I TOOK A TRIP TO INDIA PT.1

I didn’t want to go to India. I so adamantly didn’t want to go to India that I refused for months. My friend, Sue, would call “this is a great opportunity for you. At the very least, you get to go somewhere you’ve never been.” But still, I said no. I was scared, broke, and taking the time off work to go somewhere I had zero interest in didn’t exactly appeal to me. “I just don’t want to go.” She asked me to go with her to a fundraiser to talk to a person who was helping to secure  financing for an orphanage in this little town called Puttaparthi. So I went and I saw the photos of their faces. Children are my weakness. They didn’t seem hungry or abused. They seemed happy. They’re pictures told a different story than the biographies next to them.

They wanted someone to go to India to photograph the children and under the pressure, I finally said “OK.” At first, it felt like I was telling a fib by saying yes and told myself I would eventually back out. Next thing I know, I have a suitcase packed to the brim with snacks and candy and I am on a plane trying to find a way to breathe through the anxiety. Slum Dog Millionaire is a movie (a phenomenal one) showing the worst the country has to offer. This was not the movie.

Sue and I landed at 4 am and we had a 3 hour drive ahead of us. The world was alive. Bonfires on the street and people walking down long stretches of road which seemed to lead to no where. I wondered where they were going, barefoot in the dark. Houses ranged from cement huts with no doors, to tee pees made out of straw, to tarp tents. There were no “nice” neighborhoods, despite learning that India ranked in the top 10 richest countries in the world. There was no wealth in the streets with the people, but somehow they didn’t seem defeated.

The streets were crowded and speed bumps meant we had to drive slowly. The faces would press against our window. I wanted to read their minds so badly. My guilt hit me as soon as I saw them. How could I be so ungrateful? Do I have a right to be anxious and unhappy in my comfortable home life surrounded by people who love me? I hated myself.

The sun was starting to rise and I could begin to exhale. You could see the animals and the farms now and it started to feel peaceful. Our driver spoke a few words of English enough for us to understand he was pointing to a small temple. Sue shouted “pull over” before she could finish she was already jumping out of the car. She wanted to dive into the culture and meet the people. I wanted to put up a wall. I was uncomfortable with this closeness. I was barely okay examining behind the car window, but before I knew it there were little hands pressed against the glass. And again, I saw a little face and I caved. Kind faces surrounded us with flowers. As a New Yorker, I am used to walking past people and avoiding human interaction. They were welcoming us like we were family who hadn’t seen each other in a few years, not as strangers. That was the first time I started to feel hopeful about this trip.

We got to our “5 star hotel” which is the equivalent to a motel in the states.  We ate and I worried. “Go take pictures of the people in the streets” I felt sick the moment I heard it. The street people were professional beggars. They knew the hotel was the spot filled with American tourists and so they came everyday and waited outside for the Americans.

We were given instructions. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t give them money. Pretend they don’t exist. If you give them one second of eye contact, they’ll latch on. And so the exact second I walked outside, I locked eyes with a young boy and I was toast. I grabbed my camera tighter. He followed me for blocks “Mom, mom, mom, mom hungry mom. Mom, hungry.”  I ran back to my hotel and texted my mom “What did I do? Why am I here? I can’t do this. I won’t survive 10 days here”

I wanted to cry. I was angry at myself that I was afraid of a child. He was skinny and small. He wore rags for clothing. He was dirty, but he didn’t smell. For some reason, he kept calling me “mom”.

There was a man named Pat who visits every year. He rents out an auto-rickshaw and every morning at 8am he brings enough food to feed the hungry people of the neighborhood. For some people, this will be the only meal they have all day. And there on the line waiting patiently, barefoot and dirty, the boy I ran from in fear. My heart ached.

I started to take photo of the local people as they ate their food when the the kids surrounded me. “Photo! Photo! Photo” I couldn’t move one inch. They all wanted their picture taken. They were children. Not to be ignored. Not to be feared. He became my friend. I looked forward to seeing him before I left every morning. I would bring him snacks and candy from my secret stash and he acted as thought I had given him a brick of gold. The street kids would see and run towards me, huddled around me, a see of little hands. Kids are the same everywhere.

Follow:
Share: