Who are you really?

One of the things that India does is forces you to ask the hard questions. Mostly the hard questions about yourself and how you view the world and where your personal values really fall.

During my three months (yes, it has been nearly 3!!) in India perhaps one of the most challenging aspects has been coming face to face with some of the things about myself I am not always comfortable with. Some of the values and fears (mostly fears) I have that perhaps had not been forced until I got to India, the land of 'in your face'.

This reality about India sort of came to a head during an experience I had last weekend. But, before I go into that experience I want to provide a little background.

Those of you who know much about me or what I am doing know that I am altruistic, optimistic and tenacious. That I really do believe in the goodness of people and their desire and ability to succeed and achieve whatever their definition of 'self realization' might be. I believe in people.

And, perhaps until I came to India I was always filled with compassion when I saw others in desperate situations. What I felt was compassion - not fear or disgust or repulsion or judgement but compassion.

During my time in India I have had to admit that my compassion is not, in fact, ubiquitous. I have had to admit (something I already knew but maybe did not want to apply to myself) that no one person is pure altruism or pure selfishness. That, at the end of the day what we are all is human and that being human involves being afraid and having an ego and not wanting to lose or be lost among many other things. Being human is, by definition, being completely and utterly imperfect.

There have been many times already when I have had to admit that rather than feeling compassion I felt repulsion- that while I sat in my auto on my way home I DID NOT WANT TO BE TOUCHED by the filthy begging woman tapping my knee - or that the woman holding the bleeding baby in her arms may or may not have staged the entire thing to earn 1 extra Rs. or that the little boy who bangs on the car window filthy from head to toe is wasting his existence and that we have all failed in some terrible way by making his best option begging in the traffic.

I admit this to myself almost daily. My compassion has limitations and my optimism gets overwhelmed. India overwhelms me from time to time with its sheer level of desperation, wealth and contradictions.

but, last Saturday I experienced something which made it all a bit more poignant.

I was coming home from work in an auto (this is important because it means you are touchable..not like a car).

We stopped at a major intersection and, as always, there were beggars milling around asking for money. I am always a target, if I am noticed (which is typically what happens) they always come to my auto. Hey, it actually makes sense - I am white which means I am rich (which I sort of am in this world).

This situation is no big deal...I have been here before.

In front of me on my left (the most open side of the auto) a man turns around and spots me instantly. Still no big deal...I have been here before. But, as he turns and begins to limp toward me this encounter takes on a whole new gravity.

He is limping, his left foot, there is something wrong with it and his left hand is wrapped in white cotton bandages and all the fingers...they end in a crumple after the first knuckle...there are no fingertips...just jagged nubs and as my eyes move from foot to hand to foot and then to his face where his nose is an erosion, a blighted lump, not a nose but a cavity a destroyed abyss of what was human flesh the realization hammers into my consciousness with urgency.

LEPER, LEPER, LEPER, this man is a leper.

And, I am scared. I am feeling a very guttural reaction and instinct to protect myself to ensure that I NEVER LOOK LIKE HIM.

And, I know, I KNOW without a doubt that this man is going to touch me because if he tries to touch me the more likely I am to give him money, just to get him to go away.

And, I am trapped in the back of this auto stuck in bumper to bumper traffic just trying to get home from work.

My mind is clamoring for options while I am also in a sort of curious trance. As this man approaches I can't stop looking at him and I can't stop trying to understand his story while at the same time I am praying that he understands and has compassion for my situation (oh, god, please don't touch me!). He is toothless, nose-less, left-fingerless and left foot-less. And, as he comes closer the whole meaning of leprosy sinks in. It has nibbled away at his body like some strange mouse. None of the fracture or disappearance is clean. Flesh has crumbled from his body. He is a living erosion.

And as he approaches I make the decision not to give him money knowing that he will touch me. And I make this decision because I know that this is what I am most afraid of. I make the decision to face this so I keep my hands in my lap, as far away from wallet as possible and I look him in the eye and I tell him No.

And, it does not change him at all. He continues to tap on my knee with his nibbed left hand and grin at me with all his ugliness and in the moment I want to scream I also have to admire his courage. The courage he has to be out here, showing himself and all its ugliness to the world. Knowing that all we are likely thinking is: "Please never let me look like this person."

As quickly as it began, it is over. The auto moves forward and I will never see this man again.

But, the memory will likely be with me forever.

I have been thinking on this experience a lot. Thinking about what it says about me and what it says about the world and us all as humans.

I don't feel badly for how I behaved, I have no idea if I did the right thing but I do know that I faced something about myself that day which I am not to keen on facing again - a bit of my own limitations, my own ugliness and self-centeredness and perhaps my own very real human-ness.

What I do know is that I have been working to arrange a trip with a group of aid-workers to a leper colony about 2 hours outside of Hyderabad for several months.

Since last Saturday I have sent more than one email to the organizers...telling them I want to go, whenever they go next.

Why? Because, I am going to continue to ask myself the hard questions and hopefully grow a little more for it.

I am afraid, but I am also committed to understanding.

India By Numbers

So, this was orginally posted on my fellow fellow's blog but I read it and thought "I have to share it with my people" (that would be all of you :)). I think it gives you a very good picture of some of the great and important differences between NYC and Mumbai, India. The #'s are actually stolen from the lonely planet.

After reading this I never, ever want to hear any NYer complain about it being crowded or dirty in NYC. Check out the number of public toilets per 1 Million people....

Number of black taxis: about 40,000 (13,000 yellow cabs in NYC

Pop. Density: 29,000 people per sq. km. (10,000 ppl p.sq.km. in NYC)

Avg. Annual Income: Rs48,900 (US$1000)

#. of public toilets for every 1 million people: 17

Percentage of ppl living in slums: 55%

#. of people passing through Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus daily: 2.5 million (compared to 125,000 in Grand Central)