On the first morning in Bangalore, I woke up early and jogged to Ulsoor lake wearing pants and a scarf around my butt. Between me and the lake flowed a river of sewage, although it’s hard to say that it even flowed. Within a minute I heard the sound of chanting being projected from a Hindu temple across the street. I took off my shoes and handed them to an older woman with long, gray braided hair that fell over her turquoise and maroon sari. I mindfully stepped over the bird shit and walked across the courtyard to the largest building from which the ceremony echoed . A couple of men in collar shirts and glasses stood by the entrance, and a Brahmin in a white robe sat and swayed over a small pile of burning sticks, leaves, and incense. Behind him, another priest tossed flowers onto a statue on a platform with every verse that was uttered. I thought, Was I, as a woman, allowed to watch?
Behind me was another small building. I observed how a man instructed his son to walk around it once before continuing across the courtyard. Inside were three small figurines of Ganesh, the god who is supposed to remove obstacles. Looking at the left-most one, I suddenly had this Abraham-esc feeling. I didn't want to smash Ganesh, but I just marveled at its beauty in the context of the entire temple. Ganesh made of stone, covered with yesterday’s flowers, inside a small dark chamber, behind a steel barred door, amidst the chanting, the bare feet, the bird shit, the birds, the honking horns, and the smell of incense in contrast to the smell of the sewage river right across the street. The fact that everything is somehow one and related (is that possible?) made sense to me at that moment not abstractly, but concretely in what I saw. It was similar to those moments you walk down the street with your ipod and everything you see seems in tune with your music. The feeling echoed in me as I walked out, but began to fade as I noticed the changing thoughts, sounds, and sights.
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Just today we visted a government funded public hospital in northern Bangalore. The smell of sanitation powder on the floors of the in-patient wards was nausiating and evidently a superficial layer of safety to cover an ineludible truth. No name tags, no charts, an IV here and there, 7up by the patient's beds to provide hydration. A child with a swollen belly runs out in the hall and waves at us 7 girls wide eyed. The intern who is giving us a tour tells us that just yesterday he had his abdominal cavity drained of fluid from a condition I couldn't understand.
The leprocy clinic has a small flow chart on the wall telling how to diagnose a patient. The doctor tells us that the government hopes to eradicate leprosy, but people on the street have to be dragged in for treatment. In the same small room is a metal closet with boxes full of first-line drugs for TB. If a patient developes MDRTB (Multi-drug resistent TB), the government can no longer fund them. Same goes for HIV patients: there are drugs to prevent mother to child transmission, but no Anti-Retrovirals. In fact, the condom industry here apparently is more like a sex industry. Without education, it functions capitalistically, and sadly seems to assert Bush's ABC perspective.
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Everyone who has told me that there are many Indias has hit the spot. Honking Rickshaws, motorcycles, buses, and cars all swerve around each other in un-laned traffic, and make up only a portion of the stimuli that I am bombarded with as I walk down the street. My feet and legs attract dirt like magnets. I balance my way over uneven cement blocks that lay over the drainage ditches. I see bright saris and dark eyes standing out against a sandy colored, sunlit background. I have learned not to cringe when my nostrils suck in diesel exhaust and dust.
My group can’t get over the head-bobs, the stares, how to avoid feeling morally stripped when ignoring beggars, and the fact that the few other westerns that we have seen actually show their shoulders.
We have become complacent with bucket showers, with accepting that we can’t pronounce names, that our snot is black, and that Rickshaw drivers tend to have no clue where they are going. Our sense of humor doesn’t falter with exhaustion, and is a relief from the unyielding awe that comes from just looking around. We are still finding out about each other as much as we learn in the classroom and on the street. Manasi and Vivian, two of our professors, revealed the inspirations behind their dissertations to us during our Research Methods class, and I felt like they finally let down their guard to become our colleagues as well as teachers. It turns out that Lindsey grew up around the corner from Amber Held, and is good friends with Will Luckman at Galliten (NYU).
Belinda the R.N. and I are staying with Supriya, her husband (through arranged marriage) and her 2 ½ year old daughter Anu. They are young; she likes to shop, he works at a telecom company doing sales, they like to travel and hike on the weekends. Belinda and I are both fans of the cottage cheese, which tastes more like flavorful hard tofu but better. The spices resonate on the tongue and in the back of the mouth after each meal.
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When I first sat down to write, I couldn’t help but recall Polina’s periodical tales from the part of the world, and now I realized I have been sitting here for an hour and a half. It is getting dark, so as I take my Ricksaw home to East Bangalore I will think of how thankful I am to have people I love back home and a place where I can share my thoughts. Thank you for reading.
Please take care or yourself and your environment, for this place is an all too apparent example of what happens when people give in to inevitable struggle, and how much tenacity, acceptance, and will it takes to make it well. We have met people here and in Boston here who have done amazing things and prove that it is not impossible. However, it seems like a change in how we see things is necissary before the world turns in a positive and sustainable direction. Education? I don't know. Comment if you have any tips.
Peace.
After explaning the jist of Ayurvedic philosophy, Dr. Tekur, a practicing alopathic physician said that to care for a patient, a doctor has to say, "Look, I suffer just as much as you do. What can we do to understand each other, and to work together to heal?"