning and fall into a meditative rhythm.
Over the following days I start to appreciate fully the focus on cleaning that is central to so many ashram's programs. What drudgery to sweep and pick up for a number of hours every day, I used to think, doubly so when the mess isn't "yours." Even as our neighbors had pointed out, the unkempt state will only return after a time, so, at best any visible changes are only temporary. But as I am sweeping something happens to these resistances and one by one they are brushed away. Other, unrelated, long simmering vexations rise up in the noosphere but they too are whisked away in time with the hypnotic motion of sweeping. In time I am only sweeping--no longer daydreaming, worrying, planning, plotting or introspecting. Then after some more time there is just the sweeping and no me. Even the sound of the hand broom contacting the ground fall away. The respite from the weightiness of self is short as I start to reflect on the origins of the various dust specks that are sent billowing left then right, left then right. In their particulate state the specks are nearly indistinguishable, yet at one time these were the paint on the buildings, the pollen on the rose given to a girl on her birthday, the rose petals, stem and thorn, aphid and ladybug, the girl's hand, the giver's toes, a rival's heart. Under the tireless pistil of time, beloved and detested, agreed and contested, healthy and infested, master and servant, before and after are all ground into fine sameness. All these things that at one time seemed so real and distinct now float together on the currents of air driven by my broom. They were only as solid as the willfulness of the various players that breathed life into these forms. When the will ebbed they sank into the undifferentiated sea of Atlantis and joined the ashes of the great library at Alexandria. In time, too, sweeper will join swept and these thoughts will still.
Sunday comes and I sweep alone in a self-imposed silence. I feel the intensity of an icy stare coming from over the wall at Swarg. A woman with a scowl that would send Roberto Duran running for his corner, unleashes at torrent of anger in my direction. Unwilling to speak I simply return her gaze and try to my best to divine the source of her ire. Her blistering lambaste continues unabated and I imagine slow wisps of smoke curling from her ears. I am certain she is going to blow her top at any moment and uncork her lava-red head over the wall to bite at my heels. I conjecture that she is upset that I am using a broom supplied from the Swarg side and hence I offer it up knowing full well I have two secreted away in reserve. She spitefully snatches the broom from my hand and continues to spew unadulterated invective, but now punctuates her epithets with menacing jousts. My offering eventually pays dividends as she backtracks into the shadows of the building now fencing with invisible demons. With the sting of her words still sticking like the dirt to my sweat I am motioned over to the opposite side of the yard where another middle-aged woman is waiting patiently for her turn to unload on the videshi sweeper. After her comparatively mild first salvo I pinch my index finger to thumb and make a zipping motion across my lips to indicate I am speechless. She waggles her head in resignation and retreats into her yard. What could she have possibly taken offense to I wonder. How odd the bitterness they directed at me feels, being unable to understand a word of the complaints and unwilling to respond with words. I can feel the anger as a build up of heat throughout my body, but particularly near the skin on my face and neck. My gut instinct to lash back was short-circuited by my silence, but I am still burning from the verbal assault. I sweep and within a few minutes the sudden build up of heat has largely dissipated. I sweep some more and all urges to reciprocate or defend myself lose steam and are replaced with nascent feelings of pity then compassion. It's not so hard to see myself on their side of the wall. It's not so hard to see the cleaning American is only a foil--a scape goat for a lifetime faintly echoing with broken promises, broken dreams and broken relationships. A crystal of salt abrading an old wound.
The following day yet another housewife is beckons me hither, this time from the gate side of the compound. With the previous day's experience fresh in my mind I resolve to stay cool, to share in her frustration rather than oppose it. I take a deep breath and smile as I approach, a broom in one hand and a stuffed plastic bag in the other. Darshan and Raju follow. "What are you doing here?" she frowns, pointing behind me to the yard from whence I have come.
"We've been cleaning for a while everyday just to make the neighborhood look a little nicer."
Her frown softens. "Where are you coming from? What are you doing in India?"
"A few friends and I came from the U.S. to conduct experiments in service, silence and now sanitation--which seems to combine a little bit of both. Are you from across the street?" I thrust my nose in the direction of a palatial bungalow with resplendent garden and lawn.
"Yes. Would you like to come over?" I am stunned both at the invitation and quick turnabout in tone, but jump at the opportunity to see the mysterious emerald residence behind the gilded gate. Darshan and Raju are quick to scale the wall just after me in the hopes of piggybacking on the invitation into the world of the rich, and as I am to learn later, famous. The fancifully adorned gatekeepers are not at all amused to see local ragamuffins penetrate their domain without a fight and disdainfully eye our dirt-coated trio. My request that John be included on the tour is granted and Darshan is sent running to Swarg to fetch him.
The yard looks remarkably like my daydream for the ghost bungalow come to life. A lush lawn (a true rarity in Ahmedabad) is flanked by towering trees and perfumed flora. We sit in a artistically embellished gazebo sipping limu pani and are introduced to the woman's daughter who is studying fashion design at a local college. To one side of us a bungalow that in size and design looks more like an eight-unit apartment building than a single family residence towers overhead, to the other side a guest cottage that is taken straight from a tourist brochure for Switzerland. During a leisurely tour of both buildings we learn that the family has attempted local greening and cleaning initiatives but were disappointed with a lack of cooperation from neighbors. Our meager cleaning efforts have re-fired their imagination at the possibilities, though they inform us, in the most matter-of-fact manner, that our theater of operation is most definitely haunted--so assuredly so that the property is not marketable. "There is a ghost living there so no one will buy this place," the mother relates as if talking about the price of cable, "Everybody knows about it." Mother and daughter shrug shoulders. What can one do? Ghosts depress real-estate valuations and that's that.
l admire the photo of a wise looking senior hanging over the door in the living room and am told the story of the family patriarch: how he started selling saris from the back of his bike until he could afford rent on a cramped shop in the old city; how he parlayed his savings to start another shop, then another; how the shops grew under his, then his sons' watch and culminated with operation of three of the city's largest and most prestigious sari stores. Then at the peak of success, how grandpa left all of his material wealth behind and took up the white robes of a Jain monk much to the chagrin of immediate family. He's still out there, they inform me, though they know not where as he walks kilometers daily, the time-honored regimen of the wandering sadhu.
I am cleaning the top level of the ghost bungalow the following morning when the owner hails me from his home which lies kitty-corner of the property. "It is not safe to clean up there," he warns, "the earthquake has weakened the structure."
"It's okay, I'm not safe either. I'm almost finished anyway. How are you doing?"
"I am okay, but you must be careful. I don't want you to fall" he says, "Can you and John come over to my house soon? People want to meet you that are interested in uplifting the neighborhood."
"Sure, just let me know when."
"Also my wife runs a summer camp for the local children at Mangal Vidyalaya and would like you to help instruct the kids. It's held from five to seven p.m. and you can come over with the children from Swarg if you like."
"No problem. I'd love to come."
That evening I head over to the school grounds with Nisharg and Darshan just behind Bhoomi, Prachi and Saloni. About twenty kids are already gathered and a ripple of excitement sweeps through their ranks when big whitey arrives. I am introduced to the beaming neighbor's wife who started the camp. She explains that she was concerned that the city kids were forgetting how to play and spending too much time in front of the television or playing video games. "We want them to know all the games we played when we were young," she says.
"We are still young, aren't we?"
"Oh, ho, ho, ho," she chortles. She is probably all of thirty years of age but has clearly accepted this as middle years not suited for play and when the games begin, true to form she opts out standing to the side smiling wildly.
I am bigger, faster and meaner than all the kids assembled and have no problem dominating at each of the games most of which I play nightly with the Swarg crew anyway. I make sure the kids won't soon forget their humiliating defeat at the hands of a foreigner and am quick to pump my fists skyward chanting, "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!" so there can be no mistaking who their daddy is. Unfortunately the kids delight in what should be a crushing loss and chant along with me. I change the chant to "I-N-D-I-A, I-N-D-I-A," hoping to throw their little minds off the scent, but they are only increasingly ecstatic and feed off of my fickle allegiance. The odd assortment of adults gathered doesn't quite know what to make of the overly enthusiastic American, but the kids have clearly adopted me as one of their own.
That night I amuse myself by casting giant creepy shadows from our flat against the ghost bungalow. I wonder with delight if any of the other Swarg residents will happen to glance at my ghoulish shadow show. Perhaps I have become the notorious apparition--haunting the locals with my unconventional behavior. Other times I intend to steal a glance at the eerily illuminated buildings and instead find my gaze locked for a spine-chilling moment or two with full expectation of seeing a face appear at a window, a hand grasping a window bar or a figure disappear around a corner. The latter of these is, in fact, exactly what I see, or think I see, although it transpires the following day in the full sunlight. Raj and Nisharg are idly throwing a rubber ball between the two buildings while John and I sweep. Darshan scales the wall and completes a ball-tossing triangle with Nisharg and Raj. I am stooped over sweeping, but see someone go behind the ghost bungalow and I follow to warn them about the crumbling masonry and open sewer pit. No one is there. I peer inside the building, but the illumination is poor and in any case it would be extremely difficult to enter through the jagged gap in the bricks. I go to the far side of the bungalow. Still no one. I complete one round of the perimeter. John is still cleaning and the three boys playing catch. "Is anyone else here?" I ask.
"No one else has come," Nisharg says, "Why are you asking?"
"I saw someone go behind the building, but no one is there."
"You saw the ghost?" he asks.
"Yes. I guess I did."
A buzz goes up among the three boys and word quickly gets back to Swarg where a number of residents gather at the wall to hear more details. It's hard to make anything of it at all due to the improbable timing--so many people are around and its the middle of the day. John is amused.
The following Monday we walk the short distance to the owner of the ghost bungalow's bungalow, for the previously promised pow-wow. The get-together has been organized by Maheshbhai to clarify what it is exactly that we are doing in India and to see if we can all work together on a project. Personally I am thrilled that such a meeting has come to transpire. It is confirmation, I muse, of the purity of our cleaning efforts that they are having positive ripple effects and a larger action appears to be self-organizing around the seed we've planted. We ascend a side stairs and enter a room where Maheshbhai, his wife and daughter, an elderly woman and one local teen are seated. There are others too, we are informed, that wanted to attend, but could not because of the timing. Originally scheduled for Sunday the meeting was moved to accommodate my day of silence. Reenaben, the elderly woman wastes no time in convening the meeting and wants to know what we will do about the trash that accumulates near her flat adjacent to the Am-Way building. "They have a cold-drink machine and people are throwing the cans at my wall. There are Coca-Cola cans and all the other drinks you have brought from America. No waste bin has been provided. You are from America right?"
"We are, but we have nothing to do with the Am-Way. I think it's even outlawed in America because it was determined to be a pyramid scheme" I say, a little surprised and amused by the accusatory tone she has struck.
"But you support these things, right?"
"Pyramid schemes or Coca-Cola? No, I don't support pyramid schemes, though I did invest in the US stock market at one time, and it pretty much operates largely like a pyramid scheme. I sometimes drink Coke, but I prefer Limca. But I think both are owned by Coke now and ThumsUp too. I don't know, really."
"But you are from America, right?"
"Yes, but we no more control the policies of our government or corporations as you do of Mahendra Modi or the Tata Group. We're just trying to give something back to a country, or ideal, that has given us so much. Really our whole message is that every moment is an opportunity for service, and we hope to inspire others to get dirty to get clean, so to speak. We don't have to look outside of ourselves to find cleaning to do. We could spend several lifetimes pointing our fingers at the faults of others, including our respective governments, various companies or individuals, or we could instead see these as only projections of internal dirt that needs to be scrubbed away. We aren't here as proponents of the Americanization of India or anything."
"But even with your cleaning in the back there you also have get the residents to stop littering or the problem will remain. Nothing will really change. What I want to know is how can you help me."
"You can help yourself," John chimes in, "You don't have to wait for anyone else to start cleaning."
"There is an English saying that you must be being familiar with," Maheshbhai says in a tight smile, "that says that when I point at someone else there are four fingers pointing back at me." He demonstrates by pointing across the couch at me. I am tempted to point out that there are only three fingers pointing back at him and a thumb cocked at some obscure angle but hold my tongue as his point is appreciated. I smile back at him and he nods his head up and down and makes a chortling sound with raised eyebrows. Reenaben is scowling now.
"So are you willing to help me or not," she asks flatly.
"We would be glad to help," I say, "but the I think the best of what we have to share is what happens when we start to do what appears to be the work of others. There are some really beautiful, subtle things that go on within us when we do something as simple as sweeping and the effect is magnified when we clean for others. But it is one thing to talk about it and another to give it a go. Everyone should test for themselves if there is any value in this idea."
"But are you willing to go to the president of Am-Way and tell him about my problem?" Reenaben says, "You are here to give service, isn't it?" She is starting to appear as female aspect of the ever-challenging Golum.
"We don't have any special contacts with Am-Way," John says, "You should probably look into contacting them yourself. But we can all clean together, even right now."
"I have contacted Am-Way," Reenaben says pointedly, "but they haven't responded."
A tense silence fills the room. Reenaben is glowering and John appears to be in no mood to accommodate her specific grievance. My high expectations for the meeting have crashed gloriously. I am desperate to recover some of the goodwill that led us to come together in the first place. "You know one thing is for sure. All of us came here because of some impulse to do some outside the scope our immediate interests," I lean in Reenaben's direction, "You want the cans collected not just for you, but for the benefit of everyone in your neighborhood, " then I turn to Maheshbhai, "And you were willing to let us clean on your property even though we were doing so without prior permission, because you something of value there, beyond the simple fact that your property was being cleaned. And you graciously called for this important meeting at your flat. Your wife has inspired me and other mothers in the area with her summer camp for the kids. She could be playing bridge at the local sports club, but she felt that it was more important to offer positive instruction for all the children in the neighborhood and not just your daughter."
"You must play with the kids of your flat everyday," Reenaben says reproachfully.
"But, I do!" I say, "Usually a couple hours everyday."
"I know," she says, "but you must teach them new games too and values."
"The kids have have been the most inspirational of all," I offer trying to recapture the thrust of my soapbox soliloquy, "In fact, they have been amazing. They have come almost everyday to help clean even sometimes against the wishes of their parents. Now they pester me in the evening about what time we will be cleaning next."
"But you will notice no older children will join you, isn't it?" Reenaben says, "The younger ones are willing to do it just because they want to be like you, but the older ones are beyond reach and will not think it is a good thing to do."
"If we are reaching only the younger kids I think still has tremendous value. They are tomorrow's teenagers and next year's adults. Just in having cleaned for a while themselves with some crazy American when they were young they might get the idea that there is no shame in it. Maybe they will even experience some of the deeper benefits and be encouraged to continue experimenting on their own. Maybe it won't be cleaning per se, but something else."
Reenaben appears dubious of my grand claims, but is silent. John makes his own push to salvage the meeting. "Let's do something right now instead of just talking," he says, "Let's go out right now and do some action together. We should make an action a part of every meeting instead of just sitting the whole time." The implications of his invitation do not appear to sit well with those gathered.
"I compost almost all my wet waste at home," Reenaben says, shifting.
"That's great, but let's do something right now," John says impatiently. He is spring-loaded in his chair like a tenuous cork in a wine bottle waiting for the party to begin.
"But it will take time..." Reenaben says.
"This is taking time." John is unapologetic. Nobody stirs.
"I think John's right and we should end every meeting with some action even if for only five minutes. It could just be something symbolic if nothing else," I offer in the hopes of establishing some easily manageable timeframe to ease the fears of the assembled.
"But we need tools and I don't have time..." Reenaben says, now visibly fidgeting.
"We are the tools we need," says John. He is starting to stand which evidently is too much for Reenaben to bear.
"I have to go now," she says and promptly exits toward the kitchen.
"Did she just leave?" I ask no one in particular, not able to accept the suddenness of her departure. I am amused both at her apparent aversion to work and the unreal quality of the entire get together. The Golum episode is brought to memory. Is this a dream? In real life John is not this aggressive and someone else would have contributed a sentence here or there other than Reenaben and us. My question remains unanswered so I take the opportunity to lean over to Maheshbhai and ask if his property really has a ghost.
"Yes it has a ghost," he smiles, "It is you!" He can barely contain his glee at his witticism and successful deflection of my question. Lest I probe further he quickly begins delivering what sounds like the post-mortem to our meeting when Reenaben pokes her head back into the room.
"Okay, let's go," she says to our dumbstruck group. The rest of us crash into formation behind her and we descend the stairs to the driveway. At ground level John takes charge and suggests we clean the street from the bungalow's gates to the park some hundred yards distant. John and I swoop down and gather enough discarded plastic bags to distribute to the others and then begin plucking up the various tobacco packs and bits of waste that have accumulated since the last pass of the rag pickers and street sweepers. I sneak peeks at Reenaben who is cautious at first but then quite proficient in her cleaning efforts. It is impressive, too, to catch glimpses of Maheshbhai in his immaculate business attire stooping over to collect waste. Our party re-convenes at the gate to the park where we find a rare waste bin to deposit our bags. Of the hundred or so folk that happen to be a street-side every eye is glued to our odd procession. Congratulations and handshakes are shared with the promise to meet again soon. The late afternoon sun still holds sway in our quaint corner of Mithakali and the sweat flows freely. Our backyard revolution has spilled out onto the streets and the feel is good.
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Uncivil Hospital
John, Anjali and I take a relaxed late night walk back to Jayesh-bhai's after treating ourselves to orange ice candy (Indian English for popsicle) near Subhash bridge. Halfway home we stop to sit street side on an impressively-sized gas pipe section on either side of which slum folk are prepping for bed on plastic sheets and blankets spread out on the dirt. Anjali strikes up a lively conversation with an older woman while a collection of scooter and motorcycle drivers buzz in from the road to cluster around the odd assemblage. Thirty yards distant, from the shadowed depths of the street side encampment, a man motions feverishly for me to approach. I have become accustomed to ignoring such invitations as nuisance quiz sessions as to country of origin, good name, father's name and so on. I pretend not to have seen the man and look blankly to the opposite side of Ring Road where sundry wallahs are still peddling tea, tobacco packs and sugarcane juice from their carts. As I swing my head back to where Anjali's dialog remains the center of attention I catch sight of the man crab-walking his way toward me heavily favoring one leg. He cradles a wood crutch in the depression formed between thighs and torso. Now there can be no disguising that I have seen him. He takes a breather to motion me hither once more and I notice for the first time that he has a bloody shirt wrapped about the right thigh of the leg not in use. Holding my attention he starts to peel back the shirt to reveal a large ruddy area where the skin is missing. I frantically motion for him to keep the makeshift bandage in place and turn to John and Anjali.
"Hey you guys, I think this guy's hurt real badly. We're probably going to have to take him to a hospital." Anjali and John look to where the man is still eagerly displaying the top portion of what appears to be a massive wound. A quick discussion ensues. I offer to take the man to the hospital myself, but Anjali points out there will almost certainly be language barriers and offers to come along. We all are carrying multiple bags. The three of us, our baggage and the man are unlikely to fit into a single rickshaw--certainly not without risking further damage to his leg. Securing two rickshaws seems out of the question at this hour, so we determine we should hurry to Jayesh-bhai's, drop our belongings off before the house is locked for the evening, and then return to hunt for a rickshaw. Our plan is shared with the man who has made it streetside and Anjali asks that he stay put until we come back.
Parvati, Jayesh-bhai's adoptive eighteen year old, is watching one the many overly dramatic Indian serials when we arrive. Countless reaction shots heavy with see-saw zooming effects are utilized to heighten the impact of stiffly-delivered soap dialog. We brief Parvati on the mission, but she politely declines our invitation to come along and instead assists in filling water bottles and stashing luggage before we head back out.
Murti's Law: Exhaust spewing rickshaws will hound your every step when you want to walk and are no where to be found when you need a ride. Back on the main road we try to hail a rickshaw on the emptying streets, but are spurned by the few that speed to unknown destinations fat with fares. We head up the road to where a lonely rickshaw sits decommissioned for the night. The driver is prodded from his nearby cot and we make our pitch for conveyance. He is receptive until he sees the bandaged leg of our companion and then explains that the rickshaw cannot be used for injured persons and only an ambulance will do. You know you're in for a long night when you are jilted by a rickshaw-wala with an empty vehicle. When we finally succeed in hailing a rickshaw on the road we decide on a new tact and obscure our companion from the driver's view. Anjali asks for the nearest hospital and the driver assures her that he knows the way. John sits up front with the driver and I, then our injured friend and finally Anjali carefully stuff in the back taking care not to make contact with the injured leg. No sooner than we start out and Kishan makes an odd sound, scrunches his body and I feel something wet hit my exposed leg. When I look over to him he is adjusting the bandage and grinning broadly. Anjali looks over to me smiling. "What was that?" I shake my head side to side, resigned to having been exposed to unknown fluid number 101. Chalk it up to just one of the occupational hazards of being a "do-gooder."
After several left turns that complete the sides of a square it becomes apparent our driver is lost despite his good-natured assertions to the contrary. He slows the rickshaw to a crawl and asks for directions from pedestrians who give conflicting instructions. Eventually I spot the sign of the hospital in the distance and point it out to the riskshaw-wala who is relieved to be drop the pretense of navigational expertise. A squadron of police loiter about their jeeps at the hospital's entrance and one steps forward to ask Anjali what our business is at the institution. From the way the police are settled it appears they have been there for hours--a couple sleep in the back of one jeep with their legs crossed and resting on the front seat. We show Ashok's injury and they begin peppering him with questions which reveal the injury is over a year old. The policemen tell us they can't be involved with his case because of the time lapse. "This is a private hospital," a round-faced officer with thick moustache says, "Who is going to pay for the work on his leg?" When I indicate my willingness he says the hospital will only try to take advantage of us and charge far beyond whatever the work costs. He recommends, in a way that suggest we have no choice, that we head to the public hospital across the river.
When it becomes clear the police will not avail their vehicle for the new destination we pack ourselves into the rickshaw once more and have directions explicitly communicated to the driver before heading out. The streets are almost completely empty now and are rickshaw is embarrasingly loud in the unusually serene context--a lonely survivor of a post-apacalyptic Ahmedabad sputtering through uncharacteristically fresh air. I sing a filmy song along with the radio and put my arm around Kishan who harmonizes and momentarily becomes downright giddy. Anjali leans over and tells me she thinks our hospital-bound friend is quite toasted. We buzz past walls replete with Victoria underwear advertisements that look like they haven't been updated since independence. The color scheme and implementation give the appearance of a mammoth, laterally-oriented Warhol installation. These stand in stark contrast to saucily bold billboards hawking Extreme briefs with a nearly naked couple engaged in foreplay. The "x" in "extreme" serves double duty heading the vertically oriented "x-rated." Once we cross the Sabarmati a couple of bhangi (sweepers) are the only signs of life before we arrive at the campus of Civil Hospital Ahmedabad.
A couple of plumpish guards armed with rifles man the door to the emergency ward and peruse our party of four with obvious bemusement. In retrospect, it would have behooved us had the guards denied us entry to the hospital at this point. Inside my eyes are immediately drawn to what appears to be an unattached thumb complete with bloody entrails just in front of the operating room doors. Closer inspection reveals that it is a blood stained wrap of a digit that is no more in residence but has left a gauze littered pool in its wake. Three yards beyond a dog lies dead tired or just plain dead. To the right we are beckoned to a caged reception area by three inmates manning a single dirt-stained PC. While one questions Kishan from a reclined plastic yard chair, another sits atop the counter and enters the necessary bureaucratic bunk with handless stubs. We are asked to pay a fifty rupee entrance fee and it is impossible to tell if it is a legit fee or simply the cost of having the trio direct us to the next destination. We are waved up the hallway around a corner to where a girl is screaming uncontrollably on top a hard metal gurney that could pass as a realistic prop in a 19th century period piece. Her family wheels her up the hallway with no staff in attendance as far as I can tell. I desperately want to offer her some comfort, but am afraid the appearance of a white person may only increase her anxiety. We wait in front of a desk as two frowning staffers decide where to send Kishan. Finally it is determined we should go to the other side of the hospital and a wheelchair with three working wheels is produced for our use. For it to function at all it has to be held in a perpetual wheelie--no problem as this is my natural inclination when pushing a wheelchair anyway. The wheelchair, like the gurney, is made entirely of metal with no cushioning for butt, back or arms. It appears to have been painted read at one time and soldering repairs are visible at the joints. We squeak past sleeping patients to either side that are stretched out on sheets or simply the floor itself. Carefully we negotiate the chair over bumps and down an unlit corridor which leads to a littered outdoor passage and finally to our ward.
Three soiled and blood-stained cots are lined up outside the x-ray room. A turbaned man contorts his body in pain on the middle bed while a disinterested staffer stares blankly at his clipboard. With our appearance a crowd of security personnel, doctors and miscellaneous staff quickly forms around us and we fill them in on Kishan's status. The doctors only half listen to our briefing before leveling a barrage of questions Kishan's way. The questioning turns into lecturing, taunting and then spiteful attacks during which time no effort is made to look at the wound or offer any succor. I step in to ask the main doc if we should take Kishan somewhere else. The question is successful in interrupting the inquisition and the doctor informs us that x-rays will need to be taken before anything else can be done.
"Don't you want to see the wound first?" I say, "I don't think there are any broken bones. He just has a large amount of missing skin." The doctor says that it is standard operating procedure for everyone coming on the ward to have x-rays taken before being examined. I try again, "Can't you take just a quick look at his leg before x-raying?" I am assured that this is not possible. "The x-ray will show everything," the doctor assures me, "Then we can decide what needs to be done."
The doctor is a thin man in his late forties and wears a dress shirt, tie and pants, but no white overcoat as if he is off duty. Like so many Amhedabadis in positions of authority he maintains a well-groomed moustache. Something about his manner strongly suggests he is an actor playing the role of a doctor rather than an actual physician. The hospital itself has the appearance of a low-budget set designed for afternoon soaps that hasn't been cleaned during the off season. Over the course of the night I find myself waiting for the doctor to turn to me and deliver the hackneyed, "I am not a doctor, I just play one on television." Even the staff mills about waiting for an unseen director to call them into action before tending with intensity to any of the moaning wounded.
I pull Anjali aside while we wait for the x-ray room to become available. "Why were they giving Kishan the ninth degree? It's like they don't even care about his injury."
"I know. One of the guys that was grilling him evidently is an ex-policeman who recognized Kishan because he busted him for drinking about a year ago," Anjali explains, "He could tell that Kishan is drunk and evidently no one who is intoxicated is allowed in the hospital. He was threatening to bust him."
The x-ray room is the cover of a retro sci-fi pulp in three dimensions--all that's missing is the catchy teaser, "X-Rayed Into Submission." Kishan is made to leave his crude wooden crutch outside the room and crab walk over to the table for his x-ray. The machine's operator is concerned the crutch may contain some hidden metal. Too many Ian Fleming novels or errant radiative doses have evidently taken their toll. While we wait for the film to be processed John decides he should have his long troublesome shoulder x-rayed and heads back to the main counter to register as a patient. Kishan's alcohol-induced positivity is beginning to wear off and he shows signs of wanting to bolt. Anjali explains the importance of sticking around to have his leg examined and reminds him that it was he who approached us for help; if he takes off now it would all be for naught. An hour passes before a technician appears bearing the x-ray film. He sticks the plates onto a wall mounted light box and studies them briefly before announcing, "There are no broken bones here." His tone suggests that he is suspicious that someone has played a trick on him.
"We didn't think there were any broken bones. Our friend could have told you that himself. He has a massive surface wound that needs to be tended to," I offer unapologetically.
The technician returns to studying the plates. "There is some trauma to the surface here," he says pointing to a slightly darker patch along the border of the thigh. "We will have to take a look at his leg." The original plain-clothes doc is called back to offer his assessment. He wastes no time in confirming the technicians diagnosis. "We will need to have a look at the leg. There seems to be some disruption to the skin layer." Thank heaven for x-rays.
The doctor and two nurses assume positions around Kishan's cot and he is asked to remove the shirt that is serving as a bandage. I stand bedside transfixed by the unveiling. I need to see clearly now the affliction that set the night into motion from the forgotten recesses of a street side slum. The wound is massive. Essentially the entire outside portion of his right thigh has no skin whatsoever. The leg is cocked permanently at an obtuse angle due to the scarring of tissue near the knee joint. The two orange ice candies are starting a slow tango in my stomach and I have a brief sensation of the room simultaneously constricting and becoming remote. I am still staring at the vast expanse of exposed inner leg anatomy. I decide to sit behind the growing crowd of gawkers against an anonymous wall. Feeling somewhat better I return to find the doctor instructing the nurse to wrap gauze around Kishan's thigh. The gauze is set on the soiled sheet to be cut. Kishan's thigh hasn't been drained, disinfected, dried or even dabbed. The gauze is simply used to take the place of the shirt. I am too dumbfounded and woozy to protest. The doctor hypothesizes to Anjali that it is only due to the perpetually high concentration of alcohol in Kishan's blood that he wasn't dead long ago. "The alcohol in the blood sterilized the wound," he explains, "Medically there can be no other explanation for his surviving like this." If Anjali's face were on the Vegas strip it would be a forty-foot, flashing neon-colored marquee: "NOT BUYING IT!" The doctor continues theorizing in Gujarati unfazed by her obvious skepticism. Later Anjali tells me she thinks that he started making up medical terms to try to keep her convinced of his expertise. The doctor concludes his diagnosis by declaring that Kishan has been brought to the wrong ward and should be returned to emergency. "Why didn't someone tell us that before the x-rays were taken?" I protest.
"He must go to emergency to have this kind of wound treated. He doesn't have any broken bones."
We return in disbelief with our rickety wheelchair to the front entrance where an emergency room doc has just emerged from the operating room. We hand him the previous doc's notes and after a cursory reading he tells Kishan to sit on the floor not five feet from the bloody thumb wrap. He is made to unwrap the wound once more and again a crowd forms to take in the spectacle. The emergency room doc wastes no time in his assessment, scribbling notes while he talks. "He will be needing plastic surgery and you need to take him back to the ward you brought him from." Before we can ask any questions the doctor retreats back through the swinging operating room doors while a staffer re-wraps Kishan's leg with the same gauze which was lying on the visibly dirt-covered floor where the dog lay earlier.
The first doc strikes a decidedly exculpatory tenor when we return. It is evident he overheard my comments on the lack of cleanliness in the hospital during our first visit to his ward. He puts his arm around my shoulder after Kishan is re-deposited on a cot and tells me I should bring a film crew to the hospital to document the filth. "It is not sanitary here. How can anyone get well in such conditions? Everyone should know about that this is the state of their public hospital. You should come back here and show the people how to clean." The doctor reviews the ER doc's notes and informs us that Kishan must stay in the hospital for at least one week. Kishan wants to leave now. Clearly the thought of weathering the taunts of the hospital staff and going without the comforts of his wife and alcohol is not sitting well with him. John reappears proudly wielding the freshly-developed x-rays of his shoulder. After getting Kishan's promise that he won't take off without us, Anjali and I go with John to have the x-rays read by a specialist deep within the bowels of the tentacled building. "These indicate there is absolutely nothing wrong," the x-ray analyst announces much to John's disappointment, "Everything is in order." I propose a bright spot on one sheet might be a long forgotten bullet to no one's amusement.
Back on the ward Kishan has become insistent that we take him home. Whatever high he had enjoyed from imbibing illegal hootch is now completely gone. His brow is permanently furrowed and he's unresponsive when asked what he will do about his leg if it's not treated now. Eventually we strike a deal: he will see Jayesh-bhai's doctor the following morning if we take him home to spend the night. One last stroll with the wheelchair cocked at an thirty degree angle past families sleeping in the hallway, past a dog that has usurped the former's spot, past the unmolested bloody thumb wrap and finally into the relative cool of the night air. A rickshaw driver is unceremoniously roused from limousine dreams to port us back to our homes.
At Jayesh-bhai's Parvati, incredibly, has waited up for us and listens raptly as we relate our latest adventure. On the television a doctor emerges from the operating room to pronounce the dire status of an injured patient and the camera throbs on the slack-jawed disbelief of each family member in turn.
"Hey you guys, I think this guy's hurt real badly. We're probably going to have to take him to a hospital." Anjali and John look to where the man is still eagerly displaying the top portion of what appears to be a massive wound. A quick discussion ensues. I offer to take the man to the hospital myself, but Anjali points out there will almost certainly be language barriers and offers to come along. We all are carrying multiple bags. The three of us, our baggage and the man are unlikely to fit into a single rickshaw--certainly not without risking further damage to his leg. Securing two rickshaws seems out of the question at this hour, so we determine we should hurry to Jayesh-bhai's, drop our belongings off before the house is locked for the evening, and then return to hunt for a rickshaw. Our plan is shared with the man who has made it streetside and Anjali asks that he stay put until we come back.
Parvati, Jayesh-bhai's adoptive eighteen year old, is watching one the many overly dramatic Indian serials when we arrive. Countless reaction shots heavy with see-saw zooming effects are utilized to heighten the impact of stiffly-delivered soap dialog. We brief Parvati on the mission, but she politely declines our invitation to come along and instead assists in filling water bottles and stashing luggage before we head back out.
Murti's Law: Exhaust spewing rickshaws will hound your every step when you want to walk and are no where to be found when you need a ride. Back on the main road we try to hail a rickshaw on the emptying streets, but are spurned by the few that speed to unknown destinations fat with fares. We head up the road to where a lonely rickshaw sits decommissioned for the night. The driver is prodded from his nearby cot and we make our pitch for conveyance. He is receptive until he sees the bandaged leg of our companion and then explains that the rickshaw cannot be used for injured persons and only an ambulance will do. You know you're in for a long night when you are jilted by a rickshaw-wala with an empty vehicle. When we finally succeed in hailing a rickshaw on the road we decide on a new tact and obscure our companion from the driver's view. Anjali asks for the nearest hospital and the driver assures her that he knows the way. John sits up front with the driver and I, then our injured friend and finally Anjali carefully stuff in the back taking care not to make contact with the injured leg. No sooner than we start out and Kishan makes an odd sound, scrunches his body and I feel something wet hit my exposed leg. When I look over to him he is adjusting the bandage and grinning broadly. Anjali looks over to me smiling. "What was that?" I shake my head side to side, resigned to having been exposed to unknown fluid number 101. Chalk it up to just one of the occupational hazards of being a "do-gooder."
After several left turns that complete the sides of a square it becomes apparent our driver is lost despite his good-natured assertions to the contrary. He slows the rickshaw to a crawl and asks for directions from pedestrians who give conflicting instructions. Eventually I spot the sign of the hospital in the distance and point it out to the riskshaw-wala who is relieved to be drop the pretense of navigational expertise. A squadron of police loiter about their jeeps at the hospital's entrance and one steps forward to ask Anjali what our business is at the institution. From the way the police are settled it appears they have been there for hours--a couple sleep in the back of one jeep with their legs crossed and resting on the front seat. We show Ashok's injury and they begin peppering him with questions which reveal the injury is over a year old. The policemen tell us they can't be involved with his case because of the time lapse. "This is a private hospital," a round-faced officer with thick moustache says, "Who is going to pay for the work on his leg?" When I indicate my willingness he says the hospital will only try to take advantage of us and charge far beyond whatever the work costs. He recommends, in a way that suggest we have no choice, that we head to the public hospital across the river.
When it becomes clear the police will not avail their vehicle for the new destination we pack ourselves into the rickshaw once more and have directions explicitly communicated to the driver before heading out. The streets are almost completely empty now and are rickshaw is embarrasingly loud in the unusually serene context--a lonely survivor of a post-apacalyptic Ahmedabad sputtering through uncharacteristically fresh air. I sing a filmy song along with the radio and put my arm around Kishan who harmonizes and momentarily becomes downright giddy. Anjali leans over and tells me she thinks our hospital-bound friend is quite toasted. We buzz past walls replete with Victoria underwear advertisements that look like they haven't been updated since independence. The color scheme and implementation give the appearance of a mammoth, laterally-oriented Warhol installation. These stand in stark contrast to saucily bold billboards hawking Extreme briefs with a nearly naked couple engaged in foreplay. The "x" in "extreme" serves double duty heading the vertically oriented "x-rated." Once we cross the Sabarmati a couple of bhangi (sweepers) are the only signs of life before we arrive at the campus of Civil Hospital Ahmedabad.
A couple of plumpish guards armed with rifles man the door to the emergency ward and peruse our party of four with obvious bemusement. In retrospect, it would have behooved us had the guards denied us entry to the hospital at this point. Inside my eyes are immediately drawn to what appears to be an unattached thumb complete with bloody entrails just in front of the operating room doors. Closer inspection reveals that it is a blood stained wrap of a digit that is no more in residence but has left a gauze littered pool in its wake. Three yards beyond a dog lies dead tired or just plain dead. To the right we are beckoned to a caged reception area by three inmates manning a single dirt-stained PC. While one questions Kishan from a reclined plastic yard chair, another sits atop the counter and enters the necessary bureaucratic bunk with handless stubs. We are asked to pay a fifty rupee entrance fee and it is impossible to tell if it is a legit fee or simply the cost of having the trio direct us to the next destination. We are waved up the hallway around a corner to where a girl is screaming uncontrollably on top a hard metal gurney that could pass as a realistic prop in a 19th century period piece. Her family wheels her up the hallway with no staff in attendance as far as I can tell. I desperately want to offer her some comfort, but am afraid the appearance of a white person may only increase her anxiety. We wait in front of a desk as two frowning staffers decide where to send Kishan. Finally it is determined we should go to the other side of the hospital and a wheelchair with three working wheels is produced for our use. For it to function at all it has to be held in a perpetual wheelie--no problem as this is my natural inclination when pushing a wheelchair anyway. The wheelchair, like the gurney, is made entirely of metal with no cushioning for butt, back or arms. It appears to have been painted read at one time and soldering repairs are visible at the joints. We squeak past sleeping patients to either side that are stretched out on sheets or simply the floor itself. Carefully we negotiate the chair over bumps and down an unlit corridor which leads to a littered outdoor passage and finally to our ward.
Three soiled and blood-stained cots are lined up outside the x-ray room. A turbaned man contorts his body in pain on the middle bed while a disinterested staffer stares blankly at his clipboard. With our appearance a crowd of security personnel, doctors and miscellaneous staff quickly forms around us and we fill them in on Kishan's status. The doctors only half listen to our briefing before leveling a barrage of questions Kishan's way. The questioning turns into lecturing, taunting and then spiteful attacks during which time no effort is made to look at the wound or offer any succor. I step in to ask the main doc if we should take Kishan somewhere else. The question is successful in interrupting the inquisition and the doctor informs us that x-rays will need to be taken before anything else can be done.
"Don't you want to see the wound first?" I say, "I don't think there are any broken bones. He just has a large amount of missing skin." The doctor says that it is standard operating procedure for everyone coming on the ward to have x-rays taken before being examined. I try again, "Can't you take just a quick look at his leg before x-raying?" I am assured that this is not possible. "The x-ray will show everything," the doctor assures me, "Then we can decide what needs to be done."
The doctor is a thin man in his late forties and wears a dress shirt, tie and pants, but no white overcoat as if he is off duty. Like so many Amhedabadis in positions of authority he maintains a well-groomed moustache. Something about his manner strongly suggests he is an actor playing the role of a doctor rather than an actual physician. The hospital itself has the appearance of a low-budget set designed for afternoon soaps that hasn't been cleaned during the off season. Over the course of the night I find myself waiting for the doctor to turn to me and deliver the hackneyed, "I am not a doctor, I just play one on television." Even the staff mills about waiting for an unseen director to call them into action before tending with intensity to any of the moaning wounded.
I pull Anjali aside while we wait for the x-ray room to become available. "Why were they giving Kishan the ninth degree? It's like they don't even care about his injury."
"I know. One of the guys that was grilling him evidently is an ex-policeman who recognized Kishan because he busted him for drinking about a year ago," Anjali explains, "He could tell that Kishan is drunk and evidently no one who is intoxicated is allowed in the hospital. He was threatening to bust him."
The x-ray room is the cover of a retro sci-fi pulp in three dimensions--all that's missing is the catchy teaser, "X-Rayed Into Submission." Kishan is made to leave his crude wooden crutch outside the room and crab walk over to the table for his x-ray. The machine's operator is concerned the crutch may contain some hidden metal. Too many Ian Fleming novels or errant radiative doses have evidently taken their toll. While we wait for the film to be processed John decides he should have his long troublesome shoulder x-rayed and heads back to the main counter to register as a patient. Kishan's alcohol-induced positivity is beginning to wear off and he shows signs of wanting to bolt. Anjali explains the importance of sticking around to have his leg examined and reminds him that it was he who approached us for help; if he takes off now it would all be for naught. An hour passes before a technician appears bearing the x-ray film. He sticks the plates onto a wall mounted light box and studies them briefly before announcing, "There are no broken bones here." His tone suggests that he is suspicious that someone has played a trick on him.
"We didn't think there were any broken bones. Our friend could have told you that himself. He has a massive surface wound that needs to be tended to," I offer unapologetically.
The technician returns to studying the plates. "There is some trauma to the surface here," he says pointing to a slightly darker patch along the border of the thigh. "We will have to take a look at his leg." The original plain-clothes doc is called back to offer his assessment. He wastes no time in confirming the technicians diagnosis. "We will need to have a look at the leg. There seems to be some disruption to the skin layer." Thank heaven for x-rays.
The doctor and two nurses assume positions around Kishan's cot and he is asked to remove the shirt that is serving as a bandage. I stand bedside transfixed by the unveiling. I need to see clearly now the affliction that set the night into motion from the forgotten recesses of a street side slum. The wound is massive. Essentially the entire outside portion of his right thigh has no skin whatsoever. The leg is cocked permanently at an obtuse angle due to the scarring of tissue near the knee joint. The two orange ice candies are starting a slow tango in my stomach and I have a brief sensation of the room simultaneously constricting and becoming remote. I am still staring at the vast expanse of exposed inner leg anatomy. I decide to sit behind the growing crowd of gawkers against an anonymous wall. Feeling somewhat better I return to find the doctor instructing the nurse to wrap gauze around Kishan's thigh. The gauze is set on the soiled sheet to be cut. Kishan's thigh hasn't been drained, disinfected, dried or even dabbed. The gauze is simply used to take the place of the shirt. I am too dumbfounded and woozy to protest. The doctor hypothesizes to Anjali that it is only due to the perpetually high concentration of alcohol in Kishan's blood that he wasn't dead long ago. "The alcohol in the blood sterilized the wound," he explains, "Medically there can be no other explanation for his surviving like this." If Anjali's face were on the Vegas strip it would be a forty-foot, flashing neon-colored marquee: "NOT BUYING IT!" The doctor continues theorizing in Gujarati unfazed by her obvious skepticism. Later Anjali tells me she thinks that he started making up medical terms to try to keep her convinced of his expertise. The doctor concludes his diagnosis by declaring that Kishan has been brought to the wrong ward and should be returned to emergency. "Why didn't someone tell us that before the x-rays were taken?" I protest.
"He must go to emergency to have this kind of wound treated. He doesn't have any broken bones."
We return in disbelief with our rickety wheelchair to the front entrance where an emergency room doc has just emerged from the operating room. We hand him the previous doc's notes and after a cursory reading he tells Kishan to sit on the floor not five feet from the bloody thumb wrap. He is made to unwrap the wound once more and again a crowd forms to take in the spectacle. The emergency room doc wastes no time in his assessment, scribbling notes while he talks. "He will be needing plastic surgery and you need to take him back to the ward you brought him from." Before we can ask any questions the doctor retreats back through the swinging operating room doors while a staffer re-wraps Kishan's leg with the same gauze which was lying on the visibly dirt-covered floor where the dog lay earlier.
The first doc strikes a decidedly exculpatory tenor when we return. It is evident he overheard my comments on the lack of cleanliness in the hospital during our first visit to his ward. He puts his arm around my shoulder after Kishan is re-deposited on a cot and tells me I should bring a film crew to the hospital to document the filth. "It is not sanitary here. How can anyone get well in such conditions? Everyone should know about that this is the state of their public hospital. You should come back here and show the people how to clean." The doctor reviews the ER doc's notes and informs us that Kishan must stay in the hospital for at least one week. Kishan wants to leave now. Clearly the thought of weathering the taunts of the hospital staff and going without the comforts of his wife and alcohol is not sitting well with him. John reappears proudly wielding the freshly-developed x-rays of his shoulder. After getting Kishan's promise that he won't take off without us, Anjali and I go with John to have the x-rays read by a specialist deep within the bowels of the tentacled building. "These indicate there is absolutely nothing wrong," the x-ray analyst announces much to John's disappointment, "Everything is in order." I propose a bright spot on one sheet might be a long forgotten bullet to no one's amusement.
Back on the ward Kishan has become insistent that we take him home. Whatever high he had enjoyed from imbibing illegal hootch is now completely gone. His brow is permanently furrowed and he's unresponsive when asked what he will do about his leg if it's not treated now. Eventually we strike a deal: he will see Jayesh-bhai's doctor the following morning if we take him home to spend the night. One last stroll with the wheelchair cocked at an thirty degree angle past families sleeping in the hallway, past a dog that has usurped the former's spot, past the unmolested bloody thumb wrap and finally into the relative cool of the night air. A rickshaw driver is unceremoniously roused from limousine dreams to port us back to our homes.
At Jayesh-bhai's Parvati, incredibly, has waited up for us and listens raptly as we relate our latest adventure. On the television a doctor emerges from the operating room to pronounce the dire status of an injured patient and the camera throbs on the slack-jawed disbelief of each family member in turn.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Stopping by Tekra on a Sweaty Evening
I am thinking the woman has leprosy, but never having seen anyone with leprosy before, am not sure. She wears a black scarf and Ray Charles-style sunglasses and peers about aimlessly while sitting with her back against the wall at Manav Sadna. The teenage girl sitting next to her smiles amusedly at my antics with the young regulars to the school, but resists my invitations for her to join in the fun. She whispers in the ear of the woman with the badly disfigured face, causing her to nod either in understanding or agreement.
I try to remember the scene in Papillon with the lepers living in the South American swamps outside the prison. Is leprosy contagious? Didn't I read something about leprosy not being contagious? If it isn't contagious why are there still leper colonies? I can't think of any other disease where people are given primary identification (i.e. leper) courtesy of the afflication. I believe it was in a documentary I saw that lepers lose digits not as a direct result of the disease, but rather due of the loss of sensation in extremities which made it possible for rats to chew off fingers and toes. Remind me to look that up on the internet later.
I kneel next to the girl (taking care to approach from the far side of the woman) and ask in broken Hindi if she needs anything. Both her and the woman respond simultaneously and I am unable to decipher any familiar words. I indicate with an elaborate series of arm and hand gesticulations that I will get someone to act as translator and then return. After getting promises from several potential translators that never pan out, I grab Jagat-bhai and pull him in front of the pair. The girl smiles and talks freely with Jagat-bhai who has a knack of putting people at ease.
Meena and Anandi, her older sister, haven't eaten for several days. Anandi's two children are at home and also hungry. I study Anandi's face more closely. Her forehead is glistening and smooth. Her nose is similarly shiny, with only vestigial nostrils. Her lips are permanently peeled back from her teeth, stuck in an endless grimace. What I took to be the toll of leprosy, it turns out, is the result of an acid attack by her husband some four years ago. The acid burned Anandi's eyes from their sockets leaving her in the care of Meena, who was compelled to drop out of school as a result. Primary care for the children, evidently, also fell to Meena.
I ask Jagat-bhai what Meena and Anandi have come to Manav Sadna for and if I can help them in any way. He says they are simply hungry and hoping for a little food. I relate their woeful tale to Parol and, after some time, she arranges for a plate of rice and broth for the two to share. When the food arrives it has been nearly an hour and a half since I first noticed them. I am frustrated at the amount of time it has taken to address their simple request. After they are finished eating I take their plate to wash it in the dish pit behind the ashram. The floor leading to the dish pit is red hot and burns the bottoms of my feet. I goose step on toe tips to a precarious balance in a small patch of shade near the spigot. Images of the acid attack keep playing themselves out in my mind as the water timpanis off the brilliantly shining metal ware. Below me, the Sabarmati river stretches barren to the south and north, save for a handful of silty water patches that refuse to evaporate even under the intense scrutiny of the mid-afternoon sun. I find my eyes welling with tears time and time again.
I offer to take the sisters grocery shopping, but am told that it would be better to provide them with some basic supplies from the Manav Sadna kitchen. An hour passes in chasing down kitchen staff, phone consultations and serial miscommunication. The entire time the sisters remain virtually motionless and without complaint. The girl returns my apologetic entreaties for them to wait just a bit more with a simple reassuring smile. Odd that I should be the one in need of comfort--and patience. Only after another hour elapses am I able to secure a bag of rice and some cooking oil for the unflappable pair. Arrangements are made to meet them in the evening at Manav Sadna's project in the Tekra and then visit their home.
Rampur no Tekra is Gujarat's largest slum, occupying the rolling stretch of land across the road from Gandhi Ashram and Manav Sadna. To get there you must cross a serene, sparsely-treed ravine, roughly divided in two equal parts by a fast flowing creek. From a distance the area appears to be an attractive respite to the crowded areas to either side, but a simple inspiration betrays an almost overwhelming stench of human excrement. The creek, it turns out, is composed entirely of raw sewage flowing furiously from the Tekra. Wild pig families grunt and wiggle in barely-contained delight literally up (and down) shit creek. Across a wood-plank bridge and up a slight dusty rise more than one hundred thousand people live in a claustrophobic collection of simple dwellings and shanties. Each residence generally shares walls with neighbors on three sides and entryways face out on a labyrinth of impossibly narrow, tiled passages that invite the outsider to get utterly lost. It is a world onto itself, fashioned from mud, brick, mortar and corrogated metal.
I arrive in the Tekra just before five and follow a stream of children headed to the project for the night's special meal. The grounds at the project are completely covered with young children patiently awaiting the dinner which is being served by Manav Sadna staff members. Nearly five hundred slum kids are organized into rows, shoulder-to-shoulder and cross-legged. I am beckoned into the office and a short while later Meena enters leading her sister by the hand. Two children cautiously follow and are introduced as Anandi's children. Dipika is bright and smiling while Ulkesh seeks the shelter of Meena's kameez and self-consiously avoids eye contact. He occupies himself with a small plastic train engine. A pancake-sized patch of his skull is shiny and hairless, the misfortunate result of being next to his mother at the time of the acid attack.
Viren-bhai, the co-founder of Manav Sadna, is the next to arrive and is introduced to the family. As the family relates their story once more, it is difficult not to be swept away by waves of emotion. At one point I ask Meena what her favorite game is and she looks at me with obvious confusion. Through Viren-bhai she explains that she is tending to her sister and her family around the clock and has time for nothing else. She must lead her sister by the hand whenever she wants to go out or visit the toilet. When I look at Meena with transparent pity, she breaks out the comforting smile again. Hang in there big guy.
After the meal, Dipika insists on collecting my plate for washing and Meena smiles her approval, while carrying her own plate and Anandi's. We head for their home following a serpentine route that squeezes my modest backpack at several narrow constrictions. The Tekra is a population density chart's exponentially-exploded extreme come to life in three dimensions and myriad pungent smells. On the far side of the slum we arrive at the familiy's home which is really a doorless 6x8 room carelessly appended to the vast sprawl behind it. Just outside, a smallish temple bearing an uncanny resemblance to a pair of red tipped breasts thrusts itself boldly skyward--an easy to remember landmark. The family's worldly possessions are few: a pile of bedding in one corner, a couple of dilapidated trunks opposite and a simple shrine in the recess of the outside wall. Light pokes in here and there between gaps in the mortar. A curious crowd grows just outside the door and eventually pushes inside making for standing room only, then squeezing room only. Viren-bhai makes note of basic cooking implements that the family should possess and then suggests we make a hasty exit before the family is too inconvenienced by the burgeoning mass of onlookers.
A couple of days later I call Viren-bhai to find out if the supplies for the family are ready yet. He says everything is in place although he would still like to take me up on my offer to buy some more substantial items. "A little something happened at the prayer meeting the morning," he begins in a tone that makes me instantly uneasy. "The lady confessed that she lied about how many children are in her care."
"Oh, really?"
"No, it's nothing bad. It was a good thing for everyone. She became very emotional during the bhajan and afterward she said she didn't want anything from us. She was so appreciative of everything we had done, but her neighbors had counciled her to lie about how many children she had and she had listened to them. Now she didn't want anything more bad to happen after all that has happened to her, so she just wanted the truth to be told."
"So how many children are there? Is Meena really her sister?"
"Yeah, yeah. She just had said there were three kids when really there are only two staying with her."
"Including Meena?"
"No, three if you count her. Actually I don't know. There is a child or two with the father also. Evidently Jagat-bhai knows the father from a long time back, because he stole his motorcycle and the police were looking for him."
I am thoroughly confused now which is the norm for my stay in India. Viren-bhai asks me to come over around noon so the supplies can be transported to the family's house (or should I say room? or room-house, as in city-state?) and we can finish shopping for the remaining items.
I scooter over baking asphalt to Manav Sadna and find the exuberant Meena sitting behind the main building hard at work. She, along with four or five other slum children, are making paper bags from old newspapers. Dipika sits nearby playing with scraps of paper and the tools that aren't in use. Meena takes seven bags that have been crisply folded and glued and then uses a cardboard template to mark four hole positions along the top edge. She lines a metal punch over the marks and hammers it sharply to cut through the multiple layers of paper. Brass-colored hole reinforcements (my terminology) are then inserted and given a whack to flatten into place. Lastly the pile of bags is taken in front of the building where two lengths of cord are knotted in the holes on each side to form attractive handles. She will get an extremely modest income from the morning's work, but her sense of pride is palpable.
Meena takes me to sit with Anandi who is resting inside under the fans. She is happy to hear my voice and chuckles when Meena explains once more what a character I am. The three of us share lunch from the same plate and Meena gives me pointers as to the finer aspects of dining by hand--work the subji (vegetables) into the rice until a modest ball is formed and then back thumb it into your mouth. Meena is too excited to sit for long knowing that an expedition to their house is in the offing and ducks out after only a few mouthfuls to rinse her hands.
After lunch two burlap bags of donated cooking supplies are loaded into a Sumo along with the family and five others from Manav Sadna. At our first stop a couple of large steel cylindrical containers for grain are purchased after Viren-bhai haggles the price down. Immediately after the purchase the shopkeeper engraves the largest of the drums with the family's name using a fine electric drill as a stylus. The next store over we get sugar and some cooking spices. Meena is all smiles when we clamber back in the Sumo and head for the Tekra. Anandi confirms that none of them have travelled in a personal vehicle before--just rickshaws and buses. By the time we disembark from the Sumo, unload all of the supplies and make our way to the families house, a good sized audience has formed. When four or five of us enter their room, along with the family, a few strangers and the booty, it begins to resemble a college phone-booth stuffing stunt with arms, heads and legs hopelessly intertwined. With lots of shuffling and rotating in place we manage to conduct a little prayer in front of the shrine after Meena ceremoniously lights some incense.
Almost a week passes before John and I are able to make time to visit the Tekra again. We hop into a rickshaw just before nine and request Gandhi Ashram as the destination. Experience has shown that asking for the Tekra causes too much confusion. It's as if the template for "Tekra" simply does not exist in the Rickshaw-wala's mind if the passengers are not Indian. The pronunciation can be dead on, but the driver simply won't understand. Why would a white person want to go to the mammoth slum? Just prior to the ashram we indicate for the driver to take the side road leading to the Tekra. He is dumbfounded and tries, even then, to change to yet another road that has the potential to lead to more comfortable environs, but we manage to re-direct him once more to the Tekra.
Darkness has largely fallen by the time we reach Meena and Anandi's home which makes it a little easier for us to travel in semi-anonymity. Even so, by the time we are seated on the cot outside their room nearly twenty strangers have followed to see what's going on. Mahesh, a local in his early twenties, takes on the role of constable managing the crowd and noise level and seems to have earned the respect of the Tekrites. Meena is ecstatic to see us and shakes her palm skyward and holds her head at an angle as if to ask, "Where you been?" Anandi feels about for my hand and I have her take first my wrist and then John's, which sports a bracelet, so she can recognize us by way of a finger-extended hand shake. Anandi's grandmother sits up from her resting position on the cot in front of the home and instructs us to sit.
Lakshmi, a teenaged girl I met on my first visit to the Tekra some seven weeks earlier, appears and I am reminded of my promise to purchase her a pair of sandals. Awkwardly tall, she stands head and shoulders above the other children and sports a perpetual smile on her attractively pimpled, dimpled and freckled face. When I offer to take her shopping the following day a slew of other kids request to be treated to footwear as well. Whereas Lakshmi is quiet (in fact I never hear her speak at all) the other children jostle and elbow for a chance at the potential freebie. It is a vivid illustration of the ongoing tension that permeates every transaction with the materially impoverished. If you give something to one person then a crush of people demanding similar consideration will appear out of nowhere. Even in the absence of a crowd, a number of arguments have been fashioned that suggest giving of this sort is not in the best interest of either party: if you reward begging than there is a diminished desire to work; if you give unilaterally, and without some deeper connection, the relationship is immediately imbalanced--giver and taker; if you give to one, then you are compelled to give to all; anything given without "earning" will not be truly appreciated. The list goes on, ad infinitum. The rather obvious downside to all of these objections is that they can be conveniently employed to simply enter a state of non-giving, likely a more injurious and less-evolved condition. Involved solutions have been crafted in the developmental sector, but are rendered impractical in situations involving time constraints or simple one-time encounters.
Jayesh-bhai has developed a interesting compromise. When beggars approach he will pat kids on the head, ask names, and then proceed to clip nails and comb hair while lecturing on the importance of personal hygiene, sanitation and resisting the temptation to beg. When he completes administering one of his mini-makeovers, he rewards the child with a "chocolate" (cover-all term for candy) and affectionately sends him on his way. Repeat offenders are invited to Manav Sadna for a meal, play, work or even schooling. Even armed with techniques such as this, it is still possible to find oneself encountering a child braving the blistering streets barefoot and what to do? All the arguments go out the door and you act spontaneously from the heart for better or worse.
(Meanwhile, back in the Tekra) John and I present the watermelon we have brought, which diminishes the hue and cry for sandals, and commission Meena to carve it for those gathered. She becomes pleasantly frustrated as John continues to redistribute the pieces offered to him. Soni, the family's adolescent goat, comes over to investigate the recent arrivals and I greet her with a soft head butt, before stroking her exceptionally long, pied ears and scratching between her horn buds. Meena demonstrates later a fist to the forehead technique that Soni seems to accept if not enjoy.
Meena produces an incredibly effective hand fan that is comprised of a wire-rimmed cloth whirled about a foot-long rod. She expertly whips it into high-gear producing a considerable cooling effect. If you have never been hand-fanned, trust me, it is the stuff of complete indulgence. I'm supposed to be doing the hard-core service thing in the slummiest of slums and instead I am supping on watermelon and reclining on a cot in carefree luxury. Welcome to India. Dipika and others take their turn keeping us cool. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, a game develops whereby John and I trick the fanners out of their prop and enthusiastically redirect the air flow which brings laughter but a seeming inability on their part to fully enjoy being on the receiving end.
John and I are asked where we will spend the night and I point to the ground and reply in Hindi, "Here only," to the dropped-jaw delight of Meena and family. When our intent is confirmed, Meena protests that our staying on the ground level will create too much of a crowd and leave us vulnerable to an onslaught of mosquitos. Despite our counter-protests a spot is prepared on the tailor's roof for us--one of the few concrete roofs in the Tekra. I indicate with a raised pinky that I have to visit the toilet before bedding down and am escorted by a flock of children some hundred yards along the perimeter of the slums to the public facilities which are remarkably clean considering the locality. The front is manned by a trio of cell-phone equipped teenagers who divert me into their office to wash my hands with soap when I have finished in the stall. On the way homeward an old woman motions me over to her cot where she is prone. She props herself up to show me her forearm which features an unnatural angle and a consensus is reached that it has been fractured. With the debacle of my last late night visit to Civil Hospital still fresh in my mind, I promise to see her again the following day .
Old blankets are spread out on the roof and Meena and a few friends gather to play the two hand games I have introduced, including thumb wrestling ("Ek-Do-Tin-Char-I declare a thumb war") and the hand-slapping reaction challenge. Meena presses for some new games, but I am at a loss to recall any and as such underscore a previous mental note--"Learn More Games." I suggest we meditate for five minutes before bed and all present agree. Eyes are shut and legs folded accordingly and a remarkably quiet sit ensues that floats by effortlessly on a rare, supernal breeze. The quietude is all the more remarkable considering a number of the participants are still in single digits years. Ultimately, John, Mahesh and I stay rooftop while the others descend. The night passes mosquito free underneath the few stars powerful enough to penetrate the light pollution of the surrounding city.
In the morning Meena insists on preparing tea before we depart and I am able to communicate that John and I won't have milk--the justification for which is distilled by the laughter inducing, "We love cows." It is gratifying to see her family making full use of the metalware that we gave them, though they continue to use sticks and a few bricks piled in a corner for their stove. Evidently the kerosene-powered burner that was purchased is not being used due to the cost of fuel which cannot be accommodated by their meager budget. A balloon is produced while the chai and sweet pancakes are being prepared and a handful of children join John and I in tapping it back and forth. It is a serene moment that if captured on video would make for an award-winning documentary short. The balloon moves animatedly, influenced by a complex confluence of breezes and rising warm air. When it climbs its way onto the corrugated metal rooftops, Dipika and her friend nimbly ascend ajar doors and brick outcroppings to retrieve it. Early morning stove smoke ambles sweetly down the narrow alley toward us and splits the sun's rays into a hundred and one shafts. The balloon, backlit by the nascent light, dances with the smoke in the passageway producing an overall effect straight from a fantastic children's book.
We returned to the Tekra late in the afternoon zigzagging across its width to the astonished stares and smiles of locals. In the hope of avoiding some of the inevitable germy goo that one accrues with hand shaking, John and I experiment with pointing fingers, ka-pow, ka-pow style followed by a friendly tap on the shoulder. Despite our best efforts some are intent on the Western-style greeting and succeed in grabbing a hand and inquiring by rote, "Hallo, how are you? What is you name?"
We arrive on the west side of the slum and find Meena running errands near her home. We explain our mission and she recruits some children from nearby to help us locate the woman with the fractured forearm. Our haphazard route involves more weaving in and out of alleys, scrunching one way or the other to allow goats, cows and pedestrians passage. Heads are stuck into homes and inquiries are made refining our search until finally we are told curtly by a frazzled mother that the woman in question has left for her sister's and won't be back anytime soon. Next I try to locate Lakshmi intent on fulfilling my promise of purchasing sandals for her without causing a riot in the process. No luck as another unruly crowd forms and I am forced once more to postpone the gift.
Back at Meena's she asks if we will spend the night again and I explain that we will be going to Jayesh-bhai's instead as John is feeling unwell. I invite her family to come along with us. At first Meena is unsure whether I am serious and tilts her head first one way and then the next, waiting for me to crack a smile or reveal that the offer is in jest. "It's only fair. We slept here last night and now we would like your family to spend the night at our place." Meena equivocates but eventually agrees that one day soon they will slumber at Jayesh-bhai's. I make her promise and it is sealed with yet another hand shake. The final order of business is what to do about dinner and Meena insists we stay and I immediately acquiesce. In discussing what to prepare we come to the realization that we share a passion for bindhi masala, so a short trek to the sabzi-wallah is organized and a couple of kilos of the good stuff are procured. Meena and Mahesh collaborate to make a sensational dish and the fan is produced again leading to another pampered evening.
The next time I talk to Jayesh-bhai I express my desire to treat the family to a day of careless frivolity and ask if there is an appropriate venue. He immediately tells me to invite them to spend the night at his house (oops, done that already). But this is another story for another day and I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.
I try to remember the scene in Papillon with the lepers living in the South American swamps outside the prison. Is leprosy contagious? Didn't I read something about leprosy not being contagious? If it isn't contagious why are there still leper colonies? I can't think of any other disease where people are given primary identification (i.e. leper) courtesy of the afflication. I believe it was in a documentary I saw that lepers lose digits not as a direct result of the disease, but rather due of the loss of sensation in extremities which made it possible for rats to chew off fingers and toes. Remind me to look that up on the internet later.
I kneel next to the girl (taking care to approach from the far side of the woman) and ask in broken Hindi if she needs anything. Both her and the woman respond simultaneously and I am unable to decipher any familiar words. I indicate with an elaborate series of arm and hand gesticulations that I will get someone to act as translator and then return. After getting promises from several potential translators that never pan out, I grab Jagat-bhai and pull him in front of the pair. The girl smiles and talks freely with Jagat-bhai who has a knack of putting people at ease.
Meena and Anandi, her older sister, haven't eaten for several days. Anandi's two children are at home and also hungry. I study Anandi's face more closely. Her forehead is glistening and smooth. Her nose is similarly shiny, with only vestigial nostrils. Her lips are permanently peeled back from her teeth, stuck in an endless grimace. What I took to be the toll of leprosy, it turns out, is the result of an acid attack by her husband some four years ago. The acid burned Anandi's eyes from their sockets leaving her in the care of Meena, who was compelled to drop out of school as a result. Primary care for the children, evidently, also fell to Meena.
I ask Jagat-bhai what Meena and Anandi have come to Manav Sadna for and if I can help them in any way. He says they are simply hungry and hoping for a little food. I relate their woeful tale to Parol and, after some time, she arranges for a plate of rice and broth for the two to share. When the food arrives it has been nearly an hour and a half since I first noticed them. I am frustrated at the amount of time it has taken to address their simple request. After they are finished eating I take their plate to wash it in the dish pit behind the ashram. The floor leading to the dish pit is red hot and burns the bottoms of my feet. I goose step on toe tips to a precarious balance in a small patch of shade near the spigot. Images of the acid attack keep playing themselves out in my mind as the water timpanis off the brilliantly shining metal ware. Below me, the Sabarmati river stretches barren to the south and north, save for a handful of silty water patches that refuse to evaporate even under the intense scrutiny of the mid-afternoon sun. I find my eyes welling with tears time and time again.
I offer to take the sisters grocery shopping, but am told that it would be better to provide them with some basic supplies from the Manav Sadna kitchen. An hour passes in chasing down kitchen staff, phone consultations and serial miscommunication. The entire time the sisters remain virtually motionless and without complaint. The girl returns my apologetic entreaties for them to wait just a bit more with a simple reassuring smile. Odd that I should be the one in need of comfort--and patience. Only after another hour elapses am I able to secure a bag of rice and some cooking oil for the unflappable pair. Arrangements are made to meet them in the evening at Manav Sadna's project in the Tekra and then visit their home.
Rampur no Tekra is Gujarat's largest slum, occupying the rolling stretch of land across the road from Gandhi Ashram and Manav Sadna. To get there you must cross a serene, sparsely-treed ravine, roughly divided in two equal parts by a fast flowing creek. From a distance the area appears to be an attractive respite to the crowded areas to either side, but a simple inspiration betrays an almost overwhelming stench of human excrement. The creek, it turns out, is composed entirely of raw sewage flowing furiously from the Tekra. Wild pig families grunt and wiggle in barely-contained delight literally up (and down) shit creek. Across a wood-plank bridge and up a slight dusty rise more than one hundred thousand people live in a claustrophobic collection of simple dwellings and shanties. Each residence generally shares walls with neighbors on three sides and entryways face out on a labyrinth of impossibly narrow, tiled passages that invite the outsider to get utterly lost. It is a world onto itself, fashioned from mud, brick, mortar and corrogated metal.
I arrive in the Tekra just before five and follow a stream of children headed to the project for the night's special meal. The grounds at the project are completely covered with young children patiently awaiting the dinner which is being served by Manav Sadna staff members. Nearly five hundred slum kids are organized into rows, shoulder-to-shoulder and cross-legged. I am beckoned into the office and a short while later Meena enters leading her sister by the hand. Two children cautiously follow and are introduced as Anandi's children. Dipika is bright and smiling while Ulkesh seeks the shelter of Meena's kameez and self-consiously avoids eye contact. He occupies himself with a small plastic train engine. A pancake-sized patch of his skull is shiny and hairless, the misfortunate result of being next to his mother at the time of the acid attack.
Viren-bhai, the co-founder of Manav Sadna, is the next to arrive and is introduced to the family. As the family relates their story once more, it is difficult not to be swept away by waves of emotion. At one point I ask Meena what her favorite game is and she looks at me with obvious confusion. Through Viren-bhai she explains that she is tending to her sister and her family around the clock and has time for nothing else. She must lead her sister by the hand whenever she wants to go out or visit the toilet. When I look at Meena with transparent pity, she breaks out the comforting smile again. Hang in there big guy.
After the meal, Dipika insists on collecting my plate for washing and Meena smiles her approval, while carrying her own plate and Anandi's. We head for their home following a serpentine route that squeezes my modest backpack at several narrow constrictions. The Tekra is a population density chart's exponentially-exploded extreme come to life in three dimensions and myriad pungent smells. On the far side of the slum we arrive at the familiy's home which is really a doorless 6x8 room carelessly appended to the vast sprawl behind it. Just outside, a smallish temple bearing an uncanny resemblance to a pair of red tipped breasts thrusts itself boldly skyward--an easy to remember landmark. The family's worldly possessions are few: a pile of bedding in one corner, a couple of dilapidated trunks opposite and a simple shrine in the recess of the outside wall. Light pokes in here and there between gaps in the mortar. A curious crowd grows just outside the door and eventually pushes inside making for standing room only, then squeezing room only. Viren-bhai makes note of basic cooking implements that the family should possess and then suggests we make a hasty exit before the family is too inconvenienced by the burgeoning mass of onlookers.
A couple of days later I call Viren-bhai to find out if the supplies for the family are ready yet. He says everything is in place although he would still like to take me up on my offer to buy some more substantial items. "A little something happened at the prayer meeting the morning," he begins in a tone that makes me instantly uneasy. "The lady confessed that she lied about how many children are in her care."
"Oh, really?"
"No, it's nothing bad. It was a good thing for everyone. She became very emotional during the bhajan and afterward she said she didn't want anything from us. She was so appreciative of everything we had done, but her neighbors had counciled her to lie about how many children she had and she had listened to them. Now she didn't want anything more bad to happen after all that has happened to her, so she just wanted the truth to be told."
"So how many children are there? Is Meena really her sister?"
"Yeah, yeah. She just had said there were three kids when really there are only two staying with her."
"Including Meena?"
"No, three if you count her. Actually I don't know. There is a child or two with the father also. Evidently Jagat-bhai knows the father from a long time back, because he stole his motorcycle and the police were looking for him."
I am thoroughly confused now which is the norm for my stay in India. Viren-bhai asks me to come over around noon so the supplies can be transported to the family's house (or should I say room? or room-house, as in city-state?) and we can finish shopping for the remaining items.
I scooter over baking asphalt to Manav Sadna and find the exuberant Meena sitting behind the main building hard at work. She, along with four or five other slum children, are making paper bags from old newspapers. Dipika sits nearby playing with scraps of paper and the tools that aren't in use. Meena takes seven bags that have been crisply folded and glued and then uses a cardboard template to mark four hole positions along the top edge. She lines a metal punch over the marks and hammers it sharply to cut through the multiple layers of paper. Brass-colored hole reinforcements (my terminology) are then inserted and given a whack to flatten into place. Lastly the pile of bags is taken in front of the building where two lengths of cord are knotted in the holes on each side to form attractive handles. She will get an extremely modest income from the morning's work, but her sense of pride is palpable.
Meena takes me to sit with Anandi who is resting inside under the fans. She is happy to hear my voice and chuckles when Meena explains once more what a character I am. The three of us share lunch from the same plate and Meena gives me pointers as to the finer aspects of dining by hand--work the subji (vegetables) into the rice until a modest ball is formed and then back thumb it into your mouth. Meena is too excited to sit for long knowing that an expedition to their house is in the offing and ducks out after only a few mouthfuls to rinse her hands.
After lunch two burlap bags of donated cooking supplies are loaded into a Sumo along with the family and five others from Manav Sadna. At our first stop a couple of large steel cylindrical containers for grain are purchased after Viren-bhai haggles the price down. Immediately after the purchase the shopkeeper engraves the largest of the drums with the family's name using a fine electric drill as a stylus. The next store over we get sugar and some cooking spices. Meena is all smiles when we clamber back in the Sumo and head for the Tekra. Anandi confirms that none of them have travelled in a personal vehicle before--just rickshaws and buses. By the time we disembark from the Sumo, unload all of the supplies and make our way to the families house, a good sized audience has formed. When four or five of us enter their room, along with the family, a few strangers and the booty, it begins to resemble a college phone-booth stuffing stunt with arms, heads and legs hopelessly intertwined. With lots of shuffling and rotating in place we manage to conduct a little prayer in front of the shrine after Meena ceremoniously lights some incense.
Almost a week passes before John and I are able to make time to visit the Tekra again. We hop into a rickshaw just before nine and request Gandhi Ashram as the destination. Experience has shown that asking for the Tekra causes too much confusion. It's as if the template for "Tekra" simply does not exist in the Rickshaw-wala's mind if the passengers are not Indian. The pronunciation can be dead on, but the driver simply won't understand. Why would a white person want to go to the mammoth slum? Just prior to the ashram we indicate for the driver to take the side road leading to the Tekra. He is dumbfounded and tries, even then, to change to yet another road that has the potential to lead to more comfortable environs, but we manage to re-direct him once more to the Tekra.
Darkness has largely fallen by the time we reach Meena and Anandi's home which makes it a little easier for us to travel in semi-anonymity. Even so, by the time we are seated on the cot outside their room nearly twenty strangers have followed to see what's going on. Mahesh, a local in his early twenties, takes on the role of constable managing the crowd and noise level and seems to have earned the respect of the Tekrites. Meena is ecstatic to see us and shakes her palm skyward and holds her head at an angle as if to ask, "Where you been?" Anandi feels about for my hand and I have her take first my wrist and then John's, which sports a bracelet, so she can recognize us by way of a finger-extended hand shake. Anandi's grandmother sits up from her resting position on the cot in front of the home and instructs us to sit.
Lakshmi, a teenaged girl I met on my first visit to the Tekra some seven weeks earlier, appears and I am reminded of my promise to purchase her a pair of sandals. Awkwardly tall, she stands head and shoulders above the other children and sports a perpetual smile on her attractively pimpled, dimpled and freckled face. When I offer to take her shopping the following day a slew of other kids request to be treated to footwear as well. Whereas Lakshmi is quiet (in fact I never hear her speak at all) the other children jostle and elbow for a chance at the potential freebie. It is a vivid illustration of the ongoing tension that permeates every transaction with the materially impoverished. If you give something to one person then a crush of people demanding similar consideration will appear out of nowhere. Even in the absence of a crowd, a number of arguments have been fashioned that suggest giving of this sort is not in the best interest of either party: if you reward begging than there is a diminished desire to work; if you give unilaterally, and without some deeper connection, the relationship is immediately imbalanced--giver and taker; if you give to one, then you are compelled to give to all; anything given without "earning" will not be truly appreciated. The list goes on, ad infinitum. The rather obvious downside to all of these objections is that they can be conveniently employed to simply enter a state of non-giving, likely a more injurious and less-evolved condition. Involved solutions have been crafted in the developmental sector, but are rendered impractical in situations involving time constraints or simple one-time encounters.
Jayesh-bhai has developed a interesting compromise. When beggars approach he will pat kids on the head, ask names, and then proceed to clip nails and comb hair while lecturing on the importance of personal hygiene, sanitation and resisting the temptation to beg. When he completes administering one of his mini-makeovers, he rewards the child with a "chocolate" (cover-all term for candy) and affectionately sends him on his way. Repeat offenders are invited to Manav Sadna for a meal, play, work or even schooling. Even armed with techniques such as this, it is still possible to find oneself encountering a child braving the blistering streets barefoot and what to do? All the arguments go out the door and you act spontaneously from the heart for better or worse.
(Meanwhile, back in the Tekra) John and I present the watermelon we have brought, which diminishes the hue and cry for sandals, and commission Meena to carve it for those gathered. She becomes pleasantly frustrated as John continues to redistribute the pieces offered to him. Soni, the family's adolescent goat, comes over to investigate the recent arrivals and I greet her with a soft head butt, before stroking her exceptionally long, pied ears and scratching between her horn buds. Meena demonstrates later a fist to the forehead technique that Soni seems to accept if not enjoy.
Meena produces an incredibly effective hand fan that is comprised of a wire-rimmed cloth whirled about a foot-long rod. She expertly whips it into high-gear producing a considerable cooling effect. If you have never been hand-fanned, trust me, it is the stuff of complete indulgence. I'm supposed to be doing the hard-core service thing in the slummiest of slums and instead I am supping on watermelon and reclining on a cot in carefree luxury. Welcome to India. Dipika and others take their turn keeping us cool. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, a game develops whereby John and I trick the fanners out of their prop and enthusiastically redirect the air flow which brings laughter but a seeming inability on their part to fully enjoy being on the receiving end.
John and I are asked where we will spend the night and I point to the ground and reply in Hindi, "Here only," to the dropped-jaw delight of Meena and family. When our intent is confirmed, Meena protests that our staying on the ground level will create too much of a crowd and leave us vulnerable to an onslaught of mosquitos. Despite our counter-protests a spot is prepared on the tailor's roof for us--one of the few concrete roofs in the Tekra. I indicate with a raised pinky that I have to visit the toilet before bedding down and am escorted by a flock of children some hundred yards along the perimeter of the slums to the public facilities which are remarkably clean considering the locality. The front is manned by a trio of cell-phone equipped teenagers who divert me into their office to wash my hands with soap when I have finished in the stall. On the way homeward an old woman motions me over to her cot where she is prone. She props herself up to show me her forearm which features an unnatural angle and a consensus is reached that it has been fractured. With the debacle of my last late night visit to Civil Hospital still fresh in my mind, I promise to see her again the following day .
Old blankets are spread out on the roof and Meena and a few friends gather to play the two hand games I have introduced, including thumb wrestling ("Ek-Do-Tin-Char-I declare a thumb war") and the hand-slapping reaction challenge. Meena presses for some new games, but I am at a loss to recall any and as such underscore a previous mental note--"Learn More Games." I suggest we meditate for five minutes before bed and all present agree. Eyes are shut and legs folded accordingly and a remarkably quiet sit ensues that floats by effortlessly on a rare, supernal breeze. The quietude is all the more remarkable considering a number of the participants are still in single digits years. Ultimately, John, Mahesh and I stay rooftop while the others descend. The night passes mosquito free underneath the few stars powerful enough to penetrate the light pollution of the surrounding city.
In the morning Meena insists on preparing tea before we depart and I am able to communicate that John and I won't have milk--the justification for which is distilled by the laughter inducing, "We love cows." It is gratifying to see her family making full use of the metalware that we gave them, though they continue to use sticks and a few bricks piled in a corner for their stove. Evidently the kerosene-powered burner that was purchased is not being used due to the cost of fuel which cannot be accommodated by their meager budget. A balloon is produced while the chai and sweet pancakes are being prepared and a handful of children join John and I in tapping it back and forth. It is a serene moment that if captured on video would make for an award-winning documentary short. The balloon moves animatedly, influenced by a complex confluence of breezes and rising warm air. When it climbs its way onto the corrugated metal rooftops, Dipika and her friend nimbly ascend ajar doors and brick outcroppings to retrieve it. Early morning stove smoke ambles sweetly down the narrow alley toward us and splits the sun's rays into a hundred and one shafts. The balloon, backlit by the nascent light, dances with the smoke in the passageway producing an overall effect straight from a fantastic children's book.
We returned to the Tekra late in the afternoon zigzagging across its width to the astonished stares and smiles of locals. In the hope of avoiding some of the inevitable germy goo that one accrues with hand shaking, John and I experiment with pointing fingers, ka-pow, ka-pow style followed by a friendly tap on the shoulder. Despite our best efforts some are intent on the Western-style greeting and succeed in grabbing a hand and inquiring by rote, "Hallo, how are you? What is you name?"
We arrive on the west side of the slum and find Meena running errands near her home. We explain our mission and she recruits some children from nearby to help us locate the woman with the fractured forearm. Our haphazard route involves more weaving in and out of alleys, scrunching one way or the other to allow goats, cows and pedestrians passage. Heads are stuck into homes and inquiries are made refining our search until finally we are told curtly by a frazzled mother that the woman in question has left for her sister's and won't be back anytime soon. Next I try to locate Lakshmi intent on fulfilling my promise of purchasing sandals for her without causing a riot in the process. No luck as another unruly crowd forms and I am forced once more to postpone the gift.
Back at Meena's she asks if we will spend the night again and I explain that we will be going to Jayesh-bhai's instead as John is feeling unwell. I invite her family to come along with us. At first Meena is unsure whether I am serious and tilts her head first one way and then the next, waiting for me to crack a smile or reveal that the offer is in jest. "It's only fair. We slept here last night and now we would like your family to spend the night at our place." Meena equivocates but eventually agrees that one day soon they will slumber at Jayesh-bhai's. I make her promise and it is sealed with yet another hand shake. The final order of business is what to do about dinner and Meena insists we stay and I immediately acquiesce. In discussing what to prepare we come to the realization that we share a passion for bindhi masala, so a short trek to the sabzi-wallah is organized and a couple of kilos of the good stuff are procured. Meena and Mahesh collaborate to make a sensational dish and the fan is produced again leading to another pampered evening.
The next time I talk to Jayesh-bhai I express my desire to treat the family to a day of careless frivolity and ask if there is an appropriate venue. He immediately tells me to invite them to spend the night at his house (oops, done that already). But this is another story for another day and I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go before I sleep.
Monday, April 25, 2005
You Can't Have Your Vegan Cake and Eat it Too
It's the "All Items Are Egg Free" sign above the pastry case that sparks my curiousity.
"Are any of these without milk, ghee or cream?"
"With milk?"
"No. Without any milk."
"No, sir."
"So they all have some milk in them? Doodh?"
"Doodh. No, no. This and this have no doodh."
"No milk."
"Yes, no milk."
"No cream or ghee."
"No. No."
"So, yes, no milk, cream or ghee. One hundred percent pure veg double plus?"
"Yes, yes."
I am giddy, albeit suspicious, at having found vegan cake (one chocolate, no less) right next door to the IndiCorps offices. I immediately implement a three-slice-per-day programme and tip off John, the sole, active vegan in my fellowship. He joins in a similarly indulgent dietary regimen after drilling the cashier and bakers at Rasranjan for his own peace of mind (and piece of cake).
"No, no. No milk. No cream."
"Ghee?"
"No. No ghee."
"Butter?"
"No butter."
"Nothing that comes from a cow?" John mimes a milking motion.
"No. No."
A Gujarati speaker is recruited who follows a similar line of questioning. Again the devil's food cake and butterscotch cheesecake (talk about a misnomer!) come up dairy free. Sometimes I will get two slices at once pushing the boundaries of gluttony. It's okay to indulge, I reason, in compensation for all the comforts of home I have given up, and besides it's vegan--anything vegan can only be semi-indulgent by definition!
A few days later another bakery is found within the Indicorps building itself that also features a couple of vegan delicacies. To my delight they are even moister and richer than Rasranjan's offerings. On my visit the following day I meet the Cafe Upper Crust's owner, an erstwhile pastry chef for the Taj Mahal, India's most hallowed hotel that rises impressively opposite the India Gate in Mumbai. He is a DeSouza of the Goa-via-Portugal, now-in-Ahmedabad, Christian variety. He confirms that the two cakes that I have previously identified are indeed vegan. I ooze approval. He quizzes me on my dietary choice and I give him the usual three-pronged patter: health, environment and ethics. He is politely amused, but clearly not sold. Silly kid, veganism is for rabbits. John and our Gujurati-speaking insider independently verify my new find.
The next day John and I approaching Indicorps for our daily internet fix and pass by Cafe Upper Crust. "Do you want a piece of cake?" says I.
"Is it really that easy?" says he. Easy? Seconds pass before I realize I have gotten my just desserts for engaging in continuous word play. We enter the swank AC eatery and the owner is leaning against the pastry display counter. I am feeling bold and ask if there are any additional vegan items on the day's menu.
"Just this one. No, wait a minute, it has cream. So does this one."
"So just these two are vegan?" I ask, pointing to the previously confirmed dairy-free desserts.
"They too will be having cream."
"You mean just today?"
"No, no. They always have cream."
"But I thought you said they were dairy-free," I protest meekly.
"Yes, but they will always be having the cream."
John turns bitterly to the cook behind the counter. "You told me twice that these didn't have any butter or cream." The cook smiles and rocks his head back and forth.
"These will always be having the cream."
Dumbfounded, we leave to head back to Rasranjan. It may not be as savory but at least we know it's vegan--or do we? John's cow-sense is tingling and he decides to engage the bakers at Rasranjan anew.
"Can you point to any dessert that has no milk, butter, cream, eggs or anything coming from an animal either dead or alive?"
"No, no sir. They will all be having cream."
Our sweet vegan dream world has been hobbled and readied for the meat market. Retroactive bulimic tactics will do nothing for cake seven layers deep in the alimentary canal.
"Even the ones that you previously indicated have no cream will be having cream?" I enquire in a tone that drips with sarcastic self-pity.
"They too will be having the cream."
Having milked our options dry we herd out of Rasranjan utterly defeated and cowed into submission. Yet, tomorrow will bring a new day and we will surely vegan again in our search for a dairy-free nirvana.
"Are any of these without milk, ghee or cream?"
"With milk?"
"No. Without any milk."
"No, sir."
"So they all have some milk in them? Doodh?"
"Doodh. No, no. This and this have no doodh."
"No milk."
"Yes, no milk."
"No cream or ghee."
"No. No."
"So, yes, no milk, cream or ghee. One hundred percent pure veg double plus?"
"Yes, yes."
I am giddy, albeit suspicious, at having found vegan cake (one chocolate, no less) right next door to the IndiCorps offices. I immediately implement a three-slice-per-day programme and tip off John, the sole, active vegan in my fellowship. He joins in a similarly indulgent dietary regimen after drilling the cashier and bakers at Rasranjan for his own peace of mind (and piece of cake).
"No, no. No milk. No cream."
"Ghee?"
"No. No ghee."
"Butter?"
"No butter."
"Nothing that comes from a cow?" John mimes a milking motion.
"No. No."
A Gujarati speaker is recruited who follows a similar line of questioning. Again the devil's food cake and butterscotch cheesecake (talk about a misnomer!) come up dairy free. Sometimes I will get two slices at once pushing the boundaries of gluttony. It's okay to indulge, I reason, in compensation for all the comforts of home I have given up, and besides it's vegan--anything vegan can only be semi-indulgent by definition!
A few days later another bakery is found within the Indicorps building itself that also features a couple of vegan delicacies. To my delight they are even moister and richer than Rasranjan's offerings. On my visit the following day I meet the Cafe Upper Crust's owner, an erstwhile pastry chef for the Taj Mahal, India's most hallowed hotel that rises impressively opposite the India Gate in Mumbai. He is a DeSouza of the Goa-via-Portugal, now-in-Ahmedabad, Christian variety. He confirms that the two cakes that I have previously identified are indeed vegan. I ooze approval. He quizzes me on my dietary choice and I give him the usual three-pronged patter: health, environment and ethics. He is politely amused, but clearly not sold. Silly kid, veganism is for rabbits. John and our Gujurati-speaking insider independently verify my new find.
The next day John and I approaching Indicorps for our daily internet fix and pass by Cafe Upper Crust. "Do you want a piece of cake?" says I.
"Is it really that easy?" says he. Easy? Seconds pass before I realize I have gotten my just desserts for engaging in continuous word play. We enter the swank AC eatery and the owner is leaning against the pastry display counter. I am feeling bold and ask if there are any additional vegan items on the day's menu.
"Just this one. No, wait a minute, it has cream. So does this one."
"So just these two are vegan?" I ask, pointing to the previously confirmed dairy-free desserts.
"They too will be having cream."
"You mean just today?"
"No, no. They always have cream."
"But I thought you said they were dairy-free," I protest meekly.
"Yes, but they will always be having the cream."
John turns bitterly to the cook behind the counter. "You told me twice that these didn't have any butter or cream." The cook smiles and rocks his head back and forth.
"These will always be having the cream."
Dumbfounded, we leave to head back to Rasranjan. It may not be as savory but at least we know it's vegan--or do we? John's cow-sense is tingling and he decides to engage the bakers at Rasranjan anew.
"Can you point to any dessert that has no milk, butter, cream, eggs or anything coming from an animal either dead or alive?"
"No, no sir. They will all be having cream."
Our sweet vegan dream world has been hobbled and readied for the meat market. Retroactive bulimic tactics will do nothing for cake seven layers deep in the alimentary canal.
"Even the ones that you previously indicated have no cream will be having cream?" I enquire in a tone that drips with sarcastic self-pity.
"They too will be having the cream."
Having milked our options dry we herd out of Rasranjan utterly defeated and cowed into submission. Yet, tomorrow will bring a new day and we will surely vegan again in our search for a dairy-free nirvana.
Friday, April 22, 2005
Angels or Devils?
Gollum
"You're going to take care of me," he decrees thrusting a boney finger in my face. "I have special needs and you're going to take care of me."
I waggle my head in agreement and continue dishing out food from the oversized serving platters that are filled from the oversized vats, suspended above oversized fire pits in the oversized kitchen. The kitchen, in fact, is a portal into the bowels of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. The role of the orcs is played admirably by two domineering kitchen bosses who gleefully grab arms and bark orders to the ashram staff and volunteers like myself. It is difficult to take any of it too seriously as the entire set up is borrowed entirely from the realm of fantasy. And now appears the diner that looks and acts the part of Gollum to a pitiful degree. He squints his eyes and rasps accusingly, "I need more. You aren't taking care of me."
His toes are finger-length and menacing. Stay clear of the toes. He sits hunched over between his knobby knees gargoyle-style and protects his mountainous helping with hands locked in a permanent accusatory posture. He jabs again in my direction. "Why aren't you taking care of me? You said you would take care of me and I need more." His eyes are bulging organs barely held in check by a thin and tightly veiled skull. Yet there is skin enough to form deep, fretting wrinkles and a permafrost frown. Something of his raw greed holds an ugly mirror up to my own super-selfish impulses and I am suddenly seized by thick, sick loathing. I spitefully pile an inordinate pile of rice to his already overflowing leaf plate. "More," he chortles as food tumbles to the floor. I want to dump the entire platter on his head and be done with it but new diners have entered and are waiting on me.
I catch my breath in the dungeon/kitchen and try to puzzle out the riddle of the ravenous oldster. I am confident, as one can only be confident in India, that he is not real. He is a symbol, a theme, a demon of some sort that needs to be solved or vanquished. Another wave of repulsion washes over me as I entertain the possibility that he is myself some forty or fifty years in the future. My platter is slopped full from a vat that dwarves me. Dwarves, elves and demons.
There is no way he is going to be able to eat even half of the food he has already been served I muse as I approach him for the second time. I am bearer of dahl now and Gollum points first between my eyes and then to rice mountain which he has formed a crater in. I fill the gaping hole, but he is unfazed and continues pointing to the target as his piercing eyes never leave mine. "More, more," he commands. The hot liquid is now rolling down the steep embankment of rice and forming pools on the floor. I am seized once more by the desire to fling the dwindling contents of my server in his face and run Charlie Brown style out of the dream. I catch the eyes of another diner looking on in horror and it is enough to break his spell. I serve the next six patrons with less than I have portioned out to the greedy gobbler. I pause to consider that this man is (at least theoretically) someone's son, perhaps brother, father, lover. What series of circumstances have led him to this place and space, depending on the good graces of a similarly greedy Westerner who is only pretending to serve? Fulfilling my low expectations he hunch-lurches from the dinning hall having bored only halfway through Mt. Chaaval. Still, even this is an accomplishment, considering its original hulk.
I tell John about my run-in that night and he listens in disbelief. Two days later John and I have just finished indulging in multiple sugar cane juices outside the confines of the ashram when I spot the demon diner making a hobbling path for us. "It's the guy from my dream. Can you see him too?" I ask John half in jest and half just not knowing for certain.
"I can see him," John answers in ominous solemnity. By now Gollum is upon us.
"You will help me. I need money." he announces. He crumples up his body to perch opposite of us at a decrepit concrete bus stand where John and I were hiding in the shade. He directs his perpetual scowl in my direction. Making a sweeping motion he says, "This that you are doing is no good. It is not real. Money can help, not your..." He makes the sweeping motion again. "I've seen what you do. It is nothing. The dirt will only come back. I have special needs and money is what matters."
John is in complete agreement now that the man is not real and suggests, in a way that makes me believe he has dealt with this sort of thing before, that it is a variety of demon administering a test. We discuss this openly in front of the apparition even though he apparently speaks English. When I ask him what he needs the money for he only frowns more deeply. When I go on to explain that I am willing instead to try to help him fulfill that need rather than simply give money he redirects his stare to John and waves a dismissive hand in my direction.
"I cannot understand him, you will talk to me." John and I consult as to the correct way to pass the test. We decide that we will try to find some work to hire him for. I suggest cleaning the bus stand we are in and John agrees. I locate a couple of discarded brooms and a basket to collect dirt just around the corner of the stand (what are they doing there?). "No, I won't do this," he hisses at our kneeling, sweeping forms as we demonstrate the work we are willing to pay for.
"Then we won't give you any money," John counters. John and I clean for a little while more and then stand to assess our performance in this test of wills. As we are talking my jaw drops and I motion for John to turn around. There stooped low to the ground with the hand broom I had laid down is Gollum--sweeping.
He continues for a few minutes and is rather effective before he looks up once more and declares, "I can do this. It is not hard. But I will need money for tea. With tea you will see. I can do all of this. You will give me money." John offers to run to a roadside stand and bring back some tea but Gollum resists. "You will give me money for tea." John is already down the road. Gollum sets his broom down and heads in the same direction.
"Wait," I implore, "He's coming back with your tea" Gollum ignores me and continues down the road. John whirls about and catches him in as he is about to pass in front of the stand and offers him piping-hot tea. Gollum sits. John purchases some Parle-G biscuits to go along with the tea before rejoining me at the bus stand.
"He says he will come back in five minutes," John reports. We talk for ten minutes. Gollum hasn't stirred from his position in front of a television presenting overly dramatic religious fare in Gujarati. "He's just kicking back and watching TV while we roast out here," John says, "If he doesn't come back in the next five minutes I'm not going to pay him anything. We had an agreement." In the meantime I suggest that we continue cleaning the bus stand as long as we've come this far. No sooner than we start back in and two local boys appear bearing better brooms and they help alongside for a few minutes.
The rest of our group makes their way up the road intent on finding liquid refreshment. They catch sight of John and I at a distance and note our efforts with some amusement. After a round of cold drinks they join us at the bus stand for cleaning and start on the neighboring stand as well. Within a half hour both stands, which had been caked with dirt and serving as de facto waste bins, are now as clean as old concrete can get. At one point our money-lusting acquaintance approaches and John points him out to Jayesh-bhai. Jayesh-bhai warmly greets him which causes him to do an about face and scurry off for an anonymous corner. Jayesh-bhai says that Gollum is embarrassed because he tried to take advantage of us and would have been exposed. John and I disagree and point out that through the challenge he posed to us two bus stands have now been cleaned that would otherwise have remained pristine in their filthy condition. Through the mirror of greed Gollum has exposed the fruits of selfishness to the afternoon light where their rotting forms could be swept away. No small sleight of hand. Was it Gollum or Gandalf that we encountered a mere stones throw from the slowly rolling waters of the Narmada.
WWF Monk
I am informed that a healer is coming over that has just cured the chronic ache in the neighbor's shoulder. Mayhaps this is the mysterious cure to my sciatica that Nipun had intuited I would find on the India trek. Moments later the front gate swings open and an impressive hulk of a man comes padding into Jayesh-bhai's compound. He is dark complected and the spitting image of George Foreman with only a slight hint of South Asian lineage. He quickly establishes his court on the porch with the rattan couch serving as his throne. His legs are spread far apart and one hand rests regally atop a cane polished by countless years of hand oil. Jayesh-bhai sits opposite him and listens with obvious amusement to the monk's decrees. In general it seems that the monk is a deadpanning jokester and doesn't take himself too seriously, even if he makes outrageous claims with regards to his past. He tenaciously holds the center of attention, keeping the audience enraptured, albeit skeptically. I am offered up as a guinea pig several times, but he will not deign to have his programme interrupted. The monk plays both roles of king and court jester with no apparent dis-ease. The neighbor makes a cameo appearance raising her arm high above her head to demonstrate the restored range of motion.
The third time I am presented for the monk's healing touch he scans me from head to toe as if sizing up an opponent for a wrestling match. A few of the skeptics in the audience ask if I am sure I want to avail myself to the monk who sports at least double my mass. I harbor doubts of my own, but figure nothing too egregious can transpire in the land of the magical protective bubble. He asks where it hurts and I indicate a line from my lower back extending to the hind side of my upper right leg. "Ah, sciatica," he concludes, causing a number of those gathered to coo their approval. He orders me to stand straight in front of him and again surveys me from top to bottom, giving me the uneasy impression of searching for my Achilles heel. He grabs me with both hands and twirls me about. The monk grunts disapproval concerning my tee-shirt and vinyl sweat pants and consequently they are removed. I feel doubly exposed having lost a good chunk of weight from an already thin frame in the two short months since leaving the US. He chortles with delight at the diminutive framework of his adversary and the bout begins.
The monk manipulates my flesh starting at my neck and working his way along to my shoulder until he finds a nexus of nerves and then he twists with reckless zeal. I flinch with pain and tears swell in my eyes. He repeats the exercise on the opposite side effectively doubling the hurt. He proceeds with a similar program of attack first on each of my arms and then each leg finding vulnerable spots behind each knee. It feels as if he is digging and twisting his fingers past the protective sheath known as my skin, directly into my anatomy and then plucking tendons and nerves like bow strings. Eric looks on with concern as I writhe in agony, while the remaining onlookers presume I am acting in jest and laugh at the spectacle. The monk slaps me hither and thither and then asks me how my back is. I respond in all honesty that I can feel pain almost everywhere now so I don't notice my sciatica as much. I hear Eric intone that this is a well known phenomena--get enough nerves buzzing and the source becomes diffuse.
The monk orders that I face away and sit in front of him. He renews his assualt along my trapezius applying pressure in a manner that at times is not so offensive, but alternates this with talon thrusts that break blood vessels and leaves my skin stinging with pain. He slaps my back satisfactorily and inquires once more as how the sciatica feels. I tell him is still hurts as do my shoulders and neck now too. He frowns and affects an exaggerated pout for the benefit of our small audience. He repositions me to stand facing him and he demonstrates a stretching exercise reaching above himself with both arms, hands pressed together and then slowly lowering his hands to the floor while bending at the waist. I attempt to do the same and find the usual tightness in the hamstrings is now doubly so and my right leg in particular feels as if it has been disassembled and the poorly put back together so that tendons rub directly across nerve lines. The monk motions for me to back away from him and then lifts his cane rifle-style and it recoils slightly as he fires between my eyes. I am not sure if I am supposed to drop to the ground and feign death so I just continue to stand and wait. The monk breaks into a Cheshire Cat smile and declares that his work is done. He informs me that for a complete cure I must follow an Ayurvedic regimen which he scrawls absent-mindedly on a scrap of yellow notebook paper.
The monk pats the cushion next to him and demands that I massage his arm. "Har-dahr," he barks, and then "Yeah-ess," when I apply as much pressure to his forearm as my sore muscles can muster. He removes his top garment revealing a buddha-like belly and directs me to work on his shoulders and then rolls up his dhoti so I can press his banyan stump thighs. "My chela," he declares slapping me smartly on my aching back. At some point the show is moved inside to the guest bedroom where the monk continues to instruct me to massage him. He gives me his cane and tells me that I must not let anyone else hold it. I fire a mock rifle-shot back at him and he shakes his head in disappointment. Been there, done that.
The monk presses Eric to donate money to him, but Eric is incredulous. "Why me? I don't have any money. I have a broken down car, lots of debt and not much else. You can have it all if you want it." The monk isn't convinced that Eric doesn't have a secret cache and indicates that he owes him a large amount from "before." Eric isn't persuaded so the monk offers to "show" him and positions Eric in front of a full length mirror next to the bed.
"Look only here until ten minutes," the monk says, himself lingering to peer at the mirror as if a show is about to begin. While Eric stands transfixed in front of the mirror the monk continues to entertain the handful remaining in the room. Viral offers to play timekeeper and periodically calls out the number of minutes left. Eric is asked what he sees and he offers cryptically that anyone is liable see all sorts of things if they stare in the same place long enough. When the ten minutes have expired Eric, formerly the voice of reason, calmly relates having seen himself in a variety of priestly vestments and warrior costumes. The monk assumes Eric's former position in front of the mirror and alternates flexing his pectoral muscles, Arnold style, before turning to admire his profile and slapping his stomach proudly. "I was top wrestler. Yeah-ess! Top wrestler!" He turns a hundred and eighty degrees to examine his left side which seems pretty identical to his right, "Yeah-ess!"
"You're going to take care of me," he decrees thrusting a boney finger in my face. "I have special needs and you're going to take care of me."
I waggle my head in agreement and continue dishing out food from the oversized serving platters that are filled from the oversized vats, suspended above oversized fire pits in the oversized kitchen. The kitchen, in fact, is a portal into the bowels of Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. The role of the orcs is played admirably by two domineering kitchen bosses who gleefully grab arms and bark orders to the ashram staff and volunteers like myself. It is difficult to take any of it too seriously as the entire set up is borrowed entirely from the realm of fantasy. And now appears the diner that looks and acts the part of Gollum to a pitiful degree. He squints his eyes and rasps accusingly, "I need more. You aren't taking care of me."
His toes are finger-length and menacing. Stay clear of the toes. He sits hunched over between his knobby knees gargoyle-style and protects his mountainous helping with hands locked in a permanent accusatory posture. He jabs again in my direction. "Why aren't you taking care of me? You said you would take care of me and I need more." His eyes are bulging organs barely held in check by a thin and tightly veiled skull. Yet there is skin enough to form deep, fretting wrinkles and a permafrost frown. Something of his raw greed holds an ugly mirror up to my own super-selfish impulses and I am suddenly seized by thick, sick loathing. I spitefully pile an inordinate pile of rice to his already overflowing leaf plate. "More," he chortles as food tumbles to the floor. I want to dump the entire platter on his head and be done with it but new diners have entered and are waiting on me.
I catch my breath in the dungeon/kitchen and try to puzzle out the riddle of the ravenous oldster. I am confident, as one can only be confident in India, that he is not real. He is a symbol, a theme, a demon of some sort that needs to be solved or vanquished. Another wave of repulsion washes over me as I entertain the possibility that he is myself some forty or fifty years in the future. My platter is slopped full from a vat that dwarves me. Dwarves, elves and demons.
There is no way he is going to be able to eat even half of the food he has already been served I muse as I approach him for the second time. I am bearer of dahl now and Gollum points first between my eyes and then to rice mountain which he has formed a crater in. I fill the gaping hole, but he is unfazed and continues pointing to the target as his piercing eyes never leave mine. "More, more," he commands. The hot liquid is now rolling down the steep embankment of rice and forming pools on the floor. I am seized once more by the desire to fling the dwindling contents of my server in his face and run Charlie Brown style out of the dream. I catch the eyes of another diner looking on in horror and it is enough to break his spell. I serve the next six patrons with less than I have portioned out to the greedy gobbler. I pause to consider that this man is (at least theoretically) someone's son, perhaps brother, father, lover. What series of circumstances have led him to this place and space, depending on the good graces of a similarly greedy Westerner who is only pretending to serve? Fulfilling my low expectations he hunch-lurches from the dinning hall having bored only halfway through Mt. Chaaval. Still, even this is an accomplishment, considering its original hulk.
I tell John about my run-in that night and he listens in disbelief. Two days later John and I have just finished indulging in multiple sugar cane juices outside the confines of the ashram when I spot the demon diner making a hobbling path for us. "It's the guy from my dream. Can you see him too?" I ask John half in jest and half just not knowing for certain.
"I can see him," John answers in ominous solemnity. By now Gollum is upon us.
"You will help me. I need money." he announces. He crumples up his body to perch opposite of us at a decrepit concrete bus stand where John and I were hiding in the shade. He directs his perpetual scowl in my direction. Making a sweeping motion he says, "This that you are doing is no good. It is not real. Money can help, not your..." He makes the sweeping motion again. "I've seen what you do. It is nothing. The dirt will only come back. I have special needs and money is what matters."
John is in complete agreement now that the man is not real and suggests, in a way that makes me believe he has dealt with this sort of thing before, that it is a variety of demon administering a test. We discuss this openly in front of the apparition even though he apparently speaks English. When I ask him what he needs the money for he only frowns more deeply. When I go on to explain that I am willing instead to try to help him fulfill that need rather than simply give money he redirects his stare to John and waves a dismissive hand in my direction.
"I cannot understand him, you will talk to me." John and I consult as to the correct way to pass the test. We decide that we will try to find some work to hire him for. I suggest cleaning the bus stand we are in and John agrees. I locate a couple of discarded brooms and a basket to collect dirt just around the corner of the stand (what are they doing there?). "No, I won't do this," he hisses at our kneeling, sweeping forms as we demonstrate the work we are willing to pay for.
"Then we won't give you any money," John counters. John and I clean for a little while more and then stand to assess our performance in this test of wills. As we are talking my jaw drops and I motion for John to turn around. There stooped low to the ground with the hand broom I had laid down is Gollum--sweeping.
He continues for a few minutes and is rather effective before he looks up once more and declares, "I can do this. It is not hard. But I will need money for tea. With tea you will see. I can do all of this. You will give me money." John offers to run to a roadside stand and bring back some tea but Gollum resists. "You will give me money for tea." John is already down the road. Gollum sets his broom down and heads in the same direction.
"Wait," I implore, "He's coming back with your tea" Gollum ignores me and continues down the road. John whirls about and catches him in as he is about to pass in front of the stand and offers him piping-hot tea. Gollum sits. John purchases some Parle-G biscuits to go along with the tea before rejoining me at the bus stand.
"He says he will come back in five minutes," John reports. We talk for ten minutes. Gollum hasn't stirred from his position in front of a television presenting overly dramatic religious fare in Gujarati. "He's just kicking back and watching TV while we roast out here," John says, "If he doesn't come back in the next five minutes I'm not going to pay him anything. We had an agreement." In the meantime I suggest that we continue cleaning the bus stand as long as we've come this far. No sooner than we start back in and two local boys appear bearing better brooms and they help alongside for a few minutes.
The rest of our group makes their way up the road intent on finding liquid refreshment. They catch sight of John and I at a distance and note our efforts with some amusement. After a round of cold drinks they join us at the bus stand for cleaning and start on the neighboring stand as well. Within a half hour both stands, which had been caked with dirt and serving as de facto waste bins, are now as clean as old concrete can get. At one point our money-lusting acquaintance approaches and John points him out to Jayesh-bhai. Jayesh-bhai warmly greets him which causes him to do an about face and scurry off for an anonymous corner. Jayesh-bhai says that Gollum is embarrassed because he tried to take advantage of us and would have been exposed. John and I disagree and point out that through the challenge he posed to us two bus stands have now been cleaned that would otherwise have remained pristine in their filthy condition. Through the mirror of greed Gollum has exposed the fruits of selfishness to the afternoon light where their rotting forms could be swept away. No small sleight of hand. Was it Gollum or Gandalf that we encountered a mere stones throw from the slowly rolling waters of the Narmada.
WWF Monk
I am informed that a healer is coming over that has just cured the chronic ache in the neighbor's shoulder. Mayhaps this is the mysterious cure to my sciatica that Nipun had intuited I would find on the India trek. Moments later the front gate swings open and an impressive hulk of a man comes padding into Jayesh-bhai's compound. He is dark complected and the spitting image of George Foreman with only a slight hint of South Asian lineage. He quickly establishes his court on the porch with the rattan couch serving as his throne. His legs are spread far apart and one hand rests regally atop a cane polished by countless years of hand oil. Jayesh-bhai sits opposite him and listens with obvious amusement to the monk's decrees. In general it seems that the monk is a deadpanning jokester and doesn't take himself too seriously, even if he makes outrageous claims with regards to his past. He tenaciously holds the center of attention, keeping the audience enraptured, albeit skeptically. I am offered up as a guinea pig several times, but he will not deign to have his programme interrupted. The monk plays both roles of king and court jester with no apparent dis-ease. The neighbor makes a cameo appearance raising her arm high above her head to demonstrate the restored range of motion.
The third time I am presented for the monk's healing touch he scans me from head to toe as if sizing up an opponent for a wrestling match. A few of the skeptics in the audience ask if I am sure I want to avail myself to the monk who sports at least double my mass. I harbor doubts of my own, but figure nothing too egregious can transpire in the land of the magical protective bubble. He asks where it hurts and I indicate a line from my lower back extending to the hind side of my upper right leg. "Ah, sciatica," he concludes, causing a number of those gathered to coo their approval. He orders me to stand straight in front of him and again surveys me from top to bottom, giving me the uneasy impression of searching for my Achilles heel. He grabs me with both hands and twirls me about. The monk grunts disapproval concerning my tee-shirt and vinyl sweat pants and consequently they are removed. I feel doubly exposed having lost a good chunk of weight from an already thin frame in the two short months since leaving the US. He chortles with delight at the diminutive framework of his adversary and the bout begins.
The monk manipulates my flesh starting at my neck and working his way along to my shoulder until he finds a nexus of nerves and then he twists with reckless zeal. I flinch with pain and tears swell in my eyes. He repeats the exercise on the opposite side effectively doubling the hurt. He proceeds with a similar program of attack first on each of my arms and then each leg finding vulnerable spots behind each knee. It feels as if he is digging and twisting his fingers past the protective sheath known as my skin, directly into my anatomy and then plucking tendons and nerves like bow strings. Eric looks on with concern as I writhe in agony, while the remaining onlookers presume I am acting in jest and laugh at the spectacle. The monk slaps me hither and thither and then asks me how my back is. I respond in all honesty that I can feel pain almost everywhere now so I don't notice my sciatica as much. I hear Eric intone that this is a well known phenomena--get enough nerves buzzing and the source becomes diffuse.
The monk orders that I face away and sit in front of him. He renews his assualt along my trapezius applying pressure in a manner that at times is not so offensive, but alternates this with talon thrusts that break blood vessels and leaves my skin stinging with pain. He slaps my back satisfactorily and inquires once more as how the sciatica feels. I tell him is still hurts as do my shoulders and neck now too. He frowns and affects an exaggerated pout for the benefit of our small audience. He repositions me to stand facing him and he demonstrates a stretching exercise reaching above himself with both arms, hands pressed together and then slowly lowering his hands to the floor while bending at the waist. I attempt to do the same and find the usual tightness in the hamstrings is now doubly so and my right leg in particular feels as if it has been disassembled and the poorly put back together so that tendons rub directly across nerve lines. The monk motions for me to back away from him and then lifts his cane rifle-style and it recoils slightly as he fires between my eyes. I am not sure if I am supposed to drop to the ground and feign death so I just continue to stand and wait. The monk breaks into a Cheshire Cat smile and declares that his work is done. He informs me that for a complete cure I must follow an Ayurvedic regimen which he scrawls absent-mindedly on a scrap of yellow notebook paper.
The monk pats the cushion next to him and demands that I massage his arm. "Har-dahr," he barks, and then "Yeah-ess," when I apply as much pressure to his forearm as my sore muscles can muster. He removes his top garment revealing a buddha-like belly and directs me to work on his shoulders and then rolls up his dhoti so I can press his banyan stump thighs. "My chela," he declares slapping me smartly on my aching back. At some point the show is moved inside to the guest bedroom where the monk continues to instruct me to massage him. He gives me his cane and tells me that I must not let anyone else hold it. I fire a mock rifle-shot back at him and he shakes his head in disappointment. Been there, done that.
The monk presses Eric to donate money to him, but Eric is incredulous. "Why me? I don't have any money. I have a broken down car, lots of debt and not much else. You can have it all if you want it." The monk isn't convinced that Eric doesn't have a secret cache and indicates that he owes him a large amount from "before." Eric isn't persuaded so the monk offers to "show" him and positions Eric in front of a full length mirror next to the bed.
"Look only here until ten minutes," the monk says, himself lingering to peer at the mirror as if a show is about to begin. While Eric stands transfixed in front of the mirror the monk continues to entertain the handful remaining in the room. Viral offers to play timekeeper and periodically calls out the number of minutes left. Eric is asked what he sees and he offers cryptically that anyone is liable see all sorts of things if they stare in the same place long enough. When the ten minutes have expired Eric, formerly the voice of reason, calmly relates having seen himself in a variety of priestly vestments and warrior costumes. The monk assumes Eric's former position in front of the mirror and alternates flexing his pectoral muscles, Arnold style, before turning to admire his profile and slapping his stomach proudly. "I was top wrestler. Yeah-ess! Top wrestler!" He turns a hundred and eighty degrees to examine his left side which seems pretty identical to his right, "Yeah-ess!"
Thursday, April 14, 2005
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.
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.
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