A guide in Kerala tells me that four factors account for the high rate of violence against women in his state: God, alcoholism, the lottery and the nuclear family. It’s easy to fill in the blanks on three: after one day in Kerala I know that when I see twenty or more men gathered on a sidewalk, they are inevitably in front of a liquor store or a gaming shop. I am astonished at their visibility; alcohol and gaming must be more socially acceptable here than in any other state I’ve visited. The guide doesn’t have to tell me that both correlate highly with violence against women. And the third factor, the nuclear family, generates hidden violence inside those four walls everywhere in the world, be they brick, straw, wood, tarp or concrete. But what about God’s role? I neglect to ask, and get my answer when I least expect it . . .
I meet with Santosh Voz, executive director of the Janodaya Public Trust, an NGO she launched in 1987. India’s Elizabeth Fry, Santosh is famous for her outstanding work in the complex arena of women and justice – even more complex in patriarchal, male-dominant India. Janodaya offers a Women’s Helpline; a short-term Women’s Shelter for women experiencing dowry harassment; a long-term Women’s Hostel for battered women and their children; training programs in herbal beauty, city taxi driving, tailoring and child care for women who must leave their marriages; an on-call legal aid lawyer; a needle exchange; a HIV/AIDS intervention program; the only counseling program in the State for women in prison, and a residential school for these prisoners’ children. Oh yes, and a social worker on a motorbike who does rural outreach to fifty villages, five days a week. All services are free and government money only augments continuous fundraising.
Santosh is a supercharged dynamo, unequivocal and decisive with her staff, credible and convincing in her rapid-fire speech, totally focused on the work. I listen closely, ask few questions, write quickly. She wants to take another crack at a radical new program – would I like to hear? You bet. And so I learn about God’s role.
Santosh tells me about girl children who are forced into prostitution immediately following their first menses. These babies belong to a specific Hindu sect, the Devidasis, whose members live together in closed communities. There are no fathers in these communities, only lone-parent mothers. Most of the women support themselves and their families through the sex trade. In the course of their work they may give birth to eight or more children. Unlike many other mothers in India, they are not plagued by worry about finding a husband, amassing dowry or covering wedding expenses for their daughters. These girl children will be dedicated to the temple.
A daughter’s entry into puberty is a huge public affair; the entire village turns out to celebrate her first menses. How horrible that must that be for a young girl. The girl-child, dressed in wedding finery, is taken to the temple for her ‘marriage’ celebration, complete with flower garland and wedding ceremony. But instead of a husband, she gains a priest; instead of the black beads that would be tied around her neck by her husband, silver tinkles are tied around her ankles by temple workers. And so she is ‘married’. Dedicated to the temple.
News of her impending ‘marriage’ travels, and men external to the community come from all over the area to watch the celebrations, and later bid for her virginity. She is sold for sex to the highest bidder. The money goes to her mother, who makes a temple donation. During the time the girl-child is still ‘fresh’ other men come to pay and use her; more money for the mother, more temple donations. When she is no longer an almost-virginal child, other men come – businessmen from Hyderabad, from Mumbai, from the large cities of India; she is purchased once more and leaves her home forever. To a life of forced prostitution.
Aghast, I blurt out, ‘Why do the mothers allow this practice?’ Because it is sanctioned and sanctified by temple priests. It is culturally and religiously ingrained in a small portion of the Hindu population.
How, I wonder, can the wives sit mute at home while their husbands engage in such brutality and exploitation of girl children? There are various reasons, all equally awful. First, only the very rich can participate in the purchase of these girl children. Such evidence of wealth actually raises the status of the man and his family within their caste. And speaking of status, a man must be an especially virile husband if one sexual partner is not enough, yes? Second, the men are not marrying these children, so there is no fear of those nasty court proceedings brought on by a love match, no spectre of near-poverty post divorce. And as far as a mother’s fear goes, it’s not their girl-children being used so cruelly, now is it?
Santosh moves on to tell me her plan: She will approach mothers in the Devidasis communities close to Bangalore, discuss education for their girl children, and offer high-quality schooling. She will obtain permission to bring 5 girl-children, 8 years and above, out of each of the10 closed communities. Teachers will educate all 50 girl children in a Bangalore residential school, and eventually send informed young women back to live with their families. Empowered through the regular curriculum and a critical analysis of the practice of temple dedication, these young women will become catalysts for change in the community. As well, the children will act as agents of transformation for their mothers each time they go home for visits. Santosh tells me this transformational change happens all the time when prisoners’ kids are taken to the jails to visit their mothers.
At the same time community workers already established in these villages, assisting with self-help groups, micro economic financing, health care education and various employment training programs, will gradually begin to sensitize the community to the evils of temple dedication.
And, in the end, parents will refuse to dedicate their girl children. They will refuse to perpetuate the existing social norms. Other parents in other communities will hear and begin to question the practice. Eventually temple dedication will be a historical fact, not a current evil.
What will be the roadblocks, I wonder? Santosh tells me about her first attempt to end the dedication of girl children. She decided to work directly in several adjacent villages. First, she went to the police, requested a Police Outpost. Nonsense, they replied, why should the police provide an Outpost just for Janodaya? She persevered, and without police protection she and other Janodaya workers went into the villages, directly contesting temple dedications. Their lives were threatened; they were told to vanish or risk kidnapping, physical attacks, death by shooting. Santosh went back to the police - they refused to act. This happens in all too many cases: child prostitution, dowry harassment, other forms of violence against women, suspicious deaths – homicide disguised as suicide. Feminism has yet to make a stand in India’s police precincts. Naturally Santosh withdrew the workers, but she didn’t stop planning, and now she is ready to intervene again. I am so incredibly impressed with this woman.
As I walk away from the office, I wonder if any of my Canadian friends would want to help with this innovative social justice project? Santosh told me she has no specific money to move her plan forward, but knows she will manage one way or another. I realize I’m stunned by the enormity of the problem, the intransigence of the police, the risks involved for staff. Maybe I’m just overwhelmed, thinking with my heart. Or maybe not. In any event . . .
If you want to support a brand new intervention in India; if you want help in the eventual end of a centuries-old practice; if you want to direct some money to a process that will create a safe space for some girl-children headed for temple dedication, this is Janodaya’s email address: janodaya@bgl.vsnl.net.in
I didn’t tell Santosh that I might make this website pitch. I didn’t tell her, of course, because I don’t want to raise any expectations, nor do I want to put my friends on the spot. And since you would email her directly, I’ll never know if you decided to help. Or decided you couldn’t right now. But if you do email her for information on how to transfer money to the Janodaya Trust a/c in India, Santosh will want some context, so maybe mention this story.
Just know that a bit of money goes on forever over here. For example, Rs. 2800 dresses two little girls in school uniforms with one full change of clothes, buys all their books, and sends them to the government school for one year. Rs. 2800 is $70 Canadian when the rupee is low; $80 when it is high.
That’s it. I promise I’ll never pitch you again; this one hit me hard.
In the end Sonia graciously, gracefully declines, but not before the President invites her to don the mantle of India’s Prime Minister. You can’t renounce what you don’t have, now can you? She resigns with tact, and dignity, and clarity of purpose. She speaks only of her ‘inner voice’, makes no allusion to the vicious opposition forces arrayed against her. She does not renounce power, just the power that rests in the PM’s position. Instead she remains Party Chief of the Congress Party, becomes Chairperson of the party’s parliamentary wing, and, with a lightening quick change to the Congress’ constitution, she becomes Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha. This one carries the power to nominate the Prime Minister. In the days to come, she will take on leadership of the governing coalition, the United Progressive Alliance. Down the road she will achieve the status of a cabinet minister as Chairperson of the National Advisory Council.
On the day the ballots are counted I stay home, glued to the Hindi TV news. I read the numbers, catch the odd English word. It’s been quite a four-phase process, with about 165 million people eligible to vote in each of the four rounds; a total of 660 million eligible voters. Average turnout seems to be about 55%. In poorer states like Bihar people boycot the polls, and turnout is as low as 24%. Early results show surprising strength for the Congress, and unexpected losses for the BJP, the right-wing party that governed India for the past eight years. Voter dissatisfaction in the rural areas is immediately evident. The urban economic focus of the BJP appears to be their undoing. Pundits postulate about the anti-incumbency factor. I grin.
That night I realise I have only one paper, and hit the streets in search of other editorial opinions. There are no papers to be had, but a young man hearing my request takes me to his house. I wait outside as he runs in, emerging with a freshly creased Times of India, the paper of the right. I suggest his dad might want to read it; he assures me dad is away. He eagerly shows me a message on his cellphone. It decrys the Congress win and ends, “Now we will be ruled by another foreigner”. It takes me a minute to put it together: the message refers to the Raj. I ask this young man to tell me more about the fears regarding a Congress win. He replies, “They like the Muslims”. No kidding, those are his very words. Taking in the caste mark on his forehead, I suggest there is not much for Hindus to worry about. After all, I remind him, Hindus make up 75% of India’s population, while Muslims account for only 12%. His eyes register that this is new information, probably untrue. Our brief conversation is over. I walk home reflecting on the immense power of Hindutva. Militant Hinduism. “Cultural nationalism”, as it was softly peddled by the BJP in the dying days of the election.
Top of the news the next morning is the suicide of a 26-year-old man, whose note repeats that inaccurate cellphone message, “Now we will be ruled by another foreigner”. The voices of the right, in the home where I live, point to this news item as living proof of the Congress horror. I share my impressions on reading the cellphone message last night. I cannot speculate on why the young man choose to kill himself, but Sonia seems too convenient.
The post-results day brings new excitement. The BJP is out in force, flogging the foreign origin issue. Uma Bharati, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, [synonomous with the Premier of a Canadian province], hands in her resignation and energetically plans to lead a nation-wide “agitation” against Italian-born Sonia, whose impending role as PM is “an insult to the country and a threat to national security”. A senior BJP leader, Sushma Swaraj, threatens to tonsure her head, sleep on the ground, eat only roasted grams [lentils] and wear white sarees. This last refers the traditional Hindu practice of sati, where a widow would don a white saree before immolating herself on her husband's funeral pyre.
And in the midst of the furor and the frenzy, Sonia declines. With such quiet elegance. Not so her adherents. Congress party women activists stage a demonstration; they don white sarees and lay in the street to in front of Sonia’s home. Rowdy young party workers protest at her home and her office. The police are out in force. Elected MP’s threaten to commit suicide. Yup. So do a few young men. The BJP calls her ‘fickle-minded’ for not taking the PM post. I laugh out loud. The National TV station runs three full hours, live, of Congress MP’s responding to Sonia’s decision, some weeping, all pleading with her to reconsider. You gotta love Indian politics, and I do.
The smoke settles and Sonia chooses Manmohan Singh, an enormously respected politician, brilliant economist, quiet pragmatist, experienced cabinet minister and highly principled man to be the Prime Minister of India. Great choice. There is not much for the BJP to complain about, so they remain quiet. The papers, reaching for copy, trumpet that a Muslim President just swore in the first-ever Sikh Prime Minister; who was chosen by an Italian immigrant. They mindlessly herald a new era of communal harmony.
This is pure silliness, of course. Communal harmony will move slowly through India with hard work at the community level, honest dialogue, tons of education, and the political will to create change. It will not be the result of a series of coincidences. At the same time, it is true that the spectre of Hindutva, or the militant wing of Hinduism, has lost a little of its power. A review of state-by-state election results shows where pockets of Muslims and Christians joined with secular Hindus to unseat the BJP. Great!
I’m surprised that the Congress party makes only occasional references to the role of communalism in securing their win. I’m a little sad when the first party-name choice for the Congress and allies coalition changes from the Secular Progressive Alliance to the United Progressive Alliance. I thought the ‘Secular’ part would help keep them focused. And honest. They choose instead to focus on the rural-urban split and economic reforms. This shows in the Common Minimum Program [CMP] agreed to by the Congress and its allies.
The CMP identifies three major problems in rural areas: under and unemployment, poor irrigation to cope with the drought, and chronic malnutrition. They talk about the importance of rebuilding the agricultural sector through interest relief on current debts, low cost loans and irrigation. They promise to tackle malnutrition with food-for-work strategies and food security strategies. They say every adult in India will have at least 100 working days each year, at a wage better than the bottom. They promise economic reforms to help small-scale industries, and a stop to the sell-off of public service units like power projects. It sounds like it might be a tax and spend budget, most especially in the area of education. A national program will provide primary and secondary students with noon-day meals, and there’s a promise of steps to reverse the communalism currently present in school curriculums. More children will enter school under the CMP, and there will be an effort to retrieve the school drop-outs.
These are not the only post-election changes. The news changes. One day I hear that 40,000 women in India died last year in maternity-related deaths. It appears that health care for pregnant women is abysmal. In the rural news I read that over the last twenty-four months 3,000 farmers killed themselves in Andhra Pradesh alone. They died burdened by farm debt loads they would never repay, facing another drought, another loan, and another year with political promises of irrigation that never bring water. I hear about current suicides in states affected by the drought - three, or five, or more, reported from one state or another every day. In early June the CM of Andhra Pradesh is at the top of the TV news; he begs farmers to stop committing suicide and seek out relief programs recently put in place.
Back at the ‘Centre’, in Delhi, it’s not just a matter of the Congress assuming power; they only hold 145 seats to the BJP’s 138. Their 217-seat Coalition, the UPA, comprises over a dozen left-linked parties they must work with, and appease, in order to govern. In Parliament, the BJP and allies will hold 185 seats, while a combine of ‘Others’ sit in 136 seats, all of whom are supporting one or the other of the main parties “from the outside”. I hold faint hope for a five-year government, but I hope deeply for at least two years.
Incidentally, of those 538 seats in the Lok Sabha, 44 are held by women. For several years there’s been a Women’s Reservation Bill lurching from session to session, never making it to the front of the house. This Bill would provide a Constitutional guarantee that each party would reserve 33% of its seats for female candidates during an election. In 2004 the Congress fielded 43 women out of a total of 417 candidates, or 10.3%; the BJP ran 30 women out of 363 candidates, for a total of 8.1%. Men see women as missing the ‘winnability’ factor, although when they run, an average of 33% of women candidates win. During the election I met almost a dozen women contesting as Independents; denied a party ticket. And I don’t even speak Kannada!
A friend recently observed that women enter politics through widowhood. Party leaders believe that women who walk in their dead husband’s footsteps will win - the ‘sympathy’ vote. This is yet another glaring problem with the patriarchy in India, whose depths I still have not begun to plumb. But the new government promises to make the Reservation Bill a reality early into their mandate. And I hope they deliver.
Before any laws can be passed, coalition politics must play themselves out. The process of forming the Congress Coalition took nearly a week, and was not without problems. As I watched highly placed men in Coalition parties vie for position, I marvelled at the naked power and ego issues as they played out in the press. And the justice issues. In the end seven members of cabinet, chosen from the various Coalition parties, were awarded minister’s posts although they are currently charge-sheeted. To be charge-sheeted is to have charges pending against one – some for allegations of murder, rape and kidnapping, others for fraud and racketeering, still others for unreported alleged crimes. To be fair, some of the charges date back more than six years, and have yet to come to trial. At the same time, it gives the BJP a huge cat o’ seven tails and they are using it to flay the government. In the news there is much rhetoric about how men in prison cannot vote, but the Constitution allows them to run their election campaigns from well-appointed cell blocks, and sit in Parliament, even cabinet, tho’ they are “tainted” by allegations of serious crimes. I am baffled by this tainted minister’s fiasco. How did it happen? Oh to be a fly on the wall . . .
In days that follow the election the Sensex, monitor of India’s stock exchange, falls through the floor. Actually, it falls way more than merely through the floor. The Times of India runs a graph over their banner on page 1; the bleeding red trail ends well into the text above the fold. Seriously graphic. Economic columnists write dire predictions, drafted in blood I’ll bet. Socialists respond that the Sexsex affects only 6.9 million people in this country of 1 billion souls. I take comfort in the fact that PM Singh is an economist. Interestingly, I also take comfort in the fact I am not. It’s great fun to sit on the sidelines and comment when one knows ‘a little bit about a lot of things, but . . .’
National Geographic characterizes Kerala, the far south-western state of
India
, as God’s Own Country; one of the fifty places on earth you must see before you die. I heed this advice, and head for Kerala the last week of May. The monsoon always comes the first week of June, but it’s early this year. I buy an umbrella after two days of drenching. The rains stop.
As promised, Kerala has a remarkable natural beauty. Lush green plants mantle the earth below tall coconut and spreading mango trees, wide waterways curve off into tiny man-made canals, traditional canoes pole up and down the backwaters as two and three bedroom houseboats drift past in lazy promenade. I buy a ticket for the daylong backwater tour and spend my day on a houseboat with six Indian families. It’s the last week of the school break; everyone here is on holiday from some state or another. In the morning we load onto a houseboat, and flow gently past all that succulent lushness.
There is no privacy on these narrow waterways; we spy the intimate moments of peoples’ lives. Small concrete houses dot the shores, a few with bath stalls constructed on the riverbank. In front of other homes people do their laundry in the river. Women beat the clothes on stones; their babies sit naked by the river’s edge. The kids are fishing with a pole and string. My mind turns to drinking water, and I learn it is piped in from a water source 60 kilometres away.
We dock, and walk through the trees to a tiny market garden that specializes in spices. As we walk, our guide points out so many different trees: rubber, mango, jackfruit, coffee, cotton, neem oil, papaya, tapioca, clove, nutmeg and vellum. And a pineapple bush whose vines yield one fruit every six months. For absolute abundance in nature, this is indeed God’s country.
The trees that catch my attention are the coconut and rubber trees. Coconuts not only provide milk; the white centre offers a quick snack or grated pulp for chutney. I learn the centre may be dried for oil collection. I never thought much about where that coconut oil came from, but now I’m intrigued. The white membrane is pretty small; it will take a lot of dried coconut to fill a bottle. The fibre inside the shell is used for rug and rope making, the empty shell for handicrafts. A tourist demo shows how women used to weave rope from coconut fibre. There’s no longer a local hand-made market; worldwide competition decimated the prices. Now three women, working a solid eight-hour day, would earn Rs. 32. 10 cents.
The rubber tree business still operates. Like maple trees at sugaring-off, each rubber tree is tapped and a half-coconut wired in place under the spout. Five trees yield about 300 grams of raw rubber. Once collected, the rubber is rolled between two drums to flatten it, then rolled again to make a 1-kilogram sheet. These sheets are smoked, and finally sold, for Rs. 50. It takes more than 15 trees to make 1 kilogram of rubber at this small farm.
Back on the water we see men clustered around long, full-bellied black canoes; one in the boat, two or three in the water. The men use straw baskets to collect sand from the bottom of the shallow waterway, then dump it into the boat. The sand is sold for construction, but not before it is unloaded from the boats, washed to remove impurities, hauled to a central collection point and loaded onto lorries. Hard work. men, one boat, eight hours on the water, who knows how long for the rest of the work, yields Rs. 1000. About $30 Canadian.The work is not only hard, it is illegal.The government has outlawed the collection of river sand but the men continue; they must work to live.
Sharing the waterway are smaller canoes; in each one a farmer/fisherman poling home with a boat bottom filled with oysters. For those of you who love oysters, one kilo of shelled oyster meat nets the farmer Rs. 20.
As we drift along the river the guide points out the poisonous mangoa fruit, so named because it looks like a mango. Indeed, it is so poisonous the farmers use it for pesticide. The parents give him brief attention, then return to play with the children. Our guide sits beside me and quietly adds that mangoa is also used for suicides – 2000 every year in Kerala. The majority of the suicides are in the agricultural sector, precipitated by impossible debt loads, minimal returns on products, no industry, no jobs, and a pervasive hopelessness. Given what I’ve learned this morning, I understand the hopelessness.
But I am still shocked at the high number of deaths. Tiny Kerala boasts a population of only 32 million. In Andhra Pradesh, a much larger state, 3000 farmers are reported to have killed themselves over the past two years. The Andhra men were grain farmers, battling the drought, waiting for promised but undelivered irrigation projects, and in the end, labouring under the same crushing debt load as the farmers and fishermen in Kerala. Drinking pesticide is also the suicide method of choice in Andhra.
We return to the dock, tables spring up, and lunch is served. It is a great lunch, replete with platters of smoked fish. For once I don’t have to confess to hating fish, I just say I’m vegetarian. The table is about even, vegetarian and non- vegetarian; I happily eat my three rices with dal [lentils], Indian breads, carrots, cabbage, sweets – and no one even offers me a spoon. Perhaps my finger dexterity is finally such that I’ve ‘made it’ at the lunch table?
After lunch we split into two groups of ten, and with varying degrees of grace we board long canoes. My grace consists of holding hard to the two hands held up to guide me; the canoe rocks noticeably. Two men, fore and aft, pole us through the tiny man-made channels. As I watch their bare feet move skillfully back and forth on the edge of the boat, their weight bent over the poles, I think of Mahatma Gandhi, who refused to use the cycle rickshaws. His rationale: no man should pull another man’s weight. I am vaguely uncomfortable with this portion of the trip.
We turn into a very narrow channel that leads to more houses buried inside the almost-jungle. Under the steaming greenery, I see huge piles of washed sand, women shelling oysters, canoes tied up at docks, the odd motor boat, and a two-foot glimpse of a water snake – the first snake I’ve nearly seen in India. This afternoon we have a different guide. One benefit of travelling alone is the empty seat that often gapes beside the single traveler. Such is the case today, and the guide joins me. He tells me he was a tutor at the government school for seven years, but when it was privatized his job was one of the ones that went. Questions begin to dance in my head, as they always do when I find a vocal English speaker.
Recalling my recent weblog notes I ask about the social situation in Kerala. Yes, he says, there is dowry, there are dowry deaths, and female foeticide is growing. These are evils of the middle class, according to the guide. He looks at me keenly and adds, “Also, safety of women”. This is a first in all my conversations in
India
. I tell him I’ve heard that violence against women is on the rise in Kerala and I wonder why? He attributes the violence to four factors: God, the lottery, alcoholism, the nuclear family. Foolishly, I don’t ask him elaborate on the God factor. I will have to learn about it another day.
He moves on to the major problems arising from globalization, and its logical outcomes, capitalism, consumerism, and the commodification of women. He points out that mechanization created more poor people in
India
, with terrible job losses affecting both the middle class and the working poor. I think of a workshop I attended in Mandya where I heard such negative comments on the Green Revolution.
I ask about communalism; he calls Kerala a state of high communal harmony. I see the teacher as he raises three fingers and describes those factors that account for harmony among the Hindus and the minority Muslims. He counts the points off. First, in 1968 four million people were granted land by the state government, so today there are few landless people in Kerala. He elaborates: this means anyone who starts problems has something to lose – a house, possessions, a lawsuit – so people tend to seek compromise instead of conflict. Second, Kerala has a 100% literacy rate. Education strengthens cultural knowledge and leads to communal acceptance. Finally, Kerala has a communist government. He does not expand on the role of the communists, but I take it to mean the Communist Party of India [CPI], and its splinter sister, the Communist Party [Marxist], are parties for all the people, including the minorities. I’m becoming quite fond of the communists.
The state is fond of them as well. I travel Kerala by government bus, as opposed to the more expensive, point-to-point tourist bus. We stop in every village and hamlet, and I learn to eagerly watch for the CPI cairn. Sometimes it is just a three-foot square concrete block with a raised hammer and sickle, supporting a flag or two. Sometimes it is an actual cairn, four feet high, painted red, perhaps rounded, topped by a metal hammer and sickle, with flags flying above. Squished by a window on the government bus it becomes a game to find the town that forgot to raise the flag, but this doesn’t happen.
My favourite town is Alleppy, where young Shameer approaches me as I leave the bus. “Where are you going?” he demands. “I thought I’d go to the toilet,” I respond with a smile, “is that okay?” In the distant past I held hope for privacy in this matter of toilets. This hope is long gone. Shameer smiles and steps aside, but he’s there when I emerge, still wanting to know where I am going. I tell him I have a hotel booked, he shows me a B and B brochure. It looks good, but I have a place. Could he help me find out how to get there?
Three inquiries later, as the sun begins to set, we learn my hotel is some 20 km. outside of town. I just can’t believe the travel agent booked me into the back of the back of beyond. It’s true, though. Shameer offers to take me there on his bike, and I, tired and lost, agree. As we start out, the skies open and the monsoon pours down. We head for the bus stand and I plug his cell number into my cell phone book. Handy things, cells. Once on the bus, as rain slashes through the open doorways, my fellow riders argue with one another as to the right stop for my well-hidden resort. They finally settle on one and in unison tell me to get down.
Luck is with me, there’s an autorickshaw to take me the last mile or so. I arrive at the appointed resort soaking wet, too alone and really, really cold. Visions of murder dance in my head, and I call the travel agent as soon as I get to my room. He is so sorry, but I am booked for two nights and that is that. I have a lovely hot shower.
The next morning I ascertain I am the only person staying at this attractive, remote resort. Four young men in and around the dining room hold their collective breath, smiling and hoping I will have a request they can fulfill. I resolve to pay for the two nights and check out right after breakfast.I call Shameer to book a room at the B and B. This turns out to be a really good decision.
I get off the return bus to find a grinning Shameer standing beside his bike. It is not raining. He takes me to The Nest; I meet the couple who converted the family home into a three room B and B. I love my room, especially the huge circular mosquito net that hangs over the queen sized bed. In Kerala I’m using my Deet for the first time on my
India
travels. I spray on more and head downstairs. I hire Shameer to toddle me around Alleppy for a day on his bike.
I see the coir factory where coconut fibre is turned into rope and thick mats. We bike slowly through the rest of the industrial centre, then go to the beach where we see lines of houseboats tarped and moored until the season starts again next July.We peruse churches, mosques and temples and walk through the town centre where I see more gold shops in one block than exist in many medium-sized towns.
We have coffee at the Indian Coffee House, a co-operative institution found all over southern
India
. I talk with the patrons and learn that while there’s a lot of poverty and little employment in most of Kerala, Alleppy is the exception. Many men work in the Gulf and send substantial sums home. As well, there is some industry here, and the houseboat/tourist business provides an income for others.
I go to the gold shop that Shameer says just opened, and congratulate the people inside. A man sitting at the counter asks the usual: where am I from and what do I do there? I hedge on the doing part, but finally admit I teach in a university. ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘you must make a lot of money.’ ‘Tons, sir,’ I agree, ‘they bring it to my office in wheelbarrows every month.’ He lifts his eyebrows, I point to my faded salwaar kameez with the tiny tears in the chiffon scarf. ‘Do I look rich?’ ‘No,’ he allows, ‘you look ordinary.’ And I laugh and agree, ‘It’s true, sir, I’m just a tea stall girl.’ And as I say it, I realise it is true. I’ve done some of my best learning not in the gold shops, but in the tea shops of
India
, with ‘ordinary people’ who are always willing to talk with me. I think that’s why I’ve had such a terrific tour.
I like Alleppy so much I stay for another day. In retrospect, I could have skipped the two last stops, and spent the rest of my time here. Thirvandrapuram, capital of Kerala, is a city too large to find the back roads in a single day. And I could certainly skip Kanyakumari, Lands End in Tamil Nadu, where the
Arabian Sea
, the
Indian Ocean
and the
Bay of Bengal
meet. This small, one-street town makes me feel so sad. Tiny shops, many constructed with blue tarps, sell a bewildering array of the same thing – seashells, cheap bangles, plastic beads, ‘gold’ chains, seashell ornaments. Young hawkers on the street sell the same. Outside of the hotels, there is not one mid-size place to eat. I’m still trying to understand why this little town is so impoverished. Thousands of tourists come to Kanyakumari, see the sunrise and sunset, visit the well-organized memorials, stay in the hotels and buy touristy gee-gaws. And yet the poverty is awful. So there goes another myth of mine; tourists are not always the money-makers I like to think we are.
I leave Kanyakumari by mid-morning, on a government bus. The train left at , and this is a holiday, yes? I pay less than $2.50 for my seat and ask hopefully, “Two hours?” The ticket taker shakes his head. “Five hours”. Five hours? Why did I not think to ask before I skipped the early morning train??
We finally pull into Maduri and I hire an autorickshaw to show me the sights for an hour. I see the largest Hindu temple in
India
, with four entrances each topped by a huge temple that soars into the air. The guide points out a fifth, tiny entrance. I see a park with food and fairground rides and families, and decide I will go back after my tour. I see the Museum and, beside it, the Gandhi Memorial. This is the finest historical and pictorial retrospection of the Mahatma’s life, and death, that I have yet to see. I spend half of my auto hour just reading and looking at pictures. A glass case displays the khadi dhoti that Gandhi wore the day he was shot. It is impossible to walk though one of these shrines and not emerge vowing to be a better person. What a legacy this amazing man left to the world.
Four hours after arriving in Maduri I’m back on one more government bus, winding my way to a wedding at Coimbature. It’s going to take another five hours, driving through the dark, and as I scan the rows for a seat I begin to wonder why on earth I accepted the wedding invitation. I find a three-across seat occupied by one young man. Great, he’s sitting by the window. I nab the aisle seat and gingerly stretch out my slightly cold legs.
Just as the bus is powering up an absurdly tiny, incredibly old and snowy haired lady, wearing a nine-yard saree with no blouse underneath, springs onto the bus. I have no time to wonder how she managed that feat, as she is at my elbow, motioning me to move over. I think of five hours in the cold and dark, my long legs wedged over the wheel well. I motion to it, and mime that I am long, where she is short, so she could more easily sit in the middle. She points out the inescapable problem: she’ll be sitting by the Man at the window. Too true. Together we peer at him, as the bus grinds into reverse. I mime that he is young, just a harmless baby, really, and look – he’s already asleep. She acquiesces with good grace, clambers over me, and settles firmly on my hip. No risk of physical contact with the
Man.
The hip sitting continues until she falls asleep on my elbow, then slides away.
I become colder and colder. When I nabbed this seat I neglected to take note of the open door just across from my chosen space. I remind myself I’ve neglected other important considerations on this trip.Petrol fumes billow into my lungs, swept into the bus on the now-frigid air. I will cough for days to clear my chest. Eventually I must get my jacket out of the backpack under my seat. Careful as I am, I cannot avoid waking the little old lady sleeping on me.
She assesses the situation at a glance - me pulling on my coat, the deep coughing, the cold pinched look on my face. So very sweet, she pats her shoulder in warm invitation. And I’d dearly love to cuddle up on that kind shoulder, but its some 10 inches below my head. We share a small laugh, and she scuttles over until the length of her tiny body is pressed against mine. Immediately I feel warmer. We sleep. When I awake we are almost to Coimbature, and my seatmate is engaged in animated conversation with the young man to her right. I smile but keep my eyes closed; wouldn’t want to catch her talking to the
