I’m over my head-cold, and back in full force! Whatever that means… I say that mostly because I spent one hour working in the garden this morning, between 9:30 and 10:30, and by the time I was calling it quits I was so tired and thirsty that I had to go and get a bottle of Limca and some mango-cream-filled cookies, which I of course ate all of and thoroughly spoiled my lunch. After my enormous sugar-rush I decided that I had to go and lie down for a while. Unfortunately there was still too much sugar sludge in my veins and I couldn’t fall asleep either, so I spent the best part of two hours writing in my journal (which, for those of you wondering, is where I write down all of my private and nasty thoughts that I can’t publish on here…yes, you Derek). Besides this being sad commentary on both my physical form and my work ethic, I came to some rather interesting conclusions about myself, or at least I hope that I did after two full hours of fracking self-reflection.
Last night I drank my third beer while in India (I would like to note here that I am now averaging one beer per month…not bad if I do say so myself!). We had decided to go out for dinner at a place Derek was curious about, in a hotel down by the lakeshore. We called Mausam to see if he wanted to come and hang out with us, but we hungry soon and decided to go to dinner after about an hour. As we were walking to the hotel/restaurant Mausam asked me why we were going to dinner. An excellent question: why were we going to dinner when there was a perfectly good free dinner waiting for us at Sambhavna if we should so choose. I have, of course, thought of several other good reasons to go for dinner since then, namely: we get the same four meals six nights a week at the clinic; that we have precious few other excuses to ever leave the clinic grounds…etc. At the time however, all I could come up was that we were bored and wanted to get out of the clinic, and this was what we decided to do. When I said it though, it just sounded kind of spoiled and decadent. I felt worse when the restaurant turned out to be fancy-ish (by Indian standards anyway, meaning linens on the table and no florescent lights), but cheap by North American standards (the main courses were about Rs. 120, or $3.00 CND).
I hadn’t really thought much of it before, mostly because I hadn’t been going out to eat very much, but Rs. 120 for most people here is a fair bit of money to throw away on a single dinner, even if it wasn’t for us. I also started to feel uncomfortable about my beautiful beer, which I even split with Ruskin because even I knew that I couldn’t (or rather shouldn’t) finish all 700mL to myself. As we sat there discussing the flavour of the beer and comparing it to British and North American beers respectively, I couldn’t help but see myself through the eyes of the Bhopalis sitting in the restaurant. And then I suddenly realized why Westerners are such celebrities here: we are totally fucking weird. How many places in the world is it considered appropriate for an unmarried woman, who *gasp* LIVED with her boyfriend in the West, to sit at a table with three other unmarried men, drink a beer and compare it to the millions, okay, thousands, of other beers that she had drank in her young life? Parents millions of miles away, and still trusted to be marriageable and respectable the next morning? I’m not saying that I agree with the mentality, I still believe that women have just as much of a right as men to get drunk, sleep with whoever they want etc. It was just the first time that I had ever really thought about how crazy I must look to the average Indian man. No wonder white women have the reputation of floozies here.
However, this did make me think, a lot actually, about the changes I was willing to make in myself for the time that I am here. Considering I have been here for almost three months, this may seem a bit delayed, but I don’t think that it is at all. I think that it takes a long time to figure out exactly what is expected of you for a variety of reasons, and which rules you can ignore, and which ones you can’t. Its certainly taken me quite some time to figure it out anyway. Three months in Bhopal hasn’t changed my attitude about certain things; I don’t really give a rat’s ass what people think if I drink a beer, I still like to wear my Western clothes on occasion (within reason of course -- no mini skirts); and part of me is absolutely desperate to take my nose ring out so that people can see it (I mean not have it flipped inside my nose). I know that that is a weird thing by which to define oneself, but I have good reason, or at least intellectually. Having a hole and a piece of metal through my nose interrupts the viewing pleasure of men staring at me, for one thing. It also contradicts everything else about my short, sweet appearance. I honestly think that in Canada anyway, people give me less shit if they see my nose ring, because without it I am far from intimidating. Besides, it looks cool, right? Hahaha. One of these days I’m going to walk down Berasia Road with my nose ring in plain sight and see if I still suffer the same harassment from all the hooligan men out there… little shits that they are. Humph.
The flipside of all of these thoughts swirling around my head, however, is that there are things about myself that I am flexible on, or even want to change. The main thing that I have noticed so much since I got here was my consumerism. I’ve even noticed this in Canada, in comparison to other people, but I buy a lot of stuff that I don’t actually need. I buy clothes that I never wear, food that I never eat, junk that I never use, and all of this becomes even more glaringly apparent when some of that crap costs more than most people in this neighbourhood make in a month. I won’t say that it makes me feel guilty, because change shouldn’t be motivated by guilt, but it does make me think twice about buying shit I don’t need when I have to walk by dozens of homes who could never afford those things. Even when I bought my Limca today, I was also buying one for Prabjit, and as I walked back to the clinic, I couldn’t help but wonder if a lot of the people in this area have ever even had a Limca before, let alone could buy two at a time.
Anyway, I remember during my pre-departure training from CIDA, the instructor was talking a lot about the re-entry shock that people experience when they come back home, and find that not only have things changed in their absence, but they have changed as well. Until I had my long contemplation today, I had been thinking that very little about me had changed since I left, and that I wouldn’t have any problem fitting right back in when I got home. Now, to put this in perspective, I was also very flippant about the culture shock I would experience when I got here, and simply assumed that it wouldn’t be so bad because I was expecting it… I of course, spent two weeks with my mouth catching flies in shock at every sight, sound and smell here, and could barely venture outside of the clinic without taking a small arsenal of hand sanitizers, Kleenex, water bottles, cameras etc. So, I am beginning to realize that maybe, as I once suspected it might in a glimmer of premonition, I might not be changing India so much as India is changing me... despite my intentions to spread my morally loose Western-woman ways of drinking and sleeping around among the women here (just kidding… sort of). I’ll admit that I have even thought about wearing a burkha so that the men can’t tell I’m white and will stop hassling me… however I later decided that that is another thing that I am not willing to budge on, and if it means poking out the eyes of every uncooperative man in Bhopal, then so be it.
Anyway, I just got off of the phone with Dan, who has had some very bad news: his cat, and best friend, Winnie, had to be put to sleep yesterday. His mom has been looking after Winnie since Dan moved to Montreal a few years ago, so Dan is very upset that he wasn’t there to say goodbye to his old pal. I was going to write more about my own lingering thoughts, but instead if you are reading this, I think that you should pick up the phone and give Dan a call or send him an email, since I can’t be there with him. Thank you.
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