Telling It Like It Is
Most days, I can soften the way India confronts me. I can find touchstones throughout my day that steady me and bring me balance. I can stop to watch the rush of water men pump into their buckets. I can wave to the young girl who smiles at me every day from the chai stand in front of Hamen-babu's shop. I can take pleasure in the sounds of the singing bowl I strike to start my writing, and the way those sounds make new sounds when they meet the noises rising off the street and up to my window. I can trade curries and dal with the woman next door, share wedding fotos with the women at the tailor shop who are very happy to know that I am a respectable married woman. I can make the men at Krishna Sweets laugh by mispronouncing the word for fourteen in such a way that it means something VERY obscene and blushing like mad (damn that Irish blood!). I can take satisfaction in the bounty of banana blossoms and tomatoes and peppers and ginger and garlic and guavas and bananas, and in the bounty of all of the people coming together around that decadence.
But there are other days. Days when I'm too tired and frustrated to contextualize and relativize and culturalize. When I don't want to soften confrontations--I want to take them by the throat and shake them into submission. I want to slap the men staring at me and muttering to each other as I pass by. I don't want anyone to touch me, even if it's by accident. I want the swarm of ants to get the hell out of my kitchen. I don't want to hear how flexible I need to be, how respectful I need to be, how patient and demure I need to be.
But in a country of over a billion people, in a city of at least 16 million and countless numbers of other noise-making beings and machines, I can't stop the dog who repeats the same shrill shrieks for hours or the Tata bus that just barely misses running me over. I can't clean the air and empty the sidewalks and disappear the trash and the urine covered walls.
So, I can make a choice. I can seeth about my hacking cough, my black nostrils, those DAMN ANTS. Or, I can laugh at the way I have to walk in the street instead of on the sidwalk--which is overrun by people selling, selling, selling and buying, buying, buying. I can let Mala cover me with purple and gold and hug me around the waist as she shows me off to our neighbors. We can play futbol in the street with a very enthusiastic young Indian man while it rains. I can proudly construct a semblance of a sentence in Bengali and receive huge grins in return. I can wander through St. Paul's Cathedral with a friend and meet four young Indian women who smile brilliantly while the most confident one tells us: "You are so beautiful, that if I were a boy, I'd run away with you." (They even complimented my shaved head:-) I can find some words which make so much sense here:
"I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and there also thou abidest...When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many." --Rabindranath Tagore
"Here Amen/must be said/this crowning of words/which moves into hiding/and/peace"
--Nelly Sachs (trs. Ruth and Matthew Mead)
Paz y Amor,
J&J
But there are other days. Days when I'm too tired and frustrated to contextualize and relativize and culturalize. When I don't want to soften confrontations--I want to take them by the throat and shake them into submission. I want to slap the men staring at me and muttering to each other as I pass by. I don't want anyone to touch me, even if it's by accident. I want the swarm of ants to get the hell out of my kitchen. I don't want to hear how flexible I need to be, how respectful I need to be, how patient and demure I need to be.
But in a country of over a billion people, in a city of at least 16 million and countless numbers of other noise-making beings and machines, I can't stop the dog who repeats the same shrill shrieks for hours or the Tata bus that just barely misses running me over. I can't clean the air and empty the sidewalks and disappear the trash and the urine covered walls.
So, I can make a choice. I can seeth about my hacking cough, my black nostrils, those DAMN ANTS. Or, I can laugh at the way I have to walk in the street instead of on the sidwalk--which is overrun by people selling, selling, selling and buying, buying, buying. I can let Mala cover me with purple and gold and hug me around the waist as she shows me off to our neighbors. We can play futbol in the street with a very enthusiastic young Indian man while it rains. I can proudly construct a semblance of a sentence in Bengali and receive huge grins in return. I can wander through St. Paul's Cathedral with a friend and meet four young Indian women who smile brilliantly while the most confident one tells us: "You are so beautiful, that if I were a boy, I'd run away with you." (They even complimented my shaved head:-) I can find some words which make so much sense here:
"I am uneasy at heart when I have to leave my accustomed shelter; I forget that there abides the old in the new, and there also thou abidest...When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, grant my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of the one in the play of the many." --Rabindranath Tagore
"Here Amen/must be said/this crowning of words/which moves into hiding/and/peace"
--Nelly Sachs (trs. Ruth and Matthew Mead)
Paz y Amor,
J&J
posted by Jessica Pierce at 1:29 AM
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