Laundry

Pictured: Asu, Mili Das on her mother's lap, the water pump.

I have come to relish washing my clothes. I admit I’ve always found laundry a satisfying experience, despite my tendency to put it off until there sits a mountain of clothes dominating my apartment landscape. I like the process in all it’s American varieties: a) the lugging of a giant bag to the local Laundromat, the watching of uncommonly-seen-at-home television shows like Sabado Gigante (nothing beats adding fabric softener to the antics and voice of Don Francisco in the background) while the clothes are washing and drying, the analysis of fellow washer’s clothing, b) the lugging of a giant bag to your building’s basement wash room after memorizing the schedule of all the other tenant’s washing habits in order to avoid wrangling over your favorite machine, and c) the luxury of having a washer and dryer in the home and lugging a giant bag to your own basement to joyfully pop in a load at your convenience while going about the day’s other activities, retrieving said load once finished, all warm and fluffy and ready to be folded while you relax in front of the TV, watching a show of your choosing, at peace knowing you’ve accomplished a task you often put off and that you’ll have clean clothing for another week (or two, or three if you really stretch it and buy some new underwear).

Here in Juanga, laundry involves a bucket, soap, water, a hard surface, my hands, a clothesline, and the sun. It’s windy, hot, and agricultural, so my clothes get dirty easily and regularly. I do a “load” every three or four days, a discipline I imagined I would dread, but as I said, I’ve come to relish. Not because I get some kind of kick out of “doing as the locals do,” or because I feel like I really “know how to handle life without amenities.” I like washing my clothes because I really like beating the heck out of them. I soak them in the soapy water for an hour or two, and then I take each garment and beat it against the cement by the water pump, pummeling out every piece of dirt that invaded it since it’s last washing.

I didn’t always know the joys of beating clothes against the proverbial rocks. I used to just swish them around vigorously in the bucket, do several rinses, hang them, and be done. But one of our hospital’s most dedicated workers, a teddy bear of a man named Asu, saw me washing one day and guffawed. Before I knew it, he had taken every piece of my clothing, underwear included, and in a flurry of grunts, methodically beaten each within an inch of its life. Rinsing followed, then a primal wringing-out process, again accompanied with several grunts and a semi-heave, and I was sent to hang the clothes on our roof. A small crowd gathered of our fellow hospital employees, all of them enjoying the scene and noting my utter embarrassment that Asu had beaten and wrung my clothes, most pointedly my underwear. I couldn’t get over the underwear. But Asu's example proved effective, awakening within me my own primal washing power.

While I’m beating my clothes, I feel connected to all those who pound clothes on rocks all over the world and who have done so through all time. All my frustrations come to the surface, finally having an outlet. I can beat my jeans and remember how angry I am that the Orissa state government hasn’t yet built a proper road to reach our village. I beat my soiled t-shirts and remember the fight in the village over six inches of property that lead to the injuring of a woman, and how much she bled as we dressed her wounds at the hospital. I pound away and think of Mili Das, a beautiful three year old girl whose foot was run over by a drunk driver tearing through her village on a scooter a month ago, who comes each day for dressing and cleaning of her excruciating wounds, whose life is now considered ruined because with a mutilated foot, she won’t be seen as a suitable candidate for a good man in potential marriage arrangements. I remember how my two favorite drummers from a neighboring village welcomed me into their homes and introduced me to their children, where I learned that one of their sons is blind, and another has six fingers on each hand, and that such maladies are considered part of the norm. I remember the political system run by bribes. I remember the difficulty in communication, the lack of trust I feel because I’m constantly fighting to get an honest answer about how things work, what time it is, when something can be finished, whether something has been begun, if I’m being asked a fair price. I remember how exhausting it is to be constantly stared at, haggled, touched because of white skin, asked for money, for a camera, for jewelry. Every challenge, spat, hurt feeling, cultural clash,injustice, and misunderstanding comes up and faces near pulverization.

By beating my clothes, I experience a window of time in which to entertain my negative thoughts, to admit anger, to let out the exhaust and fumes consumed and produced in a given several days of life and interaction and work.

I spend so much time trying to live on the positive side of the balance, partially because I’m an optimist, mostly because I am surrounded with an abundance of joyful experience and interaction. But the other side has its place, and thanks to Asu, I’ve found it.

Hockey

Bapa and I spent last weekend in Puri, he visiting his son Manu, I working on paperwork for Columbia Nursing School. The experience was nothing short of mind-blowing for me because in the span of five hours, we went from the oxen plowed fields of Juanga, to Janardan’s pink internet café, surrounded by computers, a scanner, a web cam, and several customers using Skype to communicate online with friends in foreign lands. I'd made this journey many times, but having Bapa by my side and trying to see it through his eyes multiplied my sensory intake exponentially.

Like hockey pucks on a frozen Minnesota pond, we slid from the ancient world to the modern world in a matter of hours. I don’t know that Bapa thought about the contrasts zipping past as we went from one point of origin to another, but I was reeling. His adaptability also threw me for a loop as I watched him sitting, smiling, conversing with Janardan, happy as a clam in the midst of all the gadgets and machinery. Why was it so easy for him to be surrounded by such unfamiliar things when I need at least a month to adjust to the world he considers familiar?

He was made more at home, of course, because there were drums at the internet café. We sat and played through the afternoon, the foreign clientele entertained by Bapa, an ancient village man in a white dhoti playing as energetically as he does, the local clientele equally entertained by their disbelief that an American woman had become this old man’s daughter and learned the region’s San Kirtan music.

I suppose that Bapa and I together pose a certain juxtaposition ourselves – a tall, white American woman, an obvious product of the 1st World, and a small, brown, Indian man, an obvious product of the 3rd world. We forget these differences most days since there’s another, familiar rhythm resonating between us. But when one puts Bapa and web cams in the same room, loincloths with DVD writing, lifelong bare feet with hippie pilgrims in the latest Birkenstock styles, one is bound to feel some degree of overload.

I’m always asking how to bridge the gap, make things more even, giving equal opportunity to the people of the 1st and 3rd worlds. Most of the time, from the vantage point of Juanga, the gap feels enormous and nearly unbridgeable. But this weekend, sitting with Bapa in that pink room, the buzz of technology surrounding us, I tried to comprehend just what was so confounding about the whole scene. I came to understand a sense of opportunity within this complex reality; that there are indeed ample means to shorten the distance. If Thomas Friedman is right, and “The World is Flat,” then maybe Bapa, and more importantly, Bapa’s grandchildren, will find a way to slide across the rink and land in a place far away from the poverty that currently surrounds them.

The King of Water Buffaloes

I’d like to introduce my friend Benua, the proud owner and caretaker of seven distinguished water buffaloes here in Juanga. I first came to know him in 2005 when I’d go each day to our school building early evening to sing. The sun would be on its way to the horizon, and as I peaked out the second floor window, I’d see Benua regally guiding his water buffaloes back home. I mean regal in its truest sense: this man has the presence, grace, and carriage of Yule Brenner. I have no trouble picturing him as the archetype of any operatic King, from Sarastro to Don Carlo’s despotic King Philip. He is tall, broad, solid, and unwittingly communicates a sense of inner power and nobility.

The Oriya word for water buffalo is moisi, and king is raja. Thus, I ordained him “Moisi Raja,” a title our fellow villagers greatly enjoy. Nearly every day someone walks by and says, “Benua nam kono?” (What’s Benua’s name?), I respond, “Moisi Raja,” and great gales of laughter follow.

For months we never spoke, though each day he would look up to me in my window at the school, raising his bamboo stick in greeting, sometimes nodding, always giving me some portion of a smile (a Moisi Raja never all-out grins at mere subjects). I loved this ritual. If I saw the sun was setting, I dropped everything to get to school and start my singing so I could see Benua gliding along the terrain amidst his herd, his bright pink gumcha (a towel-sized cotton multi-purpose cloth, seen here and a light saffron, used most often in early evening as a shawl or head wrap) softly blowing against his brown, broad chest, bamboo scepter in hand, the top part resting on his shoulder until needed to encourage forward movement from the gentle beasts.

Only once did I see him break from character. One of the moisi gave birth to a calf last time I was here. Once the calf was up and ambulatory, it joined the herd each day, and thus returned each evening during our ritual time. From our school to their patch of land, there’s a 50-meter, straight-line stretch. One evening I came to the window and got to see the little calf test its engines for the first time, diving into an all out sprint from the school to its hitching post. This was an unexpected and comic burst, and Benua’s face peeled into a full-toothed smile, beaming with pride at the antics of his newest charge. He then glanced up at me, and we exchanged a knowing, joyful look.

My first day back in Juanga this year, I saw Benua heading toward his moisi to gather them and take them to their grazing area for the day. I ran over, shouting “Benua! Benua! Moisi Raja!” and that same, glorious grin appeared, along with a sincere “Namaste” and pat on the back. We are more familiar now, and he’s one of the people here that can figure out just what I’m saying when I speak Oriya, surely a comical and potentially frustrating experience. I can see his moisi from my window at the hospital, and I know the time of day by observing their presence, absence, and activities. What were four moisi my first visit have become seven – four adults and three little ones – a promising step toward bringing his family out of serious poverty into a more livable existence. I admire Benua, not just because of his poise and stately manner, (qualities of which I am sure he is unaware), but because he lives and breathes and feeds his family by taking earnest care of his herd of strangely commanding and beautiful beasts.

Bapa at Last

Here he is, my Bapa. I'll let the photos tell their story. The one with the other old man is the original I'd hoped to publish with my "This is Bapa" post.

I never tire of his company. I understand 50-75% of what he says with words, and when I speak English I know he understands less than 10%. But somehow there is no lack of communication between us, especially when we're playing together or at a function listening to others play. I love when he looks over at me to see what I think of someone's performance and at the same moment we both scrunch up our nose, both of us underwhelmed.

Bapa stands apart because he asks nothing. Daily people from the village ask him why he doesn't try to get some money from me, why he teaches me for free, how he can spend so much time with an American and not capitalize on the financial aspect of such a connection. He's to the point now where this angers him - just the other day I heard him yell at someone in response to such a query, "Would YOU ask YOUR daughter to give you money? What kind of a father asks such a thing from his children?!"

I would love to give him something; a few new shirts, a new lunghi (the long cotton cloth he wears each day), some toothbrushes, a pair of shoes, even a new cow that gives milk more consistently. But he refuses even the smallest gifts. He is sure the Divine designed our relationship, as there could be no other explanation for something so odd (he laughs when he says this, acknowledging how weird it is to have a tall white daughter from America). Something given by God shouldn't be tainted by the pursuit of financial gain, he says.

I love him because he takes me back to square one, the way family should and often does, for better or worse. I came here with such grand ideas of what I would accomplish and he says things to me like, "Sit down and drink your tea. That is enough."

He also tells me things like, "When you play, play like you're a fire and you won't finish until you've burned all the way through. Don't leave anything behind."

He may be the Buddha.

But he'll never think such a thing. He'll just keep farming. Today he walked by with a bag over his shoulder; a huge bag full of pumpkins he'd just picked. When I called to him, he kept moving and shouted, without turning his head, "I can't talk to you! I'm an old man and carrying a heavy load! If I stop walking and lose my momentum I'll fall over and die!"

There's that morbid humor again.

Loud Grandma and the Two Pistols

I have dubbed this woman and her two little grandsons “Loud Grandma and the Two Pistols.” Last time I was here in Juanga, she passed the hospital daily with the two boys, then ages 2 and 4, one on each hip. These boys, the younger one seen here, are observably handfuls. In the end, after fully noting their behavior, their volcanic personalities, and constant presence on each of Loud Grandma’s hips, I named them the Two Pistols. They three are a package deal, and I enjoy their antics greatly.

She became Loud Grandma because you can hear her coming from some distance, often because she is yelling at the Two Pistols. Each day she walks from the village to a field near the hospital to do farming work, joined by the Pistols. If not bearing them on each hip, she can be found either chasing them or all but dragging them with a firm grip. During these occasions, Loud Grandma is wont to stop for an extended oration, engaging the use of her “badi,” a large bamboo stick, to further emphasize the riotous peaks of her discourse. Throughout the event she waves the badi with the furor of an orchestral conductor on fast forward, the Two Pistols hugging, squinting, bracing themselves until the storm passes. I was concerned with this initially, but now know that the badi serves only as a prop, never as a weapon. Tirade finished, Pistols silenced and gazing at her with anticipation, Loud Grandma scoops them up to their positions and the walk continues.

The background on this trio is as follows: Loud Grandma’s son, the Pistols’ father, left Juanga after high school to garner further education, going as far as law school. In the end, he left the prospect of a career and more money, returning to the village to farm and marry. He is now in his late-forties, a bit old in the village culture to have such small children, so his mother helps as much as she can. Word on the street is that the entire family fits into the “feisty-plus” personality category, and thus I’ve learned that Loud Grandma and her Two Pistols were made for each other.

I stepped out yesterday and saw LG approaching with the younger Pistol. Having wanted to capture some piece of their story for two years, I dashed for my camera and got this photo. Here you see the famous bamboo badi, which she wields with the prowess of Wotan, now serving merely as a walking stick for a loving, aging woman. And I also believe you see, in the absence of all the yelling and commotion, the abundance of love shared between Grandmother and Grandson.

Shivaratri

Upper left: staff and villagers cutting veggies.
Above right: the man I call "Juanga's Smallest Man" who is around at every function and helps constantly, enthusiastically. Real name is Kusani.
Left: Macu, a boy, now10, I cared for my first time here, and me outside the tree on Shivaratri.

Our hospital sponsors a huge function each year on Shivaratri, a national Hindu festival celebrating Lord Shiva. We invite over 25 musical groups from the area, and feed our village of 500 people and those from surrounding enclaves. This year’s was on last Friday, February 16th.

From 8:00am on, many of our staff crouch under the big banyan tree next to the hospital and set to slicing pound upon pound of vegetables – squash, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, figs. Huge pots the size of children’s swimming pools are set over fire and the cooking begins, all overseen by two major figures: Natol, a hospital employee who is not only an excellent chef but also a Brahman priest (something he was born into, as it’s part of the caste system. Brahmins are the highest caste, and perform all of the worship rituals. There are always several at a festival like this, so Natol could focus on cooking), and Babaji, the village “caterer” who provides the giant cook wear and stays all day and night, stirring, mixing, advising on ingredient levels, shouting orders. I am entertained by Babaji, partially because he is ever present at all our village functions and has a constant, cunning smile on his face, and partially because never does one see someone so scantily clad close to so much hot, boiling food in America. He stands there with a five-foot giant spoon, his loincloth tightly wrapped to allow free movement as he mixes, and really, never stops smiling unless someone isn’t cutting the potatoes properly and he has to scold them.

All this takes place while three young men are setting up the “sound system,” four ancient microphones of questionable quality hung from branches of the tree, and three giant speakers set to blast the latest Oriyan pop music until the chanting begins.

Inside the small temple under our tree, several priests fastidiously perform an array of pujas, with sandalwood, marigolds, incense, and ghee, clarified butter. Soon they have their own microphone, the pop music is shut off, and they chant prayer after prayer after prayer, invoking the names of many Hindu deities.

It’s easy to not take their activity seriously; I don’t understand what they’re saying, and all the waving around of incense starts to look comical. But two years ago, these same priests spent all day and all night praying for my college roommate, Betsy, who was deathly ill at the time. I woke up periodically in the night and was astonished to find them in continued prayer.

The priests did have trouble with her name, as it is completely unfamiliar to their tongue. Sometimes it came at as “Bresty,” and other times “Besty,” and my personal favorite was “Busty.” But they prayed over 36 hours for someone they did not know, and I remain grateful for their sincere intention. Betsy made a full and miraculous recovery.

From noon on, the musical groups arrive. We feed them fried bread and a lentil stew, and then the hours and hours of drumming and singing begin, all of them seated in a big circle with the singer pacing back and forth on the inside, underneath those four microphones hanging from the tree. This year we had a rain delay in the middle of the day, so because we had no patients convalescing, we moved into the hospital and played away until it cleared.

In the end, we all eat again. By this time it’s late, sometime after 10pm, and we roll out mats on which to sit. Someone hands out banana leaves. Next comes a bit of water to “wash” the leaves. Then comes a dab of salt. Then a big basket of rice, and piles of it pushed onto each leaf. The diners make a volcano shape of their rice, just in time for the arrival of the piping hot dhalma, another kind of lentil stew with potatoes and squash and the proverbial kitchen sink. Next cotta, a tomato-fig chutney. All dive in, mixing everything up, mashing the potatoes with their fingers, discarding the skins, and shoving mouthful after mouthful in. Many of my drumming compatriots make fun of me because I don’t eat as much as they do, and because I take a couple minutes to let my food cool before I eat it. My Oriya is minimal, so I just laugh with them instead of saying something like, “I’m sorry, but I like my taste buds.”

The best is dessert - a big bucket of rice pudding called kiri, hot, steaming, with cardamom pods, raisins, cinnamon, and cashews. If you’re like my mother and don’t like raisins as an ingredient, it’s no problem to remove them and toss them off of your leave like the previous potato skins. This course in the meal brings about the real symphonic slurping, all stirring the mixture in an “S” motion on their leaves for optimal scoopage and delivery to the mouth.

Once finished, we take our leaves and discard them in the field, the dogs waiting anxiously for their turn. Hands are washed, drums are gathered, and soon all visitors are on their bicycles or on foot and heading toward home.

But the priests remain, praying through the night.

And so does Babaji, continuing to shout orders until the wee hours as the final meals are doled out and clean up begins.

I only assume he kept smiling, because I went to bed.

This is Bapa

Today's photo features the famous Bapa – Brahmar Barrick - the old man on the left. Next to him sits Naunidi, over 80 years old, who also likes me to call him Bapa. Everyone knows that the real Bapa is Brahmar, but here all call each other father, brother, cousin, uncle, auntie. We are family; mere friendship feels insultingly distant.

Will you just look at Brahmar for a moment and drink him in? His smile? His small head? The way he fits together so flexibly as he squats, the position he most favors? He keeps threatening to make me stay here until he dies, so I threaten that because he’s so small, I’ll fold him up and take him back to the States with me in my suitcase.

( I am currently unable to upload photos out here on the tropical prairie. After two hours of failed attempts, I am going to ask you to use your imagination when it comes to "today's photo," and picture two contented, wizened men together on small hill. Behind them the day is coming to a close, the sun in its last hour or so of brightness as it heads toward the horizon. Both have versions of smiles on their faces, Bapa's a bit brighter and more amused in its presentation, Naunidi's more a look of satisfaction. Bapa's head is crooked to one side, here in India signifying a gesture of "yes," as in, "ah, yes, here we go with the crazy picture taking again." My apologizes for my internet limits as presented here. I will figure out the photo thing one day, and all shall rejoice.)

At least once a day, in jest, someone tells me that Bapa is dead, (using the word “morigala,” similar to the previous “line cuttigala”) or that he won’t live much longer, or that they will kill him soon. At first I was mortified by the rhetoric, but now I see it’s common and in the end, quite funny. People here talk about death openly; especially in the case of old buddhas like Bapa. Buddha is the word for “old man” in Oriya, buddhi for “old woman.” But the jokes cut across all adult ages – if I’m looking for anyone in the village and ask, “Where’s so and so?” if nobody knows the answer, someone will almost definitely respond “Morigala.”

In the same vein, one of the most good-natured men in the village, Mohan, never passes up the opportunity to come where Bapa and I are sitting and place his hands gently around Bapa’s neck, feigning strangulation and giggling with delight. Bapa sits there, non-plussed. I usually hit Mohan square on the arm. When we all walk to functions together and Mohan is with us, I know at some point I’ll hear a yelp from dear Bapa as Mohan gingerly hoists him onto his back and gives him a piggyback ride. I remind you that Bapa is 78. More Mohan giggling.

Bapa and Naunidi sit here on this little hill most days in the late afternoon, after the cows have come in and the brunt of the day’s work is done. If I pass by, they ask me to sit with them even though I can’t follow much of their conversation. Naunidi takes a moment most days and reaches out his leathery, loving hand to pat my forehead and bless me, saying,”Amaro jhia, Bhagaban, Bhagaban.” (Our daughter, God bless you, God bless you.) His son, Ravi, also enjoys blessing me but prefers to pick marigolds, rip up their petals, and toss them at point-blank range toward my forehead and face, saying in English, “God. God. God. God.” I try not to blink or sniff too much during the gesture, but accept the grace and intent behind the flying petals.

Indeed.

God. God. God. God.