My mom has a small scratch under her eye from some mysterious "argument with the leaf blower." My brother the crew champion has returned home from college with arms like tree trunks, and my Dad as always has the same goofy smile on his face. It is good to be home. Riding in the car is a completely different experience here--it's a small sound-proof bubble in which drivers can enjoy their Elton John uninterrupted by incessant honking and cows in the road. Driving up my street I felt not unlike the Hippy Princess returning to her royal estate, complete with hot water, clean bed sheets, new laminate flooring, and a refridgerator full of chicken salad to be devoured. I had sort of promised myself I wouldn't start making any vapid comparisons between there and here, but when I ran into my roommate at the Chicago airport and she started saying how rough her $13.50/hr job was, I was thinking about how Shyamji got nineteen cents per fourteen-hour day in the fields. I guess the whole endeavor of weighing how absurd the disparites between what I saw yesterday and what I see today doesn't require much intellectual prowess--it's fairly simple, and I'd start to sound like a broken record if I expressed every comparison that passes through my mind. But I guess all I mean is that the priveleges I've grown up with are far more than all of my previous guilt had addded up to.
This time on the way home the airplane did what I always wish it would--we made a full circle around Gibson Island at close range so that I could pinpoint our little house and the pond and the boat. There, and in the airport, I wasn't really outraged or upset, I was more just overtaken by how silly this whole argument about development is. The extra things that we have like yachts and dog toys and massage chairs really don't add up to a better quality of life at all; and even those who supposedly haven't got a care in the world still find things to preoccuppy their minds. What the hell do poeple live for? How much of our existence really devoted to amassing a huge pile of silly shit from Ethan Allen? Yes, there are people who are worse off--everyone desrves to have enough food to eat, a roof over their head, some clothes if they want them...but I do think that our present preoccupation with "the growing disparity between rich and poor" is misguided.
After a few pukey days in Jaipur, I hopped a train with Laura and Kristen and an embarassing quantity of luggage to the little island of Diu off the coast of Gujarat. It was a sleepy little beach town that still smelled of Portuguese influence...it was gorgeous. We ate plenty of ice cream and coconuts and rented rickety bikes with no brakes to ride around the island and its banyan trees and ancient sea forts. Travelling around here is a far different experience when you can speak a little bit of Hindi--we had tea with a few really enchanting families. We went swimming on a beach where women were mounting jet skis in sarees. I hadn't realized how shy I'd gotten over the past few months--I am a little reluctant just to show my ankles, let alone wear a bathing suit on the beach. The neighboring states have banned alcohol, so vacationing businessmen and students flock to Diu for a drink and "a peek at the foreign ladies." Even though we were swimming in full on baggy t-shirts and long shorts, it felt like they might as well put in stadium seating on the shore. We exited the situation, though, and caught really incredible sunsets every day we were there.
In Delhi Kristen and I were quickly overtaken by the whirlwind chatter of a couple of other guests at our bottom-of-the-line rooftop guest house. A retired pharmacist from Fiji decided to take it upon himself to show us around--which actually turned out to be really rewarding. After playing with a bunch of sweet little kids outside Jamma Masdir (sort of like the Taj Mahal Jr.) we wound our way through Chandi Chowk to a Sikh temple. The worship they have their is really beautiful, but even more amazing was the twenty-four-hour soup kitchen they run. Thousands of people come in and out and eat dhal cooked in pots that are sometimes six or seven feet in diameter. Sikhism renounces the caste system in favor of the belief that all people (even women!!) are equally holy and wortwhile. Mr. Fiji saw the sparkles in my eyes and made some mystical comment about how he could feel that I would go there again one day, and I would really love to believe him.
In Ahmdebad we visited Gandhi's Ashram by the riverside. His belief held that anything you have that you don't need is actually stolen from the poor--every extra pair of shoes you have is another pair that a shoeless man does not have. Food, likewise, should never be enjoyed as a pleasure, but rather a necessity for the existence of the body. After a too-expensive dinner at a restaruant where all the stools are saddles and all the waiters are dressed as cowboys, I started to feel pretty uneasy about the money I'd spent goin' cahootz. Although the rational side of my brain has all sorts of explanations for why I don't agree wholeheartedly with Ghandi's vows of poverty, I started to feel like the way I'd been acting almost negated anything that I could have pretended to have learned during my time in Amarpura. I guess above all I would like to remember that I am not entitled to anything I have, and to be grateful and intentional about every little thing that I own or consume. My track record thus far is very poor. On the airplane I abstained from a couple of meals after I realized exactly how much plastic was being smashed up and thrown away throughout the process. And even now, I think it will be a little while before I'm back to buying things that come in plastic bottles.
The next day Kristen and I journeyed out to the International Toilet Museum. It was a long metro ride through the vast New Delhi sprawl followed by a long rickshaw ride and a trekk through a construction site blocking the road to the establishment. It was well worth the trip. In addition to a wealth of fascinating trivia, they had a long display of the many different designs of oh-so-practical compost toilets that can be made for cheap virtually anywhere and don't require low-caste women to clean them. They also had designed a machine that both captures the methane gas produced by human waste for cooking fuel and purifies its water to be re-used again. I'm not sure why, but their poop laboratory really sent chills down my spine and had me itching to go on a toilet crusade after I've got my bachelor's squared away.
This time on the way home the airplane did what I always wish it would--we made a full circle around Gibson Island at close range so that I could pinpoint our little house and the pond and the boat. There, and in the airport, I wasn't really outraged or upset, I was more just overtaken by how silly this whole argument about development is. The extra things that we have like yachts and dog toys and massage chairs really don't add up to a better quality of life at all; and even those who supposedly haven't got a care in the world still find things to preoccuppy their minds. What the hell do poeple live for? How much of our existence really devoted to amassing a huge pile of silly shit from Ethan Allen? Yes, there are people who are worse off--everyone desrves to have enough food to eat, a roof over their head, some clothes if they want them...but I do think that our present preoccupation with "the growing disparity between rich and poor" is misguided.
After a few pukey days in Jaipur, I hopped a train with Laura and Kristen and an embarassing quantity of luggage to the little island of Diu off the coast of Gujarat. It was a sleepy little beach town that still smelled of Portuguese influence...it was gorgeous. We ate plenty of ice cream and coconuts and rented rickety bikes with no brakes to ride around the island and its banyan trees and ancient sea forts. Travelling around here is a far different experience when you can speak a little bit of Hindi--we had tea with a few really enchanting families. We went swimming on a beach where women were mounting jet skis in sarees. I hadn't realized how shy I'd gotten over the past few months--I am a little reluctant just to show my ankles, let alone wear a bathing suit on the beach. The neighboring states have banned alcohol, so vacationing businessmen and students flock to Diu for a drink and "a peek at the foreign ladies." Even though we were swimming in full on baggy t-shirts and long shorts, it felt like they might as well put in stadium seating on the shore. We exited the situation, though, and caught really incredible sunsets every day we were there.
In Delhi Kristen and I were quickly overtaken by the whirlwind chatter of a couple of other guests at our bottom-of-the-line rooftop guest house. A retired pharmacist from Fiji decided to take it upon himself to show us around--which actually turned out to be really rewarding. After playing with a bunch of sweet little kids outside Jamma Masdir (sort of like the Taj Mahal Jr.) we wound our way through Chandi Chowk to a Sikh temple. The worship they have their is really beautiful, but even more amazing was the twenty-four-hour soup kitchen they run. Thousands of people come in and out and eat dhal cooked in pots that are sometimes six or seven feet in diameter. Sikhism renounces the caste system in favor of the belief that all people (even women!!) are equally holy and wortwhile. Mr. Fiji saw the sparkles in my eyes and made some mystical comment about how he could feel that I would go there again one day, and I would really love to believe him.
In Ahmdebad we visited Gandhi's Ashram by the riverside. His belief held that anything you have that you don't need is actually stolen from the poor--every extra pair of shoes you have is another pair that a shoeless man does not have. Food, likewise, should never be enjoyed as a pleasure, but rather a necessity for the existence of the body. After a too-expensive dinner at a restaruant where all the stools are saddles and all the waiters are dressed as cowboys, I started to feel pretty uneasy about the money I'd spent goin' cahootz. Although the rational side of my brain has all sorts of explanations for why I don't agree wholeheartedly with Ghandi's vows of poverty, I started to feel like the way I'd been acting almost negated anything that I could have pretended to have learned during my time in Amarpura. I guess above all I would like to remember that I am not entitled to anything I have, and to be grateful and intentional about every little thing that I own or consume. My track record thus far is very poor. On the airplane I abstained from a couple of meals after I realized exactly how much plastic was being smashed up and thrown away throughout the process. And even now, I think it will be a little while before I'm back to buying things that come in plastic bottles.
The next day Kristen and I journeyed out to the International Toilet Museum. It was a long metro ride through the vast New Delhi sprawl followed by a long rickshaw ride and a trekk through a construction site blocking the road to the establishment. It was well worth the trip. In addition to a wealth of fascinating trivia, they had a long display of the many different designs of oh-so-practical compost toilets that can be made for cheap virtually anywhere and don't require low-caste women to clean them. They also had designed a machine that both captures the methane gas produced by human waste for cooking fuel and purifies its water to be re-used again. I'm not sure why, but their poop laboratory really sent chills down my spine and had me itching to go on a toilet crusade after I've got my bachelor's squared away.
posted by Sandy at 1:30 AM
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