I want to share a story I never got around to typing from last year. It was the last event of my trip and was to fulfill a promise to JP. He had asked me to volunteer one day with the Sister's of Charity, Mother Theresa's outfit. When I enquired to the organization I thought that they'd have me ladling dal somewhere. Instead I was told that I could help at the House of the Dying.
After learning that I had no useful skills, the sister who I met told me just to hang out with them, to "love them". That's when the journey began I guess. I was chilling in this courtyard with maybe a hundred "dying". Several of them were rather quick to come up and start fondling me. I did my best to put on a smile and be friendly. One guy had down syndrome and really wanted to hold my hand, while he started undressing. I didn't know what to do. Luckily another patient came up and led the guy away. Then some dude covered in small pox or something came up and insisted on being touchy feely. I decided that I couldn't be in too much danger, but this is a ridiculous thought because nowhere in India is safety anyone's concern, let alone someone else's. It quickly dawned on me that other than a PG-13 orgy with the dying that I had no other way to "love them". I didn't speak enough Hindi and they spoke no English. I felt as if it was pointless for me to be there so I apologized to the sister and told her that I think I have gone in over my head, and that I hoped that she (and JP) would understand my predicament.
On the way home I tried to figure out the significance of that event in my life. Inside the House of the Dying, at the center of everyone's attention, I failed to notice, but once I left, it dawned on me that outside that House, everyday India is actually worse. This is no joke or exaggeration. The only qualification that needs to be made is that here the diseased people who approached me did so purely with friendly intentions, unlike the occasional leper that hops up and begins poking you with his nub in an effort to extort money from you on the street.
As I walked in some random direction waiting to stumble upon some dozing auto-walla, I was more aware, for some reason, of all this, what, inhumanity. In those I see sitting or lying in the gutter or at the street's edge I'm taking JP's challenge to meet their gaze, see them as myself, and recognize their suffering. Come here, do that, and then tell me it's their fault that they're so destitute, because I too need a free conscience while I continue to build my estate.
If you spend enough time here you might get used to it, I thought I did, the Indian elite have. And I don't think the middle class even know it exist, that is, the disease, starvation, and who knows what.
I could have begun this blog in the train station before I left for Orissa. I was making my way to the platform, in somewhat sad shape having picked up the revenge again. You know what happens when you drink the water. As I climbed the stairs I see two of Delhi's "finest" standing over a guy obviously in either great pain or none. He was in bad, bad shape. One leg had a severe case of "elephantiasis". It had swollen so quickly that the skin could not keep up, from what I could tell. There were gigantic gashes where the skin had split. They seemed to be bone deep, measuring in inches directly above the shin. The outermost layer, what should have been skin was charred in appearance, dead, rotten, I don't know, and gradually "improved" as you looked deeper, until it became a nice shimmering, bloody red. He lay on the steps, a crumpled mess. The cops were having a heated discussion. I'm guessing because the man was also literally foaming at the mouth, probably bitten by one of the thousands of rats that, like him, call the train station home. The policemen appeared to be trying to figure out what to do with him as he wasn't going anywhere, even if he willed it (assuming he was still alive), and he couldn't remain such a “menace” to those trying to catch trains. I'm sure the last place they would have him taken is to the hospital, as he clearly could not afford treatment. Otherwise he would've had the filariasis treated long ago, and who knows, to comfort some, gotten a haircut…maybe worn something.
The samaritans, the pretty, the privileged (myself included), gauked while passing in a wide arch around but his gaze remained fixed on That.
I still hate myself. Seeing what I see, knowing what I know, what have I done. Nothing. I do nothing. The understanding that I am not a righteous child of Something, not cosmopolitan, and not even civilized, does nothing. In effect, it is hollow hypocrisy. No dignity left--farewell to India.
