Some government assistance please!

The government of Tamil Nadu has many incentive programs and free products for poor families, but are they really helping to uplift them from poverty or are they just giving them a good dose of materialism and greed?

Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Free Televisions for the poor!
If a slum dweller in Chennai gets a free television from the government that's great! Here's the downside: That person potentially doesn't even have electricity, but it will make a great table for a shrine to Jesus or Shiva. If they have electricity they have to buy cable or a dish satellite. They have to pay a monthly fee, minus that from their huge bank account or wad of rupee bills stashed in a plastic jar. All the neighbors will come in the evening to enjoy programming, but individually owned and politically owned television channels will monopolize their time away from family discussion or study time. Finally if your neighbor gets a television you will have to one up them and buy a TV plus a DVD player. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Free low grade rice! 20 Kilos per month!
Thank goodness for free rice because the agriculture workers earning 30 rupees a day can't afford food for themselves let alone for their collection of children. Too bad their not giving free birth control, but wait! There was one village that was subject to free vasectomy's. One village. If a coolie worker is getting 30 rupees per day they may try to work 20-25 days a month depending on where they are living. If a coolie worker is getting a free 20 kilo bag of rice they may only work 10 days a month. There's no note attached to give the laboring class ideas about saving for their future, children's education, or medical emergencies, so that means they don't have to work as much. If a family eats rice and sambar or kanji once every day, they are not motivated by this 20 kilos of rice to eat rice and sambar with chicken, or a carrot side dish. There is not note attached giving them a lesson on nutrition either. I assume some people are not working less and maybe their meals improve, but the local perception is people are lazy and basically bad, so why would they even bother.

Other incentives:
+ 20,000 rupees from the government when you marry off your daughter... after paying the dowry which is supposed to be illegal
+ free gas stoves, then you can buy an expensive fuel tank instead of cooking outside with firewood... this is definitely good if it is raining outside, also the food will cook much faster with the gas stove and the women will have to spend less time cooking. If your daily work and toil is not appreciated then throwing together a fast rasam and sambar is more beneficial than squatting in the backyard over four stack of bricks and a bubbling pot.
+ free bicycles will get you to work more easily and the whole family can use the bike
+ in rare instances scholarships for better education are given, hopefully this will increase in the future

A dose of religion

After spending some time with my family visiting the place where Buddha conducted his first lecture, meeting one of our lead forward students and his family who practice Jainism, and having repeated discussions with my family friends about Jews, Jesus, and Christianity it is easy to perceive obvious similarities and differences. It is interesting to see the different personal opinions and practices in the varying sects of Christianity. There is a large Roman Catholic following in Pondicherry, the French coastal state that is surrounded by Tamil Nadu terrain. To experience a centennial celebration at the most notorious Pondicherry Roman Catholic church and see the flocks of Indian people mixed with foreigners, bikers, and children running about really shows how religion can give so much sanctity and feelings of togetherness for its followers. The Lutheran movement is strongest in Tamil Nadu especially in the vicinity of the Pondicherry and Cuddlore parish. There is also a following in Bangalore, but more missionary presence and strong devotees are said to be in Tamil Nadu. The Muslim belief in 'Allah' is very similar to Jewish prayer and worship for 'Adonai'. One television program on Prayer TV followed the speech of one doctor who was explaining the confusion of giving a male or female sex to Allah. This is the same for Adonai, the thought of an all knowing being or spirit that can't readily be explained or defined, just that it is ever present. If I tell my Christian friends that I don't believe in Jesus they are shocked and can't understand what Judaism is based on. Many Roman Catholics have pressured me to convert to Christianity giving me bibles or explaining the New Testament. This has also happened with one Protestant friend. They don't identify with Adonai, just how I don't identify with Jesus, but some are first generation converts from Hinduism and others have become accustomed to their religion since attending childhood religious school or cathecism class. Varying strength in belief or devotion can be seen between couples, but most times their children take on a strong religious belief. Is this due to the lifestyle where the chance and practice of a religion is give more time and respect from the culture. India can be stereotyped as a religious country, but that does not make it spiritual. I think some aspects of religious practice are very repetitive. I haven't seen any difference in RC weddings I have attended. There is one style present, in my experiences, full of tradition and ritual that is followed almost identically regardless of caste. At a village wedding in a poor rural place, you won't see all guests covered with gold and breathtaking sarees, but the same sense of tradition and customs are incorporated. The lack of spirituality might lead people to depend on religion as a crutch or as a way they can pray for better lives, but other incidents are completely ridiculous. This also applies to western practice (I'm sure you've read stories online or in the news). Last week I read an article where two frogs were married and fashioned in a red wedding suit (complete with cape) and a red dress for the bride. The village Hindus who married these two amphibians were giving them to a specific god for more rain during the monsoon season. The ceremony took place on a rock in the woods and afterwards the frogs were released. The village had been experiencing a very dry season and their harvest was minimal. Whatever your belief or however you are practicing I just want to state that the mind is a very powerful tool that can be used constructively or destructively and avidly affect a person, group or situation.

Tamil Music Television

Tonight I was fortunate enough to be completely appalled by one music video. If you think MTV and VH1 are negative affecting the minds of the youth then you have no idea what the Indian youths are being subjected to. I was doing my routine activities after cooking lunch with a couple students, drinking cool water, painting toe nails, talking about the hot weather when a music video began that was more obscene that I could have imagined. The video began showing a bus full of students going or coming to school. The girls were in pink plaid with braided pigtails tied up in white ribbons and the boys were wearing button down shirts in dusty blue. All the students were in uniform looking neat and clean. After the initial scene was represented the camera zoomed in on two students, one boy and one girl. The two people were staring into each others eyes more intensely that any boy and any girl have started at each other in history... except maybe Romeo and Juliet. The camera zoomed in on all eye twitches and lip quivers instigating the thought process that these two students were going through. They stared at each other while everyone else was concerned with their own business going about like normal students. Mind you this was supposed to be a group of high school kids. The girl, was definitely not a girl and was most likely a woman around 21 years old and the drooling boy was at least 35. It is typical here to marry a man much older in traditional arranged marriages, but these actors were supposed to be students. If someone bumped into either the boy or girl you could feel sexy thoughts pounding out of the tv. If the bus jerked or went over a pot hole or speed bump the girl fell into the boy strategically having her head go into the crevice of her neck. There were so many close ups, the boy would sneakily touch the girls shirt, the girl would brush up against him. Without even opening their mouths, only the lip quivers were apparent. I have to question why girls are becoming pregnant and their lovers are going off and killing them and their unborn children. Why are there newspaper articles where young people run off wanting to have a love marriage and their own parents go after them and kill them? If all the people in villages are getting free televisions from the government and sitting around during and after dinner watching music videos and soap operas no wonder people are trying to live the fantasy life. Only after being abused by your husband, getting aids and joining a support group will any women leave their families. The male student on the bus would ruin the girls reputation, destroy respect for her in her village and worst of all impregnate her out of wedlock tarnishing the whole family. But for the boy student even after these actions have been committed, even after going before the village court, even after his own parents reprimand the girl and her family, he will only have to pay a fine of $3 or $4 dollars to the village council. Why is it that when they two students were staring so deeply into each others eyes it is always the girl whose eyes first look toward the ground? Because the women are pushed down in all ways, even though the men will take the women to bed with them they won't respect them. Even though the women cook and clean and cater to all the men's needs the men won't respect them. I would like to create one Indian holiday opposite from Women's Day that is already celebrated here where the women actually leave the house eat at restaurants and relax. Where the husbands all have someone like a British Nanny scold them and even beat them if necessary. I'm waiting for this day to come.

When you're faced with poverty

As a person who is clearly foreign with white skin in a country where white skin is idolized and cherished it is most difficult to know the situation of those who live with nothing in comparison to my own personal background. I am definitely not individually wealthy, but I am coming from a family where I never had to worry if the heating bill would be paid or there would be food in the cupboard. This put me in a constant predicament. Tonight I am staying in Chennai with a social activist who is really changing peoples perception and motivating them to support others from different castes and classes. She stays in a third floor apartment in one district of this enormous city. There are three fashion design students taking courses and staying with her and one boy she sponsored to get his bachelor's in social work who frequents the residence. These kids are like my Indian brothers and sisters. We talk about social issues, read together, make jewelry and design fashions, cook, wash clothes and eat. They are all originally coming from rural villages, but now they can get around in the city with basic social interaction skills. Tonight after dinner and creating some new hairstyles we were enjoying the breeze on the balcony. One girls said she wanted to show me something so I went and we crossed the apartment, looked out the barred window and saw about 8 or 9 men sleeping on the roof of a building next door that is being constructed. These men are sleeping on cardboard boxes. All their belongings fill half a burlap sack. They work every day from 6am to 10 pm making 100 rupees per day. These men are my neighbors. They earn 2 dollars per day. How can you eat three meals, support your wife and young child with these wages. We know their contractors and managers are living in nice houses with air conditioning, they are able to feed their children 3 meals a day and send them to school. Their wives are decorated with silk embroidered sarees and gold jewelry but they have no concern for the people they depend on for this lifestyle. The coolie workers who are fulfilling the managers tasks can't defend themselves or protest this wage and lifestyle. If they protest the 100 rupee per day salary with disappear from their pocket and another eager oppressed person will come fill their place. Not being able to support your family but having your mouth glued shut so you can't speak about it, and your hands tied together during your daily labor, this is why i wake up everyday and bear the heat and pollution. This is why i meet officials and try to motivate students and leaders. This is why the Indian people can't bring about this change themselves.

Meals Eating

There are so many amazing foods in India, but Tamil Nadu exceeds other states in special varieties and preparations of food. You can't eat iddly for breakfast in Andhra Pradesh and you can't have dosai for dinner in West Bengal. Well, technically you can if you go to a Chettinad hotel specializing in southern food, but the atmosphere and experience isn't the same as eating local foods prepared by local people. Make sure you keep in mind that in India signs for a hotel does not refer to a place for lodging but it is in fact a restaurant. Signs for a restaurant are also referring to a place for eating complementing the institution a restaurant defines in western countries. This country survives on rice. The government has even instigated rice rations for all people to eliminate the obvious problem of starvation. You can get 20 kilograms of rice per month for a family for only one rupee per kilogram. That translates to 2 cents for one kilogram which is 2.2lbs. Even the most poor families using this ration are able to eat three meals of kanji a day. Kanji being the most basic food consists of rice and water sometimes with some salt for taste. If you aren't eating kanji and the father of the family works two to five days a month your family can have a delectable sambar to complement the government rationed rice, otherwise known as a vegetable and yellow dal sauce. I myself have taken both of these meals in my journey, but the common meal I want to describe is served in hotels. Since rice is a staple and a good source of protein and energy everyone is eating rice so in a hotel many people prefer rice meals. You wouldn't imagine how much rice one person here can eat without becoming the slightest bit overweight and some people still being extraordinarily slim. I would estimate that an individual can eat 2 cups of boiled rice per meal if given the opportunity. This is in addition to any sauces. chicken, appalam, drinks, and pickle. In a hotel when you order a rice meal, first you get a nice steel plate covered with a banana leaf that is quite often cut into the circular shape of the plate. On that plate are between five and ten small steel cups filled with a variety of sauces and even a dessert. A waiter will come and put a crispy appalam on your place and then he'll bring a huge steel bowl full of rice and start scooping it out onto everyones plate. Everyone will start tasting and pouring small amounts of sauce onto their rice in different sections seeing which sauce they want to eat first and which they want to save for the end of their meal. With a rice meal the rice is unlimited so at least two helpings of rice should be eaten. First you can mix some sambar then try the spicy beets. After eating that there may be a kurma with potatoes or peas if your eating southern Indian food. Some other types of vegetables will be served like fried bitter gourd or sweet shredded carrots. There may be an eggplant kurma with some other assorted vegetables that even taste cannot help to identify their variety. After these substantial sauces you will finish your meal with rasam or curd with salt. When you mix rasam which is like a light sometimes oily vegetable broth with your rice the rasam should be almost double the amount of rice. Then when you scoop up handfuls of rice the rasam is fully present and the Indians will tell you drinking rasam aids in digestion. Feel free to drink the rest from your plate when all the rice is gone. If you opt for curd this is basically like mixing yogurt and rice with a little salt for taste. The curd floats in its own juice which is like the water that separates in a cup of yogurt from the dairy section in the supermarket. Mix it all in add a tiny spoonful of salt mush it around and consume. After if you are lucky there will be some kaserie which is a sweet orange grainy dessert usually accented with a cashew or there will be some payasam which is most similar to tapioca, but instead of grains of rice or tapioca balls there are noodles. You can drink these directly from the steel cup itself. After all of this you will want to take a nap right there on the table, but odds are that you've stopped for this rice meal on the way to your next destination so off you go, hopefully the bumpy Indian roads with diversions and all will aid in your digestion.

Comparative Chapals

Chapals is the Tamil word for sandals. Sometimes referred to as slippers they differ from shoes which are called shoes, some Tamil English mixed language. Chapals should definitely not be worn with socks (just a tidbit of fashion advice especially white tube socks with champion logos like my parents). There are so many types of sandals it's hard to recreate the experience I am having with all the different varieties, take notice of how I said varieties instead of styles. Ok, so the styles in the shops are nice and all but this blog is about the hard core wear and tear of this dusty life of toiling in the fields and walking and walking and walking. This may be why many south Indians in Tamil Nadu choose to go without any protective footwear. Their feet are caloused and cracking with cuts and blisters, but apparently they have no concern for potential infection or fungal attacks. There is quite a discrepancy in the prevalence of people wearing shoes between the north and south. I would guestimate 99% of norther people wear shoes while maybe only 79% of southerners wear shoes. This percentage is definitely increasing with the availability of low cost models, but still health education will affect the rate change as well. You can see so many abandoned chapals on the side of the road and in trash piles ranging from mud covered single shoes to pairs of new looking chapals, there are foam varieties, but more rare is an abandoned pair of childrens footwear. I've met people who hobble around with chapals that look as if they've been worn for the past 25 years. The heel is completely worn through leaving holes at various angles depending on where the majority of their weight falls. Also many people wear chapals that they can just slide their foot into and flop around in loosely while walking. No matter if there are straps or ankle support they leave them open and redefine what a flip flop should be. I've been running for a train and my chapal has completely dislodged itself from my foot leaving me to retrieve it and attempt running again. That is what you get when you import Havianas or some other foreign product and attempt using it regularly in India. Mostly the chapals have a place for your big toe and then where ever the rest of your foot places itself seems like luck of the draw also taking into consideration the varietly of foot ailments and deformities. Today I saw someone with two feet, fortunately, but all their toes grew at 45 degree angles toward the pinky toe. This person was not wearing shoes and unfortunately there was a bag of bananas blocking my view of his foot when he sat behind me. There is also a common birth defect, potentially and highly likely to be from inbreeding, where there is an extra appendage at the end of your set of hopefully 5 toes just hanging out sticking off the outside side of your foot or hand. With sandals this node would probly enjoy itself dragging along the dusty ground as the rest of your toes were protected by the footbed of your chapal, but at the same time this may be best because when ever I see this defect I want to pluck the appendage off myself or just cut it quickly with my pocket knife. I think you would need an extra wide variety to protect this type of genetic deformity. Unfortunately I have yet to see any custom styles like that for someone who doesn't have enough money to seek medical attention in the first place to have it removed. I just got some new chapals from the Bata company which may be the most prominent commercial chain in India for shoes after my last chapals broke and I tried to repair them myself with superglue. I made four do it yourself attemps and after that failed they went in the waste bin. Whatever chapals you are wearing it is definitely best in a footwear optional culture to make sure that yours are easily removeable and replaceable. Don't get too attached because the quality of Indian shoes does not support the motto built to last. Maybe built to get dusty and fall apart is a more suitable motto for this country.

How many shawls can one priest have?

In Tamil Nadu it is a sign of respect and a tradition to drape someone with a shawl when honoring them at an event or function. Recently I attended a Jubilee ceremony for on priest named Backianatham. This jubilee function commemorated his 25th year of service to the Roman Catholic church. The event was organized by one of the Lead Forward trust members as it was especially relevant that he is a Dalit priest and the location was a Dalit village. In events in Tamil Nadu some number of people are seated on stage in plastic chairs in a row. At least one row will be present sometimes more if necessary. The stage for this even was the church steps and entry way and you can imagine in a big Dalit village they will have a big church to hold all the attendees during mass. This stage was quite gigantic and as they were arranging chairs they seemed to squeeze about 20 or 25 people on the stage as more chair were popping up on the ends when more people arrived to fill them. Backianatham sat in the middle and for hours people gave speeches about Backinathams leadership and monumental career. He has really helped many people and supported many local projects as a leader. So after each speech out from the sidelines popped a sparkly or woollen shawl and the speech giver draped it over Backianatham and then posed for a cheesy photo that will go in some scrapbook and collect dust on a shelf with other 2009 memories. After about 20 shawls refolded in a pile were amassed I began to wonder after 25 years as a priest, not including his time as a brother how many shawls could be possibly have. Probably after 10 years and 15 years there is also a similar ceremony to collect shawls and this even excludes all the individuals who shawl him because he is a priest or helped their family. One thing to mention is the moment after being shawled you can remove the shawl, towel, fabric or some sort and another party folds it neatly along the creases as it was just unfolded from the package to be placed over your shoulders so there is really no time when you are wearing the shawl just people have the photos to construct the memory of that fine moment when you were wearing the shawl. After the jubilee I guestimate that Backianatham has about 3 house fulls of shawls probably exploding out of the windows and creeping through the cracks of the dried palm leaves and straw that make for a fine summertime roof. They layer the floor and could construct a plush bed or bench. You would never run out of makeshift pillows and there would always be shawls to shawl someone else with which brings me to the second rhetorical question... Is it appropriate to re-shawl someone with a shawl that you've been shawled with? As a final comment I know one priest who gives the shawls and towels to all the people in his native place. After spending six days with him I saw his shawl pile triple and he's only been ordained as a priest for one year. What will his jubilee ceremony be like?

Hindu Temples vs. Starbucks

Hindu Temples are as common in Tamil Nadu as Starbucks on the streets of New York City. This hypothesis doesn't need any factual support with numbers and statistics, all you have to do is go for a walk in either place, take that amount as equivalent to the other then you can understand the magnitude of both coffee monopolies and religious invasion. Ten years ago NYC was full of small businesses setting up great coffee shop with themes and atmosphere. Whether you were in Chelsea or Soho the locals would be able to guide you in the direction of a coffee shop that was uniquely New York. Once Starbucks took off and buying overpriced latte's became trendy, because what else can starving artists and underpaid waitresses afford? Maybe one sample at the Triple Five Soul sample sale per year, but enough Starbucks frappachino's to fulfill their daily need for caffeine they multiplied forcing all the small business back to jersey or upstate to struggle with small town shops and cafes. Result: Starbucks is a huge success and monopolizes the coffee industry in NY and across the US as well. Well, no longer am I a New Yorker, I am an Indian girl, or at least I am trying to become one. Okay I can't speak Tamil though one of the recognized national languages is English, and I posses brown hair and hazel eyes, but I wear the local dress hang out with only local people, eat and cook the local food, so those factors should count for some transformation in me. If you walk down my street in Chengelpattu you pass some churches, boarding schools, hospitals and shops, but in every Hindu shop, and let's face it most of the shop owners are caste people so they are Hindu, there is a small shrine. In between the churches and schools are wooden huts sheltering statues of Ganesh or Shiva. This doesn't account for the two story tall blue cats that protect the Hindu temples when you drive from Chengelpattu to Pondicherry or the historical sandstone temple which consists of four temples inside the fortress walls that makes Tanjore so famous, no, only I'm speaking about Chengelpattu itself. If you go inside any Hindu persons home they definitely have a turmeric or sandalwood mark on their door to bless their home and they will have a small shrine or a shelf full of idols that they can worship any time they wake up, after going to toilet, or after returning from the wine shop. So we've discusses the homes, makeshift shrines, shop devotees and large temples throughout the state, but what about the individual temples themselves. If a Hindu person own land there will be a temple there. In a village in the Hindu section there will be a temple there. Even on the dashboard of a Hindu car there will be a god to worship and adorn with fresh flowers everyday. You pass the colorfully rainbow colored tower style temples taking the bus anywhere on any highway. You see the Hindus dressed in bright red going for pilgrimage to the appropriate temple that they feel is best. You see the stark white temples where the gods all blend together with faint shadows separating their bodies from cow tails and other architectural details. After seeing this blasphemy of religion, if you can call a system of idol worship that supports an oppressive system of caste religion, everywhere it becomes as common as trash piles that the cows munch on all day. It is so common that the people themselves oppress because of the Hindu religion and it's smirti without even realizing why or how their own beliefs allow them to degrade other human to feel less than the dirt they themselves walk on. Once a few people can realize how common and robotic their entire "religion" is then they can start to think for themselves and realize the mistake they have made by adorning a plastic cow with jasmine flowers in the perfect shade of ivory.