Birthday Weekend Wonderings

The sun wakens me, as well as the methodic yell of the men and boys walking through the train, selling cups of steaming hot, sugary milk tea. Having woken up somewhere between Varanasi and Delhi, I don’t worry too much about how far the train is from the city. I’ll know it when it comes because the sweeps of green and wheat-colored fields I see now will slowly become the crumbling walls and trash piles of the industrialized urban edge.

For my birthday weekend Puneet and I took a trip to Varanasi, south and east of Delhi - about a 12 hour train ride. One of my travel guides claims, “There is nothing that can prepare you for the beauty of Varanasi.” I don’t know what this travel writer was smoking, seriously. The city was built up on the side of the Ganges, India’s biggest river which is now polluted and unsafe to even bathe in, The eastern coast is empty as far as the eye can see, besides some trees and a few people. It is also empty because it is new land - the river has dried up significantly in the past couple years and left a strange marsh in its wake. Steps ascend from the western coast to a series of cramped buildings, temples, and cremation grounds that run together for miles. For Hindus, dying in Varanasi means escaping the bitter cycle of death and rebirth. Washing in the Ganges is a supposedly cleansing and purifying, physically and spiritually, and thousands go about it with fervor and ritual throughout the day. I saw swimmers taking the water into their mouths, completely immersed. Not sure if they know or care about the bacterial levels which are thousands of times higher than what is considered safe.

On land white skin signals money (but doesn’t it everywhere?!), and people aren’t shy about trying to get it from you. It is mostly men who approach you, follow you, and attempt to push you into taking a ride in their rickshaw or buying their wares. It is exhaustive and tiring, constantly fighting for space. What’s charming about the city in momentary doses, is overwhelming and wearisome if you stay for too long. After three days in Varanasi I think the writer of the travel guide I referenced must have been joking, or seriously exoticizing the entire city. People that serve you in restaurants are poor and thin. Rickshaw drivers look sick, and the last one who brought us to the train station didn’t even have shoes.

On water there are little boats that follow big boats, trying to sell trinkets to customers. One little dinghy I saw actually had a TV in it. The sea-side hawkers were playing Krishna Das (an American turned Indian devotional hymn singer) from their boat. It all felt like a joke - here we tourists are trying to spy on these intriguing spiritual customs and here everyone else is desperately trying to sell them to you - and of course the Westernized version that you prefer. I listen to Krishna Das at home - and there they are knowing exactly what people like me want. It felt too plastic, despite the dirt, and I was glad to leave.

Just as we were saying farewell and good riddance to the city, our train was delayed. We left, came back, and ended up waiting a couple hours longer. Seated amongst the mass of other people waiting, along with cockroaches, flies, rats, mosquitoes, and a strong stench of urine, I became appreciative that this was only one day of my life that I must endure these struggles against overt and confrontational ugliness. Laying my scarf on the sticky train station floor, and leaning against our luggage, I finished the book I have been reading, “Sea of Poppies,” by Amitav Ghosh. I was able to ignore most of the mania around me, and with Puneet pacing without sight, I wasn’t too worried for my safety.

Then something happened that was really destabilizing. I swear, having lived in the US most of my life, you have never seen old-age until you have been in this country. Never disability or hunger in these ways, so real and up close and prolonged. A beggar was moving around the station, using his hands and one of his legs to walk. He moved in the same way monkeys do. Thin and with a stump for a leg though I didn’t look too close at him. I see beggars every single day, dozens, and I am not moved or bothered by them as much as I used to be. The presence of this man terrified me. Seated on the ground with him hopping towards me, one hand extended and singing his beggar chant, I felt by temperature rise and my heartbeat quicken. I am so cut off from this world, even though I live in a normal neighborhood in Delhi. He stared at me for a while, palm extended, and then finally gave up. After he beggar left the area where I was sitting I was still scared, thinking I could feel his presence behind me. I would see a flash out of the corner of my eye as I was reading, and imagine it was him. I feel slightly ashamed for dehumanizing him with my fear. When something doesn’t seem like us, “The Other“, it’s scary. But all people are people. Once you talk to them it’s easy to relate. But the thing is, once you relate it becomes really hard to keep that distance which is essential to having a normal life without falling apart every time you see someone you wish you could help. I cannot change every beggar’s life, and I can give away all of the money I have (and don’t have!) and will ever make without making much of a difference in the wider problems of poverty.

That’s why I’m interested in economic policy so much. I see inequalities widening all over the world. The poor are, as so many have said, left behind. They are victims of our prosperity and a world that is preoccupied with pleasing and entertaining the rich (us!).

Again at the train station, I sat with a juice box next to me. Without looking up I saw there was someone standing next to me, arms outstretched. As a reader you might consider what you would have done in my position. You might additionally consider what you would do if this happened to you 20 times a day. I ignored the boy, noticed his stick thin legs but continued to read. He sat down next to me, and pointed to my juice box. I said no. After all, I had a 12 hour train journey ahead of me and felt like I needed that sustenance. I looked down, his tired finger still touching the juice box. The image of his thin hand flashed in my mind. I looked up - this little boy seriously looked like a walking skeleton. His bones were visible everywhere, back, arms, elbows. A bag of child bones was sitting next to me. I gave him the juice box. He sat, drank it, dropped the empty container, and then slowly lumbered away.

This weekend I found myself thinking as I sometimes do when I’m overwhelmed, “I am not from here. I do not belong here. This place is not meant for people like me.” What does that mean, “people like me“? The streets filled with trash, beggars searching for the next meal, these are people created out of circumstance. Remember. That could be me, it could be you, though it’s not. In the U.S., and among the privileged, there is this real belief in the meritocracy. Work hard at what you do and everything will turn out right. If I remember correctly, some have claimed this is the old Protestant work ethic that as used to justify exploiting the poor….need to re-research that. Anyway, there is this sense that the poor are not educated because they don’t want to be educated. Because they are lazy, because they do drugs, because they are inherently stupid. It’s like that strange argument I’ve heard fundamentalist, conservatives sayiny, “People choose to be gay. To beg. To work at McDonalds and not improve themselves etc.etc.etc.”

I think it’s important that we recognize how our choices affect other people. I was walking down the street with one of Puneet’s family friends. She is Indian-Australian, probably around 28. A lot of the Indian women I’ve met are obsessed with gold and jewelry. Her ears and fingers were dripping with diamonds, dozens of them, small and big alike. We passed an old woman begging. We ignored her. Then, the girl quietly confided in me, “It’s just not fair, is it?” Her tone implied that the world is just sad and unfair and her life or lifestyle has nothing to do with it. Later, talking to Puneet, I realized that it was her overwhelming conspicuous consumption that bothered me. One of her tiny diamonds could have fed that old woman for an entire year! Without judging too much externally, however, I realize I must criticize myself. I live an extravagant lifestyle, all things considered. I have been jet-setting around the world for years - this is my 7^th trip to Asia in the past three. I spend an average Indian’s daily salary on one cup of coffee just about every day. I am constantly pushing myself to be more aware of the impact I have on other people’s lives, but still maintain a sane level of functioning.

Is it, or is it not your personal responsibility to take care of the less fortunate? We need to first recognize that our lives are extensions of theirs. Our SUVs consume gas that we have taken from underneath other people’s soil, typically through some exploitative charade I.e. “The War on Terror.”

The world being the way it is, is ugly and dirty - poverty and power - but it all makes sense, actually. Unfettered capitalism creates class extremes, the rich then infiltrate the government (and in the US laughingly call it democracy) to serve their own means. Let that run for a while, governments retarding other governments, and see what happens!

Enough for now. Please encourage me that I may continue embracing learning the truth, whatever it may be.