India - Kanchipuram and the Untouchables
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2008
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6
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Trip End
May 10, 2008
Kanchipuram,
India
Friday, March 14, 2008
Kanchipuram. Kanchipuram is also known as the city of a thousand
temples. It was about a two hour ride from Chennai. Our driver got
us a guide who turned out to be a priest at one of the temples we
would be visiting. Priests are part of the Brahman caste, the top
caste in India. Our guides father was a priest, and his eldest son is
studying to become one as well. Having such a knowledgeable guide
really enhanced our experience. He taught us so much about Hinduism
as well as the caste system in India and arranged marriages.
The last temple we visited was the temple where he is a priest.
He wakes up every morning at 4AM to go lead prayers for two hours and
then teaches Sanscrit for a few hours in the morning. After that he
gives tours in order to bring a little more money home and then in the
evening leads more prayers and teachings. We learned all about the
Indian wedding rituals and how he would arrange the marriage of his
daughter.
We had been asking a lot of questions about his wife so in the
afternoon, our guide offered to show us his house and meet his wife
which was right next to the temple. This turned out to be the best
part of our day. He took us upstairs to his house where his wife, as
well as his mother and mother in law were. They graciously invited us
in to their home. Their home consisted of two concrete rooms. One
was the kitchen and adjacent to that was one room with a small tv in
it. They laid out straw mats for us and we sat down and our guide
translated for us as we talked to his wife. Both the mothers were
very shy, but seemed happy to have us there. The room where they all
sleep,(husband, wife, mother in law, and three children), was smaller
then my bedroom at home. They sleep on straw mats on the concrete
floor. This was very surprising to my friends and I, as we knew they
were part of the top caste. We don't know for sure, but we think it
was because he is a priest, and the temple he works at is not state
funded so he is not paid for many of his services. There are
definitely many wealthy Indians with servants and drivers etc. but we
did not experience this side of Indian life.
The next morning I left for my trip to a Dalit village with
Semester at Sea. Dalit is the tamal word for those born into the
caste of "untouchables." Although the caste system is much less
apparent in places like Delhi, it is still very strong in rural
villages. Even in cities many still follow the caste system, as we
found out from our guide in Kanchipuram who believed his children must
marry in their caste. We arrived first at the Dalit Training center.
We spent the morning being welcomed by the students with traditional
dancing, singing, and skits. The training center includes a primary
school, a school similar to high school, and also has a nursing
program. All the students come from various Dalit villages in India
and most likely would never have the opportunity to have a good
education without the center. At the end of the performances they
asked our group to show them something as well (aka sing or dance).
Of course we had not expected this and were caught completely off
guard. We ended up getting up there and singing you are my sunshine
and take me out to the ball game. It was pretty funny, but it was the
best we could do with a minutes notice.
Afterwards they had prepared us a delicious Indian meal and
we spent the next hour or so playing with the kids in the primary
school and taking their pictures (which they think is the best thing
in the WORLD). We later got to sit down and talk with the nursing
students who were about our age. I talked for most of the time with a
girl named Rada. She taught me how to sing a tamal song (well I tried
at least) and braided my hair and showed me how to put flowers in it
the way they often do. The director of the training center, Henry,
also gave us a talk on the caste system. He was a very inspirational
man. He is a Dalit and has struggled his way up to be able to make
training centers like this one. His hope is to teach the children at
his schools that they deserve an education and are free to do what
they want. We learned that in most cases, when applying for a job in
India you are asked what caste you are in. It is technically illegal,
but most find ways around it by asking your families name etc. The
government is apparently in denial that it is still going on and tends
to blame it on the individual villages rather then seeing it as a
countrywide problem.
After talking with Henry we went outside to what looked like a
volleyball court they had set up. We played a game that they call
throw-ball (similar to volleyball), SAS verses the nursing students.
The first game the nursing students, all in their saris, kicked our
butts. But we finally got the hang of it and actually won the next
game! But those girls were tough, they had a mean throw!
We had to say goodbye to the kids at the training center after
that and headed off to the village where we would be staying the
night. The Dalit Training Center had set up this program for Semester
at Sea students in years before, but they don't do it on a regular
basis. Each time they've done it for SAS they choose a new village to
visit. So the village we went to had never had a group before, so
many had never seen foreigners. When we arrived everyone from the
village started coming out of their houses and over to where they had
prepared a welcoming procession for us. The men processed us through
the village with dancing and drums, stopping every few meters at a
house where the women of the house would perform a welcoming ritual
with a burning leaf and pouring colored water on the ground where we
were about to cross. An elderly women attached herself to me and was
holding my hand and touching my face for most of the procession as we
walked together. It was quite an experience. We eventually arrived
at a place where the training center had helped the village set up a
stage for performances they had prepared for us. There was fire
breathing and juggling, dancing, theatre, it was incredible!!! Then of
course they expected us to show them our skills! (of which we don't
have many) So once again we all got up there in front of a couple
hundred villagers feeling very dumb and unskilled and sang you are my
sunshine and then did the maquerena! One of the guys in our group
saved us by doing some flips at the end which they loved. It was
embarrassing that we didn't have anything prepared and we all agreed
we would definitely have to tell semester at sea to tell the next
group to come a little more prepared! But either way I think they were
just happy that we contributed something.
By the time the reception was over it was dark and we were
taken back to the president of the villages house. Most of the houses
in the village were small huts made out of palm fronds, but the
president had a house with a couple rooms made out of concrete. There
were 25 of us and we had all brought sleeping bags. We slept on the
floor of his concrete porch and the rooms inside.
The next morning a few of us woke up by 6:30 and went on a
walk with the presidents son. He took us out into the marsh that was
next to the village. It was beautiful. Later a couple of us walked
around the village, meeting people and collecting children along the
way who walked with us through the whole village holding our hands and
showing us games that they play. It was a great morning and we were
all really sad to leave. We took the buses back to the ship and spent
our last afternoon around Chennai.
India was the experience of a lifetime for me. It was
overwhelming at first and almost hard to handle. It is dirty and loud
and chaotic .You can never really relax because you're always dirty
and everything you sit on is dirty and uncomfortable. The toilets are
holes in the ground. Flys land on your food as you eat and your
throat hurts from all the pollution and dust. This might not sound
very desirable, but after a couple days you start to see the beauty of
India. The beauty is in its uniqueness. Okay that sounded cheesy.
But it is unlike anywhere I have ever been or ever will go. If you can
get past the dirt and grime, I found India to be a beautiful place.
Not beautiful in the way that we usually think about it. But it is
beautiful in the depth of its culture and people. It is such a
distinctive culture, so different from my own, and I loved that about
it.
That's all I really have time to write today! Hope everything
is going well in the states!
