Babies and Bananas

As I sit and type this blog post, I am fighting back the urge to burst into tears—because tonight, we leave India. On that note, I’m going to write about some of my favorite experiences and amazing cultural phenomena learned from this trip.

First—babies. I should start by explaining that everywhere we traveled in India, we were consistently stared at, photographed, and sometimes even swarmed. In a separate post I’ll have to describe some of my worst experiences and the swarming (and tour guides) in much more detail. Anyway, Meagan and I experienced people asking to get a photo with us almost everyday—some people had never seen blonde hair in their lives (and Meagan does have such beautiful and bright blonde hair!). Our Indian professor, Nandita, (whom again, I’ll have to describe in much more detail in another post, as she has become one of my favorite women in the world) explained that because we have light skin, we are viewed basically as “celebrities.” (Meagan and I have a favorite commercial from the one time we tried watching TV. and it was for a skin bleaching cream called “fair-faced.”) So, over these three weeks, we’ve grown quite accustomed to groups of women, school-children, teenage girls and boys, and even grown men coming up to us on the street and asking for a photo standing with us.

Sometimes they want both of us in the picture, sometimes just one or the other. One of the more rare occurrences that I had the good fortune of experiencing several different times, was families coming up to me holding out their babies or toddlers asking me to hold them for a picture. I wish I had asked Meagan to snap each one of the adorable babies I was asked to hold, but unfortunately she was only close enough for me to ask once, and that’s the picture of me and the toddler you see. I think that I was singled out in the group for these sort of photos because I am so crazy about children, and can’t help but break into a huge grin at every small child I see—obviously inviting the photo-op. Nonetheless, as anyone who also loves the feeling of holding a baby can understand, I so completely enjoyed those experiences. I appreciated the trust and sense of familial pride and happiness that is present when a baby is passed over to a complete stranger, just to have the memory memorialized through a photograph. The photo I have posted was the first time this happened, when we were in Haridwar, for the lanterns on the Ganga ceremony.

Another very heartwarming experience for me has been the times I was able to give something to children in need—whether it be kids in the villages, or children beggars on the street. One common food that most hotel breakfasts seemed to include was bananas, and these were actually the only fruit that we could eat without worry because they have such a thick and impenetrable skin/peel. Anyway, on the first day out in Mewat, Meagan and I both packed extra bananas in our bags because we knew we’d get hungry out in the field at some point. Well, it didn’t take us long to realize the conditions that the children in the Mewat villages grow up with in terms of food availability, so at one of the villages that afternoon I tried to hand my banana to one of the little girls that was following us around. To my extreme dismay, she turned and looked at me like I was trying to kill her, and scurried away. I asked one of the guides we were with and she said something like it wouldn’t be okay for her to accept anything from us for cultural reasons that I wouldn’t understand. I felt pretty devastated at this news, and so guilty for carrying around a banana that I knew would be so enjoyed by one of these hungry children. We finally moved on to see the last water tank on our itinerary for that day, and there we were surrounded by teenage boys and older men almost exclusively.

However, I did notice one young girl, maybe 9 years old, and every time I’d look at her I’d give a tiny grin—knowing that she probably was not technically “allowed” to smile back. But amazingly, every time that I did sneak a glance and grin her way, she’d reiterate the smile even bigger, and we’d enter into an infectious (and sneaky) huge smile exchange—all within the safety of our head scarves of course.

This sneaky glancing and smiling went on between us for the whole 20-30 minutes our group was there, and I felt almost overwhelmed with sadness to have to leave this little girl, with whom I’d had such an intense unspoken, yet undeniable connection. It dawned on me that maybe if another Indian offered her the banana she could accept it, and I thought it was worth a try. This was the first time I really interacted personally with Rash Kumar, (another one of my favorites from this trip—the best driver EVER) and I pointed to the girl and handed him my banana from inside of our van, and amazingly, he understood, called her over, and beaming, she accepted a banana from both Meagan and I.

All the little boys and men that were around her just looked at her jealously and almost mockingly—but she just broke into the most proud and shy grin I’ve ever seen and stood holding her bananas staring at us until we were out of sight. She will have a place in my heart and memory forever, and I so appreciate my exchange with her, it’s actually very hard to accurately put it into words. After that experience, I began taking bananas with me every time our hotel offered them and I’ve given them to children beggars (which we encounter all too often) whenever possible.

The last two pictures are of another little girl with whom I had a similar secret smiling exchange during my time at her village, only she and the other children were very willing and interested in being photographed, as compared to the children from our first day in Mewat. The last photo is an example of being swarmed—but one that was safe and I totally enjoyed. This was when all the children at one village crowded around our vans with such excitement and happiness that the drivers could barely drive away. We left that village saying to each other “well, now we know what it’s like to be Brittany Spears…” and honestly—that has been how we’ve felt many, many times during our stay in India.

As I will discuss in my next post, a lot of the attention received just for being Caucasian is overwhelming, and even scary at times… But these experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have with children during these last three weeks have so deeply touched my heart.