I’m back in India. Back to where somehow life persists despite the constraints of poverty, filth, pollution, oppressive overpopulation, and great disparities of wealth and education. Back to the country that reminds me of how amazing life can be, in both horrific and wonderful ways.
On my first visit here two months earlier, I left with a better understanding of the schismatic differences between the wealthy and the poor, and witnessed a greater variance in the continuum of life than I previously thought possible. This time I am left only with haunting images of the daily life of a truly amazing homeless girl.
The India Gate in the densely-populated city of Mumbai welcomes all to India. The Gate also welcomes any observant traveler to the disparate and incredible lives of India’s poorer class. To save time I hired a rickshaw driver to assist me in my thoroughly over-booked itinerary: the India gate, National Museum, International book store, and back to the airport. As it would turn out, this proved to be too ambitious for any city, let alone Mumbai.
It takes an hour and half to slog across Mumbai. The city’s snarled traffic is squeezed to a crawl by million dollar high rise flats ringed by shacks that appear to have been constructed almost entirely out of rubbish. I wasn’t able to see every place I hoped to see. Instead, I made it only to the India Gate where I met Palvi, a ten-year-old homeless child.
The India Gate is an arch that stands in a small park shadowing a refuse-clogged harbor filled with colorful boats waiting to take tourists to Elephant Island. The park is surrounded by multiple markets, some catering to tourists and some to locals. As with every Indian city I have visited, the begging street people are ubiquitous. Some are deformed, some have missing limbs, many are alone sleeping in dirt. Others have trained their children to beg for them or have elaborate scams organized, and all seem to be born into a rigid system that has condemned them to their station in life since birth.
As I have done on other stops along this trip, I decided to try to make a positive impact on the local situation in some small way if I could. In this instance, I decided to try to assist some of the beggars by buying food for a few of the people who seemed to be in genuine need. However, at times it is difficult to feed only a few. For example, in Pushkar a group of boys that I fed a day earlier saw me in the streets and ran away, only to return a minute later with ten friends running towards me excitingly saying, "He's the guy that feeds you." At the end of this day twenty-three people ate from $10. The comparative cost of feeding people is often smaller. Using the generally accepted world traveler "beer standard" for comparative economic measurement, the cost of feeding a person in India can easily be less than the cost of one beer per day. However, as I learned with Palvi, helping others is not necessarily viewed as a noble thing to everyone. Generosity is often viewed with a wary eye.
The begging is unavoidable. As such, it is best to develop a strategy to deal with the insistent begging. As I walked through hundreds of Indians I was careful to adjust my behavior so as to minimize the constant onslaught of solicitors. I kept my eyes forward and walked more briskly than I might otherwise have done elsewhere. I thought that by avoiding their stares and solicitations I could ignore the problem. I was wrong.
I was going to stick to my guns and refuse all requests. After all, I had already spent my daily charity allocation on a five-pound bag of rice for a family. Unfortunately, my plan began to unravel soon after meeting Palvi, a little Indian girl with leathery bare feet and a tattered shirt.
She walked right up to me and with a big smile on her face said, "Hi, you look like you are not from here. Where are you from?"
"I'm sorry, I really don't have any money left to give you. You might want to ask someone else," I said continuing to walk.
"That's ok, I don't want anything. I just like to talk," she said keeping her smile.
"Where are your parents?"
"My mom died and I never met my dad," she said matter of factly.
I stopped walking and looked into her eyes attempting to measure her veracity. "Where do you live? How do you live?"
"I live here."
"Where do you sleep?"
"I wash the church floor on Sunday and they let me sleep there. I love Jesus," she said, showing me the cross around her neck.
"Are you hungry?" I asked as we passed a food stand.
"No, I don't need to eat."
"How do you eat?"
"I making flour, selling flour, clean clothes. Maybe I wash a towel."
"Do you go to school?"
"I can't. I making flour. School cost money. What are you going to do today? How long are you here?"
"I wanted to go to the markets and I'm only here for a day."
"Wow, Mumbai is big for a day. I can take you to the market. It's right over there," Palvi said laughing at the fact that we almost walked to the market while talking.
"Ok, but don't you have to be somewhere?"
"Mr. ...."
"Ben!"
"Ben, I want to be where I am. This is where I am," she said with calm certainty.
"Right, let's go to the market then."
Palvi's bare feet glided over the hot, coarse asphalt effortlessly. Taking two steps and a random skip for every stride I made, she was careful to walk beside me all the while leading me to the market. Along the way, we passed the Western Market, a small group of shops selling everything from shoes to Western food. A few blocks away was the Indian market with vegetables, fish, and hundreds of caged chickens which appeared in suprisingly good moods considering their imminent destiny. Smiling old ladies sold an incredible variety of items at their stands including baby sharks and otheir creatures I've never seen before. Palvi translated a conversation between the jovial old merchants and myself. I was having a good time with all this until I looked down and realized that Palvi was standing in a puddle of hosed-down fish guts. Time to move on.
Back on the street Palvi seemed unburdened as we continued to walk past burning trash and detritus. She glided through the horn-happy traffic without concern. "Do you want some shoes?" I said as we passed a shoe store.
"Why? I have feet," she said to me as if my question, and not her answer, was the ridiculous comment.
"Don't your feet hurt?"
"In the summer the road is hot. Most of the time I walk too fast for the hot road. I no walk too fast for you? My friends ask me why I walk so fast. I say I like to get to where I want to be."
Palvi ate nothing all day. As such, I insisted that I buy her some food. She said that if I wanted to help her I could buy her a bag of rice so she wouldn't have to beg for a while. Because of my insufficient funds, we could not buy from the overpriced kiosk where I had bought a family rice a few hours before. Instead we would go to a small supermarket, despite Palvi’s extreme hesitancy to go.
We walked on the sidewalk up to the supermarket and Palvi told me to "watch this," as a security guard raised his hand to hit and chase her off like a stray dog. On her second pass she walked close to me. I became a wall of Western buying potential blocking her from the guard's hand.
In the store, Palvi and I started to discuss which type of rice was best for her. As we deliberated over this an Indian woman approached and started talking to Palvi in Hindi. Soon two otheir people joined the discussion. Palvi's smile slid off in a flood of disappointment, rendering expressions unseen by me previously in the day. In a few seconds she was backed against the shelf, shifting weight between her feet and stunned by the advancing women. "What's going on?" I asked the ladies.
"Where are you from?" one asked with one eye on Palvi and the otheir on me.
"The U.S., but what is the problem? We are just buying rice." The ladies started talking forcefully with Palvi again. In disbelief I asked the ladies to stop and asked Palvi if everything is okay. She answered me with scared silence.
"Did you bring her here? Do you know what you are doing?"
"Yes, I'm buying her rice."
"These people take your rice and give it to their parents to sell."
"That is not true in this case. Is it Palvi?"
"No."
"That is what she tells you," one of the Indian ladies said, with a dismissive raise of her chin and hand wave. "Give to Oxfam where the money is going to help."
"I do give to charitable organizations, but I happen to be in India. I have money, and she is a good girl in need. So, I'm going to buy her rice. Thank you for you help."
In the presence of the disapproving stares I bought Palvi a medium-sized bag of rice.
On the walk back to my rickshaw Palvi began to cry and whimpered, "You believed the lady more than me. Everything I told you is true."
I unsuccessfully tried to tell Palvi how sorry I was that she had to experience what she did in the supermarket. I told her that I admired her for how she deals with life but she remained despondent. With a flight departure impending and a rickshaw driver insisting we go, I left for the airport looking back to see Palvi fade into the impersonal patchwork of millions. As she watched my rickshaw leave, she stood still with cheeks still wet. I hope she continues to walk fast, maybe even fast enough for her to get to where she wants to be.
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