“The
use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality and, instead of
thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ~ Samuel Johnson
For the past month or so, we – Mary Fritz and Adam Byrnes – have tried really hard to judge India, but we just couldn’t do it. The issue on which we wanted to judge our host country is perhaps larger and more complex than India itself: women’s rights. In the end, we chose to acknowledge the queasy feeling in our stomachs and gave up… but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
There was no particular incident that got either of us thinking about how women are treated, viewed, and valued in India. Rather, it was an amalgam of personal experiences, third-hand accounts, and news articles that helped the issue enter our individual consciousness. It didn’t help that halfway through our time here we, along with a few other of our WDI fellows, ventured into a Mumbai nightclub whereupon the two ladies in our party were groped and fondled with disheartening abandon. The next day Mary and I decided we would write a blog post about women’s rights in India. We’ve been struggling with what to write about ever since.
Would we write about the nightclub experience? Or the village Mary visited where women don’t come out of their homes? Or describe the frustration we felt on board the houseboat we rented in Kerala when we were told that we couldn’t watch a movie together in our cabin because we were mixing genders behind closed doors despite the fact that 1) we had paid for the houseboat and 2) we were a group of four adults whose only interest was watching the latest Batman movie? Or would we make it less personal and write about a Guardian article that listed the many outrageous recent public displays of violence against women? Or the Reuters article that ranked India last for women’s rights among the 20 top global economics? Or… well, you get the idea.
We struggled with how to write about our observations in a way that wasn’t preachy, petty or parochial. Each of the anecdotes described above are just that: anecdotes. The statistics are harder to overlook, but like all statistics they present a picture frozen in time and miss the dynamic nature of a centuries-old culture. How could we use these small bits of data to judge an entire society? It felt a bit like judging the artistry of a 1,000-piece puzzle based on the first three pieces out of the box – except judging this culture brought a nauseating feeling in the general vicinity of our conscience. Add to that the fact that the basis of our judgment was our own cultural norms and we were headed towards a thought piece that sounded less like the “educated WDI Fellows” we hope we are and more like the “ugly Americans” we detest and abhor.
Which brings us to our point: one of the hardest things we have experienced in India – harder than the stomach issues, burning trash, stray dogs, death-defying traffic or separation from loved ones – is exercising the discipline required to let the culture exist as it is free from our interpretation or judgment. To let it wash over us like a wave so that we might truly experience the way life is lived in India. This is much, much easier said than done and we don’t pretend to have been good at it, but this experience has shown us the importance of keeping our judgments in check. A difficult standard to be sure, but one worth striving for.
For the past month or so, we – Mary Fritz and Adam Byrnes – have tried really hard to judge India, but we just couldn’t do it. The issue on which we wanted to judge our host country is perhaps larger and more complex than India itself: women’s rights. In the end, we chose to acknowledge the queasy feeling in our stomachs and gave up… but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
There was no particular incident that got either of us thinking about how women are treated, viewed, and valued in India. Rather, it was an amalgam of personal experiences, third-hand accounts, and news articles that helped the issue enter our individual consciousness. It didn’t help that halfway through our time here we, along with a few other of our WDI fellows, ventured into a Mumbai nightclub whereupon the two ladies in our party were groped and fondled with disheartening abandon. The next day Mary and I decided we would write a blog post about women’s rights in India. We’ve been struggling with what to write about ever since.
Would we write about the nightclub experience? Or the village Mary visited where women don’t come out of their homes? Or describe the frustration we felt on board the houseboat we rented in Kerala when we were told that we couldn’t watch a movie together in our cabin because we were mixing genders behind closed doors despite the fact that 1) we had paid for the houseboat and 2) we were a group of four adults whose only interest was watching the latest Batman movie? Or would we make it less personal and write about a Guardian article that listed the many outrageous recent public displays of violence against women? Or the Reuters article that ranked India last for women’s rights among the 20 top global economics? Or… well, you get the idea.
We struggled with how to write about our observations in a way that wasn’t preachy, petty or parochial. Each of the anecdotes described above are just that: anecdotes. The statistics are harder to overlook, but like all statistics they present a picture frozen in time and miss the dynamic nature of a centuries-old culture. How could we use these small bits of data to judge an entire society? It felt a bit like judging the artistry of a 1,000-piece puzzle based on the first three pieces out of the box – except judging this culture brought a nauseating feeling in the general vicinity of our conscience. Add to that the fact that the basis of our judgment was our own cultural norms and we were headed towards a thought piece that sounded less like the “educated WDI Fellows” we hope we are and more like the “ugly Americans” we detest and abhor.
Which brings us to our point: one of the hardest things we have experienced in India – harder than the stomach issues, burning trash, stray dogs, death-defying traffic or separation from loved ones – is exercising the discipline required to let the culture exist as it is free from our interpretation or judgment. To let it wash over us like a wave so that we might truly experience the way life is lived in India. This is much, much easier said than done and we don’t pretend to have been good at it, but this experience has shown us the importance of keeping our judgments in check. A difficult standard to be sure, but one worth striving for.
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