Labor in India

I moved last week. Sad to say I had to leave the cherished “gullie” to a higher class, though much safer area in Hyderabad. My wonderful roommate Archana is moving back to Pune and I was lucky enough to find two girls my age that would allow me to rent a room for the little time I am left here.

The flat is set up that it is actually two stories. There is an elevator leading up to the front door, however my room is on the second story of the house, which means stairs are necessary to get to my room. Just days before the move I had gotten into an auto accident, hurting my knee a bit, which restricted my ability to lift things, and Arjun, my friend who helped me move, was the only able body. Labor being so cheap here we asked the man that works somewhere in the flat to help us and we would pay home some extra money. I didn’t notice too much as I was running around everywhere, until he started to walk up the stairs to my room. Here was this old man, frail and petite, carrying my extremely large suit case on his shoulder. Meaning he wasn’t lifting it the way we normally do going up a stair case, but he literally lifted the suitcase onto his shoulder and was walking up the staircase with it on his tiny shoulders. My heart literally skipped a beat and I was overwhelmed with sadness. I watched him as he continued to help us, non grudgingly, ever so eagerly and just felt my heart wrench. In my opinion he should be at home, enjoying his old age and reaping the benefits of working hard all his life. Yet this is a situation with many elderly people, still required to work, and difficult physical labor on top of that, because of poverty. I asked how Arjun how much I should pay him and he suggested a price, I personally felt it was too small and asked if it was ok that I paid him more, Arjun thankfully said what I have often heard my mom say “if you feel the need to give it, then never hesitate”.

This sight is tragically common here, even in a modern city like Hyderabad. For construction work businesses use migrants workers, people who have come from their villages to find work, to construct buildings and bridges. They do what machines normally do in the western worlds. For example they transport large rocks by carrying them, or gravel or rubble on baskets over their heads. They do all this work, while also being bare foot. It’s already difficult to see very weak looking men do this work, but it’s not only them. Elderly men and women participate in the work, along with women and children. A few days back I passed by a bridge or a “fly over” in an auto on my way to a meeting and was watching these laborers sitting bellow the bridge. I got lost in the sight of a mom with torn clothes and dust all over her face feeding her child the small amount of rice she had. They were sitting in the rubble under the “fly over” to have shade from the sun.

Everyday, in every location there are strong visuals of the poverty that exists in India. I even can’t even begin to describe to you the poverty I see in the slums. Yet the days go by and people go on with their lives. Though I cannot help these people individually there are ways to help them as a large whole, which I am trying to do. However there are so many people here that have become numb to these situations. It’s tragically dominant existence in normal everyday life for locals to be constantly empathetic towards it. Though I feel that these visions should not take over someone’s life and that we should live in constant depression, again a lack of awareness still exists, meaning there are fewer opportunities to change these lifestyles in the future.

The margin between high class and low class is so incredibly large. I constantly run into families that have barely a dollar to their name, who work difficult jobs day in and day out, while there are people who have so much that they do not know what to do with their money. A significant part of higher class society here are not even aware of the situations and lifestyles that are occurring right around the corner from them. Many people I meet here are captivated by the fact that I came to India to do social work, yet they are more interested in the fact that I am from California than they are in the type of work I actually do.

Varanasi

Varanasi is considered one of the must see places of India. It is located in the north in Uttar Pradesh, which is considered practically the Hindu capital. Varanasi has a river, “ganga”, which has kilometers of “ghats” (those steps leading down to the water) built along side of it. The “ganga” is considered to be very holy and people believe the waters have healing powers. Thus many of those “ghats” have themes that utilize the holy water. The city usually is bombarded with pilgrims from all over India who come to cleanse in the holy water. There are “ghats” that are focused around “poojas” a type of prayer, there are bathing “ghats” where people come every morning and bathe themselves and wash their clothes and finally there is also the cremation “ghat”.

In Hindu religion people are cremated once they have passed away. When visiting Varanasi you can literally watch from overhead, first the line of bodies waiting to be cremated, people being wrapped up in special materials, covered in wood, burned, and then their ashes being spread into the water. I know many people who have visited Varanasi and felt the actual process was disturbing. However I did not find the process disturbing but more what could be considered discrimination, in who is allowed to be cremated in this holy place, depending on your opinion of course.

Many religious people from around the country would value having their cremation done on the “ghats” in Varanasi right above the ganga. However there are certain types of people that are not allowed to be cremated. This includes from what I gathered in my bad Hindi: Sadus (wondering pilgrims devout to the religion who have renounced normal life attempting to find a higher connection to the religion), Dalits (the untouchable caste), pregnant woman, leprosy patients, poor people, people with small pox, etc. They are not allowed to be cremated; instead their bodies are tied to rocks and thrown into the river. In addition, the more you can pay the better type of wood you get. If the family has less money, the person’s cremation happens with cheaper quality wood. If the family is well off, the body will be burned with expensive wood, the highest being sandalwood. It seems very similar to how people’s coffins are chosen.

I am not trying to insult any sort or religious rituals, I just find it interesting and became more aware in Varanasi that your social and financial status can even follow you to your death, as in many other religions.

Katie and I also noticed that even though the family members were there at the cremation, there was very little, obvious grieving. I am sure there was internal grieving that we wouldn’t be able to recognize, however we are more accustomed to people mourning openly, obviously. At the cremation “ghats” where there were plenty of families holding the last rights for their deceased family members, yet there was not this overpowering sense of sadness, but more of a, people are doing their work and getting on their way feeling. It makes you speculate, in a country when there is so much death because of poverty, general diseases and because the population is so large, does death become less painful, more accepted? Or is it that people just grieve in a different way, more of a cultural sort form of expression?

The second picture is men carrying wood for the cremation. You can see in the back all the piles of wood.

For all the pictures of Varanasi:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2228967&l=2a2b5&id=6011342

Goat

Today…I was chased by a goat down the street...

Holi!

Holi

The celebration of Holi is always something I have dreamed about, after watching old Hindi movies where the village all plays Holi and sings a song together. For those of you who don’t know Holi is an Indian festival that celebrates the triumph over evil and is the carnival of colors. On one specific day, besides the other traditions, people will throw a variation of colored powder at each other in celebration. To make it extremely dirty, they start to add water to the color and establish a real color festival right on one’s clothes.

I got the opportunity to celebrate Holi with my wonderful friends here in Hyderabad. Vikram went through a lot of hassle to set up Holi for all of us. Our day began with my friend Arjun invading my doorstep covered in colors. I became incredibly rude and made him sit outside as to not stain my house. My neighbor Mona called me over under house issues pretence and surprised me with color on my face. We continued to meet up with the rest of our friends and head to the first party. On the way, sitting on my friend’s motorcycle, I could see the city covered in colors. Adults on the street walked around with stained clothes, the roads were filled with colored water, and kids were holding water bottles with colored water ready to squirt any passer. The auto rickshaws were even covered with an array of colors. As we arrived at the first party I was immediately drenched in colors, then a bucket of colored water. No point in trying to slowly progress into the games I guess. After an hour or two of attacking each other with colors and water we progressed onto the next party, where the same continued. After which a group of 20 people continues to relax, play games and talk.

Finally later on in the evening we came home to the start of Hyderabad rain. As we go down my gullie (small street) we see vendors selling colors and decide to buy a pack and continue to attack each other, in the rain on my roof. We do not have buckets of water but the rain seems to be helping us. By the end of this fight my teeth were officially colored green and pink since everyone decided it was necessary to attack my face. After the fact I had to take a 45 minute shower to look even semi decent. My friend Shilpa and I went to dinner and everyone in the restaurant had post shower stains on their hands and faces. Fun times man!

Rest of the pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2221578&l=ab118&id=6011342