I noticed two young women wearing orange tunics and was glad to see that the one in the brighter kamiz wore it calf length, like two I recently made; it seems like knee-length tunics are much more common. As I gazed out the window calmly, watching dingy-looking buildings and bustling pedestrians and a policeman in a brownish green uniform directing traffic and a chaotic mess of vehicles oozing along in four directions, I periodically observed the two young women in orange: they were walking as fast as our bus was moving. The scene looked like a Where’s Waldo book come to life.
Something else I noticed shortly after we arrived in Varanasi was a vacant lot or piece of land piled with trash through which pigs dug. They weren’t only the hairy black pigs I’m accustomed to seeing in India but also a few Western-looking black and pink pigs and piglets. Previously I had noticed primarily stray dogs digging through trash, which is bad enough. Bodh Gaya seemed much cleaner than Varanasi, suggesting that people cared about the beauty of the village.
We are staying at the Radisson Hotel, which is even more posh and extravagant than the other hotels where we stayed before Bodh Gaya. A doorman in a maroon uniform and a hat with feathers sticking straight up stands by the door, putting palms together and saying, “Namaste.” I gave him a big smile and greeted him the same way. Anywhere you step, male employees are bowing and scraping and saying, “May I help you, ma’am?” I want to say, “Yes, end poverty and war, thank you.” True, at least we’re giving these employees something to do. Most of the guests at the Radisson are Westerners, and we must seem frivolous and spoiled to the staff.
The only female employees I’ve seen at the Radisson are two young women at the front desk; they wear perfectly pleated dark green silk saris with black blazers. Even the servers at the restaurant are all male. Funny how no matter where you are in the world, the most posh restaurants have all male servers, but maybe I’m jumping to conclusions; after all, I’ve only been to a total of eleven countries on the entire planet, and I rarely hang out at the most expensive restaurants. Even the fast food place where we had had lunch on the way to Varanasi was staffed entirely by males.
In Bodh Gaya, Feroza and I had stopped at a booth where a woman sold sparkly, colorful adhesive bindi; we each bought a little packet of bindis, and Feroza explained that she likes to encourage saleswomen because they have it harder and have to get some sort of permit, unlike men. Clearly this country isn’t big on equal opportunity employment, even on a low-paying job level. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that farms are the only places that have equal opportunity employment, which is hardly surprising when they’re family owned. I suspect that corporate offices are also likely to have many female employees.
Perhaps the reason that Shantum chose the Radisson Hotel is because it’s more or less next door to the silk shopping center we visited tonight, or maybe because it particularly caters to Westerners, judging by the other guests I’ve seen. During “Strucks,” Val pointed out that from inside this hotel, it doesn’t look like you’re in India. Or maybe Shantum brought us here because he wants us to totally freak out over the contrast between the beggars on the streets and our staying at such a luxurious hotel. I suspect that he’s nonverbally telling us something.
After thinking about it for a couple minutes, I have to say: forget the fact that this hotel caters to Westerners. I seriously think Shantum means this to be part of our learning experience. It sure beats Zen teachers I’ve read about who, if you say the wrong thing, grab you by the throat and try to strangle you. I think Shantum is way too nice to do that! Or I’m pretty sure he is. I think he is. Um, never mind.
At approximately five thirty in the evening our sangha gathered in the lobby. A little bakery, consisting of one glass display counter, sits in a far corner of the lobby, and I was curious about what looked like a surreal brown and white sculpture on the bakery counter. I approached the bakery for a closer look, when a guy in a textured maroon waistcoat came up to me and smilingly said, “This is all made of chocolate.”
“Wow!” I said, or something equally eloquent.
“Would you like some chocolate, ma’am?” Great, he was a chocolate wallah.
I smiled and said, “No, thanks, I was just curious.” Before drifting away I did manage to take in that dark brown strips formed a perpendicular zigzag pattern on the chocolate sculpture, and round puffs of white and brown chocolate were at every point, except where a cone of chocolate was accompanied by a curlicue. It was definitely not a Tibetan butter sculpture but vaguely reminded me of one.
The sangha exited through the hotel’s front door and across an alley where a man crouched between two monkeys on leashes; one wore a purple cotton dress. This shocked me as much as a slap in the face. I had no idea people still had performing monkeys on the street, and I have to admit this was the first time I realized it was cruel. The only places I’ve come across such a thing before is in books or black and white movies. But I had not hopped into a time machine before seeing the monkeys; it was unmistakably here and now. I somehow felt unclean even looking at the poor animals, under the circumstances, like how associating with relatives when they make racist, phallocractic, or militaristic comments makes me feel unclean, as if I were an accomplice.
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| Weaving Varanasi silk |
We crossed a threshold in the next building, entered a side door, and walked down a narrow white hallway and into a room containing a row of weavers working at looms. The wooden looms and the shiny purple and gold silk fascinated me so much that at first I didn’t notice a few less alluring details. We sat on benches, and the manager in a brown uniform-like outfit gave a lecture on how the looms work. I finally noticed that all the weavers were old men, not a single woman. Once again, I was weirded out by the absence of equal opportunity employment in the twenty-first century.
The manager said that on these looms the workers make brocade, from silk and gold, and that India is the second largest maker of silk, after China. It used to be made with real gold, for Maharajas. “Now it’s not for Maharajas, so it’s not real gold anymore,” the manager said with a big smile.
I sat with Feroza and Jennifer, and while everyone else ooohed and aaahed over the fabric, Jennifer pointed out a few things that I’m ashamed to admit I hadn’t noticed on my own. Under fluorescent lights that are not exactly good for the eyes, the workers sat on wooden benches that bowed in the center and that were held in place by a small pile of bricks at each end of the board. I looked at these appalling things that Jennifer had observed on her own so quickly and was suddenly abashed. I noticed that the weavers wear thick glasses, though that could be to magnify the fabric. Visiting India is, in some ways, like walking into a Charles Dickens novel.
Jennifer said, “Sometimes I get upset about things that don’t seem to bother others,” and she also mentioned the monkeys and asked me if I’d been upset about them.
I said, “Yes, the monkeys upset me! But I didn’t notice the working conditions until you pointed them out, other than that they’re all men.”
“Yeah, that’s another good point,” she said.
This got us on the topic of whether women are allowed to do handicrafts, and I looked down at my mirrorwork bag and said, “I’m sure they do embroidery and mirrorwork like this.” I remembered reading in a children’s book, at work, that at least in some regions of India women and girls are paid to do embroidery at home. That reminded me that in New York a hundred years ago, immigrant families, parents and even small children, made clothing in their tenement for a small wage; the conditions for these women and girls doing embroidery in India nowadays are probably better than that, however. I certainly hope so.
One of the weavers sat across the narrow room from the others, and his loom was right next to us. He handed me the graphed-out design of the image he was weaving; it was framed and under glass, and the same patterns are woven in varying colors. After looking at the design, I passed the framed image to Feroza and Jennifer, and they admired it. Perhaps he understood some of our conversation, because he also gave Jennifer a strip of shiny pink silk thread and tied it around her wrist. I thought that was really nice.
A green donation box is attached to the wall by the front door of the strange little room with the weavers, and as we headed for the door, Jennifer asked if the money goes to the weavers, not the manager. The manager said it goes to the weavers, and even a weaver nodded yes, so Jennifer, Feroza and I went ahead and donated. I put in two hundred rupees, which I realize isn’t much.
Disgust and sorrow at the weavers’ working conditions didn’t stop us from shopping enthusiastically in a silk shop on the third floor of the same building. Samples of elaborate silk brocade hung on the wall, shopkeepers showed us bedspreads decorated with elephants and peacocks, and Dornora looked earnestly interested in getting a bedspread. Shawls and scarves lay stacked and draped throughout most of the store, and many of us descended upon them like locusts. On a bench between two pillars, I noticed colorful silk scarves dotted with beads and sequins, and it didn’t take me long to pick out a predominantly turquoise one for myself. I selected three paisley silk shawls for gifts and headed for the cash register.
After I paid, many of the sangha were still absorbed in shopping, picking up and trying on many shawls and scarves, checking them out in a mirror, and often putting them back down. What better way to wait for other shoppers than to continue shopping? I finally spotted the fabric yardage: two rows of shelves contained bolts of silk in a rainbow of colors. I had been hoping to buy fabric in India but until now had only come across shawls, scarves, saris, and other ready-made garments, not fabric for cutting out my own tunic or for making smaller projects such as a patchwork wall hanging. I remembered that in Ireland the fabric was measured in meters rather than yards, and I asked a nearby clerk, “Is that fabric measured in meters?”
“Yes,” he said. Again, all the clerks were male.
“I’d like three meters of…this,” I said, reaching for a dark turquoise bolt. He pulled down the bolt of fabric and started to unroll it, and I smiled; the weave had visible lines and was a shiny deep greenish blue. I got myself some Varanasi silk!
After I paid for the fabric, Shantum asked me what I got, and I smiled and said, “Turquoise silk, to make a kamiz!”
“Oh!” He said. “You sew?” I replied in the affirmative, and he seemed impressed, even though I didn’t think to mention that I majored in theater costume design for a couple years before getting my degree in creative writing.
Before we reached Bodh Gaya, I was not truly ready to write in my journal about the poverty, but I think I can write some more about it now, alone in this posh hotel room. Normally it’s easy for me to write, but this has been a huge jolt, and I start crying every time someone brings up the topic of the suffering, poverty, and squalor, or when I think about it. I experience this emotional reaction but haven’t analyzed the situation much, which is really uncharacteristic of me.
After writing the above words, I felt terribly agitated, rose from the desk, and paced back and forth. I intended to finally write down some comments on the topic of the poverty and squalor, comments I more or less thought up several days ago but hadn’t gotten around to writing yet, but instead of immediately hurrying over to the big executive desk and writing them down, I first paced and fretted about it. Sometimes even with this journal open in front of me, I zone out instead of writing.
I thought I was poor when I lived in St. Louis and worked part time jobs with no benefits and no health care, struggled to pay for utilities, went for six months without phone service, got a twelve cent raise at my extremely stressful box office job, endured rude customers and vicious conservative coworkers for the sake of a regular paycheck, and drove an ’83 station wagon till it practically fell apart around me. I thought I was poor, even though my wealthy Jewish grandmother bought me stock when I was a kid, and so I still managed to periodically buy books, clearance fabric, and addictive chocolate.
When I thought I was poor in those circumstances, I sometimes reminded myself that some people had my earned income but no stock dividends, and they might be single mothers with dependent children rather than a couple of cats. They might work two or three jobs, as I did, and struggle to take care of themselves and their kids. They and their children might be living on ramen and boxed macaroni and cheese. Unlike me, such women probably don’t have a college degree and lots of artistic creativity that supplies the potential to eventually get a better life. When I reflected on this, I remembered that some people are financially worse off than I.
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| Varanasi silk samples |
Yet the suffering I have seen here in India is on such an extremely massive scale. Mairgret described it as a nightmare. I have seen squatter’s homes that have been transformed into rubble; a plethora of begging and filthy children; rows of beggars lined up on the street or at the edge of a path; both adults and children with mangled legs that they drag on the ground, and/or with a burnt face, because their parents crippled them to ensure they have a career as a beggar; bodies lying on sidewalks for lack of a better bed; and shops made of sticks and rags. Normally, I have strong opinions and think I know the answers and know how to take action and how to change the world, but the poverty in India leaves me shell shocked and out of my depth.
It is difficult for me to process all this, and I feel considerable shame and guilt. It could have been me, after all, and I am someone who now lives in material comfort but psychological and emotional starvation, yet is reluctant to move to the west coast because of the uncertainties of keeping up with extremely high rent and finding another job that pays decently. Perhaps this is cowardice, or just indecision. Whatever it is, I don’t misuse the concept of karma to callously justify why I have much more material comfort than other people have. I think a great many people misuse karma as an excuse for oppressing others, thus not only being devoid of compassion but also conveniently overlooking the little detail that oppressing others means reaping bad karma for oneself.
Part of why poverty upsets me is because I want to help and do not know how; it’s overwhelming. It is maddening to see so much suffering and to do nothing about it. Something has to be done about it, such as no longer having governments that would rather waste money on guns and bombs than spend it on helping the people, but to have instead the majority believing in interconnectedness and participating in a vast movement toward compassion, peace, and empathy and helping those in need worldwide.
Whatever life throws at you, you have to deal with it one way or another and decide what to do, how to handle the crisis situation or even just a situation that you simply do not like and think shouldn’t be a part of your life. Living in a hostile and alienating town where I have undergone verbal abuse from unbelievably intolerant and closed-minded relatives is all it has taken to cripple me with the most severe and despairing depressions I have ever experienced. I have experienced indecision over the past three years about when and whether I should give up the comfort of the house my uncle left me, pack up, and head for the west coast, to a community that will hopefully be tolerant, therapeutic, spiritual, and artistically thriving.
What if I had, in addition to psychological pain, the extreme physical pain of an emaciated polio victim who moves by crawling across the ground? What if I had, in addition to psychological pain, poverty such that I would be living on the streets and begging? People here in India endure that all their lives, and they beg and endure looks of revulsion or pity, or eyes quickly turned away, every day of their lives. I don’t think I could be strong enough to survive like that, even if it was all that life threw at me.
My sense of guilt over all this poverty I’ve encountered in India is in part because I don’t appreciate enough what I do have. In addition, I find myself suspecting that maybe if I were a wonderful person, I’d receive more acceptance and understanding and own fewer material possessions. Someone who is psychologically and spiritually healthy is less likely to use shopping as therapy; having more things does not compensate for what is lacking inside. Instead of feeling grateful for the excessive material things that I have, I feel rather ashamed. I live alone in a two-story house; “a room of one’s own,” as Virginia Woolf put it, is important for me, but a house that size seems extravagant now that I’ve come to India and seen how little space people have here. Why should I have so much space and paraphernalia, when others have so little? Far from feeling smug about my material wealth, I’m acutely aware, more than ever, that it doesn’t make up for psychological, mental, and emotional starvation.
Staying in such a luxurious hotel when I’ve seen so many poor people and so much squalor leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I pull aside the curtains in this posh hotel room, and I see ugly buildings partially torn down and a derelict building with one lit window. It’s like “The Masque of the Red Death.” In here is luxury and it seems safe, and out there is the plague.
Seeing so much suffering in India has given me a strong suspicion that Siddhartha Gautama had plenty of opportunity to see people suffering in much the same way, during his walks around northern India. Perhaps he even saw ragged figures pulling polio victims in small wagons when he crossed the river to Varanasi. Clearly, the Buddha was deeply moved by the suffering of others, and that was the main motivation and inspiration for his spiritual journey. Having been a social reject and an underdog from a very early age, I have connected with underdogs and far from kissing up to the evil status quo, I have sought to overthrow it and to live outside of it, thus to alleviate the world of suffering in addition to my own suffering. I have often done a poor job of this, but at least my heart is in the right place, and my actions have improved in recent years and should continue to do so.
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