TABLE
OF CONTENTS
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An Encounter with a Child in India
By
Allie D'Amanda
Coming down the
dirt road in a rickety old van toward our home-stay accommodations in
India, I
looked out the yellowish foggy window preparing myself for what I
imagined would
be a broken-down, mud caked house like the ones I had seen on the way. Yet, as we rolled past two large gates
entangled
with bright magenta flowers and pulled into the driveway, I was shocked
to see
a large, beautiful home with a well-kept garden, a large porch, a guest
house,
and diligent workers waiting our arrival ready to help us with our bags.
The man and women
who owned the house greeted us along with their daughter-in-law and two
young
granddaughters. They were the wealthiest
family in Erode and clearly p art of the highest
caste. Purni, the daughter-in-law
introduced her two
daughters to all of us, and I could see right away that Vedhika, the 10
year
old, was instantly intrigued by my bright blonde hair.
I walked over to her and introduced myself,
and the first thing she said to me was, “why is your hair so yellow and
your
skin so light compared to mine?” It
struck me as such a bold and aggressive comment, since we had literally
just
met, and I blurted back to her, “Well, why is your hair so black and
your skin
so much darker than mine?” She looked up
at me with a puzzled look on her face and simply said, “I don’t know.”
Children are the
most uninhibited, inquisitive, and open-eyed people in this world. They are like sponges, so impressionable, and
the judgments they make come primarily from their parents and the
society they
live in; they are never born with prejudices or preconceived notions
about the
world and the people who live in it, they learn them.
Especially on this
trip, I have made many conscious efforts to try to say the right thing
that
sometimes I forget how liberating it feels to spend time with a child. With a child, I can set aside my worries of
offending those who are different from me, and create a situation where
anything is possible. Most children do
not fear humiliation in their investigation of the world around them,
and in
doing so, their unconscious naiveté dissipates as they allow
others to teach
them. Gerry Tierney talks about this in
her essay on “becoming a participant observer” when she says,
As
I
reflect on my field experiences, I
realize that another important aspect of fieldwork for me was that I
was
somewhat naïve. Some anthropologists go so far as to advocate
cultivating
naiveté. I am not sure one can consciously do so; perhaps it is
sufficient
simply to use the naiveté with which most
of us come equipped and not
try to
overcome it or overcompensate for it. A certain degree of humility is
required
to do so. It is not, afterall, easy to be in a position of one who
appears to
be constantly in the dark about even the simplest situations. Putting
yourself
in the position of the student, letting insiders teach you about the
intricacies of their culture, is sometimes difficult, but in the end it
pays
off (13).
Here, Tierney’s
suggestions make me think about children, and specifically, how my
encounter
with Vedhika relates to how I want to continue my “voyage of discovery.” I need to realize that sometimes I have to
embrace humility, just as Vedhika allowed me to do, soak things up
like a
sponge, and allow people in different cultures to teach me,
instead of simply trying to compare everything I experience
to
what I know already.
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