The Brighams Of Baltimore

Cricket.

In a secluded alleyway, an open courtyard, a large field, on a sidewalk, behind a temple, it wasn’t hard to find. Kids rotating their shoulders furiously before disengaging a ball–the action instantaneously followed by a small pop! Against the dirt. A crackling noise shakes the air, followed by nervous shouting and sandals pounding the ground at full tilt. The other team scrambles and screams while the two runners exchange positions once…and then twice, a desperate fielder hurling it indiscriminately towards the wickets, where the throw is proved inaccurate as the ball skitters uselessly to the side. The other team is pensive for a few moments, recognizing the loss, maybe muttering to each other what they could’ve done better, preparing for the next pitch.

The next batter picks up the heavy, unwieldy bat and adopts the standard position.

I am the next batter. Apprehensive, shifting constantly like a fish out of water, I look to Greer, then to the bowler. He runs up, doing all of those shoulder-injury-inducing motions before releasing the ball……almost reluctantly, as if suddenly realizing my identity, the guilt biting him at the last moment. No matter. As if I am paddling through a thick cream, the bat meanders slowly forward while I feel my head lift over my shoulder to watch the ball bounce off into the distance. Failure.

The previous day I’d asked our friend, Dinesh, many questions about the sport, which had resulted in an invitation to play with his son, also my age, along with the rest of the neighborhood. After a long train ride, a clunky auto-rickshaw journey, and a few minutes walk he brought us into his world…

We ate an extraordinary meal, talked and talked about the inner workings of India, until Dinesh’s son told us that it was time for cricket!

Like our previous failures with the Bedouins, we were out of practice….but this time simply because we never had been IN practice.

As the other team realized that competition was non-existent and they clearly held the upper hand, they used the opportunity to try different techniques and rear back their level of play. In the end, Slugger Greer pulled out 20 or so consecutive runs for a ‘victory.’

As with the Bedouins, we once again severed the formalities by pounding the dirt, choking on dust, sprinting, and acting like humans act given a ball, a bat, whatever–this time a new, unfamiliar combination of the afore. At any rate, cricket still qualifies as a pretty universal behavior not really prone to fluctuation over time…and is another ‘combo’ that helps unlock new paradigms all over the world.

-Leland

I didn’t need to leave home to know that in most of the world a person’s life is inordinately hard simply because their sex chromosome was defined XX instead of XY. Our time in India revealed parts of the labyrinth that their women must navigate. With my hideous Western travel garb and my pasty white skin in a sea of colorful sari-clad, dark-skinned beauties, I did not blend and certainly could never truly understand their experience, but that should be a given. I can, however, share a few things I learned from my experiences and conversations, several which gave me pause…

A key issue to understand is that people prefer males for culturally significant reasons.  The parents of girls must provide a dowry, a wedding with all that that entails- food, gifts, clothes and gifts to the groom. Apparently the pressure is increasing to have wildly extravagant affairs, creating financial Armageddon for many in the lower and middle class. People begin saving for these events the day their daughter is born. Additionally, a son traditionally cares for his parents in their old age since the daughter cares for her in-laws. Only a male can perform last rites (lighting the funeral pyre) and only he can carry on the family name. These traditions lead to sex selection before or after birth. (PBS did a nice piece on this conundrum. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/april-5-2013/india-sex-selection/15745/)

One thing I have been curious about is bathroom availability. Last summer a NYT article entitled “A Campaign Against Restroom Injustice” surprised me and made me conscious of women’s restrooms during my time in India. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/world/asia/in-mumbai-a-campaign-against-restroom-injustice.html?pagewanted=all) The first thing I did notice was Indian men peeing everywhere: partially–open latrines, alleys, fields, walls, out in the open facing away from the crowds.  A funny visual was a man outside a 5 latrine bathroom peeing on its wall.

When visiting with the lovely proprietress of a top Jaipur guest house, she remembered to me when the women would get up before sunrise to go out to the fields together to relieve themselves and again together after dark. They were not supposed to be seen so that was the only time they went “to the bathroom” as these women did not have toilets in their homes. Also, when we were in Jaipur’s Old Town, a shiny, new bathroom facility sparkled like an oasis in the desert. Delighted, I took a closer look. The women’s section had two parts; one door, I presume to a Western toilet, was padlocked, and the other side was a regular Eastern in-ground toilet but it was open to the street without a door or curtain, rendering it virtually useless. Later, in Varanasi, our well-educated, seemingly savvy guide replied to my inquiries with, “Biologically, Indian men just need to pee more. Women are used to it [lack of toilets].” A natural body function continues to be a worry, an embarrassment, another problem. I envision a Friends School fundraiser to build a women only restroom facility entitled, ‘We Give a Sh#*’ [about Indian women!]. Just a thought..

Another issue made apparent during our visit was how human sexuality was used as another way to set women apart. Throughout the major cities women are routinely groped on busy subway cars. In fact, the government added women only cars to address this. In Delhi, we were blocks away from the country’s top hospital where the 5 year old, who had been raped and neglected by the police, was fighting for her life (ultimately unsuccessfully). There were crowds protesting this child’s treatment. Caste distinctions and police corruption were central to the horror of this sad story but the media took the opportunity to address the fact that there had been an outbreak of rapes of young girls. They chalked this up in part to the fact that sexual education is not taught in the schools so there was little guidance to healthy, normal relationships. Things were going awry. Greer found out firsthand part of the media’s discussion when he had to use the guesthouse’s office computer to send a youTube video to his Spanish teacher. When he signed on to youTube, 3 subscription sites self-populate; all 3 were porn sites. Not that young men everywhere don’t turn to pornography but the use of computers is spreading and when there is no other source of information, men get a skewed view of heterosexuality. Women are portrayed as objects and victims in violent scenarios. The Bollywood movies and music videos were toned down comparatively but depicted women as the much weaker sex: coy, dependent, and wildly forgiving of their male partner’s shortcomings.

These things were largely what I learned about or saw. The following are things that I experienced uniquely because I am a woman. They come from my journal.

‘After a harrowing bike ride through backstreets of Delhi, we wandered through the ruins of an old Hindu complex. On the second floor were the women’s quarters facing a courtyard. Standing there above a vegetable stand and makeshift temple, I blurred my vision and imagined what it would be like to see thing from a distance, unable to leave the premises or engage with the outside world. I shuddered.’

‘We walked next door to a neighborhood mosque. This one was not used to  Westerners. (I should note here that Indians are mainly Hindu.) I was followed and spoken to by an older man in a language we clearly did not share. This lack of understanding in no way diminished his enthusiasm. I was instructed to stop and stand behind a screened wall where I could watch Harry and the boys enter the inner sanctuary. The design of the latticework created some sort of optical illusion so I stood there cross-eyed. Next to me was a woman covered in black, full Ninja (thanks Maureen Dowd) with netting covering her eyes and black socks and gloves covering her hands. Mind you, it is 110 degrees. I wondered what her days were like. It was such a weird few moments because I could feel a change. I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was but I was unquestionably LESS.’

‘Today at the deserted Gwailor Palace, I decided not to join the rest of the family in exploring the bat-infested basement and sat in the courtyard on a bench. Five men appeared and two sat, one on either side of me. Without addressing me, they began posing and snapping pictures. I averted my face and was clearly uncomfortable. They left without uttering a word to me. I knew it never would have happened had Harry, Greer or Leland been there.’

‘Our final day in Kolkata led us to the Victoria Memorial, a grand building dedicated to the Queen when the British were in charge but now houses a few galleries and is surrounded by lovely grounds. I sat alone waiting outside a gallery.  An Indian boy about 6 years old was being dragged into the museum, trailing behind his father. He caught sight of me from a distance and stared blankly at me as he approached and then as he past me with head turned back. I was making my goofy I-can-make-you-smile face but the boy did not flinch. His mother holding hands with a slightly older boy looked at her poker-faced son then back at me. I thought nothing of it. A minute later, the older boy came up to me leading his little brother. He shook my hand and said, “Hello.” His little brother did the same. I said, “Namaste.” The older boy put his hands in prayer position over his heart and said, “Namaste.” The younger boy did the same. The older boy stepped toward me and touched my foot then his hand to his mouth, a sign of deep respect. Speechless, I gave a little laugh and screamed a belated, “Thank you!” across the room. Leaving the building, I felt slightly elated thinking maybe the women will take control of their power after all. The feeling continued as we came across a young couple lingering in the shade of the gardens, laughing and talking.  The woman was wearing a t-shirt that read ‘I AM ENOUGH!’’

-carter

As I’ve probably taken a few dozen pictures with a camera on the whole trip, here are a few verbal snapshots of India.

* A teenage boy rubs cloth between his hands in the brown river water then flings it over his head onto a rock. Repeat. Every morning when we open our shades in our hotel room, he is there, surrounded by young men swimming and horsing around in the toxic, holy river Ganges.

* A shoeless fishmonger takes a break from his stall at the New Market, Kolkata and gives a few rupees to the curbside dwellers out his backdoor.

* The smell of turmeric and cumin at a spice stand where potential customers run their hands through the wares- bright red, mustard yellow, sacks of different grains..

* A gaudily-painted, kitschy statue of Kali, the powerful woman goddess, in a small shrine in the middle of the busy street, forcing 2 lanes of traffic down to 1 and then back out to 2 again.

* Samosas sizzling in a huge wok at a street-side vendor, are placed into bags made from newspaper. We eat them in small bites- hot and spicy.

* A mangy looking dog lying on the sidewalk rolls over to eat a bag of chicken feet.

* A black haired, mustachioed man about 30 years old sprawled on the ground, between two parked cars, dead.

* Straw covered huts enclosed except for a diamond shaped hole big enough for a kettle. One by one people open their mouths under the spout for a drink of water.

* A drummer in a marching band costume leads a wedding procession. A sweating groom in an incongruously fancy suit walks through a busy street with a head piece streaming a yellow piece of fabric that his bride holds, following behind. She is flanked by two women with their arms around her shoulders.

* A breathtaking entrance to an archaeological park, a field that is a sea of trash, no piece of ground exposed. A pig family wanders through, foraging, snorting.

* Inside a courtyard stands an intricately carved Hindu temple next to a small dwelling covered in cow pies with a cow tied up beside it.

* An elderly, bearded face decorated with orange across the forehead above a body swathed in white cloth is tied to a bamboo poled stretcher and partially immersed in the river Ganges. Although dead, a long line of men “feed” him water from the river to prepare him for his journey. Burning bodies on funeral pyles above him line the banks of the ghat.

* Out of nowhere a screeching, piercing, “Money! Money!” rings in my ear. A gnarled hand with an iron grip clutches my arm. I jump in surprise and turn my head to see a 4 foot tall woman with long gray hair attached to me.

* Whistles and cheers from the cheap seats below at the Bollywood movie after a particularly emotive piece of dialogue.

* Crossing the street full of incessantly honking motorcycles, cars, bikes, auto rickshaws, trucks, random roaming cows, maybe a goat or a dog, I follow my friend into the moving mass, watching our legs in a quick metal and flesh ballet.

* A man with a day’s growth on his face sits on his haunches curbside next to an open toolbox of metal instruments. An orange sari-clad, scarf-covered woman opens her mouth and in goes a small hammer for the 10 rupee, sidewalk dentist.

* On the roof of the ancient temple, which our guide helped us to scale bypassing the chained entrance, dead silence in the city. Looking into the treetops, thousands of white butterflies flit happily between the leaves. Below, an early morning bird lover pours a bag of seed on top of a raised tomb and receives a quick response from a flock of pigeons.

* At a roundabout, arms reach out to us from clear bottles on low tables handing long q-tips of fragrances- rose, sandalwood.. Only scents known for their cooling powers will be sold this time of year..

* At dusk, the courtyard has no artificial light but you can see enough not to trip over the vendors seated on the ground next to their wares. The place is pungent with the smell of white jasmine, bright marigolds, small purple flowers and white circular shaped ones all hand sewn onto strings to form necklaces for sacrifices to the gods. Women examine the offerings and buy collections. The best smelling 3 minutes of my whole time in India..

* At the end of an alley, a gang of young men linger next to their motorcycles until we approach. They shove envelopes into our hands. Drug dealers? We open a few envelopes, each lined with a different color to see that each represents a different gemstone in the internationally renowned jewelry district. Closer to a Wall Street trader..

* From our air-conditioned train cabin of about 50 passengers a lower cost option rolls by containing about 200 people in the same size cabin. Men hang off the side between two cars and little kids sit on the windowsills with legs dangling outside and arms over top the bars. There is no glass to keep the cool air in- as they swelter in the 110 degree heat.

* A bold green colored room with doors open reveals a bare chested craftsman with a cloth around his waist seated hunched over a lighted table. With fine metal tweezers, he picks up gold pieces the size of the head of a pin to complete a pair of earrings.

* A sinewy, small man wearing a worn white tank top and loose cotton pants rows an ancient rowboat. He stops to chat on his cell phone.

On a walking tour of Jaipur our guide said, “India is..how do you Americans say it? ‘On your face!” A few weeks into our Indian travels, we thought his misquote was more appropriate than the intended ‘In your face!” after all.

– Carter