paramakudi and the caste system.

when i first came here, i was convinced that there were several different social projects and that i could randomly switch between them. as it turns out, the actual bodhi zendo and the montessori school are in the perumalmalai region, and all of the other projects are in a place called paramakudi. paramakudi is about five hours away by car and lies south of madurai, which is the next bigger city (an actual BIGger city with more than a million inhabitants). in paramakudi there is the so called 'pearl trust' which is run by father ama's niece, amala. i was invited to accompany christian, who is the european manager of all social projects run by bodhi zendo.


before we left i was warned that paramakudi would be fundamentally different than the india i had experienced so far. naturally, i thought that that couldn't be true - i mean, i've been here for 2 months (!) and i've been around a bit so what on earth could surprise me after all the changes i've been through in the last 8 weeks?! i was wrong and boy how wrong i was. paramakudi is probably as big as kodaikanal but not as much as a city as i would have expected it to be. when it comes to cities, there are only a couple of exceptions (mostly areas visited by many tourists) where you see an actual 'city', as in something like an older, more beautiful part, functioning traffic lights, clean sidewalks, coffee shops and supermarkets. when you go through india, you see lots and lots of small stalls (so basically four walls and a counter) - there are 4 sorts: those selling medicine, those selling fruits, those selling clothes and anything made of fabric, and those selling literally everything else - from brooms to toothbrushes to books and various food items. cities, in the classical sense, are basically just gigantic clusters of those stalls.


going through madurai was the perfect example for this. stalls and stalls and stalls everywhere, no such thing as actual shops or supermarkets or anything we would consider to be part of a city. paramakudi is also like this - you can drive for 15 minutes and all you see on both sides is just stalls (and rickshaws to travel between them for that matter). from what i've heard, chennai, mumbai and dehli are also like that! just that the roads are bigger..anyway, click on the picture to enlarge it and see what i mean by stalls.

we arrived in paramakudi at 12 o'clock sharp, the temperature was somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees, or at least it felt like that. again, i'm happy to be staying in the hills - the heat is literally unbearable and as a woman, to obey tradition, you are not allowed to wear shortish sleeves or short pants. so where i was, in my sweater and my jeans. great. seeing the social project was fantastic, heart-warming, eye-opening. amala and her team have been running pearl for the last 15 years and have over 7 social projects running simultaneously. these include self-help groups for women, embroidery/sewing/stitching courses,  a pre-school, 3 different evening tuitions, a university short course and separate villages for the so called 'untouchables' - or those at the very very bottom of the caste system/those without any caste at all.


which brings me to the caste system (thanks to mrs bauer and her fantastic matura preparation lessons i will always remember that it is pronounced KAST system ;)). many people say that it is simply a no-go to mention it in front of any one, which is quite simply not true. among indians, the first question is always 'which caste do you belong to?'. the caste system dominates indian life. may it be when it comes to marriage, finding a job, politics, social security and welfare..everything is dependent on your caste. you are born into it and that's where you stay and you spend the rest of your life dealing with whatever people associate with it. in paramakudi, there are two particularly low castes that account for say 70% of the population there. there people are discriminated against and considered as being social outcasts by the higher castes. this may sound harmless when i write it, but while i was there i saw a man getting beaten up with a belt by 5 members of a higher caste - there was a circle of people standing around just watching and the police was nowhere to be seen. as a foreigner, you have no chance to interfere - it's life-threatening. sadly, this is daily life in india.


the police did not turn up because they do not help members of lower castes. the government itself cannot interfere because if someone decides to report anything (which is never the case - castes hold together and suddenly there are no witnesses and thereby no proof), it would first go to the local police and the local police it not neutral but automatically on the higher caste's side, no questions asked. even jobs are caste-dominated and certain jobs are associated with certain castes. one friend for instance is a member of a clothes-making caste, another is member of a fishing caste. these skills are passed on from generation to generation, it is difficult to find a job that is socially higher, like for instance teacher or doctor or police officer. anyone from a lower caste or even without a caste has no chance of finding a job or acquiring a decent base of knowledge in the first place. your life can be ruined the minute you are born, all depending on this system of beliefs. if you did something bad in your previous life, you sure will suffer in your next. and everyone will make sure of that.


politics are made not for the people, but for certain castes. there are over 300 different castes in india and each one of the higher ones has its own politician who favors his own and those above, but no one below. the police and government officials are all involved in counting votes etc, so it's easy to be a powerful politician if you were born into the right social class. do you see how the lower castes are continuously oppressed? there is hardly any way out for them. 
this is where amala and the pearl trust steps in. she has enabled the so called 'bird catchers' and 'snake charmers' (very very low castes) to form self-help groups which get loans from the government, which allow them to form businesses, earn money, send their kids to school and provide basic necessities. apart from foreign influences and extremely courageous people, no one dares to interfere with this system.


when we went to paramakudi, we went visit the specially built village where the bird catchers and snake charmers live. before, they were tortured on the street, their tents (no money or permission for houses) were set on fire, their food poisoned, everything was polluted..the pearl trust did quite a lot of political lobbying and enabled them to get a small piece of land outside the town where they have now built a small village (according to the locals, a village of social outcasts). i was amazed at how clean and peaceful it seemed and how content the people were - they have a place to live where they do not have to fear for their life everytime they leave the house. the evening tuition is based there and since the pearl trust has been working, these people have been able to send their kids to school, have enabled them to access secondary and even higher education, have been able to find jobs within the village..slowly, a social change is being made. fascinating. 

apart from that village, there is also a sari-weaver village which focuses on the empowerment of women (who are discriminated against ANYWAY - (sadly) no one quesions that - and completely controlled by their husbands) which we also went to see. beautiful saris, 1000-3000 rupees apiece (15-50 euros) made of silk and golden threads. something these people could only have dreamed of touching before they formed a self-help group with the help of the pearl.

i was surprised that there are also a couple of men working together with amala, holding lectures about empowerment, self-management, media awareness, solid waste management and many more things. they are all married, have kids, but for example organize rallies against the conventional forms of marriage in paramakudi. one guy formed an acting group which (inside the pearl trust building) performs one-acts about violence and sexual harassment towards women in family situations. another teaches self-defense, another helps them with life-insurance policies (you cannot imagine how many people 'suddenly' die or disappear without a trace, no questions asked). 


all hope is not lost, but what is missing is the right education, for which people have no money (or are not part of the right caste to receive). it breaks my heart to say that this is only one of the many many many villages and rural areas of india. were talking about 200 out of over a billion people, out of which 80% live in extreme poverty and a society dominated by an ancient system of beliefs. it was an extremely eye-opening experience to see all of this live and i am grateful to amala for all the wonderful work she does. unfortunately, it is literally too dangerous for me as a foreigner to go there and help out, so i'll continue staying at the school (had originally planned to switch around a bit). i am simply overwhelmed.


it was a bit weird to be there and see all of this brutal reality when, at the same time, amala and her team were extremely generous (such hospitable people!) and provided us with meals and snacks every couple of hours, flower chains, small gifts, special shows and tours..i still do not know exactly how to feel about that. 
but all in all i know that india will never stop surprising me and that any social work willing to be done by anyone is MUCH needed and here - so seriously, don't be shy and think about the indian reality and the reality you're living. an entire universe lies between the two. 
a friend told me that he doesn't think the indian mentality and belief in the caste system will EVER change..i seriously hope that he will be proven wrong.

me, too lazy to write something meaningful

unfortunately, there are no grand stories to tell this saturday. all the good and interesting things will only be happening in the next couple of weeks (including something about a journey to north india and a mini trip to one of the other social projects 4 hours away, as well as going to a funpark with 71 children and 150 parents). but be patient :) 


i'm allowing myself a bit of time off. spent the last week doing many different sorts of work (i.e shooting and cutting a video about bodhi zendo / redecorating the building / doing office work and accounting / cooking) and teaching 5 different groups of people english, so i have had literally one free hour per day (where i did not feel like writing a blog or answering emails but more like napping :P) but anyways, i haven't forgotten about you and i promise that i will update properly next saturday. lots of love and check back soon!

life-long bonds (warning, this could be provocative)

like i said in the last blog-post, i was invited to attend an indian wedding on monday. i was sitting and having breakfast with preeti that day (the new volunteer staying for one month) and we started talking about weddings and settling down and children and all, and she ended up telling me many many interesting things about what this system is like in india. first of all one should know that we're not talking about marriages out of love, but arranged marriages. esther told me in my very first week here that she thinks out system is bad, because there are so many divorces. in the indian system, there is no room for divorces. once you are married, you are married and you stay married.

but how do you end up getting married? well, it's up to the parents to decide that and it's not as simple as it might seem. the ideal partner for your daughter/son should be a member of the same caste, community, state and religion (and preferably the age-gap shouldn't be too big but that's not a priority). other factors that are important are your astrological compatibility and how wealthy the family of the other is. it doesn't sound simple, yet it is almost a social scandal if you are an unmarried 25-year old. there is always someone to get married to.


the first conversations i had with many people here were about marriages and such, and it immediately struck me how fundamentally different the general view on life is. in western countries, freedom and independence are very important factors and taken for granted. i can choose if i want to get married, who i want to marry, if i have kids.. i can travel if i want to, i can work 3 jobs if i feel like it, i can get a divorce, i can choose not to believe in any god if it's what i really want. these things we take for granted. here, freedom and independence are words not commonly used. you are born into a certain caste and forever bound to the attributes associated with your caste. religion will always play a major role in your life. you have little say in the matter of if you will get married or not and to whom, children are almost a must. being a woman is way worse than being a man, because society is male-dominated. it's not uncommon to go around and see men just sitting in restaurants drinking tea and smoking and women working for hours and hours in the fields in the bright sun. also, married women are not allowed to talk to other men, whereas married men are free to do whatever they want.


the thing about india is that this way of life is taken for granted, and it is hard for me to understand. maybe the fact that i have all the freedom i want is what is preventing me from being able to properly understand their lifestyle. there's this saying that if you have a bird in a cage for a couple of years and then open the door of the cage, the bird would not flee. until now, it has not known this freedom and life has been okay. so why leave the cage and plunge into the unknown? the same is valid for the people here. everything works so fine with their system, everyone has his or her place in society, the plan for your life is laid out in front of you the moment you are born. nothing is unknown. so why strive for freedom?


being here has made me realize that there are so so so so so so many things that i just take for granted in my life. but we are living the lives that people just like us, who had the 'misfortune' of being born in another part of the world, can only dream of. some don't even know that such things can exist. i've spent the last week meditating over this and i think that i probably won't go back to living the same way i did before i came here. it's about cherishing the small things, the details, all the miniscule components of your life that you take for granted and not about complaining when your life seems boring or when you can't access facebook for an hour. it's all so much simpler than that.


ANYWAY. this blog-post is dedicated to my dear brother, who is currently dealing with matters like children, marriage, building a house.. :)
so i went to this wedding about two hours away. it was a tiny tiny village, we drove through the plains, you could see for miles and miles on each side. there was absolutely NOTHING there. we started to hear music. as we got closer, it got louder and louder until we were standing in front of a gigantic sub-woofer with a crowd of people gathered around. welcome to the wedding! there was a little kind of 'walk' with a roof and at the end of it a little stage with two chairs on it. in front of it, on the ground, were seated the families of the bride and groom (but only the men). when the ceremony begins, you don't see the couple yet but only the parents exchanging gifts (a sort of symbolic dowry) consisting of fruit, money, candy...

preeti told me during the ceremony that depending on caste, the ceremony varies. this must not have been a very 'good' caste, because there was no fire. normally when it comes to weddings, there is a huge fire in front of the two chairs and everything that happens, chanting, exchanging of goods, dancing, the actual wedding, everything happens around the fire. here, there was no fire. instead, everything happened outside the little walking area right next to the sub-woofer that was blasting bad tamil 80s pop music. after the little gift-exchange, we heard shouting and chanting coming from outside. the groom's family was approaching - many carrying flower-necklaces, which they would later put on the groom. afterwards, it was the bride's turn, same thing. as they were both covered with flowers, the rings were exchanged (still standing next to the sub-woofer, entirely unspectacular. apparently rings are not important. and they're not for the hands, but for the toes.)

if i may just add, the amazing part of it all was that the wedding guests mistook me for the official photographer, because i had a better and bigger camera than the actual guy who got paid to do the job. haha. he shot me a couple of nasty looks, but when it came to the important part - the ceremony - he let me stand next to him right in front of the stage (photographer's VIP area) and smiled. 

the actual wedding ceremony was quite spectacular. it is common for the groom's family to buy the bride a beautiful and expensive sari which is first presented to her and which she is then expected to wear. so the bride disappears for a couple of minutes after having received her toe-ring and the groom just stands around and waits. when they're both ready, they step onto the stage, pictures are taken (no one EVER smiles for pictures here), and then everyone cheers and petals are thrown. they both proceed to then dipping their fingers into either a red or a yellow paste, and make a dot on eachother's forehead. 

someone, i think usually the groom's father, then comes with a piece of cloth and ties their hands together. viola, a new married couple. no kissing, by the way. it is socially unaccepted and totally inappropriate, even at a wedding. preeti also told me that the actual first kiss that takes place between husband and wife is usually dreaded, because neither of them know anything about it. so usually it's not common for married people to kiss. i wonder what they must feel like when it comes to reproducing, because they KNOW that they're expected to have children. jeez. but like i said: the perspective is different here and as long as no one forces me to be exactly like them, everything's fine.


all in all i had a fantastic time. i had never ever been to a wedding before, not in austria, not in singapore, not anywhere. everyone was shocked when i said that. chitra's opinion was 'nineteen years old and never been to a wedding? now that's almost a scandal in india!' haha. 
other than that, life has been good. i have had a major teaching breakthrough and actually managed to come up with a decent curriculum for both the montessori kids and the evening tuition kids. it's something i can actually do for five months and where i (they) can make some PROGRESS! now i'm off to meet one of the teachers in kodaikanal - amala, the headteacher - she invited me to her house for lunch and to practice english and tamil. i love the give/take policy here. :) hope everything is well wherever you are, keep me updated!

a trip to the plains.

i have been in india for a little over one month now. to be exact, i have been here for 35 days. it doesn't really sound that long when i look at it now, but my feeling about being here has certainly changed. it sounds trivial when i write about it, but it's all one big process of realization for me. i have lived in india for one month and i still have five more to go. but one fifth is over, and looking back it has gone very fast. before i left austria, people told me that time would pass faster than i could grasp. they were right. i have settled into a routine here. and here i am again. it's saturday, and i'm writing this blog entry.


i finally managed to find a map of the region. click for a larger version. on the left side in the middle you can see kodaikanal, slightly to the right is my village of perumalmalai (not on the map).

not many big things have happened this week. however, there are two 'notable' ones.
the first is that i have moved rooms. i heard that someone from bodhi zendo would be coming to stay at the school for a couple of weeks (lack of rooms up at the zendo). esther, who told me, leaned in and whispered to me 'wanda, you room not nice. visitor room very nice, very sun. you change rooms, you here long time! you room small and dark' and voila, i switched rooms. i live right next to my old room but  now everything is bigger and there is soooo much sunlight! sunlight makes me happy. ever since i moved, i've been very jolly. esther says 'you funny lady'. i think that's a good thing. :)


as it always is when something is so overwhelmingly positive, there is something small that goes wrong. in my case, nothing really went wrong. just.. in my first night i wanted to use the bathroom and went to the toilet only to find a HUGE GREEN HALF-SEE-THROUGH FROG looking back at me (luckily it wasn't a snake, that just would have been too good). it was INSIDE my toilet. my heart stopped for a second. i was scared. i mean, it was late and dark and there was this THING staring at me. i tried to catch it for about 45 minutes (no joking) and tried to spray it with water (haha, because obviously frogs don't like water..) and finally managed to catch it under my shower bucket. then i waited and realized that i had no clue what to do next. those things jump high, really high. and i could not just go to sleep because the chances of me forgetting about my new friend were pretty high. james to the rescue. he laughed and disposed of it like a pro: went to my room, lifted the bucket, took the frog with his hands, and carried it outside. and my heart started beating again. i spent the whole night laying awake, picturing spiders and frogs and insects and all kinds of creatures crawling around my bed. ah, this paranoia. it seems that apart from having a very very bad fear of spiders, i am also not stable when it comes to frogs. who would have known! EEEEK!

haha anyways. the second notable thing is that father ama asked me to accompany him to a college nearby to which he was invited to give a talk about zen. the college has a 'harmony club' (somehow a different form of a 'peace and social awareness society' at university) and every year on january 31st they invite somewhat famous people to talk about peace and living together in harmony. one of my many jobs is to photo-document everything that's happening at bodhi zendo and at the little flower projects, so i was officially the project photographer for this event. 

it's amazing father ama, 75 years old, sits cross-legged in the front seat of the jeep and sleeps while we speed down the palani hills with approximately 90km/h. no seatbelts involved. but this is india, i shouldn't be too surprised seeing as i have had a whole month to get used to indian driving habits. it took us two hours to get there and on the way we stopped at a small piece of land that father had bought some time ago. he is planning to build a healing center for the aged in the next year (which is lovely in combination with everything else he has built up: a montessori school, a zen meditation center, a women's rights and microfinance society and now the healing center. there is something for everyone and he totally lives according to the zen philosophy of 'living your life for others, because you and the whole universe are one'. the man is remarkable and i have never met anyone quite like him.) back to the piece of land. the guy who's staying there and who's managing it has a daughter who is getting married on monday. guess who was invited to attend a hindu wedding? :)


we arrived at the college at around 10am. i keep on forgetting that i am extremely privileged, now only concerning my living conditions, but also concerning the weather. in the hills where i'm staying, it's not too hot and not too cold (see picture below, i find the landscape extremely impressive..). in the nights it can get pretty chilly, but during daytime there is not a single cloud in the sky and the sun is literally burning down. still, there is always a slight breeze - it's perfect. in basically ALL other parts of india, temperatures are unbearable, either because you freeze to the spot in the north, or because you melt along with everything else in the plains. the college lies in the plains, and by 10am temperatures had risen to what felt like 40 degrees in the shade. it reminded me of a sauna. if you ever plan to travel to india and are staying in a flat area, pack lightly.

the college is an all-girls university, the only one in the whole state of tamil nadu if i understood correctly, is run by a couple of nuns. ah, how i love nuns, especially those who suddenly stop smiling when you tell them you are without confession. the head-nun attempted several times to get me to sit in the chapel and pray while i was waiting for father to finish his talk.. i must say, i prefer the indian temples. you're not forced to believe. anyways. i was intrigued by the fact that a) none of the students at the university (!) spoke a word of english, and those studying the english language only said 'welcome' and ran away giggling like mad; b) none of the students seem to have seen a caucasian before - i could not believe how many girls just stood and STARED and behaved like the montessori kids i normally am in contact with; c) although there is no uniform, ALL the girls were wearing the same set of clothes - the punjabi (pants, long shirt, scarf); 

in the meanwhile i've gotten used to being stared at and to occasionally being poked and prodded by curious bystanders, but i was surprised at how many university students also felt the urge to make me feel like a giant, white alien with glasses. it gets annoying at times, but at the end i always find myself looking back and smiling. andere laender, andere sitten!


what i absolutely LOVED were the courses offered at this university. they range from the standard english and history courses to tailoring (imagine getting a BA in sewing!) and publishing courses (publishing = there's a printing press and the students enrolled get to copy books!). fascinating. the university campus is huge and even has a couple of halls of residence (which is unique in india, i heard). also their drama society is pretty big, as part of the 'harmony day', we got to see an awesome (and unintentionally hilarious) re-enactment of mother theresa's good deeds. :D

change of scene. if you walk outside the grounds for about two minutes, you see something that resembles a garden shed. there's a sign outside saying 'daycare center'. 

i was curious, so i went inside. and i was shocked. this supposed 'daycare center' is also a sort of pre-school, so basically the same institution that we have in perumalmalai where i live. HOWEVER. this institution is simply heartbreaking. there are 35 children cramped into what seems like 15ms2, they get no food, there is not a single toy laying around, there are all extremely thin and have skin problems.. the only 'teacher' there is an old woman who seems to be frustrated with life, seeing as she beat the children in front of my very eyes. i couldn't stay longer than a couple of minutes. i talked to father about it later, and he said that he was shocked. the nuns provide food for this day'care' center, but apparently the money has been going somewhere else and the children have not been seeing any of it. (selfless as he is, he later 'donated' the money he would have gotten for his talk to the center directly to ensure at least one nutritious meal for these children). 

all of this made me realize how extremely privileged the children at our montessori school are. not only do they have a school uniform and shoes to wear, they get three meals, loving care, toys and have a decent roof above their heads. it's incredibly touching to see how the definition of 'pre-school' can vary and what shocked me most was that this center we saw was right outside the very very rich university campus. seriously, buy two computers less for your IT course and donate money to the children starving right outside your door!!! father said that he is afraid that this is just how it works in india. india, land of contrasts. if it wasn't for certain individuals willing to dedicate their whole life to ensuring that others have access to at least a fraction of what we take for granted, all of schools would be like the one i just described. it's heart-breaking and quite simply horrible. i now look at the montessori school here in a completely new way. like the project name 'little flowers' says, this school is like a little flower, a new shimmer and hope for life, amongst all the dirt and poverty of the village perumalmalai.