February 6, 2023

Humans Helping Humans

Friday morning started like most mornings these days, waking up and pulling out my earbuds. I can only get a proper night’s sleep with them in at night due to the hustle and bustle of Bangalore constantly swishing outside my hostel window. I down a bottle of water and make my way to our common room where, thanks to Rachel’s ingenious move to bring coffee-making supplies from home, I can prepare a pour-over coffee and sit in solitude, allowing my mind to awaken to another new day here in India.

As the morning moved on, I joined my fellow GCIL students in a cultural hour guided by Vinay, a lovely human who helped us reflect on India’s culture and how culturally diverse the country is. He told us a mythical story based in the 1400s about the Mughal dynasty, who identified as Muslim and a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu. The central conflict in the story was that the Mughal Empire stole a significant idol from the Hindu temple. Many Hindu priests gathered and traveled to the Mughal Empire in the North to attempt to retrieve the idol. Still, after pleasing the King and gaining permission to have their idol back, a major issue arose when the Mughal King’s daughter fell in love with the idol and was unwilling to give the idol back to the Hindu priests; the Hindu priests ended up retrieving the idol while the princess was asleep. When the princess awoke, she was devastated that the idol she had come to love was gone, and because of her devotion to the idol, she would eventually come to die in honor of that love. The Hindu priests chose to acknowledge the devotion of the princess by building a temple inside of their already existing Hindu temple, which, when considering that the princess was a Muslim, this act was very surprising. I have shortened the story as I don’t feel I could do it justice the way Vinay did. Nonetheless, it was an interesting story, and Vinay provided insightful thoughts and observations about it. One insight is that text doesn’t always translate into customs. For us to exist side by side, there is a need for us as humans to place our beliefs aside at times for the sake of humanity as a whole, allowing for everyone to live in harmony and coexist; this is prevalent in countries like India and even back at home in the United States where the countries are so culturally diverse.

Following our cultural hour, my team and I went on our first slum research visit, where a community of waste pickers live. Our previous attempts at interviews within the dry waste collection centers earlier this week had left us a little defeated and unsure of how effective our attempts to get to know the community and understand their livelihoods would be. Luckily, right before we went out on our visit, we received some advice from one of our contacts at the organization; they essentially told us to scratch the whole cookie-cutter interview approach and to go into these communities expressing our interest in learning about how they live, ask them to show us around and let it just be a natural experience. That ended up being fantastic advice. So, we tried this more natural approach, and my team and I left feeling that it was the most influential information gathering we had had all week. The community was so welcoming; they showed us their living quarters, which were made up of a large bed, some kitchenware, makeshift walls, large barrels that stored their cleaning water, clothes stacked in a somewhat organized manner, tarp roofs, plastic sheet covered floors and a fan or refrigerator amongst a few other random things. They shared with us their daily ways of life, how the community works together to support one another, and the efforts being made by the community to ensure the children are educated. We even got invited back to the community, and I am genuinely looking forward to it, especially because I made a new bestie in a little two-year-old girl who brightened my time on the visit so much with her giggles and pure innocence.

Saturday brought another visit to a location where waste pickers live, but this time it was governmental housing. Here in Bangalore, a slum must exist for 15 years before a push to have government housing built on it can begin. Kala Vathi, a 65-year-old woman who has been a waste picker her whole life, warmly welcomed us into her 3-story home that includes a prayer room on the roof. Kala was one of the residents of the pre-existing slum, and when the government finally built the permanent housing, she paid a one-time fee to the government, and now the home is hers. She spoke about how it was in poor shape when she received the house. Over time she ended up investing her money in the place to make many improvements and says now the house is in good shape. Arriving at her home, we gathered in a circle in the room on the second floor, where we were treated to a typical afternoon snack called ragi paired with chai; it was very nice, so nice that Jack had seconds. We broke into a conversation regarding Kala’s life. Her personality was fun to be around; she had some sass about her that I got a kick out of, shining through in her constant attempts to ensure we were comfortable and essentially telling us not to be shy and allowing her to host us as she was honored to have us. She shared some life hardships; she has had ten children in her lifetime, and eight children, along with her husband, have passed away due to illnesses. She currently lives in her home with two of her children, a son and a daughter. Along with her son and daughter, her daughter-in-law and grandchildren also live in the home. She spoke about how she goes out every morning to collect and segregate the waste from 7 streets here in Bangalore. Kala spoke about how the residents of these streets make her feel looked after; some help pay her medical bills and provide her with food. Kala was so kind to us and brought up many times how she felt that we were meant to be there with her. She said something that stuck with me; when we open our textbooks, we aren’t just opening them up to learn for ourselves; we open them up, and we work through the problems so that we can help others like her. I hope to see Kala Vathi again one day, she gave me a gift with those words; she reminded me that although I am so lucky to be able to go to school and become educated, I am also gaining the strength and knowledge to help others, and that is something special all of us GCIL students can offer the world while here in India and in our future endeavors.

A group of humans learning how to help other humans.