Curry, Children and the Slums

Sophie and I quickly made our way to Jaipur in the northern region of India called Rajasthan. This was after going to three different train stations in Delhi, looking for our train.

A kid named Isral picked us up from the train station to take us to our hotel. He made us laugh even though we were exhausted and we agreed to meet him the next morning so that he could take us on a tour of Jaipur.
I was still repudiating from being sick in Lukla, but unfortunately this would not last for long. A few days later when Sophie and I were in Udaipur, she got food poisoning and I definitely felt a bit of the same bug, though my body seemed far more experienced to meet the challenge. All I’ll say of this is that traveling to foreign countries where the likelihood of getting sick is high is bound to make friends get to know each other very well - in perhaps… unexpected ways.

Food became increasingly difficult after Udaipur, though when we tracked down a hotel that had a free showing of Octopussy (James Bond movie that was filmed in Udaipur - remember the floating palaces?) we were far from disappointed from the chocolate milkshakes and the ‘Hello to the Queen’. Sophie and I had, also, never heard of this desert. Picture quartered banana with crushed graham cracker, a few scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce everywhere.

The German bakery we found also suffered from our onslaught when we stumbled across it. (Side note: When I was way up in Dingboche, Nepal, a few days before my epic babysitting climb with ‘N’ and essentially the starting point to go to that pass, I came across a French bakery that boasted a ‘Snickers Danish’ -- Yes. That’s right, its exactly what you think it is: a Snickers bar baked into a Danish. I’m sure this is the result of an unknown genius somewhere in Nepal who ran out of regular chocolate and noticed they still had a few Snickers bars left for sale. Yes, I got one, its slightly better than you’d think it would be, but only if you have high expectations, in another word, spectacular)

I was a little disappointed that the only way to actually gain admission to the floating palaces of Udaipur is if you plan to spend an exorbitant amount of money on a drink (something I thought was pretty strange since alcohol is a bit taboo in this part of India).

By the time we got on our umpteen hour bus ride to Mumbai, I believe I’d consumed about 30 or 40 pounds of Imodium. Well, perhaps not… but I’ve certainly taken enough for it to be ineffective now.

A rickshaw took us from the hole-in-the-wall ‘bus station’ to the actual bus which was around the block and down the street pulled over on the side of the road across the street from some of the Udaipur slums. As I took off my shoes and got comfortable in the plush sleeper cabin, arranging luggage in the most advantageous conglomeration for comfort, I took out my book to read and stopped to look out the window. The slums seems to be constructed of dark colors rather than actual substance. Rotting food and garbage is strewn about - its end marking the beginning of the road, and everything is slathered in the color of the filth. Corrugated tin roofs are held down by rocks and boulders, doorways are black holes, perhaps with a tiny steady flame suffocating in a corner, but always in the darkness of those dwellings - the wandering glint of eyes. The children, always the most telling examples of a place, are walking histories of their slums. Clothed like their houses, with dirt, garbage, shit and rags, they wander and beg, all with the universal gesture of an outstretched hand moving to the mouth for a moment to indicate food before returning before you for anything you might proffer. I have gone back and forth, unsure as how to regard them. Most westerners, I have noticed simply ignore them. I can’t help but look at them, head to toe, and try to guess what is going through their head. I’ve noticed that there is a substantial complacency that lurks behind a practiced pity look. These children are starving and poor beyond an empty pocket, but there appears to be a boredom in them, and their hunger craves not just in the literal sense, but also for something more, some path to follow, some game to learn, some example to follow. In the month since I have arrived in India, I have paled in these moments, not for the sole reason of their abject poverty but because of this already ingrained habit of the begging ritual. Each and every time I have hoped for some reason to give money. Of course its impractical and unwise to give to children who beg, for it further ingrains that this kind of behavior will reward, as numerous signs in India have warned. What I have hoped for is some kind of ingenuity, some neat trick, a song, a dance, something to respect. I would not be rewarded in my search until I was sitting on Palelom beach in southern Goa. I watched as a mother and her two children sit up two tripods made from long bamboo. Between these tripods extended a rope which was pulled tight between the stands approximately eight or nine feet above the ground. Puzzled I watched while sipping my Danish beer. Of the two children, the younger little girl proceeded to climb up one of the stands and sit perched down on her haunches as her mother handed her another long bamboo pole. She took it, balanced it and then stood up on the rope and proceeded to walk the tight rope. I was delighted to see a break in the pattern as it was still obvious that this trio was in a very low bracket of society. When she successfully got to the other side, her bother gave her a stack of bowls which the little girl took, balanced on her head and then started out again across the rope. On the next run, her mother handed her the inside rim of a bicycle wheel (sans spokes, of course, and tire and tube). The little girl walked the rope with her feet inside the wheel rim, each foot climbing the curve and pushing it down into the rope and of course, the pottery was still balanced on her head. On the next round the wheel rim was replaced by a tin plate which the girl placed under one of her feet and once again she walked across the rope, sliding the plate against her other foot and then stepping on it… on the rope. It was a circus act, but nonetheless, I was enthralled. When the little girl clamored down the bamboo pole, I had already walked up to the trio and was waiting to meet the star. She met me with a gorgeous smile and big bright eyes. Her skin was slick with sweat from the heat and the effort but it was obvious that she was happy, proud and exhilarated. She told me her name was ‘Muscan’. I told her that she was absolutely fantastic and handed her some money. It may not be the most innovative thing imaginable, but I couldn’t help my happiness with the mother’s ingenuity. Surely she had coerced her kids into performing the spectacle, but she was also showing them that begging isn’t they way to go about it, and that if you learn something, work hard at it, and practice, it can reap benefits. What better lesson for someone who is starting off with nothing? The other, countless children, who have come up to me begging for money have the counter-intuitive idea that things will be given to them - an absurd idea that is (ironically) usually a characteristic of someone born into exorbitant wealth.

Upon reviewing this last length of words, Sophie makes an interesting point regarding the boredom and complacency I have mentioned. Begging is a behavior that is taught, primarily, we assume, by parents who tell their children that foreigners have lots of money (which is proportionally too true). Children in turn go about it like they would anything else, like a game. Westerners are just a matter of time. It is in the moments when the game grows boring, and the reality is that a child is just standing in front of someone who is pretending to ignore them, that their utter complacency is revealed. Their practiced look of pity fades and they look off hungry for some kind of stimulation. Sophie went on to say that while I slept on the train out of Delhi she watched the slums roll slowly by, seeing the children play, the men sitting with one another talking and the women smiling, bouncing children on their knees. Sophie’s reassuring observation about people is true: we have each other and joy creeps into our lives through the smiles of those we love, and the joy of family can sprout, even in the worst of places.

I can’t help but think that this reassuring observation is also double edged. Is it a pitfall of joy and love to be… ok with one’s situation? As terrible as it sounds, do the trappings of love, the positive and the negatives, to some extent perpetuate bad situations? Surely its fair to say that no one likes life in a slum but its also likely to say that they DO like and love their family. How much more probable would it be for someone to better their situation if they could sever ties to family and friends who are all woven so intricately into the situation of a slum? And does the observation of happiness in such an awful place in anyway placate an ‘other’s’ sense of generosity and responsibility?

This sign of joy also reminds me that these people have the same capacity for feeling, and that they are not some other kind of creature, or some other kind of ‘safe’ categorization that the mind takes emotional relief in… whether we are aware of it or not. I can’t help but think this is the kind of mechanism at work when I see westerners ignoring children who are standing right in front of them. How can we conceptualize of something we don’t want to recognize? Doesn’t this make a child into something less than a ghost? And isn’t this act of non-recognition the greatest expression of the disparity between my observed westerner and the child before them? I have, of course, ignored some of these children, but all I can think about is the child. I have tried to interact with them, feeling desperate for some brilliant game to introduce, but I have ended up usually embarrassing myself and feeling not a little ashamed.

Infrastructure, I truly think, is the biggest culprit of people’s situations. Having lived in Denmark, (a country where the social services are so good and pervasive it seems that being homeless borders on being a choice) and comparing its infrastructure with the less taut U.S. and Canada, a country’s infrastructure, both political and economic determine how well the poorest will live.

India’s infrastructure isn’t just written on its people but is evident on a constant basis. The entire country, it seems is either in an accelerated rate of decay or growth. Abandoned concrete buildings can be found next to modern structures still incubating in the stages of construction. Dirt roads slam into beautiful highways, and elsewhere the potholes would wake up a comatose patient had they the pleasure to be in the busses we’ve had the pleasure of riding. I could feel that infrastructure, as I sat comfortably in the decked out Volvo sleeper bus. Across the street I watched a child and came to another conclusion. The children, like dogs, find every and anywhere a good place, not just to play but also to defecate. A little boy squatted at random and as he gave something back to the world, he smiled at me.



My aim in this entry is to be thought provoking more than anything else. I’m not sure where I stand on any of this, but the sights I have seen have certainly come with more than just their shapes and colors.