On Monday, American Independence Day, we didn't have class. I went with Tiljala SHED to a program about stopping domestic violence. The program was put on by the Jadavpur University Women's Studies Department, in the school that T-SHED runs in a slum in Topsia. Many of the women from the slum came to hear the presentation. At the beginning, I could understand everything that was being said, because the presentation was done in such a way as to be very accessible for the women. This means no big, academic words, etc, which means I could understand it. However, as they asked for lots of audience participation, the conversation soon switched to Hindi/Urdu, which I cannot understand. Most of the slum dwellers are Urdu speakers from Bihar or other states.
The presentation started out by asking what are instances of domestic violence and why they happen. Presumably, it went on to explain ways women can confront it and ways to stay safe, but I didn't understand alot of what they were saying. At the end, they were talking about how women can go to the police if their husbands hit them, and how their husbands can be fined or put in jail.
I think this is good, but as I was listening to it, I was thinking that no woman would want to have her husband fined or put in jail, because she and her children depend on his income. This got me to thinking about domestic violence in the US, to which I've previously not given much thought. I wonder if such income constraints prevent women in the US from acting out. Surely it does, but it's not something I've ever really thought about before. Nonetheless, it's good that women here at least have the legal support in some way, even if it's not yet practical for them to use.
That particular slum is one of the main drug trafficking hubs of Kolkata. One of the T-SHED workers asked me if I wanted to see the drug dens and I said sure, thinking that we'd just walk slyly by. Nope. Instead we went with one of the women who works alot in that community and knows all the people there. She took us inside the dens, and we got live demonstrations of how to smoke brown sugar, a form of heroine. Definitely an experience I never thought I would have. We spoke to some of the drug users about why they use it, and it was clear that they were completely addicted. One man talked about how his four children and his wife didn't respect him anymore, but how he needed to smoke it to be able to do his work. At first I thought that it was because his work was painful or something, but then I realized that it's not because of the nature of his work, but because of the nature of the withdrawals if he stops using it. Really sad. One hit costs 50 rupees, and it takes two hits to get high. 100 rupees a day is a huge amount for someone who probably makes less than 1000 rupees a week. I'm not really sure how much most of the slum dwellers make, but it can't be much. For your information, 1oo rupees is about $2.20 or so.
I'm going to skip to the weekend in the interest of space and time. On Saturday I went to a debate sponsored by the American Center of Kolkata about whether capitalism is a prerequisite for democracy. I thought that it was going to be community leaders in the debate, but it was actually teams of students from some of Kolkata's top colleges. It was interesting, and some of the speeches were pretty good, while some weren't. Even though the event wasn't what I had had in mind, I was glad I went.
Yesterday I went with two other AIIS students to a gay rights rally. They had booths for different advocacy groups in the city, who work on issues from legalization, to safe sex, to transgendered issues. The main reason we went was to see a documentary that they were showing about the Hijra community in Pakistan. They movie screenings were running about 3 hours behind schedule, so we waited for a long time to be able to see it. Then, when they showed it, it turned out to be only 10 minutes long and not very informative. Woops. Nonetheless, it was very interesting to see the rally as a whole, because India is still very conservative. Most of the attendees were upper-middle class gay men, which I am told is often the core group (and main funders) for the movement in India. Some women told me that lesbians, transsexuals, lower class people, minorities, etc are often pushed to the sidelines, and that the parades, rallies, etc are very political within the community. Kinda sounds like what I know of the gay rights movement in the US. Anyways, it was exciting to see this side of human rights work in India, after spending so much time working on economic empowerment.
Though I had other fun and interesting experiences throughout the week, those are definitely the list-toppers.
Tonight I'm going with Ben, Jeff and Rebecca to Kalimpong, in the Himalayan foothills for our midterm break!
~m
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