Every little thing

I caught some flack for my recent post on the oppression of Indian women – mostly from Indian women. I’m learning that the biggest challenge of being here is to see life from an Indian’s eyes. And also, at the same time, to recognize that every Indian has different eyes.

“Sexual harassment is about power, not sex,” my friend Smeeta tells me. I scratch my head. “But it must be about both,” I say. “Of course men want power, but it doesn’t help that they’re sexually oppressed. Only the most modern people date before marriage. Couples don’t even hold hands in public!”

“But here’s the thing,” she says. “We don’t think we’re sexually oppressed. We look at you Westerners kissing in public and we say you should get a room!”

Another Indian friend reminds me of how many cultures there are in India, and how each one has different customs, histories and ways of treating women. When you place an ad in the Times of India marriage classifieds, for example, you can choose between 58 distinct Hindu communities and 300 Hindu castes, as well as dozens of Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Sikh, and Jain communities, and 11 major mother tongues.

It’s far too complex for me to comprehend, but at the same time it’s simple – things happen here that would rarely happen in my country.

I think back on my European friend’s horror stories from her time in urban India. Having a man call to her from the street, turning to see him sitting on his motorcycle wacking off. Repeatedly having her breasts grabbed by strangers on the streets of Delhi. Surely there’s a sick power dynamic at work here – but you don’t hear of men having these problems. There must also be a repressed sexual longing behind this perverse behavior.

Regardless of how much women are oppressed, they are equally strong. One night I’m sitting with my friend Ajay, sipping on sweet, milky Indian tea. A ragged, unhappy looking man rises from a nearby bench and begins yelling at the woman and girl working the stand.

I ask Ajay what he’s saying. “That husband and wife are always yelling at each other, even beating sometimes,” he says. The woman continues serving customers, steadfast next to her husband’s anger. Amid the din of yelling, he kicks a plastic stool at his daughter. She glares at him from a hurt but defiant brow.

“What are they saying to each other?” I ask Ajay.

“She says you’re eating our income, you’re worth nothing, you’re less than a woman. You should be wearing Bengals [a traditional Indian bracelet for women],” he says, as their shouts continue. “I’ve seen them fighting before. Sometimes she tells him if he doesn’t leave she’ll throw boiling oil in his face.”

I pay the ten-year-old girl and we walk away. “I’m sure that was an arranged marriage,” Ajay says. “I’m sure when they married she didn’t expect that she would have to do all the house work and also to support the family.” But now she’s doing it, and she won’t let her husband stop her.

While I abhor the mistreatment of women, I no longer feel so justified judging everything I see here. To judge before understanding is simply illogical. Besides, I see that what I considered wrong is often only part of the story. For instance you don’t see men and women holding hands together – “repression,” where I come from – but you do see men holding hands with men, women holding hands with women. I see guys my age spooning each other, sitting on each other’s laps, even laying their heads on each other’s laps – all in a heterosexual, non-ironic, nonchalant way. Unfortunately such behavior would be ostracized if it were homosexual. But coming from a society in which men only touch out of romance or violence, I find it beautiful.

And I can only imagine it acts as a natural outlet for the desire of all people to touch and be touched. When the (Western) movie stars can kiss but you can’t, when police might attack you for sitting in “objectionable poses” in the park, when you’re probably not having sex before marriage – you find another way to live.

During my first two months in India my hairline was receding even more quickly than usual. I mentioned it to my good friend Nanjee, a foreigner who’s been here for about a year. “Yeah,” he said, “I lost a lot of hair my first few months here. It must be all the stress, the adjustment, the environmental toxins….” Makes sense, I thought, picturing the foul smelling water that showers my body and flows from my tap, the air quality that supposedly equals smoking a pack a day. But then I started looking around at Indian men, and noticed that they all have nice hair. Neat, stylish, combed and full, Indian hair is something to be admired. Whatever pulls my hair clearly does not pull theirs. The little things that torment, shock and amuse me are simply life for them.