The funny grate that a lot of trucks here have.
There is a lot of begging here. Some eunuchs were begging around the train the other day. I was in the second class ladies car because I was with someone else, and she said I bet they don’t come into the first class car, huh? And she was right, they don’t. I guess the first class car is tighter. Some little girls tried their luck with us on the first class car the other day. One played an accordian type instrument and sang some film song (badly) while her little companion danced at the ladies, hands on her hips, gyrating around. It was creepy, and I would rather have a eunuch ask me for money any day. They didn’t do very well with us. I hope they got more sympathy in the second class car.
I have learned to check the feet when a kid walks up to me. If I see shoes, the kid is probably with a parent and is going to keep on walking by. No shoes, the kid was probably sent over by a parent to beg, and I need to speed up.
Last night as I was leaving the train station to come home a toddling three year old started poking my legs and yammering about money to me. She was really persistant- she followed me through the station and halfway down the road before giving up. She kept up this weird indecipherable background noise the whole time. I found it tricky to escapethe grasp of the toddler, she just kept coming. It was cartoonishly bizarre, how she handled herself.
The other day a few kids came onto the ladies first class car and tried begging from station to station. When I got up to wait by the door for my stop, they got really excited and started jumping at me, hands out. I smiled and shook my head (I always smile my “no”) but they didn’t stop until one of the ladies looked up from her book and hissed at them to stop it. She didn’t even look at me, she just casually glanced up and “hhhhhssssrrrrp.” They took it philosophically and stopped bugging me and turned their attention to determining who could hang out of the train car the furthest. I nodded thanks to the woman, but she was already reading again. It was amazing how simply and efficiently she dealt with them, and how she did it with the casual politeness you use in basic, daily interactions. You say “excuse me” and walk around someone, or let someone go through a door before you, or, apparently, deter a band of mendicants for a hapless foreigner. Effortlessly, she took care of the situation in a way that I simply do not have the capacity for.
Similarly, I was walking home with one of my coworkers and some beggar kids came up and tried to ask for some of the food we had just bought. She shooed them away with the same hiss and swipe, as though they were dogs. And it was sad, but that has started to seem to me like the right thing to do in that situation. It was weird. I have gotten used to the poverty in a lot of ways. The kids coming up to me don’t engender my pity or compassion. Instead, I have started to see them with a certain lack of empathy. They are a nuisance to be dealt with; they are not people. I just want them to stop bothering me. I am not even very guilty anymore.
It isn’t a very big jump for me to see that this is how prejudice gets built, solidly and completely, through long term interactions with different classes of people. How what “quality” people are might seem inherent, or so deeply ingrained as to be genetic. Not simply a function of circumstances. How those people become “those people.” My fine and fragile ideas about fraternity and equality are very learned, they are not automatic or inevitable. And I am uncomfortable with how superficial my egalitarian ideals might be. It is, for instance, easy to think that everyone should have equal access to food and shelter when there is plenty of food and shelter to go around. But when you want some of my food and shelter, even if I have enough, there are so many of you, I am not sure I want to share. My food is more important to me than my ideas. And when the revolution comes, I am afraid that I might want to be on either side, as long as it is the winning one.
Hopefully this isn’t entirely true, and I do have some ethical sense of right treatment of human beings, but making that come to terms with how to deal with the daily begging is difficult.
The kids really run after me if they see me coming. They touch my arms and tug on my bag, which I really really don’t like. I don’t like being touched by grimy little hands. Also, I think that I might have an invisible name tag that says Money. Because that is what they call me. They come up with hands out and say hello, money, hello hello, money. Money money money, please money.
When I do want to yield to the temptation to give, I try not to. Even when I feel sad about it, I have decided, generally, not to give. It won’t stop the begging and I don’t know that it will really help them. Sigh. Maybe it would. But giving is like throwing handfuls of sand into the Grand Canyon. I feel so cheap when I see other people giving, though. It is hard to know what to do. Either way, poverty is ugly. So I don’t give. To kids. I give to the handicapped and elderly. But only on Saturdays. And sometimes Thursdays. That assuages my conscience but makes me feel like I am not contributing to the culture of begging too much.
I have also been keeping track of how much I have been begged. I am going to put the money I would have given to beggars to some microlending organization. Probably the socially responsible clothing store.
There are so many different worlds that people live in here. I am used to being the only one in my SAT class without a cell phone. Now I am the only one in my SAT class without a driver.
I feel like Bombay is the New York (economics/business) and the Las Vegas (entertainment/cheap crap not done very well) and the Los Angeles (film industry) of India. It really is a huge place with a lot of different things going on. It even has a little Seattle (bureaucracy) thrown in. Delhi is the Washington DC (seat of government/lots of crime) of India.
There is a lot of begging here. Some eunuchs were begging around the train the other day. I was in the second class ladies car because I was with someone else, and she said I bet they don’t come into the first class car, huh? And she was right, they don’t. I guess the first class car is tighter. Some little girls tried their luck with us on the first class car the other day. One played an accordian type instrument and sang some film song (badly) while her little companion danced at the ladies, hands on her hips, gyrating around. It was creepy, and I would rather have a eunuch ask me for money any day. They didn’t do very well with us. I hope they got more sympathy in the second class car.
I have learned to check the feet when a kid walks up to me. If I see shoes, the kid is probably with a parent and is going to keep on walking by. No shoes, the kid was probably sent over by a parent to beg, and I need to speed up.
Last night as I was leaving the train station to come home a toddling three year old started poking my legs and yammering about money to me. She was really persistant- she followed me through the station and halfway down the road before giving up. She kept up this weird indecipherable background noise the whole time. I found it tricky to escapethe grasp of the toddler, she just kept coming. It was cartoonishly bizarre, how she handled herself.
The other day a few kids came onto the ladies first class car and tried begging from station to station. When I got up to wait by the door for my stop, they got really excited and started jumping at me, hands out. I smiled and shook my head (I always smile my “no”) but they didn’t stop until one of the ladies looked up from her book and hissed at them to stop it. She didn’t even look at me, she just casually glanced up and “hhhhhssssrrrrp.” They took it philosophically and stopped bugging me and turned their attention to determining who could hang out of the train car the furthest. I nodded thanks to the woman, but she was already reading again. It was amazing how simply and efficiently she dealt with them, and how she did it with the casual politeness you use in basic, daily interactions. You say “excuse me” and walk around someone, or let someone go through a door before you, or, apparently, deter a band of mendicants for a hapless foreigner. Effortlessly, she took care of the situation in a way that I simply do not have the capacity for.
Similarly, I was walking home with one of my coworkers and some beggar kids came up and tried to ask for some of the food we had just bought. She shooed them away with the same hiss and swipe, as though they were dogs. And it was sad, but that has started to seem to me like the right thing to do in that situation. It was weird. I have gotten used to the poverty in a lot of ways. The kids coming up to me don’t engender my pity or compassion. Instead, I have started to see them with a certain lack of empathy. They are a nuisance to be dealt with; they are not people. I just want them to stop bothering me. I am not even very guilty anymore.
It isn’t a very big jump for me to see that this is how prejudice gets built, solidly and completely, through long term interactions with different classes of people. How what “quality” people are might seem inherent, or so deeply ingrained as to be genetic. Not simply a function of circumstances. How those people become “those people.” My fine and fragile ideas about fraternity and equality are very learned, they are not automatic or inevitable. And I am uncomfortable with how superficial my egalitarian ideals might be. It is, for instance, easy to think that everyone should have equal access to food and shelter when there is plenty of food and shelter to go around. But when you want some of my food and shelter, even if I have enough, there are so many of you, I am not sure I want to share. My food is more important to me than my ideas. And when the revolution comes, I am afraid that I might want to be on either side, as long as it is the winning one.
Hopefully this isn’t entirely true, and I do have some ethical sense of right treatment of human beings, but making that come to terms with how to deal with the daily begging is difficult.
The kids really run after me if they see me coming. They touch my arms and tug on my bag, which I really really don’t like. I don’t like being touched by grimy little hands. Also, I think that I might have an invisible name tag that says Money. Because that is what they call me. They come up with hands out and say hello, money, hello hello, money. Money money money, please money.
When I do want to yield to the temptation to give, I try not to. Even when I feel sad about it, I have decided, generally, not to give. It won’t stop the begging and I don’t know that it will really help them. Sigh. Maybe it would. But giving is like throwing handfuls of sand into the Grand Canyon. I feel so cheap when I see other people giving, though. It is hard to know what to do. Either way, poverty is ugly. So I don’t give. To kids. I give to the handicapped and elderly. But only on Saturdays. And sometimes Thursdays. That assuages my conscience but makes me feel like I am not contributing to the culture of begging too much.
I have also been keeping track of how much I have been begged. I am going to put the money I would have given to beggars to some microlending organization. Probably the socially responsible clothing store.
There are so many different worlds that people live in here. I am used to being the only one in my SAT class without a cell phone. Now I am the only one in my SAT class without a driver.
I feel like Bombay is the New York (economics/business) and the Las Vegas (entertainment/cheap crap not done very well) and the Los Angeles (film industry) of India. It really is a huge place with a lot of different things going on. It even has a little Seattle (bureaucracy) thrown in. Delhi is the Washington DC (seat of government/lots of crime) of India.
6 comments:
I found the same to be true in Mazatlan, lots of begging and touching. Yes, I too felt sorry for them but if you start passing out coins, then the swarm of kids gets bigger. I did not mind if the child had something to sell, i.e., gum (most common) or a little carving that was made, but the tugging and grabbing got to me too. I like your idea of giving an equal amount to a local group. Hopefully your Seattle roommate will be a happier sight than la cucaracha! Safe trip home.
I seem to recall some religious guy saying, "It is much easier to be charitable when no one else is around."
After a few months exposure to the begging hordes, you may involuntarily find a bit of a republican taste in your mouth.
Imagine yourself with 5 years exposure to this. I bet the hiss and wave develop naturally.
I thought you were quite favourably comparing your local with your seattle roommate...alike in so many of the good ways.
p.
Yes, I skitter when someone turns on the lights, too.
I wonder if the hiss will work on the dropouts on the ave? We should try it.
How could you tell they were eunuchs? Mom
it's funny...when I read the first part of your story (where the woman on the train hisses at the children), my first thought was how nice it was that she was instilling those morals into the children - about how you shouldn't beg at foreigners for money - and how they responded to her b/c they respect their elders, which is common in other countries, but not ours, and which is something I really appreciate.
but i guess that was wishful thinking. it is interesting how you noticed similar behavior in your friend and had the insight that this is how societies become classist, and how by making poor people the "other" we quickly lose empathy and gain prejudice. it is easy to think intellectually that this is wrong, but I agree that when faced with insistent and privacy-invading begging, I am annoyed and want to ignore it.
the other thing that bugs me is when vendors at shops try to tackle you as you walk by, or follow you down the street if you try to leave without buying anything. I always wonder whether they have tested both ways and they truly get more sales when they attack people. I bet they just need to feel proactive, and so watching someone leave your shop feels like you didn't try. but I am always more likely to go back to that shop again later.
maybe we can get a grant to travel the world and study this.
November is National Novel Writing Month. Maybe you guys can make it National Grant-Writing Month.
Post a Comment