India Poised

After two weddings bursting with food, dance, and contagious viral infections, I would say my trip to Delhi was a success. Thankfully, I have recovered from the madness that ensued for ten days, and save for the henna on my hands (its fading and starting to look quite sickly now), you would have never known that I was sleep-deprived and high on oil saturated carbs for ten days of wedding madness.

I came back to Bhopal on January 26, India's Republic Day. Like the calm background music played in restaurants, patriotic tunes made their presence subtly known through the train's speakers. I smiled to myself - Yeh Desh Hai Veer Jawano Ka does not do well as an instrumental lullaby. The day before, Shah Rukh Khan sang the Indian National Anthem on Kaun Banega Crorepati, India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The show's old host, Amitabh Bachan, was not to be left behind in expressing his love for his country. Oh no, he was a step above the rest. Collaborating with the Times of India, he is marketing Indian pride through the six-week long "India Poised" campaign. You can watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiItWDN2Cs8&eurl=.

The first time I watched Mr. Bachan's eloquent monologue I felt proud, and excitedly showed the video clip to another volunteer at the clinic. Her response was not as enthused. How could such a well-made video receive anything but praise, I thought. I soon saw why.

The video starts off with the following statement:
"There are two Indians in this country.
One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been recently showering upon us.
The other India is the leash....
...One India wants. The other India hopes.
One India leads. The other India follows.
But conversions are on the rise. With each passing day more and more people from the other India have been coming over to this side.
And quietly, while the world is not looking, a pulsating, dynamic new India is emerging.
An India whose faith in success is far greater that its fear of failure.
An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead.
History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when taking a turn.
This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page."

Poetic.

I know of the India Mr. Bachan talks about. An India that's changing, that's benefiting people like me. Yes, people like me- a satiated, educated, money-driven but content middle class that doesn't need to boycott goods. Because let's face it, we're not drinking water laced with mercury and lead. Our children are not being born with cleft-palates and deformed lungs. Our daughters don't have to worry about ostracization due to the status of 'gas-victim'. No, we don't need to boycott Tata products, because Tata is buying out companies like Dow- the same Dow that is legally responsible for cleaning up a factory still rotting in its toxic grave. But that's okay, because buying out companies is a good thing, right? We're showing them. Look at us! Who's the boss now?

I am proud to call myself an Indian citizen, and my heart swells with joy every time I hear the Indian National Anthem. Yet living in Bhopal, feeling both the pain and the passion of the people, I am ashamed of those of us who conveniently forget this part of India when priding ourselves on the progress our country is making. India has made great strides, but running ahead does not entail leaving your people behind, especially those people whose voice is not being heard.

India might be changing, Mr. Bachan, but some things still haven't changed.

Time For a Real Update

Today is the....13th? How does that happen? You wake up one fine morning and bam! Three days have gone by. If a time machine has been invented yet can someone please tell me? I'd like to remember what I did two days ago.

Oh, right...there was another health camp at the Chinghari Trust. Last time the health camp had been for children with congenital defects, and doctors from Delhi had come to see who would qualify for plastic surgery and other operations at their hospitals in the capital. A list is being compiled of the families that are going to go to Delhi, and they will be sent as a group. This time, the doctors were from local hospitals, and I saw many new pre-adolescent faces. There was this one boy, eleven or twelve I'm guessing. The left side of his face was flattened as if someone had ironed out the cheekbone, eye, and ear. But he was just as mischievous as any other pubescent male. After I'd let one of the patients in to see the doctor (that was my job, calling out names and sending kids in), I'd see him on the stairs, grinning in that conniving way that young boys do. And we'd stick our tongues out at each other, competing for who did it first. Maybe its my slow reflexes delayed by twenty-two exruciating years of tongue-sticking-outs. Maybe he was more prepared. Whatever it was, he won ninety percent of the time. It really wasn't fair, because he would wait for us to make eye contact, and then do it immediately afterwards....Whatever, I'm not bitter. Heck, who am I kidding. Let's just say losing to an eleven year old wasn't good for my inflated ego.

Seriously, it was a blast hanging out with the kids, playing ball, consoling them that no, they would not get needles stuck into their butts. Just smiling at them and seeing them light up as they smiled back was worth the painstaking effort it took to stretch my mouth after standing/walking/climbing stairs for seven hours, four of which were spent thinking about food. When our meal of namkeen, samosas, mithai, a banana, and poha was served I gorged it all down within minutes. Back to the children- they are amazing individuals that manage to laugh despite the pain that they are going through, physically and emotionally. I respect them a great deal for the courage they have.

Yesterday was another jam-packed day, spent protesting at the Tata office in Bhopal. Before you get on my case on how Tata is this wonderful corporation that has done nothing but good deeds for progressive Indians everywhere, hear me out. Even better, hear what the Indian Express has to say:

"In a first-of-its-kind corporate move, Tata group chairman Ratan Tata has volunteered his services to the UPA government for “remediation” of the Bhopal gas tragedy site to pave the way for Dow Chemicals, now the majority stakeholder of Union Carbide Ltd, to invest in India."

So Tata wants to clean up the factory so Dow can invest in India. The same Dow that has run away from its criminal liabilities for years. We're talking about the multi-billion dollar corporation that is afraid to invest in India, afraid because of the fight the Bhopalis have so admirably been fighting for twenty-two long years. So how does Dow get itself out of the nasty mess it has gotten itself into? Getting an Indian corporation to do the dirty work, of course. How convenient.

Mr. Tata, before you decide to clean up someone else's mess, how about cleaning up Sukhinda, Orissa, Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, Mithapur, Gujarat, Jamshedpur, and West Bokaro in Jharkhand? You know, where your factories are.

You can visit http://www.bhopal.net/blog_pr/ if you are interested in getting more information. Or just ask our friend, Mr. Google. Me? I'm boycotting Tata salt and tea. But I don't even drink chai, so that won't be too hard.

You Are Right. You Always Were.

You don't sit in their air-conditioned cars
You wash them as they smirk in disgust
Yes, your clothes are torn
But while yours collect dust you wash their silks
Their velvets, cashmeres, their Egyptian cottons
Your children may not go to school together
I saw them today
His daughter in the back, your son in front of her
Pedalling vigorously to the market

You are right.
You always were.

They didn't believe you, or maybe they closed their eyes
Maybe they looked the other way because it was easier
Easier than accepting the harsh thorn-studded reality
Maybe they were part of the parasitic ladder
Leeches sucking power off of one another
Sucking greedily until the only thing that remained
on their brittle bones was leathery sallow skin
Held under a conscientious light it would show one word
Letters awkwardly clogging every pore, spelling "TRAITOR"

Don't let them sway you
Make you think it's a mistake
An ignorant slip by an anonymous perpetrator
Look in their eyes, blank, cold, hard
They refuse to see you exist
Let them hear your scream
Let them to see your tears
Let them touch your unhealing wounds
They'll never know of the ones inside
In fairy tales the wrongdoer is punished
Always
Life may not be twenty pages long
But justice is not a fantasy
It exists, I promise you
You are not a king but you have power
There are no wishes in this story
There are demands
There are the villians
And you are the heroes
Heroes always win.

You are right.
You always were.

Metacognition

It's begun. You know, 2007. I spent my last hours of 2006 dancing to pulsating remixes at a Bombay disco. And then the clock struck midnight. And nothing happened.

If you ask me- not that you did, but I'll tell you anyways- New Year's is overrated. Other holidays I can understand. Diwali has religious importance, Gandhi Jayanti celebrates the life of a great soul, even Groundhog Day is seasonally significant. But what is New Year's really? The beginning of another day, just like every other day. Except it becomes a cause for celebration because the year is changing, though we don't celebrate the beginning of every month, every day, every hour. A year gone by is a year to reminisce about, another three hundred and sixty-five days worth of time that has become the past in a neatly packaged unit called '2006'.

Look back- what have you accomplished? I can only speak for myself. Pragya Bhagat obtained a piece of paper known as a degree, which basically says I spent four years of my life slodging so that I could move on to Level 2-eight additional years slodging in medical school. Then I came to Bhopal, probably the best decision I've made in a while. But even here, I do what is required, taking interest in my work and learning from it, going out every once in a while to venture out and explore bits and pieces of India or visit family in Delhi. But I come once again to the question: What have I really accomplished? I can't claim to be a chess grandmaster whose prodigy skills were discovered at age five, nor can I recite all the countries and their capitals listed on the atlas like those children India Abroad loves to do full page profiles on. I am not a sports champion, and the only reason my name has appeared in the paper was because I was one of hundreds of students whose name was listed in microscopic print as a recipient of some award I can't even remember the name of. So really, another year has gone by and I haven't accomplished anything. I've made decisions, both good and bad. I've reached certain conclusions that aren't supposed to be stark realizations, but have come to be my truths, such as

1) Being twenty-two isn't really all that different from being twenty-one, except you start counting down the years until thirty, and who knows what you look forward to then (*joke* i'm sure thirty is a very secure age to be)
2) Even though I haven't lived very long, I have lived enough to know that I will always think I know how the world works, even if I discover something new every day.
3) I am not always right, but that's okay, because I don't have to be. That doesn't mean being wrong is preferred, but it is not unacceptable.
4) I have immense respect for people who find happiness in simple lifestyles.
5) Everything I have done academically in the past sixteen years has been towards a career- I can never be a housewife and pretend as if that part of my life did not matter. Yes, I am sure.
6) Resolutions are just a way of postponing what you subconsciously do not want to do. If you want to go to the gym, stop reading this and go now. Why wait?
7) Silence is not a bad thing. Neither is spending time by yourself. You spend time with other people to understand who they are. How will you understand who you are?
8) My life has become a series of songs that I listen to according to what I am feeling. Literally.
9) I don't really want to do ten since that's so cliched as it is, so I've saved the best for last- a fool-proof method to get rid of hiccups: take in as much air as your lungs can manage, hold your breath for five seconds, take in some more air, hold for a few seconds, and slowly exhale. I'm telling you, it has never failed me. The method is hereby patented through this blog.


So there you have it. Words of wisdom you probably couldn't care less about, but they have become my reality. Of course there's more to my life than nine points, but I find that decisions I make often fall under one or more of the above categories. Today, spend a few minutes thinking about what you've accomplished. And if there's something you have wanted to do for a while, know that this moment will never come again. As for me, I will make full use of this moment by enjoying my oh-so-scrumptious-melt-in-your-mouth Cadbury.