The Power of She(va)

I can't really say any of this from personal experience, but from the outside looking in, it seems really hard to be a woman in India. Hundreds of societal expectations, none written down in a "How to Survive India" handbook, guide every step and frame every sentence long before you do or say anything. There is an image of modesty and appropriateness that is always looming, always embedded as a subconscious standard of dress, language, and anything else under the sun...and it's a standard the men don't have.

Is it fair? Oppressive? I'm not really in a position to say. But as far as rural India is concerned, all I know is that it is. And it has been for a very long time.

We, as Americans, are walking into a culture with thousands of years of history, traditions, and customs that aren't going to change in the next three months. It's different, and it can be hard- but fighting isn't much of an option. All we are left to do is put aside whatever our definition of "equality" is and try on these new ideas, to live the life we came to experience.

First of all, I want to give credit to all the girls on the trip. They are the ones who have to make sure their salwars are covering everything above the ankle, who keep walking as the local men take pictures from a distance, and who are constantly shadowed by the stereotype of the Western woman: sexually available to all.
        Dancing or singing in public? Prostitute.
        Making direct eye contact with a man? Prostitute.
        Smiling (suggestively?) ? Prostitute
We have a severe lack of prostitutes on this trip, and I really respect the women here who have the patience to maintain that image, no matter how frustrating it can be.

Secondly, I would like to give credit to the Indian women who, although not the head, are the heart of this country.
They may have the same standards held above them, but there is no compromise. These women watch their own steps, and each one has purpose, power, and dignity. What they do to regulate and restrict themselves isn't out of shame, it's out of a desire to preserve and protect who they are as women.

During my time in Delhi, I found myself at Gandhi Smirti, the place where Gandhi was assassinated. Among all the monuments that commemorated India's movement towards independence, there was a room right in the middle full of the women who made all the difference. My favorite was Rani Gidalu, the "Joan of Arc" of the Nagaland who led a force of 4,000 volunteers in guerrilla warfare against the British. She was 17 when she was captured and tortured. But she gave them nothing until India was officially declared independent...over a decade later.

An example a little closer to home is Sister Molini, a Nepalese nun and one of the three Samadhi meditation teachers here at the Vihar.
Growing up in a home with eight other siblings, her family couldn't always afford clothes. When she went to school, she would put on the uniform light green lungi and one of her dad's old military shirts. When she was 12, her mom got sick, forcing Sister Molini to drop out of school for the year to care care of her. Against all odds, she went back to school, and with the help of state scholarships, graduated law school in her early twenties.
A few years later, she was in an accident that left her in the hospital for three months. During that time, someone donated a book that crossed her bed and changed her life: The Life of the Buddha.

"Everything that's happening, you do." -Sister Molini

 She realized that she was angry. Angry at her father for not being able to provide for her and her sisters and angry at her mother for holding her back from an education. But ultimately, she realized that her life was her own. The best way to take control, to change her life, was to become personally and intimately involved with the teaching that had set her free and to become a nun.

31 years later, she began an orphanage for girls thrown out of human trafficking, typically because they had contracted HIV. The girls are kidnapped at around 6 years old, and by the time they find their way to Sister Molini, they are no older than 13. These seven girls were taken from their home, violated, plagued with a disease that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, and tossed out with no where to go and no one to care. Sister Molini gave them a bed, a meal, and a hope for something better.

These women I have met in India are stronger than I can imagine. They may not talk to me, but they definitely have a voice. Humility may serve its purpose, but the moment that a woman's family and the life she loves are threatened, there are no holds barred. Hell hath no fury, and it be best that men don't forget.