Semester at Sea Fall 2006 Voyage |
|
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
|
Driving
Home in
By Becka
Maybe it’s silly to be afraid as the rickshaw driver turns down a side street, but I can’t squelch the feeling. To the left a group of children stand naked in the street, plastic bags over their hands, and play with something that might be mud or clay on a wooden table. Whatever the substance is, they’re covered in it from head to toe, except their hands. The driver pulls to a stop and we sit and wait. He returns and ushers us down a street, the fear that had begun to die away comes back, stronger than ever. I can’t help thinking what are we doing? Outside of a doorway stands a woman with grey hair, he speaks with her quickly and grinning widely, brings us through the door-way into a small, two-roomed house, if you can call it that.
There are
two lawn-chairs in the larger room, in front of a television, which,
aside from
the lights and DVD player, is the
only modern device in the house. He
motions for us to sit, and we do, albeit
hesitantly. A woman, his wife we later
find out, enters wearing a red sari, followed closely behind by a
little boy in
a blue tank-top and shorts. “My youngest
son,” he tells us, “not old enough for school.” Barely
looking at us, the boy runs to the corner of the
room and stands
on his head. The driver shows us
pictures of his wedding, a previous election, and then some that were
taken by
a previous group of SAS students from one of the voyages of ’96. Meanwhile the boy has been climbing onto
furniture, trying to acquire a lighter from the top of a cabinet. We offer him a chocolate coin, which he takes
to the corner to peal off the wrapper. His
father tells us he’s the youngest of eight, and
there’s an unspoken
wonder between my companion and I how eleven people can fit in this
small room
as we take photos with his son and his wife. The
children from the street peek in the door and the
little boy ushers
them away as his parents joke with him that they’ll send him back to In the background his father
changes the channel on the TV set for his wife to some other movie,
subtitled
in Hindi and I wonder if anthropologist Sara Dickey is right when she
says that
“. . . cinema both plays on these fantasies [of an easier life] and
verifies
the inner worth and righteous character of the lower classes” in India
(16). |
Return to course home | Send me
your
comments: Evilimp123@gmail.com |