The Play

The Play

“Meri Kahani: My Story” is a play written by my wonderful cousin Mehreen, and her friend Umbreen. As their master’s thesis, they interviewed many South Asian immigrants in Toronto who were victims of domestic violence and complied all their stories into a play. Meri Kahani has gotten an intense amount of recognition in Toronto and has now been put on at least 22 times.

I respect what Mehreen and Umbreen did as it brings out a social issue through a different and unique outlet. I highly believe in using art to increase awareness and was in awe of their efforts. In my time in Hyderabad I was introduced to a woman named Mala, a friend of my cousin Winsome, who easily started to treat me like family. I found out she used to act in Hyderabad, than one thing led to another and we are started to initiate the play in Hyderabad. I really wanted to be able to bring out these social issues in a unique way and thought the themes and stories that were focused on in Meri Kahani were exact issues that occur everyday in India, however are never spoken about.

Seven months later after lots of planning on the side, outside of work, Meri Kahani was finally brought to India. We put on two shows, one on May 9th and one on May 10th. The first showing had many attendees from very prestigious backgrounds and are people that make very big decisions in Hyderabad. This excited me because these are people that get things done here and their awareness could even change laws. The rest of the attendees for the first and the second show included many people of different backgrounds. We were very unsure of how the audience would react, as the content of the play deals with issues that are readily present in the lives of these people; however are never spoken of. Though our fears were valid, the community reacted in the exact opposite way. The cast and crew were applauded on their performances (I had the privilege of acting as one of the lead monologues in the show, it was 25 minutes long!! How I memorized all that, I have no idea!) and many people thanked us for bringing such discussions alive. After the play, though the audience was shocked by the content and interesting conversations were arising left and right. Many people still had tears in their eyes from being able to relate to a character, others were shocked that they had not realized this was a reality. Meri Kahahi was covered in all the news papers and yours truly’s photograph was displayed many times in the paper. We also have a local magazine covering the event.

In the next few months the play plans to travel all over India and to other communities in Hyderabad. Though I will not be able to be a part of it, I am proud to have been one of the people who started this play in India. I am so thankful to Mehreen for giving us the rights to use the play. I cannot describe to her or anyone else how much of an impact this play had on the community and I am so glad I had the opportunity to make a difference in such a unique way during my stay in India, and also use my passion of theater and acting.

Finally I wanted to state how lucky I am to have so many people support me. Everyone of my friends attended the play and as I did my monologue, I could see all their faces in the audiences, listening attentively and being supportive. Sumit, Kendra and Vaani even came from Bangalore and Pune to come watch the show and their support and excitement really kept me going. Our cast and crew also happen to be an amazing group of people. We really lucked out in the people we just happened to run into and now these people have become close friends of mine.

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

Who I met today

Who I met today

Today I met a woman poet born and raised in Hyderabad. Though she was satisfied writing poetry, in the back of her mind she was aware of harsh injustices that exist towards females in India. With that she decided to create her own NGO which focused on domestic violence, and continue to write poetry.

Today I met a Muslim woman who was forced into marriage at the young age of sixteen. Her future fiancé was not an educated man, however those who arranged her marriage knew she was intelligent and still studying so assumed that she could take care of the family. After marriage the woman continued with her education and later became a teacher. As time passed, though the woman was individually supporting her husband and the child in her womb, the husband became resentful towards his wife’s intelligence and felt she was too smart for her own good. In a rage of fury he attacked her and literally cut off her whole nose. Bleeding profusely, this woman was rushed to the emergency room by alarmed neighbors as her husband proceeded on to the police station holding his wife’s nose, announcing his crime. The police did not take any action and the husband ran away, never to return. Now this woman is left, struggling to raise her child. Her face his terribly scarred, and even after plastic surgery she scarcely has a nose. Her face obviously displays a huge open gap and plenty of dark scares. Though her face is an obvious reminder of the results domestic violence, her parents (who she now lives with) are still upset with her for being without a husband and for doing outreach work against domestic violence.

Today I met another young Muslim girl who is now fourteen years of age. When she was thirteen she was kidnapped from her home and held captive for seven months by a man from a nearby village. There, beyond forcing her to fulfill the duties of domestic help, he brutally raped her every single day. As if the physical violation she endured wasn’t enough, she was forced, every evening, to sit outside of the house absolutely naked so everyone in the village could see her. When she inevitably became pregnant the kidnapper discarded her like a piece of trash back in front of her home. He has since done the same with another young girl and was later murdered by the other girl’s family members. This girl now lives at a home where her parents are humiliated by her. She deals with a constant flow verbal abuse of how she has shamed her family’s name by becoming pregnant without being married. She stays at the domestic violence center all day and returns home early evening, only when it is unsafe for her to be out, to avoid constant verbal abuse from her parents.

Another woman I met today is from the Dalit (untouchable) caste. In Hyderabad, because of such a strong Muslim community, her family has also taken up the Purda system (face covering) as many other Dalit families have done. She was never allowed outside of her house, with or without a male, and was not allowed to study. She was married off promptly at the age of sixteen and also experienced some domestic violence at home, the details of which she was too shy to share with me. She has now started working at the center at the age of eighteen and has for the first time in her life seen “Charminar”, a well known monument in Hyderabad. This monument was just by her house her entire life, but she had never set eyes on it because of the lack of freedom she had.

Another Muslim girl I met today has been privileged enough to be allowed to educate herself up to tenth standard, versus most Muslim women in impoverished areas who are expected to support the family, but aren’t allowed to be educated or leave the houses. She herself has chosen to take up social work and has started working at this domestic violence center which does fantastic work with oppressed women. Every single day upon her return home she gets attacked by her parents who do not approve of her doing this work, yet everyday she deals with it and continues on with her noble work. The likelihood of her family disowning her or getting her married to discontinue her work is very high.

Finally two of these women, who are outreach workers at the domestic violence shelter, where I was introduced to all these women, did a phenomenal undercover investigation story. Astonishingly in Hyderabad there is a marriage market. “Brokers” go out and round up parents who are poor enough to take money to sell their daughters. Then when mostly Middle East foreigners come to town they would attend the woman market where they can observe the “merchandise”. Normally these women are covered in barqa, but at the market they were forced to dress up similar to prostitutes (eg an excess of makeup and flowers in their hair). The women (or children in my opinion) are asked to display their walk or show some skin so these men can make an “informed decision”. If the men are interested, the woman is immediately married to him for literally ten to fifteen days. In that short marriage the man sleeps with his new bride and then promptly divorces her and returns home. Since she is already “soiled” she must continue this line of work. Basically legal prostituting, however the women had no right to deny this line of work. These outreach workers went as if they were the women selected, but uniquely chose to keep their barqa on, which concealed the investigation camera they were carrying under their veil. At one point these women had a terrible fright when one of the foreign men had chosen her as his new temporary wife. They were able to get out safely and submit the material to a local TV station to make a story off of it.

These are the people I met today, some shy, some amazingly talkative, some with an excited look in their eyes. No matter what their demeanor these women are strong human beings. Sometimes I listen to conversations and how we feel we are strong people because of our worldly experiences, our education and our work experience. However these women opened my eyes and really made me see how strength comes in so many forms. These women could have easily just given up at any point in time, but instead they took their horrific experiences and used them to benefit, to help others.

Ohh the Colors of Rajasthan

The trip started out with Kendra and I meeting in Bombay. We found each other in a train station that can only be described as havoc. After finding each other we promptly boarded our train and were ready for the 18 hour train ride ahead of us. We were reasonably equipped with junk food, however the aisles keep bringing us vendors selling wonderful chai (Indian tea), un ripe mango with some fried goodies and much more. How could we resist such food?! In the process we met a girl about our age traveling with her whole extended family. During a stop in Gujarat her other family member joined on the train and brought along bags full of Gujarati sweets, those of which she quickly shared with us .

We arrived in Jodhpur, dropped our bags off and ran over to the beautiful fort. This fort is well preserved because it is the only one left in India that is still owned by the Maharaja instead of the government. The listening tour was filled with extraordinary details and from the top of the fort we were able to see the infamous view of Jodhpur’s blue city. Our final leg in Jodhpur was a stroll in old city and then off to the bus leading to Jaiselmer.

Majority of my bus experiences in India have been simple air plane like seats that tilt back and are reasonably comfortable. Within five minutes of stepping on that bus we found out our bus was far from my normal experiences. The bus seats were standard, however the owner decided to use this bus as a transportation not just from Jodhpur to Jaiselmer (a six hour ride), but to all the cities in between as well. After the seats were filled the aisles were packed in with villagers. There was no sitting room for them, and hardly any standing room. Next to us a young girl was taking care of her younger sister, trying to avoid being trampled. The older sister, though protecting her sister, seemed very ill and had a high temperature. As the long ride continues and the girl continued to get trampled we practically adopted this girl sharing our two seats between the three of us, buying her water, holding her hair back while she vomited, fed her fruit we had, and Kendra gave her new duppata to wrap herself in after she vomited in her shawl. Finally her father got a seat at took her back, though she often spoke to us from her seat. At point Kendra and I pulled out our GHETO food. Normally, everywhere we go everyone is well supplied with a full “tiffin” of lunch, so we thought we were being smart and prepared this time by bringing food. Little did we know how difficult it is to eat dal and rice on a paper plate that is as strong as a napkin.

We finally arrive in Jaiselmer, go to our hotel and sleep. At six in the morning we left in a jeep to the middle of the desert to begin our camel trek. For three days and two nights we were discovering the Thar Desert on our camels. My camel, Coco, was the baby and appropriately decorated with a necklace, of course my camel would have cute accessories. We started the trek early in the mornings after drinking chai, and eating boiled eggs, toast and porriage that our camel riders (tour guides gave us). We roamed the desert, stopping at random villages and meeting the people until afternoon, where we found wonderful shade, relaxed and ate lunch. After lunch and a luxurious nap we continued on our camel ride until close to sun set. Then camp was set below some large sand dunes. The camel riders would cook dinner while we relaxed. At night Kendra and I stayed away from the foreigners and spoke to our camel riders for hours on end, singing old Hindi songs, learning of each other’s lives and making jokes. During the three days we were all together the camel riders noticed Kendra and I doing yoga and were eager to learn. We taught four of them how to do yoga and I must say, though we were unsuccessful in teaching them anything, it was comical to watch!

Sad to leave our desert, Kendra and I headed back to the city to enjoy two days of the desert festival going on. There we saw camel races, dance shows and musical performances, all stemming from traditional Rajasthani culture. Interestingly enough Kendra and I, who both work in on HIV/AIDS in India ran into HIV/AIDS booth. Went to speak to them and found out that the camel riders actually prostitute themselves to lonely foreigners that come for long treks. We spoke to one of the outreacher workers who is also a camel rider and prostitutes himself. He was very helpful and unembarrassed in answering our questions on how the offer themselves, as well as how they spread the news about protection. Having spent so much time discussing the subject Kendra and I missed our ride back to the city. The camel rider took us to his restaurant and gave us free chai and gave us a free camel ride to the festivities until we were able to find a ride back to the city.

Finally after a very eventful day we left Jaiselmer on another overnight train to Jodhpur and then a bus from Jodhpur to Udaipur. In Udaipur we were greeted by another AIF fellow who let us stay at his house along with a friend of a friend of Kendra’s who happened to be the AIF fellow’s roommate. Indian constantly proves how vast, yet how small this country can be. In Udaipur we enjoyed wonderful parties with the boys and their friends and beautiful sunset views in this enchanting city full of lakes. At night we met up with the boy’s friend who happens to be an auto driver. This auto driver let me drive the rickshaw down the streets of Udaipur’s old city. Though I seem to have mastered the auto rickshaw I was a little less successful with a two wheeler scooter. Initially I was doing well, until my nerves attacked that is and I rammed us into a pole. Thankfully we just got a couple of bruises. Overall my Rajasthan trip was extraordinary and I already miss it.


Pictures from my trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2212989&l=b4b4b&id=6011342