Toilet Talk

Sulabh is an organization that provides education and training for those who traditionally were the carriers of the night soil, or toilet cleaners, the lowest caste of India. Even now, people are assigned this task and though illegal, are thus deemed 'untouchable'.In addition, they have developed a myriad of designs of toilets that would eliminate the need for people to carry human waste away, and at the same time, generate safe compost.  We visited their organization and wer

Margaret in Old Delhi

Mom and I took an auto-rickshaw down into Old Delhi, into the bowels of the city.  The contrast with life in the tree-lined boulevards of the Diplomatic Enclave where we live is always an onslaught to the senses.  Mom didn't seem  the least perturbed by it all.  I told her to act bored, as if having masses of humanity rub up against you was commonplace, a walk in the park.  The whole scene is aptly described on page four of this article in Travel + Leisure (Oct8)  



We took a bicycle rickshaw through the winding alleys of the silver market, the wedding and sari and brass markets.  Finally we ended up at Karim's, a favorite eating establishment in the shadow of India's largest mosque.  The traditional moghul cuisine is simply served but sublimely flavored - family recipes that go back four hundred years.  

In all the immensity and diversity and chaos of Delhi, Mom still managed to notice the only Catholic cathedral in the place, and so was set on getting to mass.  Mass? I thought this would be the ideal time to practice an ecumenical attitude and try praying at one of a dozen famous mosques, or temples, or ashrams, or shrines. There's a lot of scope for spirituality here, but I could see she had her heart set on the familiar.  So I found out that the Vatican Embassy holds a Sunday service and we entered the serene, renaissance scene of muted pastels and elegant statuary.  The priest must have been buoyed by the full congregation, nearly 50 people, as he spoke on and on about the words everyone was handed on small pieces of paper: "You alone, O Lord, have the words of Eternal life."  In this tiny island of Catholicism, surrounded by a billion Hindus, the words might better have been written: "You are not alone, young lord, for we've been talking eternal life for a few thousand years now." 

But the Christians have had a significant impact here especially for the lowest castes, the dahlits or untouchables.  For Hindus, eternal life must be reached through cycles of reincarnation, and your karma in this life determines how and whether you ever get out of the cycle (and achieve nirvana), and what form your reincarnation takes.  So, if you are an untouchable, that's your karma, a fate you must accept and hence perform the assigned duties as best you can (such as cleaning toilets and skinning and tanning hides, traditionally the stuff no one else wants to do).  When Evan heard this his reaction was, 'Quite a scam.' As he inferred, the upper castes have no incentive nor guilt to loosen the social strata to allow better opportunities for dahlits.  The Christians, on the other hand, offer a faster track to eternal life through acts of compassion and charity to all, equally. So, dahlits have been the primary beneficiaries of missionary work here, and they are the largest group to convert to Christianity. Their social status immediately improves, and who knows, perhaps their shot at eternal life does too. 

The langur monkey is hired out to scare off members of the local tribe of monkeys that live in the jungle near our house, but who become pests this time of year in their search for food.  Several mornings ago, our housekeeper reproted a monkey had been sitting on our dining table helping himself to Evan's leftover strawberries, gingerly plucking them one at a time, alternating with finger scoops into the butter, impervious to her shooings.  When I was sitting out on our deck enjoying my morning coffee this weekend, she brought me a stick: "You hit monkey when it come."

Mom arrived and on our first walk through the neighborhood we came upon the beginnings of a wedding celebration.  The groom rode astride the white horse under a sequenced umbrella while a 20 piece bank played loud, jovial music, and the well-dressed guests danced Bollywood-style in the streets.   Eventually 1000-rupee notes (~USD 20) were flung into the air, much to the amazement of the street waifs who had gathered on the fringes to gawk (like us).   Lots of foreigners were among the guests.  Apparently it is chic to invite all yoru foreign acquaintances to your wedding, no matter how limitd your connection. 





My yoga teacher Raju invited me and a couple of her other AES students to a party to celebrate Holi, the start of spring and the celebration of new life.  Powdered color, most of it containing toxic metals, is pressed into one's forehead, or if you are being playful, it can be smeared especially on the face, or diluted and sprayed with water guns and thrown in water balloons. Years ago, the streets were said to be in utter mayhem with roving intoxicated gangs 'attacking' anyone in their path with color.  There is a special drink of milk with almonds and spcies containing some derivative of hashish that is commonly ingested on this special occasion, and getting 'high' is appropriate for even the most upstanding. However we weren't invited to by anyone to partake, and had to settle for theparty at the American Embassy.  Out on the baseball field in a contained area were vats of colored

water, no doubt inspected for safety, and on the barbeque, burgers of course. Nobody was getting high.  Even our lime sodas were virgin. We haven't truly lived the Holi experience this time around.  However when Mom and I went on a morning walk in my favorite Delhi garden, Lodi Garden, families were picnicking and enjoying water fights, and mischievous boys topped and asked us for a photo, and proceeded to smear our faces in color, doubtless toxic. So we know how to live dangerously. 

For more and better images of what Holi is like, go to my colleague Eric Johnson's Smugmug 

We've come to really appreciate our leisure time here in India.  Craig regularly takes in the sun on the top deck and has read at least 15 novels in the past few months. He jogs or cycles four to five mornings a week; he's looking tan and fit.  In fact he recently volunteered to assist with the track team, as he has more free time than he's ever had in his life.  Imagine Craig without his tools, without a mechanical or carpentry or electrical project.  He doesn't even hammar a nail to hang a picture - we have people for that.  I haven't cleaned a dish in 7 months, nor even have done the grocery shopping.  My after work time is utterly my own.  Imagine - leisure time....aaahhhh.

So I take classes, like the cooking class pictured above.  We learned to make paneer, the lovely, dense goat cheese which is a staple here, especially for vegetarians, which most Hindus are.  You see my Korean classmate above, who volunteered to demonstrate tofu-making, a process akin to paneer-making.  There are women from several countries in the class, one of the things I love about being an expat.

Craig and I cycle to work each day, probably less than a five minute ride, but I enjoy the still coolish breeze, the flowering trees, birdsong, and the now familiar homeless cats, dogs, and even monkeys we encounter on the way.  We've had a couple of monkey visits to our apartment recently.  One morning our housekeeper discovered a monkey sitting serenely on the dining room table, dipping it's fingers into the butter and licking them, and picking up Evan's strawberries one by one from the bowl he had just left behind in his haste to make it to school on time (not always successfully, despite our vicinity to school).  One morning last week Craig saw another monkey on the deck, knocking over the furniture in his search for free food - word had gotten out.  We're careful now to lock the doors behind us.  Cute as they are, you don't want an unpleasant encounter with these cunning creatures, or it means hours in hospital getting rabies shots. 

The photo of the guy on horseback, busy on his cellphone, is another one of those sights on the way to school I don't quite know how to interpret.  Perhaps he's on his way to a wedding, or a community celebration of sorts.  There are scenes like this pretty regularly, where I can't draw from my own background knowledge to make meaning of the event.  I do my best, as I've just done, to speculate about what is going on, and will often ask someone about it, but the inexplicable still happens in waves, lap after lap of moments that just wash over me.  There are thousands of years of history on every street corner here.  I'm blissfully aware of my ignorance, astonished at how my new world mindset sees chaos where locals know the oldest order of things actually reigns.