Colour, hands, and poop

Sweetest village boy

I think my experience in India is pretty unique. I'm not backpacking about with a guidebook in my hands, not knowing where I'll lay my head for the night. I am very secure here, in a beautiful home, full of very loving and wonderful people, in a nice neighbourhood with nice neighbours who take us into their houses and feed us and show us their school pictures and play with our hair and paint our nails and give us flowers and touch our skin and look around and say "smooth!" and make us promise to come back in the evening, we have to, you promised, please come back, come meet our grandmother...

Yesterday was intense. We finally followed a few of those children to their family home. Inside, it felt like we had been captured by sirens who tell us we're beautiful over and over again, touch us all over, adorn us with jewellery... time is lost in these houses. We had planned to go to Thrissur that day. How easy it is to forget when you are made perfect.

I'd like to flesh out something about Indian culture that bothers me a bit. The TV is completely ridden with ads staring white women, or Indian women who are practically white. In most print ads and billboards as well - I saw one yesterday where the model had been bleached to the point of blending into the white background, with a couple facial features preserved along with the blindingly-red sari the company was attempting to advertise. I know some North Indians look like white people - in fact, an Indian man at a restaurant yesterday asked me if I was a North Indian, with my dark hair and light skin. But this is the South. Most everyone is dark here, or as they call themselves, "black."

It's frustrating for me to see "white beauty" being advertised as the be all and end all of everything - intelligence, looks, and overall value. It's unfair that Southerners are subjected to some unattainable level of whiteness, unless they actively bleach their skin, which some do.

At the house we visited yesterday morning, there are three kids between the ages of six and 12. The youngest one is a boy, totally adorable and charming (proof above). The middle child is a beautiful bright young girl of maybe eight or nine. The eldest is also beautiful - and completely light-skinned. It became obvious inside the house that this family puts a lot of faith in their white child.

Both of the girls do traditional dance. Their mother comes out of a back room with an award in each hand, one that the younger girl had won, and one that the whiter girl had won. I was impressed, and said, "wow, you must be very good!" to both of them, but their mother said, "she only has one, this one," her lighter-skinned daughter, "has so many awards, she wins so many, so many, she is so good."

I could see the fading smile on the young girl's face. I held her hand. I looked at the older girl and said, "wow, very nice." Later the matter of colour was explicitly discussed. "My daughter is very light," her mother said with a big thankful smile, like she had been blessed from above with a white-skinned daughter. "My other daughter, she is black," she uttered, apologetically. I rubbed her daughter's skin and told her she was beautiful, and she softly said thank you.

There is definitely a problem with me coming into this culture with my Western don't-ever-discriminate and everyone-is-equal views and sensitivities and calling the whole society racist for its emphasis on white beauty. I think it's a really complex issue. The narrative I just wrote is coming from a perspective that is seeing things in one way, and THAT'S not fair either. It's time for me to unstick my nose from the subject and call it a day. It is what it is.

They're burning garbage in the backyard. Just sayin'.

I haven't pooped in four days. Just sayin'.

There is lots, of course, that I like about living here. I like the food, and I like the way it's eaten. No cutlery. I have always felt more comfortable eating with my hands anyway. I'm sure my mom could tell a story or two of my mythical pre-vegetarian glory days when I ate steak with my hands right down to the bone. I'm not that archaic anymore - or am I? With my vegetables, perhaps. Violate them carrots! Rape those potatoes! Slaughter every celery! Eat them right down to the end of the stalk! HEAVY METAL! \m/



I appreciate the food when I'm squishing it in my hands. Rice and chickpeas and coconut all up in my fist, right up into my mouth, the smell rising to my nose, the texture between my fingers. It will be hard to give it up! Oh, and always with the right hand. You know what the other hand is for.

Another thing we do by hand: laundry. Shocking! I've done laundry here twice, and I'm definitely due for a third time at the round but the smoke is so strong back there, with all the garbage burning and all. Body washing and clothes washing is generally an everyday practice here. I should be doing it more often but, you know, the laziness. I do shower everyday though, which I never ever ever do in Toronto because I never see the point. Here though, if I don't shower I am in a world of pain and smelly suffering. One trip on the big-windows-no-glass bus is enough to cake my skin with a nice thick layer of dirt, and if I'm standing during rush hour, other people's sweat. Yum! No thank you.

Me smack-smackin' the rock

Laundry is done by soaking the garment in soapy water and beating the living shit out of it. Not kidding. We've got that round rock thinger there, and with a flick of the wrist, the masters just SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! their clothing. It's incredible, and very effective. Then we wring it out and let it dry. Drying in the hot sun takes 10 minutes. Naw, it's not that quick, but give it an afternoon and the laundry is completely dry. Shock and amazement! Technology what?

PS: Just pooped. I feel great!