The Ahmedabad Diaries - Writers are Bastards

As part of Teach for India’s annual retreat, I visited Ahmedabad for three days recently. Much of this time was split between the Gandhi Ashram and visiting communities that Manav Sadhana worked closely with.

The community I visited had been relocated to a bare ground because their houses were demolished by the government without notice. They had been living in make-shift houses, braving the freezing nights of Ahmedabad with bare minimum clothing, and struggling daily with their gnawing thirst and hunger. For me, it was a very unsettling experience, mainly because I was unable to understand my purpose over there. Despite that, as I walked around boiling with suppressed emotions, I realized something:

My eyes involuntarily took in every detail

The colour of the tarp,

The tatters in their clothes,

The remaining brambles that were indicative of the dangerous land they had initially been dumped in, The vastness of the garbage dump next to their camp,

The few utensils they had managed to save

And my mouth hesitantly asked questions

How did they end up here?

How long would they have to stay?

Did they have access to water?

Why couldn’t they find work nearby?

What did they eat daily?

I groped for details, as far as I would allow myself. I wish I could say it was because I cared. Yes I did care, but that was not the main reason why I want to know.

I wanted to know so that I would have something to blog about.

Even as I collected the information, I was sorting it in my head: “this would be good to write about; this is irrelevant; oooh this would make for an interesting topic!”

Because that’s what writers do.

We gather information, sort through it, choose the ‘juiciest bits’ and write those down.

We don’t go into the field to solve a problem or to alleviate pain – we go out to gather details.

We ask, we probe, we observe – hoping every second that the next bit of information will take our article from mundane to brilliant.

We become unfeeling, uncaring bastards who care more about the style of our writing than the subject of it.

We worry more about how a word sounds on paper than how a probing question sounds to the person receiving it.

We ensure that we have the proper pictures that will help tell the story, because that’s our only job.

 We don’t intend to hurt feelings, but if they come in the way of telling the truth, then so be it.

We don’t consciously aim towards poverty porn, but sub-consciously, we know that’s what readers want.

We don’t experience for the sake of experiencing, we experience so that we can pick up every single detail.

During my three days at Ahmedabad, that’s exactly what I did.

My professors at York would have been proud.

The Ahmedabad Diaries - Please Tell Me

I walk into your home, bearing

Blankets for the cold

Food for your stomach

Water for the thirst

A smile for hope

Yet as I look around, the smile falters

Your home is not a home

It is a piece of the ground

Marked off by sticks and plastic

There is nothing outside

Nothing inside

Except people

People who step out from all directions

People who stare at me

Their gazes filled with a myriad of emotions

I can only try to guess

Is it happiness for the company?

Is it hope for the gifts?

Is it sadness at the reality?

Is it anger at the divide?

Is it disgust at the charity?

Is it envy at the unfairness?

Because the question that remains unanswered

The one I want to ask but am afraid

The one that plagues me constantly is

Who am I to you?

Am I a guest, to be invited humbly and treated with respect?

Am I a celebrity, representing a part of society that has evaded you?

Am I God, bringing the hope of relieving you from your misery?

Am I a philanthropist, trying to make myself feel better about the injustice?

Am I a snob, coming over to look down upon you and your neighbours?

Am I a friend, willing to provide a shoulder to you when you need it?

Am I a stranger, pretending to be your friend today to never see you again after this?

Am I a helper, offering you aid?

Am I a hypocrite, saying I understand when I really don’t?

Please tell me, because I don’t know

Tell me

Who am I to you?

And who are you to me?

A friend I genuinely care about?

A piece of charity to assure myself of my goodness?

A receiver of my gifts?

A giver of love?

A passing phase I use to “gain an experience”?

A needy person I try to help?

A project to test my skills?

A person I want to learn from?

An alien I truly cannot understand?

Because like I said, I really don’t know

So please tell me

What do you feel when you see me passing through your makeshift community?

Who am I to you?

Who are you to me?

And while we’re on that subject

Also tell me,

What am I supposed to feel?

Concerned for your welfare?

Nervous about the encounter?

Troubled by your reality?

Touched by your affection?

Humbled by your warmth?

Guilty for being rich?

Confident for being educated?

Scared of being offensive?

Indifferent so as to be detached?

Hypocritical at my pretence?

Unsure about my actions?

Happy at the connections?

Hopeful about the future?

Cynical at the world?

Angered by the government?

Upset at the unfairness?

Faithful in the God up above?

Satisfied at having made a difference?

Did I do that?

Did my blankets, food and water change your lives?

Did my visit bring you out of poverty?

Did my presence alleviate your misery?

Did my company make you happy?

Did my words bring you solace?

Did my actions bring you comfort?

Did I make a difference?

Please tell me

The community we visited - standing in front of their bamboo-tarp houses

The Ahmedabad Diaries - In the Shoes of a 13-year-old-girl

Asha and me

Meet Asha – a 13-year-old living in Ahmedabad. She comes from an economically lower background than the rest of us. If you will excuse my political incorrectness, she came from a slum. She lived with her parents, a grandmother, two younger brothers and two younger sisters. Being the oldest of the lot, she was also the one responsible for the other children, and when you are given such a responsibility, you tend to grow up faster than you need to.

I met Asha at the Gandhi Ashram in Gujarat, where she is currently under the wing of Manav Sadhana, an NGO that strives to spread the message of peace and unity among the surrounding communities through various projects. Asha happened to be in one of them called Ekatva – a 70-minute musical performance by 16 children aiming to spread unity. The performance left every single audience member astonished and mesmerized, inspired by the sheer talent and hard-work that was reflected.

Being a part of Ekatva, Asha’s typical day included school in the morning, tuitions in the afternoon followed by activities and finally dance practice. Like the other children, she stayed at the Ashram and visited her family only in the holidays. I was lucky enough to join her one night as she went home.

On the bus-ride over, she chatted enthusiastically about her life - her love for dance and acting, her fear of the first performance, her excitement at the latest performance, her dream of becoming a doctor (and not because her family wanted it), her happiness at Manav Sadhana, her sadness at being away from her family, her nervousness about leaving Manav Sadhana the following year to attend a different school, her love for her friends, and her longing for her old house.

Their original house had been demolished by the Government, but luckily they had been given a flat in its stead. The new flat was 15 kilometers away from their original house, which meant that Asha’s father, who worked at a nearby shop, had to travel long hours every day to work. Despite being utterly exhausted, he was extremely welcoming, and took advantage of the great Indian hospitality to feed me seven pakoras –  in addition to my dinner.

Unfortunately, the parents and the grandmother had to travel to their village that night for voting as the elections were on, which left me alone at home with the children. My initial apprehension soon gave way to shame as I watched Asha wake up early in the morning and calmly prepare chai and breakfast for her siblings, and finish up other house chores. I nearly cringed thinking back to my life as a 13-year-old, and in that moment, I felt like a little kid, younger than Asha, embarrassedly asking her how to flush the toilet when clearly there was no flush.

Another memory which stands out from my visit is from the night when Asha and her friends walked me around the community from one friend’s house to another. The streets were lined with boys probably a little older than Asha herself, yet the way they were ogling at us was enough to send major chills through me. 

Having grown up in a very sheltered-Kuwait –life followed by boarding school followed by Canada followed by a completely oblivious me in Bombay, I have had (thankfully) few instances where I was made to feel like a piece of meat.

But right there, holding hands with Asha on one hand who aspired to become a doctor, and her 13-year-old friend Varsha who had gotten married a few months ago on the other, I realized just how different my teenage years were from theirs. How I had been spared the crudeness most girls in India are forced to face.

How I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to live in the shoes of these 13-year-olds. 

The Ahmedabad Diaries - You Look Like a Lakshmi

Disclaimer: This post might be offensive. Actually, it probably is. But it's hard to rip the band-aid without feeling any pain. 

A friend of mine once told me that I’m the least judgmental person he ever knew. And I believed him. Why? Because I didn’t hate Pakistanis. Or Muslims. Because I liked to listen to both / all sides of the story before deciding who was right. Because I apparently had bucket-loads of this substance called empathy which allowed me to involuntarily see things from other people’s perspective, making it a little hard to judge them afterwards.

Three days ago, I realized I was as judgmental as the founder of the KKK. Maybe not in my actions, but in my thoughts, I could give those white-wearing-racist-bastards some serious competition.

Why? Because I met a girl named Lakshmi. And when she told me her name, a thought entered my mind from some place I didn’t even know existed, which said to me: “Ahh. That’s right. She looks like a Lakshmi.”

She looks like a Lakshmi?!?! What does that even mean?!

At first I tried to placate myself by thinking that she probably reminded me of another girl called Lakshmi that I have met before. Yet as I racked my brain, I couldn’t think of ever having met anyone personally with that name before. So it’s not like I could draw similarities to the features. And if I have never met anyone called Lakshmi, how do I know what she is supposed to look like? Hear that? I said ‘supposed’ – like there’s a type.

You know, like Ahmed is Muslim. Ram is Hindu. Tom is white (because, clearly, he cannot be any other colour). Kapoor is a big-shot. Chhotu is the helper. Natasha is the beautiful fair one. Lakshmi is the dark nerdy one.

Where did these labels come from? When did I become the authority on people’s names? True, some names do reflect a person’s religion / ethnicity, but I had no idea that we could use names to identify someone’s social status or fairness-of-the-skin data.

I want to blame the media. When was the last time a Bollywood movie had a leading actress named "Lakshmi" who represented glamour? “Om Prakash Makhija” may have been a perfectly suitable name until Shah Rukh Khan destroyed it in his film. When was the last time we came across a “Natasha” from the village or a slum?

But blaming is the easy part. Accepting the reality of the situation is harder.

I’ve written dozens of essays and had countless discussions on how stereotypes are the bane of this world, and for some reason, I felt that my ability to come to this conclusion prevented me from falling in its trap. 

Apparently not.

It seems that prejudice is embedded within our bones, at least mine, and it creeps up at strangest of times. It may not be intentional, but it’s still there. And there’s no excuse for it.

I thought I hated it when others judged me. It’s even worse to realize that I reciprocate the feeling so easily. 

The Ahmedabad Diaries - Raju's Story

Raju's story is not that of a single man. It's the story of a community put together through anecdotes from several people. "Raju" just happens to be the main source. I have no idea what his real name is.

He lived in a slum, or as NGO workers like to call it, a community. It was a community where the stone-houses were haphazardly lined up against each other, with just about enough space to accommodate two small people. For most families, however, the actual number stood around 2 adults and 5 steadfastly-growing kids. It was crammed, but as their nation had taught them since the day they were born, they had to adjust.

Mazdoori was the main livelihood. The men worked from morning to night, laboring in exchange for an income that allowed the family to survive. The women worked hard around the house to ensure the family could survive on that income. And the kids…they learnt soon enough that the innocence of childhood did not waste its time on their likes.

Life was hard, but Raju knew there was something to be thankful for – they had water and electricity for the most part. They had jobs. They had their family and friends. They had a solid roof over their head. They had a home.

I guess he thanked too soon.

On a day like any other, Raju returned home from labouring to find that he no longer had a home. It was gone. Every last bit. As were all the houses of his neighbours, and their neighbours, and the entire community.

The only thing left was rubble. Piles and piles of it.

On his left, people were crying – moaning; to his right, a man was sifting through the rubble looking for something, though he didn’t seem to know what. Children were clinging on to their mothers, looking confused and terrified, trying to forget the sounds of the bulldozers as they tore down their homes in front of their eyes.

The government had decided it was time to vacate the land so that it could be used for construction. That Raju understood. What he did not understand was why they were not given a moment’s notice before their homes were turned into rubble. A hysterical mother had to beg the authorities to allow her to get her son who was sleeping unawares while the bulldozers approached his house. She had to beg, because they didn’t seem to care what came in the way of the bulldozers – a bed, a dog, or a child.

As Raju looked towards his wife and son standing where their house used to be, he could not explain the emotion that passed through him. Everything that he had, that they had, was gone.  The house, the clothes, the TV, the stove, the thali they ate from, they vessel they stored water in – it was all gone. “I was lucky I carried by identity papers and toolbox with me to work,” he recalls, “or I wouldn’t even have that now.”

Their lives were turned inside out. Without even the courtesy of a notice.

*** Flash forward 6 months later ***

Dust, for as far as your eyes can see. Bamboo sticks, attempting to stand upright in their position on the ground. Tarps – red, blue, white – hanging desperately onto the bamboo sticks as the wind tried fervently to release them.

This was the new community that Raju was now living in. Some might call it a camp. Some might call it a dump. The government seemed to prefer calling it home. And it had been “home” for the last 15 days.

Although the details of his life are not too clear after the house was destroyed, from what I understand the government gave some of the families flats in a distant community in an attempt to relocate them. But not everyone received a flat, and so they continued to wait; they continued to live on the rubble of what-had-once-been-their-house for a few months. After 5 months, it seems the government had had enough of the squatters and wanted to clear the land, so all the remaining people were rounded up in trucks and dumped unceremoniously onto a far-off land next to a major garbage dumping ground. There was no water closeby, no sign of electric lines, no food, no job, no money, and certainly no home. Just a vast ground filled with prickly weeds and plants.

When I met Raju, he had been living there for 15 days. His new home, consisted of a few bamboo sticks precariously holding up white tarp, with a sandy floor that had been laboriously cleared of the wild plants.  He stood in front of his house as he unabashedly narrated his story to me. The flaps of tarp that stood as a door fluttered in the wind, giving me a chance to look inside his house. It was bare.

He had sent his wife and son to their village and was living here alone. “Why didn’t you go with them?” I asked. He looked tired, almost defeated. “Because I will not be allocated a house unless I stay here,” he said, the unfairness of the situation crushing him. “I do not want them to have to live through this misery.”

And misery it was. It was the end of December in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, and temperatures at night were steadily dropping. Blankets were nowhere to be seen. The number of people living on that ground surpassed a few thousand. The men claimed there were no jobs available around them. Food was hard to come by unless it was through charity. Three children had already died by eating poisonous plants growing nearby. Water was available thrice a day – almost a kilometer away. No one had bathed in days. No one had properly quenched their thirst in days. All around, the faces - whether they be of an 8-month-old or an 80-year-old – showed signs of exhaustion.

The question that seemed most pertinent, was how long they would have to endure this hell. The authorities said that they will respond by the 31^st – 3 days later. “And if they don’t?” I ask hesitantly. Raju looks at me directly, his eyes burning with an emotion I couldn’t possible describe, and said, “We might be here for 5 years. Or more. Who knows?”

The tarp-homes held upright with bamboo sticks

Raju's home 

Here's hoping the bug doesn't bite

It starts with a little disgruntlement,

Like a little itch

Too slight to fret

Yet not so small to ignore

Still, you try

And slowly it grows

It’s gnawing at you

Like a bug bite that you want to scratch

Except it’s not on your skin

It’s nowhere that you can locate

Somewhere within

Maybe the muscle,

Or the bone,

Or the capillaries,

Or the heart

You don’t know

Yet it’s there for sure

Disgruntling

Frustrating

Angering

And as time passes

It takes over your entire being

Your muscle

Your bone

Your capillaries

Your heart

It’s a growing frustration

No matter how hard you try

You cannot ignore

But neither can you scratch

No matter how hard you try

You cannot reach

You try and put your finger on it

Yet it evades you even more

Or maybe you don’t want to reach it

Maybe you don’t want to scratch that evasive place

Maybe you don’t want to awaken the source of your anger

Because once you

Reach it

Catch it

Know it

You can no longer ignore it

You can no longer go on pretending

Pretending that everything is fine

That you are fine

That you aren’t bothered by that thing

That it doesn’t unsettle you

That it doesn’t plague your every thought

That it doesn’t dictate your every move

That it doesn’t allow you to be yourself

That all you want to do is scratch

Yet fear that which it may unleash

Because that would mean

Admitting that it matters

When it should not matter

Admitting that it hurts

When there is no reason to hurt

Admitting that you cannot stop

When all you want to do is stop

And admitting is hardly a cure

It will not take away the hurt

The anger

The frustration

The disgruntlement

The gnawing

The itch

So you continue pretending

Trying

Acting

Ignoring

Hoping that it will go away on its own

Knowing that it probably won’t

The "Hakuna Matata" kid

"...It means no worries, for the rest of your days. It's a problem-free philosophy - Hakuna Matata."

Headstrong...

I'm sure she's never heard this line. She probably couldn't even say Hakuna Matata (apparently it's quite a tongue-twister for 7-yr-olds). But without any conscious effort on her part, Shreya Pawar has embraced this philosophy in her life.

In a class filled with 45 screaming kids all vying for your attention, Shreya hardly stands out. That might be partly because she is NEVER trying to get your attention. She's content in her own world, with the few people around her, and never seems to need more.

But she did stand out to me, initially because of one simple feature - her smile.

Shreya is the smiliest kid - scratch that, smiliest person - I have ever met. In the no-smiling competition that I love to have with her, she can barely hold out for 2 seconds. Her eyes light up in pure unadulterated delight while crinkling up in the edges, and refuses to leave her face for the longest time. In fact, I think she's probably the only kid in my class who I've never seen crying even once! Once I found her sitting outside class with blood dripping from her knee, and the smile never left her face even as she recapped the incident of how she got hurt.

But if you think the smile is a reflection of her naivete and innocence, then you're definitely in for a ride!

The million-dollar smile

Any new topic I teach, she gets it in  a flash (although I doubt she's even listening). And as much as I appreciate the light bulb going on, the side-effect is that she spends the remaining time disrupting my already-disrupted class. Sometimes it can be as tame as whipping out her art book and drawing a gorgeous scenery, but more often than not it involves arguing and fighting with the students sitting around her. But to Shreya's credit, she never complains about the other students - she handles all the bullies on her own!

When I initially started noticing her cheerful attitude, I assumed she was one of those rare kids in my class that faced no hardship at home or with her family. Maybe she does, I don't know. What I do know is that her parents and siblings live far away from Mumbai in a small village, while Shreya lives near the school with her grandparents and aunt and uncle. She was one of those "lucky" kids that was given the opportunity to go and live in the city to get a good education. Whether that education is worth the separation from her family - only one person can answer. But good luck trying to discern the emotions behind that million-dollar smile.

I said earlier that in a class of 45 screaming kids all vying for your attention, Shreya hardly stands out. That's not exactly true. Shreya hardly tries to stand out. Yet she does. Her creativity, her talent, her defiance, her headstrong take-no-shit attitude, her curiosity, her cheerfulness, and her most genuine smile - with all these combinations, how can she not stand out? How can she not inspire?

"Some people try not to stand out, and they don't.
Some people don't try to stand out, and they do."