Gift exchange

I could have a blog just about the things that happen while riding in auto rickshaws.

I was on my way home when the oft-seen little beggar/hawker children tried to get me to buy a string of jasmine blossoms. I told them I didn't need one but they still hung around the auto asking me.
The little girl's eye was caught by my recent purchase, "What's that?" she asked. I had bought some synthetic grass with little sea shells on it to put in a vase and it was poking out of the shopping bag.
I didn't know the Hindi word so I told her in English that they were shells. It struck me that she's probably never seen a lake or the ocean, maybe never even heard of it. How do you explain, then, what a shell is?
The little boy laid a string of the jasmine blossoms over my arm. "No, I don't need it," I told him and held my arm out to him. He wouldn't take it.
Again I tried to return the blossoms but he backed out of reach. "Gift," he said. It was late in the day and the blossoms were wilting. Perhaps he knew he would be unable to sell them to anyone.
The little girl, who was still admiring the shells and longing to touch one, also laid some jasmine blossoms over my arm. "Gift," she repeated after the boy.
This was too much for me. I reached into the bag and loosened one of the pieces of shell grass and gave it to the girl. She thought it was wonderful. After she looked at it she handed it back.
"Gift," I told her.
The boy then said something I couldn't understand and tried to keep the girl from taking the shell grass. I said again that was a gift. As the light changed and the traffic began to go forward, the boy wrestled it away from the girl and threw it back into the moving auto.
My impulse was to throw it out again onto the sidewalk where hopefully the little girl could find it.
But I didn't.
Instead I straightened out the bent end and slipped it back into my bag.
Maybe the boy was protecting them from something I don't understand. Even though I cannot comprehend the world of their street-life, I still want to treat them with dignity and honor.
Sigh.
The smell of jasmine blossoms went with me all the way home.

Reality

I was on a plane flying to the US when I overheard a conversation.
"Are you heading home for the holidays?" said the lady.
"Oh yes, can't wait for that cranberry sauce," said the man.
"Yeah," she laughed, "back to reality."
"That's right, heh heh heh."
And their conversation went on to complain of some of the deprivations their stay in India had included, how they couldn't believe the way people lived, and what modern conveniences they were about to enjoy upon landing.
Wait a minute, I thought, cranberry sauce and people speaking American English, that's reality? This experience that people are living by the billions on the other side of the world is not real?
Life for the guy sleeping beneath the Ambedkar statue isn't reality? There are thousands of people homeless and living on the streets. And, yeah, they bother you knocking on the car window at the streetlights, begging for money. But they're not imaginary, and flying to the other side of the world doesn't mean they cease to exist.
I don't think the goatherd's little girl--or anyone she knows--has ever heard tell of a cranberry, but her reality is just as meaningful as my own.
She puts a little sweater on her baby goat and brings him to graze in the shadow of the Taj Mahal--if that's not other worldly! She may never go to school, but all she experiences is still real.
I'd have to say that it's we here in America who think life needs to include instant messaging and drive-throughs that need the reality check. Since when do we need these things as if it's the only way to live?
If you've seen it, it's only fair to at least acknowledge that it's really there, this other place where people live and work and love and die.
Because it is. Real.

And be careful what you say on an airplane. Because someone might overhear you and form unflattering opinions of you.

IhateitIloveit

I went out shopping today and I experienced some contradictory emotions.
There were moments of "Oh, I hate this",
like when the guy behind me in line at the ATM told me to move forward and close in the four inch gap between me and the man in front of me. No thank you, I like my personal space, small as it is.
Or when there was one check out line at the grocery store that took at least half an hour to get through.
Or when the rickshaw-driver-with-a-death-wish nearly drove us off the road where it drops eight feet and later did not notice the car backing out in front of him.
Or the beggar woman who called me a "maharaja daughter" and told me to give her food before cursing me.
Or that buying groceries and eating out for lunch took four and a half hours.

And then there were moments of "Wah, is there anywhere in the world like this place?"
Like when the check out attendant told one of his minions to bring me a free carton of guava juice.
Or the other clerk who gave me a two-for-one deal on matches.
The smell of freshly cooked rice and the fall which can't be matched.
Or a walk on the bund over the newly fallen chinar leaves.
There was the ancient man in an even more ancient photo shop who ambled over the creaking floor to tell us he didn't have any camera batteries.
And the other old man in a camera shop who did his best to produce the battery we needed, even sending his assistant several blocks away to look while he gave a us a newspaper to read.
Or the relief of finally being back home where everything is quiet.

Their faces

One of the hardest things about living here is the beggars. Their need is so real. So in-your-face. What do I do about it? What can I do? My attitude about it changes from day to day. I feel the least generous when they pinch me. But even then, I might pinch somebody, too, if they had so much more than me.