Diving into the unknown…
It’s hard to claim the contrary: times are really calm in Delhi.
In not more than a week, there will be much more news, with my journey to Gaya and its buddhist celebrations. And, in less than a month, Christmas in Mumbai with my friend from the US Jared, then Goa, stormed by Westerners, for New Years eve. Finally, since I won’t have class in january, I’m thinking about continuing the trip, but I don’t know where as yet. We’ll see when I’m there!
A few things to tell, all the same.
First of all, a little video to show you the atmosphere at our house warming party two weeks ago.
Saturday 28th of november, it was my neighbor’s turn to slip the engagement ring on. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Little ceremonies and little brass band in the noon, big ceremonies and big brass band in the evening. And too bad if it’s out of tune. I’m wondering if the essential is not rather that everyone in the area is well aware that the event is taking place. Actually, we are in the middle of wedding period. Some days, more than twenty-five thousand of them are celebrated in the Indian capital.
Always equiped with my flip-flops, I had a meeting in mid-afternoon at the Vishwavidyalaya metro station, with my teacher Devasia, who invited me to visit an orphanage in north Delhi, where he goes sometimes. He arrived 30 minutes late, and it was not a bad idea, since that allowed me to meet Maheswari, an Indian sexagenarian who was hanging around and who approached me by asking if I talked German. Or Greek. Because he does speak both languages, after having worked for thirty-ish years in our beautiful continent. Employed by Coca Cola in the 70′s, he gave it a shot, free as he was as a young bachelor. What he was determined to stay through the decades, moving from affair to affair.
This kind of profile is really rare in India, and it funnily responds to the marriages celebrated en masse these days. This sacramant seems above all to mark the integration of the individual in a lineage of tradition, the story of a family. This explains the ever numerous arranged marriages today. I was able to verify this with a college friend who confessed that if her lover was not from the same cast as her family, she would risk being excluded from the household if she wanted to continue a relationship with him. But most cases are less dramatic. On the whole, simply, the institution of marriage and of the family are understood differently. In Europe, it is the aspirations to personal choices that matter: we find the person who seems the closest to us, the most intimate, and from this couple we set up home. To some extent, it is the same here too, but arrive at twenty-five years, thirty years maximum, it is time to think about participating in the Big Construction, and the protégés of two close clans will perfectly form beautiful descendants and prolong the prestigious names. Concessions are different; it is also that life, at the individual level, is seen differently. Here, when it comes to personal identity, there are no existential doubts which could lead to building a world of lost values, where decisions are numerous and destabilizing. We are born in an already established system, in which we are placed and which will outlive us. But at the end, even though my culture is European, it is not obvious at all for me to say which system is the most favourable for each human being: a lot of encounters here showed me that the image of the wife subjected to her husband and to the housework is more and more a cliché, whereas at home, psychoanalysts and diverse modern shamans share out the gold mine trying to help members of a society to regain their marks.
(By the way, that makes me think of the september, 2009 issue of Philosophie Magazine, about the fundamental incompatibility of Eastern societies with psychoanalysis. The theme of the issue is: “Leaving the West – Review of elsewhere thoughts“.)
In short, it is by the way, in this context that I met an old Indian, who spoke an almost perfect English, as well as other European languages, who spent his life traveling, without any attachments. And all this happened 30 years ago, when even today many Indian students struggle to migrate to Europe. A very unique journey. He concludes the discussion by asking if I have German-speaking girlfriends. Before assuring me that age ain’t nothing but a number.
A little bit later, I finally meet my teacher Devasia. He was bargaining like a pro for a helmet, on the side of the road. He struggled for a few minutes, and I was surprised when I learned of the low amount in question: 150rs asked, lowered to 140, then 125, while Devasia gave 110. One euro and fifty cents. But both sides didn’t drop. A penny is a penny.
We did a small round. The motorized two-wheeler is really a good option in Delhi. And I have the impression that the models are restricted, so there is no excessive speed for sure. Anyway, there was no feeling of insecurity.
We arrived in an vaste ground area — I was to learn later that a little neighborhood would be created here in a few months — ; the orphanage seems to keep a kindly eye on the cleared place. The institution, Holy Cross Children’s Home, is a Christian one and is subsidized by the state and other private sources of founding. Four sisters are present, including an octogenarian Austrian who has been missioning in India for 49 years… By the way, it’s an austrian community, which owns several orphanages in India, among which is this one. This orphanage can house up to 80 children. At the moment, there are 43 children present. Several cases exist: a lot of children get taken in by the police from the streets; their ages include day old babies to toddlers. With a little bit of luck, parents come to pick up their offspring from the orphanage, guided by TV newsflashes that are systematically broadcasted. But often, it is a real case of the children being abandoned. The handicapped in particular are victims – those who are dumb, have mental backwardness or malformations. Other parents come and drop their kids off directly at the orphanage. They then have two months to reflect and go back on their decision. On the other side, there are of course a lot of requests for adoption, from India as well as from the West. The process follows several specific stages and takes some time: from six months to one and a half years. A letter from the sisters of the orphanage is entrusted to the parents, with the few details that they are aware of concerning the origins of the child. The parents are free to talk about this with the child when they see fit. Some Indian parents, on the other hand, won’t say anything, and judge that it is simpler for everyone to act as if the child was part of the family themselves.
After the inevitable tea, the sisters took me on a little tour. In the garden, the children take a break from their game to interpret two songs in Hindi. Later, I went to the newborn room. A few volunteers, only women, were helping the sisters. From the ten or so children present, one is blind and another didn’t talk yet. Since I’ve been in India, I noticed that it is quite common to meet blind or amputated ones in the streets. And a lot of adults of whom the pace reveals a malformation or a serious leg injury.
At 6:30pm, after a little chat with Devasia, it was time for the daily mass. I didn’t know what the status of my teacher was. I only learned that he had left his religious order to go back to education and research. Whatever it might have been, he was the one to conduct the celebration today, and it was carried out in Hindi at my request. It’s always funny to recognize the passages of the ceremony when the language is different. The protocols stay globally the same. In front of the altar, there were five chairs, for the four sisters and me.
The mass is short (45 minutes), and the farewell is warm. A sister gave me a cake wrapped up in a newspaper… where I read an article about the “hand of God” of Thierry Henri against the Irish… You already know what happened: surrounded by a priest and four sisters, the hypothesis of a divine sign hasn’t been forgotten.
Finally, another little innovation on the blog, that you maybe noticed and that really pleased me. Following the request of an Indian friend, I looked for a little plugin to be able to offer the article in different languages, but with a “manual” translation (thanks to Gulshan for the help!). It was automatic before, thanks to Google Translation, but the result was not always very good. From now on, you just have to click on the “English“ link, and hop, you can even talk about me to your british friends. And I’m sure they will love it (in English in the text… 
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Listenning to : Bojan Z – Wheels
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