Trip with sister: Attention
Her first day of traveling outside Delhi was marked with nothing but growing frustration. The latter was building up with every new turn in the plot since the last night: bribing at the train station, 2,5 hour train delay, our 9-hour as per schedule and turning 17-hour as per reality train journey, hot day in the train with hardly exciting agricultural landscapes of Punjab outside the window. The trip seemed endless after all and the destination looked simply out of reach. One station was coming after another and according to the map we were still hours and hours away from Amritsar.
After all, I wondered what transformation her image of India largely derived from the old Hindi movies in abundance shown in Russia, my rather affectionate than critical (or the other way round?) blog and the beautiful skirts I brought for her last time must have been undergoing after experiencing the country first-hand.
On the top of everything, we clearly were the foreigners of the train. At the short stops people were getting out on the platform to stretch their muscles, wander around and stare at us yet making it look as if they could not care less. At some point of time a lady traveling by the same car asked me a traditional set of questions and I without looking around I could sense how many people were listening to my answers. She was representing the curiosity of the whole car when questioning me.
In terms of the male attention, it was not simply overwhelming, but also puzzling in a certain sense. They would all look, would try to come close, would seat in your compartment so just to stare at and discuss you on your face. Yet, nothing of the listed is considered here as shameless as a direct contact with a single woman that they all were deliberately refraining from. There was a well-dressed man traveling in the same compartment with us. At some station I asked him which station we had just passed and he simply ignored my question leaving an answer up to a guy who was able reply only in Hindi. The man gave a surprised face and commented back in Hindi too. I remarked with a smile, that yes, the train was terribly delayed. That one opted not to react to my comments at all and preferred to proceed with the discussion in Hindi on the same with the young man. Later on I spotted a book “Think big” in his suitcase and a copy of some contract in English he was carefully studying. Apparently, language was not an issue. Something else was.
We were getting hungry and bananas were getting ridiculously expensive, so I decided to introduce my sister to dhal-roti from some station’s food stall. I got dhal in s small deep banana-leaf plate, covered with a piece of newspaper and six chapattis piled on it, put the meal on a berth and sent my sister to wash her hands. Once she got back, I picked up our plastic box with a soap bar and headed to the wash-stand in the tambour. I opened the box, put it on the borders of the metal sink and started soaping my hands and rinsing them.
The train was slowly starting off, we had already left the shady platform and a glimpse of the sun quickly penetrated the tambour. Next after the warm hug of the sun I felt a touch on my bum – this sort of touch someone gives you when passing by and brushing against you. Someone plucked his courage and decided to establish a closer contact. Immediately I felt a burst of resentment coming up to my throat and making me unbearably electrified. Every cell of my body got filled with the mixture of horror and anger. I darted off and ran after him. After turning behind a corner I faced his back and he started running away once realized I was following. We were already in the other car and it was sort of hard to run away in the train knowing that at some point you would have to stop. He was still ahead and I realized I had to catch him somehow. So, I stretched out my hand, reached out to the collar of his polo T-shirt and hang on it. I heard the sound of still firm stitches tearing away. He did not stop running: effectively, I hang on his collar and he was pulling me forward – we passed one empty compartment after another until I seized a handle at the next one with my right hand and shifted my weight on the right side of my body. I was strongly hanging on his collar in the ultimate affect still hanging on his collar with my left hand. He turned his head and I saw his getting red eyes full of genuine resentment. I recognized his face – he was traveling by the same train and probably had been keeping an eye on me for a long time promenading on the platform during the short stops. He started shouting in Hindi – I think something like “What are you doing, mad woman?” I was mad indeed: I was yelling at the limit of my capacity: you never do it, baisab! You have mother and sister? What if someone does it to them? How come, you do not have a shame! And so on .. The impudent man continued shouting back. However few people were traveling in the compartment they all gathered attracted by the noise. Eventually, after letting my anger out, I let him go and he jumped off the still moving slow train. I was totally shocked by the accident itself, him running away, him being sincerely pissed off with my reaction. I got back to the tambour and was washing my hands again, and the tears were generously watering my chin and cheeks. I just could not handle the injustice of the whole situation: the stupid little man threatening my security and personal comfort, making me feel miserable as a woman, taking advantage of and reinforcing my vulnerability. I knew all the empowerment mantras I was supposed to chant, yet my thinking followed just the opposite path: what on earth did I do to provoke? How come that after staying so long in the country, after going miles to respect and comply with its cultural norms, I still enjoyed the image of easy-going white girl who can be taken advantage of just like that.. My tears went on and on and only then I noticed dark blood on the thumb where I used to where a ring. Now my thumb was decorated with an intensively bleeding wound that replaced the ring. I had no idea as of how that could happen. The man who traveled with us was also in the tambour, probably attracted by the cries. He saw me crying and just turned away.
I got back to your compartment full of young Sikh guys all silent for a while. My worried sister saw me in the crying, bleeding and overall disastrous state and got even more worried. I followed a man, who brushed against me, I explained briefly. We extracted out first-aid kit from the depths of the backpack and treated the wound. I said, ok, lets have food and we started. She looked like she hated this dhal and roti - the very essence of the country, the country itself and horrified by the notion that I had been staying here for so long. I was tearing roti, drawing dhal and seasoning it with my tears which I could not help and felt hardly different from what she did.
After all, I wondered what transformation her image of India largely derived from the old Hindi movies in abundance shown in Russia, my rather affectionate than critical (or the other way round?) blog and the beautiful skirts I brought for her last time must have been undergoing after experiencing the country first-hand.
On the top of everything, we clearly were the foreigners of the train. At the short stops people were getting out on the platform to stretch their muscles, wander around and stare at us yet making it look as if they could not care less. At some point of time a lady traveling by the same car asked me a traditional set of questions and I without looking around I could sense how many people were listening to my answers. She was representing the curiosity of the whole car when questioning me.
In terms of the male attention, it was not simply overwhelming, but also puzzling in a certain sense. They would all look, would try to come close, would seat in your compartment so just to stare at and discuss you on your face. Yet, nothing of the listed is considered here as shameless as a direct contact with a single woman that they all were deliberately refraining from. There was a well-dressed man traveling in the same compartment with us. At some station I asked him which station we had just passed and he simply ignored my question leaving an answer up to a guy who was able reply only in Hindi. The man gave a surprised face and commented back in Hindi too. I remarked with a smile, that yes, the train was terribly delayed. That one opted not to react to my comments at all and preferred to proceed with the discussion in Hindi on the same with the young man. Later on I spotted a book “Think big” in his suitcase and a copy of some contract in English he was carefully studying. Apparently, language was not an issue. Something else was.
We were getting hungry and bananas were getting ridiculously expensive, so I decided to introduce my sister to dhal-roti from some station’s food stall. I got dhal in s small deep banana-leaf plate, covered with a piece of newspaper and six chapattis piled on it, put the meal on a berth and sent my sister to wash her hands. Once she got back, I picked up our plastic box with a soap bar and headed to the wash-stand in the tambour. I opened the box, put it on the borders of the metal sink and started soaping my hands and rinsing them.
The train was slowly starting off, we had already left the shady platform and a glimpse of the sun quickly penetrated the tambour. Next after the warm hug of the sun I felt a touch on my bum – this sort of touch someone gives you when passing by and brushing against you. Someone plucked his courage and decided to establish a closer contact. Immediately I felt a burst of resentment coming up to my throat and making me unbearably electrified. Every cell of my body got filled with the mixture of horror and anger. I darted off and ran after him. After turning behind a corner I faced his back and he started running away once realized I was following. We were already in the other car and it was sort of hard to run away in the train knowing that at some point you would have to stop. He was still ahead and I realized I had to catch him somehow. So, I stretched out my hand, reached out to the collar of his polo T-shirt and hang on it. I heard the sound of still firm stitches tearing away. He did not stop running: effectively, I hang on his collar and he was pulling me forward – we passed one empty compartment after another until I seized a handle at the next one with my right hand and shifted my weight on the right side of my body. I was strongly hanging on his collar in the ultimate affect still hanging on his collar with my left hand. He turned his head and I saw his getting red eyes full of genuine resentment. I recognized his face – he was traveling by the same train and probably had been keeping an eye on me for a long time promenading on the platform during the short stops. He started shouting in Hindi – I think something like “What are you doing, mad woman?” I was mad indeed: I was yelling at the limit of my capacity: you never do it, baisab! You have mother and sister? What if someone does it to them? How come, you do not have a shame! And so on .. The impudent man continued shouting back. However few people were traveling in the compartment they all gathered attracted by the noise. Eventually, after letting my anger out, I let him go and he jumped off the still moving slow train. I was totally shocked by the accident itself, him running away, him being sincerely pissed off with my reaction. I got back to the tambour and was washing my hands again, and the tears were generously watering my chin and cheeks. I just could not handle the injustice of the whole situation: the stupid little man threatening my security and personal comfort, making me feel miserable as a woman, taking advantage of and reinforcing my vulnerability. I knew all the empowerment mantras I was supposed to chant, yet my thinking followed just the opposite path: what on earth did I do to provoke? How come that after staying so long in the country, after going miles to respect and comply with its cultural norms, I still enjoyed the image of easy-going white girl who can be taken advantage of just like that.. My tears went on and on and only then I noticed dark blood on the thumb where I used to where a ring. Now my thumb was decorated with an intensively bleeding wound that replaced the ring. I had no idea as of how that could happen. The man who traveled with us was also in the tambour, probably attracted by the cries. He saw me crying and just turned away.
I got back to your compartment full of young Sikh guys all silent for a while. My worried sister saw me in the crying, bleeding and overall disastrous state and got even more worried. I followed a man, who brushed against me, I explained briefly. We extracted out first-aid kit from the depths of the backpack and treated the wound. I said, ok, lets have food and we started. She looked like she hated this dhal and roti - the very essence of the country, the country itself and horrified by the notion that I had been staying here for so long. I was tearing roti, drawing dhal and seasoning it with my tears which I could not help and felt hardly different from what she did.
posted by Olga Tikhonova | 5:48 pm
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