Expensive drinks and social responsibility

I woke up yesterday in a cloud of soft cotton, a fan softly paddling at the air above me. As I shook myself into consciousness, I could hear ocean waves crashing against rocks below me. I pushed the heavy curtains that covered one wall aside, walking barefoot out onto a marble terrace covered with plants and beautiful tribal art. The live-in cook took my breakfast order (french toast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and fruit) while I leaned over the sea. No, I wasn't at the Broadmoor. I was just in Bombay.

Through one of the many bursts of luck that I've experienced here, I was invited to spend the weekend in Bombay with my friend Zach and Dhiren, a friend of his from Grinnell. Dhiren had come to Pune to spend the night with Zach before the two of them were to return to Bombay for the weekend. I joined them at Cafe Sunrise for dinner last Thursday night and was promptly invited to join them. We left the next morning by bus and arrived in the late afternoon on Friday.

Spending time at others' houses here reminds me of one of the many ways in which I want to change standard behavior once I'm in the US. I was invited for the weekend after knowing my host for about ten minutes, and I was treated in the kindest and most welcoming manner possible. I usually feel uncomfortable having people do things for me, even in retail stores. I'm that girl, the one who ends up tipping over the stack of impeccably folded sweaters in her desire to get the one at the top without assistance. But after I got over the initial tentativeness and timidity, I found myself settling in. Over a candlelit dinner, Zach and I spoke with Dhiren and his mother about everything from politics to religion to our projects. I have never had such a stimulating conversation outside of my crazy philosophy classes at CC. I couldn't believe how at home I felt after just knowing this family for several hours.

I mentioned before that there's a mentality here that the guest is like a god. It's not just a "I should do this" social force; it's an "it's an honor for me to do this for you" mentality. And for me, that's what made all the difference. In the US, it's sometimes tricky to figure out if people are just being polite or if my presence as a guest brings genuine pleasure. But over here, that wasn't a question at all. When Zach and I contemplated spending an extra day with them in order to see Dear Liar at the Center for the Performing Arts, my hesitation about imposing was waved away in seconds. At home, I would have to be practically forced to stay longer than I'd originally planned. Instead, I relaxed and resigned myself to enjoying more delicious food and ocean waves.

As perfect as this weekend was, it seems that I can't escape a single day without having some sort of grounding experience. If I don't watch myself, I'm going to start preaching, if I haven't already. As I mentioned, Dhiren's house overlooks the Arabian Sea. And when I say "overlook," I mean that if I were to jump off the balcony, I'd land in the water. When the tide goes out, the rock at the floor of the ocean is exposed, looking like something out of a textbook about tidepools. Naturally, I wanted to explore and look at the fishies. Dhiren warned us about the slippery rocks and generally unpleasant conditions of such a walk, but of course Zach and I wouldn't listen to reason. So we went out, walking around the wall of the apartment complex and skimming the edges of the neighboring slums. On our way down the gravel pathway, we passed a man defecating on the rocks. Dhiren had mentioned that we'd be passing the public "latrine," but once again, hearing about something never really sinks in until you actually see it. We quickly turned away, trying to give as much privacy as possible, which wasn't much. We walked down on the rocks, stepping carefully to avoid the oil slicks and algae. We didn't go far, since it was almost dark. On the way back, we passed barefoot children scampering through God-knows-what, completely oblivious to what they were walking through.

At lunch the next day, we talked about social and economic conditions in the area. I asked about the whole comparision issue that I've mentioned before, about whether or not most people over here make the same comparisions between income and house size that plague much of the US. While Dhiren's mother replied that that mentality is fairly rare, she and Dhiren also pointed out the major shifts in attitude are taking place within people my age over in Bombay. Some people are becoming more materialistic and staunchly avoid looking at the poverty and conditions that they can't possibly avoid seeing. You can't drive or walk more than one block in any part of the city and avoid encountering people or places that are poverty-stricken.

Naively, I asked how this was possible for such a mentaility to exist. Even though many people ignore poverty in the US, it's easier for us since our government does an exceptionally (good?) job covering it up. We hear about it if we want to, we read about it if we want to, but otherwise we just sort of forget about it. But you just can't do that here. During Indira Gandhi's "Emergency" of the seventies, bulldozers plowed through the slums and hutment colonies to hide them from the rest of the city. But that didn't last long. There are simply too many people living in those conditions to sweep them under the rug. According to our Environmental Science professor, around fifty percent of Bombay's population lives in hutment colonies (a nice word for slums) or on the streets. So, no matter how well-off certain people might be, they can't be ignorant about what's going on next door.

Dhiren came up with what was, to me, the best answer I've heard so far about this issue. He explained that many people do contribute money and works towards improving the lives of others. However, it's impossible to have any sort of life of your own without partitioning out how much and how often you let poverty affect you. It's essential to take action and responsiblity for facilitating social change, but it's also necessary to deal with it in doses. Feeling the hopeless and desperate way that I feel works for a student studying abroad, but it's crippling for a permanent resident. So, to go back to the earlier question of younger people simply avoiding the issue, it's a question of balance. I'm all charged up about these issues all the time because I've been here for, what, two months? How would I feel if I'd grown up here?

Things affect me/us differently because as I said earlier, we're shielded from it at home. Growing up in Orono, Minnesota with a population of 3,000 and little poverty, I just don't see it. Even in my frequent (ok, very frequent) trips to Minneapolis, I go to Uptown, land of $5 chai teas and $10 movie tickets. I might like to think of myself as open-minded and compassionate, but really, I have no idea what I'm talking about. So. Even though I feel like I'm beginning to sound like a lessons-on-social-consciousness broken record, that's where I'm at. Yes.

Love,
Sarah!