The Story of Saura

I now know the names of all the children in the village. Or at least the ones that come to school. Today, we taught the children about families - brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers. We got them to draw their own families on paper (they thought they could wipe the colour off since they have probably never seen crayons before :-S) and tell us all the names. Each family exists of 6-12 siblings, the older ones married off to villages (if they're women) or living in the village with their own family (if they're men).

Some of this I knew from the extensive family and population survey we've been carrying out since we got here. We walked from house to house and heard the story of each individual family. Our cook and mother-like figure here, Saroji lovingly called Auntyji (the 'ji' signifying the respect we have for her), told me the story of Saura, a less than 2-year old boy who we've been noticing these past weeks. He wanders the village alone with a stick in his hand, stuffing dirt in his mouth and a protruding abdomen like I've never seen before.

Saura's mother suffers from tuberculosis and hence left Jarel to spend her last days in the care of her parents in another village. She did not bring Saura since her parents wouldn't be able to take care of them both. Saura was left in the care of his father, who at the age of 26 took a new wife - aged 13. The caretaker of Saura is in reality his grandmother who lives with the family.

Saura's father drinks heavily and is involved in criminal activities such as the illegal liquor production that is the main source of income for the community, and possibly roadside robberies. Thus, these days he's hiding in the jungle far from the village and his responsibility towards Saura. The grandmother has been absent every day since we arrived. Allegedly, she feeds Saura in the morning and leaves to go to the market - possibly selling things, but most probably to beg or steal from unattending shopkeepers.

Last week, on a rare 'visit' to his house, the father beat up his young wife so badly that she left Jarel to go back to her parents. Saura wanders the dusty paths of Jarel in his own little world - not that his stepmother has any sort of duty to take care of him since the father has rejected that responsibility, and the social logic then puts the task in the hands of other family = the grandmother who is also absent. Saura has no one.

When I picked him up yesterday, he refused eye contact with me and seemed unable to make any sounds at all - not even whimpering, crying or grumpy noises. He sat as a doll on my arm while I tried to reason with the women of the town - with our guide obviously. They argued that he's not their responsibility since he's not their son. I argued that it's not the fault of the child that his mother is dying. They said he's a bad investment because he will grow up and owe his livelihood to his real parents, not the ones that incidentally gave him affection and care. I argued that not all efforts in our lives have to give a reward. I argued that a motherless child is the responsibility of all mothers (I never said I stopped being an idealist, did I...?). Saura sat paralysed through this conversation, as if he was painfully unused to being picked up and held.

We left the women and took Saura to the water pump where we gave him a thorough wash. Still he didn't make a sound - he whimpered a tiny bit when he got soap in his eyes but not a cry, not a scream. The whole time, he never looked up at us, never once did we catch his eye. I talked to him, asked him questions like you would do to any child of that age and got no reaction from him. When he was all dry, all fresh and clean I carried him to a spot in the sun and held him cradled like an infant for a while as he soaked up the warmth from me and the sun. tickled him a little - and suddenly, he opened his eyes wide, looked up at my face and smiled a crooked and heartfelt smile. As much as his story broke my heart, did that smile restore my faith in humanity. He's not lost for eternity - he's merely 1½ years old and needs affection, laughter and to be touched by a human hand. I promised myself that I will hug him every day until we leave - and I will make one of my older pupils do the same to have him integrated into their games and lives. I asked the women to find him some clothes and after much bickering, they gave him a pair of small pants and a dress. Even in this community it is considered disgraceful to walk around naked - even for children - so it seemed very important to find him something to wear to get him integrated.

Today, I worried that they might have taken the clothes from him again. That someone else needed it. But I happily saw this morning that one of our regular girls brought Saura to school, wearing the dress and a big smile (and a repulsively running nose, but you can't win all your battles, eh...?). Lalita sat him down and Premchand played with him and made sure he was fed when children's services came with lunch for them (something new that we don't exactly know why happens...).

Saura is the ultimate victim of everything endimically problematic about the Kanjari community's existence. He represents everything that we are fighting against. Did we win a victory? Morten told me that the change was visible. Judge for yourselves.

Real life

This week has presented many challenges as we get deeper into the project and especially in the community empowerment aspect of our work. The villagers prove difficult to convince of hygenic and health improvements and some of us have felt the first disappointment in connection to this. This experience fell on the same day that the police decided to show up in Chandiya Kheri while we were having our lunch break. As we sat there in the scorching heat of mid-day sun, the officers stepped out of their jeep in full uniform and asked to see our papers. They asked if the Kanjars misbehave around us. They rolled out their power symbols with their heavy boots and knotted faces and told us without speaking that they call the shots in this area.

One officer, the higher ranking, smiled at us. He took off his baret and said "Kanjar habitual criminals. Mentality not good" and this kind of stuff. The leader of Chandiya Kheri, Umraobai, smiled cynically and said in a peaceful voice that it was too late to save her generation but the children are the hope for the future. The officer spoke in a husky voice to her, smiled and they looked like they agreed. We didn't understand much. But the one thing that is never to be mistaken is the intimidation, the trademark of representatives of power in secluded areas where no one can pierce the foggy wall of bureacracy and institutionalism.

It might seem harsh to judge 'the system' like this. It is however based on my own observations in this particular town. Alongside these views of the authorities in town, I everyday realise new truths about the Kanjars. We've known form the beginning that some of them are criminals. However, it has been difficult to figure out what kind of crimes they commit. When we ask the police they say 'habitual'. I wonder what that means. We have so far held ourselves neutral in interactions with the police, merely frowning at their statements that all Kanjars are criminals, and their accusations against the children we teach in school. But since it looks like we're going to have regular run-ins with the authorities, it is high time that we have a realistic discussion with the adults in the villages about the extra-legal activities. To know what we're dealing with. To know what to defend and what to attack. To know who and how to protect the children. And from what.

We were given the impression that their crimes are theft, fraud and liquor production. In the night, they sneak up to the main road and crawl unto trucks parked by the side of the road for the night. They move like scavenge hunters through the merchandise in the vehicles. In the pitch black night, there's no chance of knowing what you are stealing. In the morning, we meet children with bracelets made of tiny metal rings. They have an endless amount of these rings that seem to be material for fences or something similar. Entirely useless things.

Somehow, meeting the police and hearing them talk about a 'mentality change' in the Kanjari communities seems unreal. The olde saying proves true - you teach what you most of all need to learn. This is a fact of the situation here. The police do not recognise that the mentality cannot change unless they prove themselves to be excellent examples, not using the Kanjar men and children as scapegoats in every unsolvable case they get. They too are habitual criminals. The crux of the matter here is that the mentality which needs changing is the social mentality of interaction between Kanjar communities and everyone outside it. It has very little to do with the crimes committed by either side. It has absolutely everything to do with a society that grows larger distance between rich and poor by the second; a society that allows for history to set its irreversible mark on every new human brought into a particular group. This is the true tragedy of the Kanjars and the Jhalra Pattan population - for they both lose important wisdom by not knowing each other. It is a tragedy that is replayed all over India every single moment a child gets born. Change is coming but I feel it could really need a severe push by now...

Brilliant Sunday

Today was one of the best days for me personally since I got here. I know it might seem superficial to have enjoyed this so much when my purpose here is so much more important - but still. I think my reaction today shows something about me, that even I, the superhuman perfectionist is human.

The day started at 5:20 AM in the dark. I got up, put on my hat and socks for the first time since I got here and met Hans in the kitchen. We then walked through the small streets of the town behind our house and up the hill. On the hill, there is an old fort with a temple safely placed within the protection of the walls. Hans and I sat down at the main gate facing east and waited for the sun to rise. Hans is an excellent photographer and while he took pictures, I meditated while watching the light over the Jhalawar district turn from purple, to pink, to a cold white-bluish shade that lingered until the blood-red sun started crawling above the horizon. It was an extremely peaceful experience and an absolutely excellent way to start a Sunday; the only thing that could've made it better was the presence of my love.

Minor setback for top grades on this Sunday was the encounter with a rat in the kitchen when we got back. Hans, my hero, carried the trash out to the container in the street (which is in desperate need of improvement AND emptying) and we watch the rat speedily run into garbage heaven... I went back upstairs and slept for another hour or so, had the nicest dream and felt properly Sunday-warm when I woke up. Sanjeev had prepared an exquisite breakfast - omelettes, toast and a perfect chai :-) After the slow togetherness over morning tea, and after reading an incredible email from an incredible person, Nanna, Hans and I ventured into a political discussion - just to get the brain started for the day. An hour later, Nanna, Sanjeev and I left the house to visit our friends in Jhalawar. They are actually our tailors, a couple with three children that always welcome us and make us feel at home even if we can't verbally communicate.

There's no point in addingup the endless amounts of delicious sweets and interesting salty dishes that were put before us at the home of Rosham, Hamid, Tabasum, Anju and Wasim. All that really matters is that these are truly great people, modest and warm and smiling and friendly - and not pushy as their neighbours were, but calm and down-to-earth about us being white. This might seem like a weird comment but it was a true blessing to be invited into their home so unpretetiously and with such enthusiasm stemming from them liking us, not just finding us interesting. Rosham gave us both bangles, earrings and a Rajasthani scarf as gifts for coming to celebrate Eid with them - and told us that we were her first friends. Nanna and I agreed after the visit that we could now officially call the Tailor family our first Indian friends (apart from our guides and the staff obviously, but they don't count since we didn't have to make an effort to meet them :-)).

Brilliant Sunday will now continue with me reading my book.

Sandal full of soy beans

It's hard to update the blog about everything that happens here. It seems like something new and challenging happens everyday and I'm always scatter-brained when I come home. I have a hard time collecting my thoughts.

I am however very aware that at least half my thoughts are other places than here. With my family, my love and the friends I haven't heard from since I got here. I think about them often, and always feel like I owe it to them and to myself to explain the situation here, explain my purpose with being here.

But some days that purpose evades me. I meditate in the jeep or bus every morning to find myself strengthened by inner peace when I enter the silent chaos that is their lives. I watch as we take our morning stroll around the village to gather the children, how they struggle to find a peaceful spot to comb their hair, how they apologise for having obligations towards their family and not able to come to school. I watch as they shield themselves from the stick of their teacher who wants the best for them, and yet treat them as if it was their own choice to live this life.

I know that we have already made a difference here. Maybe not in the long run but we've given these children three weeks of our lives (so far) where our main purpose has been to sustain their interest through games and fun - in something as rudimentary as going to school. More than once, the day has ended with me feeling awful and my initiative completely burned out by failed efforts, and more than once the children and India end up saving my day.

The children can save by their endless farewell greetings. "Saradidi, namaste! Namaste, Nanadid! Mortin, bye bye!" echoes all the way to the bus stop and it always reminds of their innocence. The reason why we're here. Their innocence.

Wednesday's ride home from Jarel was also a mood saver. I had my first thrilling experience of riding home on top of this year's wheat harvest with my friends and some workers from the fields. For the first time, I had a laughing fit (or whatever it's called when you can't stop), unable to speak and unable to think of anything at all but the feeling of the wind through my hair and the wheat grain between my toes. The success was repeated yesterday when we caught a soy bean tractor. The image that stuck in my mind after this trip was one of 10 men in a passing tractor, all wearing turbans in different colours. I'll be sure to post it when it has been resized for upload :-)

Greeting the police

After returning home from the lovely relaxing time in Kotah, the five of us were summoned to report at the police station. The police has by now understood that we are here for a while and that we are working with the Kanjars, their favourite target whenever anything goes wrong in the area or crimes are committed in the district.

We sat down with pounding hearts in front of the police chief and tried to answer his questions without lying too much. He asked why we had chosen the Kanjars in particular. Basically, he's worried that we will uncover their scheming against the Kanjars and report to the police in Jaipur that five Western tourists have seen abuse of power and mistreatment by the local police. So he showed off his intimidating talents and called in the chief of police in the whole district to tell us that 'show of power is the only way to maintain law and order'. We were in fact intimidated and tried our best to keep up diplomatic appearances; the hardest thing was having to listen to the same old routine from one of the highest autorities in the town - Jarel houses the worst criminals of Jhalawar, they are all criminals and then the characteristic laugh when we say we are teaching the children math and English. Stine felt like throwing up. I felt like challenging the image. But we all kept the charade.

Then he showed us their 'mug shot' book - an ordinary photo album with 50 pictures of men from Chandiya Kheri (the second village) and Jarel. We said we didn't recognise them, that there has only ever been women present when we're at the villages. At last, he asked which of us were in Jarel. Me, Morten and Nanna put up our hands. He pulled out his mobile phone and showed us a picture of Rakesh, 12-year-old smart kid with proper clothes and a knack for math. We haven't seen him in school for the past week. Now we know why. He's being hunted by the police because he's a criminal. We told the police that we had never seen this child before. Were we mistaken in our judgment? Should we have argued instead...? I'll think about that when I go to sleep tonight.

Being British

This weekend offered the opportunity for our first tourist visit in the vicinity of Jhalara Pattan. Stine, Nanna and I took a bus to the neighbouring district of Kotah, the main city abundant with ornamented palaces and legacies from the British Empire. We stayed at the old British residence on the bank of the river Chambal, a luxurious hotel (hence the luxury tax of 8 per cent) that bears the signs of a past with English women in big sun hats and servants en masse. The contrast to our current everyday surroundings was stark - but despite the guilt in the back of our minds, we enjoyed one night of peaceful relaxation, a nice dinner (with meat, wooohooo) and coffee in the drawing room.

A blog of Danes in India - in Danish

For anyone who reads Danish, Nanna and Hans, two of my fellow travellers in India are maintaining a blog at http://hansognanna.blogspot.com. They have very nice pictures and a detailed description of the food we eat here :-)

What we're dealing with here is...

On September 18, I left Denmark to try my talents out there in the real world. The object of my passion is a socially marginalised group in the very south of Rajasthan, India. The Kanjars. My latest blogpost is the more philosophical impression my first meeting with these people left me with. Here's a bit more practicalities.

The trip and work is facilitated by the Danish NGO Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke - in international settings known as the Danish Association for International Cooperation. Every year they send hundreds of young Danes to all kinds of countries in the world - as volunteers, mainly working as teachers in basic English and Math.

The Kanjar Project I'm a part of is their latest invention. The Kanjars, as you might have understood from the previous blogpost, are extremely isolated and marginalised and their social existence is restricted to 16 villages where no 'respectable citizen' ever set their feet. I'm having a hard time describing these villages. Jarel, where I work, has about 40 houses all inhabited by 5-9 persons in about 8-10 square meters. They usually have one bed, a huge barrel for grain and a few pots and pans + a small fireplace made out of cow dung (saw one in the making today, very fascinating). Most of the children here have enlarged abdomens and nightblindness due to lack of vitamins and in general proper nourishment.

The Kanjars make a living through random farm work and liquor production. They drink much of the liquor themselves, mostly to drown out the sounds of desperate childrens' cries or the voices in their heads, worrying about their sons and husbands who have disappeared to jail. We've heard of boys as young as 10 being dragged off by the police - who we've seen in action twice by now, it's not a pretty sight. They swarm the village with threatening behaviour and large sticks with which they most definitely beat the women who argue with them - just not while we are there. However, they still take innocent men as their suspects for any crime committed in the area.

India - challenging my humanity

An exiled Indian friend of mine told me that Kanjar means fraud or theft. Kanjar is a common Word used to denominate someone who lies, cheats or tricks other people with the intention to do so. Probably with an economic gain in sight.
I learned early in my Indian experience that this popular meaning of the word corresponds in actual life to the usual response when people of Jhalra Pattan, my home town for the next three months, hear that me and my four fellow travellers are working with the Kanjar communities. Their villages are scattered around the Jhalawar district, tiny dots in people’s consciousness and non-existent on the more rudimentary map of the world. However, two of these villages are my world now.
The townspeople stop their cars, bikes or bicycles to ask our Indian guide what white people might be doing in the vicinity of Jhalra Pattan. He tells them we are working with the Kanjars. The townspeople repeat in wonderment. Kanjars. Why teach them - they cannot learn. Why work with them - they’ll only rip you off and steal your valuables. Why care about their frequent run-ins with the police - nobody else does. I read these beliefs and opinions on people’s faces and later hear them translated by our guide; there is no doubt that the reality of the Kanjari lifestyle is created by social stratification and total exclusion. When I hear these beliefs I am amazed by the way the townspeople offer the answers to their own questions while they themselves are entirely ignorant to the irony and the basic misunderstandings that govern the interaction between them and the Kanjars.
So what is a Kanjari community member to me? A human being. A person. A life, a story, a dream, a hope and endless mind-blowing desperation. A mother’s solitary suffering. The bright eyes of a child that tells you about possibilities, opportunities, a life to be lived in constant struggle. A life that deserves better than what the future holds as it is at the moment. The smiles of the fifty Kanjari children that beamed up at us that very first day in Jarel seemed fragile and ghostly in my memory - and yet they are the most viable and sustainable resource to work with. The very livelihood of a child whose mother is too weak to carry him, whose spirit is broken by continuous disappointment, whose love is insufficient to console him for the harsh conditions he lives under - a love too simple, for a mother’s love for her child is the simplest thing in the world, to protect him from the ignorance of the society that surrounds him. A love incapable of shielding him from police brutality, harassment and social depravity.
In the eyes of the perpetrators of these stupefying and plainly common human crimes of the social mind, the Kanjars have brought their suffering on themselves. They have stolen from the collective dignity of the townspeople and made their way through theft, prostitution and fraud; they have dishonoured their own communities and lowered themselves into the gutter of humanity. They deserve nothing better than what they have. It is what they have learned and what they teach; they have guarded their communities against the outside world creating a mental, emotional and physical barrier between themselves and the world on the outside. The cocoon in which they lived for years served as a protective and strengthening nest; inside its walls they could not be harmed, they could prepare for unwanted visitors - any visitors that is - and they could build a community, strong and self-sufficient, sustainable only through isolation. When cut off from all surroundings, the cocoon’s world became the protection, the resurrection, the construction of a reality that was theirs - at least most of the time - to build on, build in, survive in. With the cocoon serving as the framework for their everyday lives, the Kanjars created the vision that they could protect themselves and their offspring against the malevolence of humanity outside. They consolidated their placement outside humanity, consolidating the firm beliefs of the townspeople - that the Kanjari people are less than worthy, less than citizens, less than human.
A human being does not need to be aware of her own humanity to be human. Humanity is ingrained in the very fabric of existence, intertwined with the illusions and barricaded dreams of mankind. A human being can lived in the ideas of others, be stripped of the basic dignity that all humans deserve by the very thoughts of others.