We’ve been working hard over the last couple of weeks to add a photo section to Curry Caravan–so hard, in fact, that it may have contributed to a directory failure on our external hard drive. But, it was worth it (and all of the data was recovered, so we still have all the originals!)
These were pared down from approximately 5,000 images, and they represent our favorites so far. The project itself is still in its test phase, but we hope you enjoy them nonetheless!
After leaving Calcutta last Sunday, Megan and I have spent the past week in Chennai, India’s fourth largest metropolitan area (after Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta). Chennai is a laid back coastal town in central Tamil Nadu, known for its colorful Dravidian temples and friendly inhabitants. This portion of our trip has been mostly work-focused: we’ve been volunteering for an organization called Nalamdana.
Nalamdana (in Tamil, this word means “Are you well?”) uses performance art (music videos, short films, and live stage productions) to convey information about child abuse, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. I’ve been helping them out with their web presence, and Megan has shared some of her fundraising expertise towards their giving campaign.
Public service announcements tend to be boring, and they have an alarmingly low rate of retention. Nalamdana re-packages public health education in a manner that makes the message easy to understand and absorb. They’ve produced a music video, for example, that shows people singing lyrics like, “I won’t get HIV, because I know all of its infectious routes. I will stay faithful to my wife and won’t mess around, because that’s one way to contract the virus. I won’t use dirty needles, because the virus can spread that way as well, etc.” Instead of being didactic or judgmental, the tone remains positive, instructive, and informative. Since Indians are very comfortable with this medium, it’s an effective educational tool.
Nalamdana also conducts a lot of “on the ground” work at a local public hospital. The hospital distributes free ART and tuberculosis meds to HIV+ and TB patients. Because of this service, it receives visitors from all over the state, including many from rural villages. But, since the clinic is publicly funded, the medical professionals who work there are of course overburdened, so Nalamdana hosts several live performances and focus groups to help spread awareness of HIV/AIDS and TB.
The live performances follow a similar structure to the short films–a fortune teller appears, and hams it up with the audience before encountering one of the troupe’s actors. The actor claims several symptoms of either TB or AIDS (depending on the audience). The fortune teller then reveals their sickness, and relays some kind of incorrect information: if it’s AIDS, the fortune teller says that he can cure the syndrome for 100 Rupees; if it’s TB, the fortune teller says that the subject contracted the disease because of something evil their forefathers did (both are examples of widely held misconceptions in rural India). Another actor will intervene at this point, and dispel the falsities with true information–then, they offer to answer any questions from the audience (which consists entirely of patients, or relatives of patients).
We also sat in on a focus group of women who were HIV+. Many of them had been disowned by their families, because siblings or in-laws believe they can also contract the virus through touch, or by mosquito bites. One woman knowingly married a man who is HIV+, and says that she does not mind contracting the virus, because it is their fate to die together. Of course, I knew before we came that AIDS is a serious global problem, but when you meet people with these kinds of stories, it really puts the disease in an altogether different context.
Tonight I went up to the roof of our hostel to do some yoga. Next door, at the Wallajah Mosque, evening prayer was beginning. Hundreds of bodies dressed in white were kneeling, then bowing, then standing. Outside under the palms, a pack of auto-rickshaw drivers sat crouched in the dirt, waiting for their prey to emerge.
Inside, the ritual reminded me of a ritual I’d participated in, on Christmas Eve. Brought back memories of itchy tights, catchy hymns, the holly and the ivy. And people kneeling, then bowing, then standing. Same same but different.
I realized that for as much as I’d tried to diversify my life in the States, I’d never witnessed this prayer ritual. Next door to me have always been the holly and the ivy types. But here we were, me at the Broadlands Lodge, them at the Wallajah Mosque, with no other choice but to practice our own forms of meditation side by side. In India, it seems much of life is determined by the strictures of having no other choice.
At home we pride ourselves on all the options we have the privilege to access. But what experiences does this lead us to opt out of? Can we begin to unravel all the choices that have cocooned us into our own isolation? Perhaps this is why it is so important to visit a country like India, perhaps especially important for Americans, like me.
Prayers ended about the time I was finishing my exercise, and people began to filter out, illuminated by the crescent moon and the florescent blinking sign of the Noori Sari Emporium. And I stood silently and watched, freed from the illusion that I had any other choice.
