India Part II - Baksheesh

India is a country with its hand out. Sometimes this hand is reaching for your hand and guiding you to a place you never knew you wanted to go. Other times, this hand is asking you for a pen or shampoo. Most times, this hand is looking for a little baksheesh. Baksheesh can be a tip, charitable giving, or a bribe. In my experience, it usually feels like all three at once.

I once had an ethics professor who told us of his trip to India and how on that trip he realized that giving to beggars was unethical, as it did nothing but continue to support the lifestyle, and did not force the individual or the government to do something about the situation that caused the necessity or the desire to beg in the first place. From a utilitarian standpoint, giving to beggars does not serve the greater good. Of course, this same ethics professor also asked me out during the semester, so I doubted the soundness of his ethical reasoning.

Like most things in India, I found that baksheesh is a force that doesn't really care how you feel about it. It is what it is. It's here , it's queer, get used to it. Is it ethical? I kept myself too busy contemplating the overwhelming number of Hindu gods to thoroughly address the question. There were, however, two occasions that put the sheesh in backsheesh for me. The first was at an airport in Varanasi. The bathroom attendant lady (and no, the existence of a bathroom attendant does not indicate that the bathroom was in any way similar to the bathroom at a fancy restaurant - no mouthwash in sight) started showing a great deal of interest in my camera. I recognized this ploy for what it was immediately - an attempt to get me to take her picture, so she could then ask for a baksheesh. (My favorite spin on this particular ploy is when you're at some beautiful location, and there are several women wandering around, constantly walking into your frame and then asking you for a baksheesh for basically ruining your picture) I played dumb for quite some time and just started showing her pictures from the trip. I chuckled to myself and thought how funny it would be if I then asked her for a baksheesh for the slide show. But, Ganesh bless her, she persisted until she broke me down. I did take the picture, having been lulled into believing that she simply wanted to see herself on the little screen. And then, out came the hand. Baksheeshed again, sucka.

The second time was upon our departure from Delhi. An airline employee actually asked for baksheesh. An airline employee. In a uniform. Can you imagine if the person who checked you into your Delta flight down to Boca put out their hand and asked for a tip? Our Western minds simply do not comprehend the way of the baksheesh. Of course, we in the Western world assume, usually correctly, that the airline employee checking us in is being paid a living wage. This assumption cannot be made with a reasonable degree of certainty in India. We, at first, refused his request, but then upon further thought imagined our bags being sent to Kathmandu instead of JFK and pulled out 40 rupees. Which brings me to another thing - the expected baksheesh is so small, so inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, that at times you can feel silly resenting it. And yet, the expectation that it is our responsibility to compensate for the social ills of an overpopulated country - well, then you feel silly for supporting it.

Lest I sound cold or unfeeling (or worse, cheap) the fact is that people are poor. Very poor. I have much more money than they do, and as I said, 40 rupees is nothing to me. But what does my giving accomplish? This question sticks even more in my mind after having witnessed the industriousness of Dhavari slum. The slum in Bombay was the one and only place in India where nobody requested baksheesh. Not one person, which does much to support the argument that people do not need to beg to survive, they need to work. And if they can't work? Then what?

The picture posted on the right was accidentally taken by me in Varanasi. After a long day of walking the ghats, I was sitting with my travel companion reviewing the days pictures when I came across this one. I remembered the moment it must have been taken - the little boy approached me from my blind side and startled me, my arm jerked back and I probably squeezed my camera, snapping the picture. I showed my friend the picture and announced that I had finally captured IT. India that is. To me this picture is India. You are constantly faced with the hand of a stranger stretched out in your direction, and the ever-present question: What is the right thing to do? Is my ethical obligation to the group as a whole or to the person in front of me with their hand out?

I ask myself these same questions here in New York when someone asks me for money, but the stakes feel higher in India, and the outstretched hand represents something bigger than the momentary request for baksheesh. It is a country with so much to offer, and yet needing so much. Where to begin? Do I have to begin? Am I obligated as a citizen of a wealthier country, as a fellow human, as a sympathizer? If I am obligated, what is the best thing to do? Should I give to everyone who asks it of me? How do I determine need? Do I get involved on a larger scale? How much will that help? If I get involved in trying to right the economic and social wrongs of a country half-way around the world, how much energy do I have to devote to the economic and social wrongs in my own country? Am I able to focus on the problems in another country because there they can unabashedly ask for help, while my fellow citizens cannot/do not? Do my fellow citizens unabashedly ask for help, while I simply ignore them, too caught up in my own life to notice?

I wonder what H.H. the Dalai Lama would say? ...

India Part I - Dharavi

There are many words. many contradictions, to describe India. Beautiful, hideous, amazing, horrifying, inspiring, depressing, magical, seething, wanting, needing, generous... the list goes on and on. Having just returned, I am still trying to absorb and process - something that feels like it could take years to do.

I struggled with many questions the entire time I was there, but the one that seemed to be most prominent is, Why was I born into my life and why were you born into yours? I felt like I was silently asking this question to every person with whom I came into contact. One can either see great order or complete randomness in the reality of life in India. Do the Hindus and Sikhs believe in reincarnation and karma as a means to explain their lot in life? Is accepting that the life you are born into is completely coincidental just too much to bear? Perhaps the belief that there is meaning and reason behind being born into a Bombay slum or the grandest apartment on Malabar Hill is what makes it manageable. Perhaps it is what makes it allowable, as well.

I spent one afternoon in Dharavi slum in Bombay, which is home to over a million people. The slum is very industrious, doing about $650 million a year in business. One hears this figure and then looks around, and wonders how it is possible that there is raw sewage running through the streets and children playing a game of cricket on a 3-story tall garbage heap without shoes or even underpants? There are plans to destroy the slum and build more acceptable housing for its residents. Two-hundred twenty-five square feet structures will be given to each family who can prove they have been residents in Dharavi since before 1995. The rest will have to find another place to live, as the land will be given to developers who will build for-profit housing and shops and cafes and malls. The slum is a prime bit of real estate, and the land will make many people a tidy bundle. None of the current residents, of course, many of whom will have to find some place else to call home, someplace other than where they've been living for the last 13 years.

The narrow alleys filled with human and animal feces, the low-ceiling cramped rooms that house 10-15 people, the sheer and utter filth - it's not how people should live. That much is true. But where will these people go? We were greeted by smiles when we entered the slum. It took no time at all to realize that these smiles weren't directed at us necessarily, but at everyone. I have never seen so many happy people all at once in New York or anywhere else. The children that were squealing with delight as they ran shoeless and without hesitation through the winding dirt paths which they seem to know like their own hands, were an absolute joy to watch. Within moments all you notice is their smiles, as their surroundings melt away. They are simply happy children, enjoying a Sunday afternoon. Their parents are simply people, working hard, trying to feed their families and to enjoy their days. We are them and they are us, the only differences between us a few thousand miles and dollars.

And yet to say that the only things that separate us are miles and dollars is absurd. As I look around the slum I wonder how many Westerners, if given the choice to end their lives or to live their lives in these conditions would choose life. These people, the residents of Dharavi, choose life each and every day. They wake up every day into poverty that is almost unimaginable, they work hard, they live and they love, and then they go to bed on a hard floor with a dozen other people and the next day it starts all over again. There is no end in sight and no reason to believe that things will get better in this lifetime, unless they are "lucky" enough to have lived like this for more than 13 years. And even then, how much better will it be? One could say that they don't know any different, but one would be wrong. These are not isolated people. These are residents of Bombay, the most populous city in the world, a center of commerce - the 10th largest in the world, and they are smack-dab in the center of the city. They know much different, and they see how the other half lives each and every day.

I was expecting to feel guilt upon entering the slum. Guilt for being white, born into a rich country, having had a good meal available to me every day of my life, having an education, an apartment bigger than what I need, and money to spend on a weekend movie, among other things. I did feel guilt, though my overwhelming emotion was admiration. You cannot help but admire their dignity, their strength. It is rare in the world I operate in daily to see such fortitude in the face of overwhelming hardship. I also found myself appreciating their ability to find purpose and significance in their lot in life. In their suffering there is meaning, and in each day a new opportunity to add to the good karma that will be their eventual ticket out of this life.

Appreciation for their belief system and the positive effect is has in their lives is one of the many things from India I want to wrap up tightly and put into a safe place and hold onto forever. I hope to be able to find meaning in my own suffering, slight as it may be in comparison. I hope to be able to face the hardships in my life with an equal measure of strength and dignity. Mostly, I hope to smile as broadly and as often.

More lessons to come ...