India: The Microcosm That Should Spawn A Revolution

(It should be noted that this post was inspired by the recent posts about the "Save Our Sisters" and their "Abused Goddesses" campaign, as well as comments by friends of mine.)
I've been to India several times with my family. I used to chuckle at my friends in elementary school who, when I told them I was going to India, would ask if I was going to sleep in a tent. If they had cars, or just rode on elephants and rickshaws. If they had toilet paper (admittedly, in some places that question was somewhat valid).

I would chuckle and talk about my grandparents' houses, and the cars (including the auto-rickshaws), and the fact that India was mostly in the twentieth century, even in the rural areas. My mother once told me that India's elementary school education was better than the one I was receiving in the United States - though I would later learn that she was exaggerating to challenge me to learn more and try to match my cousins halfway around the world. I still hear those words ringing in my ears when I think about my life in the U.S.

I take great pride in my Indian heritage, and it's something I strive to know more about (even though I haven't taken as much time to learn the language and customs as I maybe should). I have extremely fond memories of taking walks with my late grandfather there, traveling through jungles, turning my head to take in huge cities, and viewing the most beautiful temples and palaces. In my first long entry on this blog I discussed some of the funnier things in India and my interactions there, but that was pretty tongue-in-cheek.

While I am very proud of that Indian heritage, there are things about the country of India itself in which I am extremely disappointed. And they are summed up and brought into harsh light with this ad campaign:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/indias-incredibly-powerful-abused-goddesses-campaign-condemn

Normally Buzzfeed is associated with fun lists and lame information aggregations, but this is a particularly good use of the website. This campaign is beautifully designed, and I hope it reaches a great many people, especially in India. As stated in the article,

"The campaign simply and effectively captures India’s most dangerous contradiction: that of revering women in religion and mythology, while the nation remains incredibly unsafe for its women citizens."

Now, I know a lot of Indian people. I know there are good people there, I've seen them. But the bad apples make the reputation, and Indian news lately has been full of them. India tries to pride itself on the fact that it is coming into modern times and on par with the Western world. Unfortunately, even in the Western world some things have not changed the way they should. These news stories of women being abused, raped, tortured, and killed make me sick to my stomach. And it makes me sad for the people who don't know the beauty of India, because these perverse people obscure the good parts. And this doesn't just apply to India, either. These tragedies should hit close to home for all of us. Our so-called "modern Western civilization" is just as guilty of such horrors.

I remember being distracted from admiring the mighty Red Fort because my sisters were clinging to me as we walked through, because there were boys just standing to one side, leering at the girls. At least they were quiet, not making catcalls or grabbing their crotches. Just staring creepily. If I had thought anything I could have said would have made a difference, I would have (And again, I don't fool myself into thinking this only happens in India. As I progress through my medical training, I see this in hospitals far too frequently).

Unfortunately, it's a matter of culture, in so many places. It's the way of thinking, and it has been for generations of misguided men and women. The world over, far too often we see the gut reaction of, when a woman is raped or assaulted, the first questions asked are, "Why did she wear that? Why did she walk through there? Why was she asking for it?" Far too often, the right questions aren't asked: "What was her abuser thinking? Where is he and how can he be stopped from doing this again? How can we make this right?"
That is wrong. And it needs to change.

We can figure out why she wore that dress. It probably wasn't because she wanted every man to know she was "asking for it." For the most part, it was probably because she thought she looked nice in it, and felt like looking good that day. For herself. Not for anyone else. No one should think they have any right to her, or any claim over her. While there is a call for safe behavior that should be heeded, this kind of "ownership thinking" has to stop, not only in India, but everywhere, including the United States. It's disgusting, it's outdated, and while it's slowly becoming less common, it's not changing fast enough.

I don't want to speak in absolutes, and as a medical student and a scientist I don't like to use the words "always" or "never." I know that the sad things I've talked about in this post aren't always the story. But the fact that they happen at all is sad. I started this post as a rant about India and its outdated beliefs and unfortunate way of thinking...but I realized as I wrote it that this topic is globally relevant. It's a universal travesty. And, starting with you and me, it will take a global revolution to resolve it.

The Post That Made Me Start This Blog

Second blog post! Which means I can actually commit to this blog and announce to the world that I'm blogging. 
Preface: In January of this year, I realized that I was not writing in my journal very much anymore, but I was not ready to give up on the challenge issued me after high school graduation by my tenth-grade English teacher - that is, to never stop writing creatively. So I turned to technology as we so often do in this day and age and thought of starting a blog. Almost six months later, I'm finally biting the bullet and posting, with the original story in full to preserve the original humor. If you could bear in mind that while mostly true, this post is rather tongue-in-cheek, I would be much obliged.

So over winter break, I went to India. It was an amazing trip as always. I've been to India five times in my life, and it is always an adventure. This trip was no different - wonderful to see family and friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, my grandmother doted on me as much as she could (while still asking the hard questions: when was I going to come back to visit? When would I bring her great-grandchildren?), and traveling to beaches, jungles, and other exotic places that I never see in my daily location of Western New York or Northwest Pennsylvania. We visited churches as well, and for the first time I experienced a real celebratory church service in India - there were fireworks, processions (both somber and not-so-somber), and general good times as I watched my parents reunite with school chums and long-distant family.

I always enjoy India, sure, but there are a couple of things that really annoy me that I never noticed until this trip. Everyone always talks about New Yorkers and how impatient they are. Heck, Americans in general are considered an impatient people. But you have not seen impatient until you encounter a churchful of Indian grannies. I have stood in a large church with pious men and women around me, asking for forgiveness of their sins and being thankful for God's grace. This changes as soon as the priest calls us up to bless us - he stands at the steps to the altar and waits with a cross about the size of my head which he will tap on each person's forehead as they come up to him. And then suddenly these quiet and pious men and women are shoving past me. I have watched tiny quiet Indian grandmothers push my sister out of the way in order to get up to the priest first. This astonishes me. It's not like the priest's cross will run out of blessings! It kind of nullifies your blessing if you have to elbow someone aside to get to it first...

But I am not going to make this a religious post, because that's not my goal with this anecdote - I only hope you see the humor in this situation. It continues outside of the church, too. Well...right outside the church. I went to a wedding or two while in India as well, and at the dinner after one of them, there was a table set up where volunteers handed out ice cream. Here's where the grannies started shoving me aside, trying to get to the ice cream first. Seriously?  I mean, it was about 85 degrees, sure, but it's really just ice cream. You'd think it was gold or something!

Still, while it goes against my favorite mantra, "Patience is a virtue," I do love the South Indian culture and whenever I go visit my extended family or go to India and become surrounded by Malayalam (the language of my parents and, ergo, me), my thoughts are filled with one question: since I have a barely passing knowledge of the language (having never been immersed in India for more than a month at a time), how will I pass it (and the culture that goes with it) on to a future family I raise? Now, obviously I have several years before I really have to confront this question, since I still have four to five years of medical school training left before I even get a job and start raising a family, but it still sticks in my head. My parents have never held me to the ideal that I must marry an Indian girl, but rather, their primary wish is for me to find a girl that makes me truly happy, which is all that matters. So the question remains, but only in the far corners of my head: will I find a girl that speaks Malayalam who can teach me the language and make me a stronger Malayalee? We'll see. I am already one of the whitest Indians you'll ever meet in terms of mannerisms, but every year brings change.

In the meantime, if you're a pretty Christian girl who speaks Malayalam, feel free to comment on this post or e-mail me - we should talk about getting married. Or at least set up a tutoring service of some sort. :)