Glass Ceilings and Dirty Floors

My friend Jane celebrated a landmark birthday the other day. To celebrate, a group of women ate and dined at a trendy bar in downtown Mumbai. We ate pumpkin ravioli, drank French wine (complete with fire sparklers), and indulged our sweet teeth with flour-less chocolate cake.  There we were, six successful women spending our money on the finer things in life. Enjoying the freedom that comes with being a single woman in Mumbai.

Riding home in an air-conditioned cab, I couldn’t help but rest my head on the window and watch Mumbai’s neighborhoods, heavily laden with Diwali lanterns, unfold in front of me. Soaking in the beauty of this city, I was full of appreciation for being able to live the life I have here. Then we rounded the corner and drove straight through one of many annual Muslim celebrations. The scene seemed regular to me at first; loads of people on the street gathered in colorful clothing listening to someone important speaking on a raised platform. Then, something peculiar caught my eye.

There, right in front of me, were hundreds of women, glittering and colorful, crouched together on the dirty street leaning and stretching their necks to see around plastic chairs occupied by men and boys, dressed all in white. Hundreds of women, sitting behind their sons and husbands and fathers barely able to see, but somehow part of the ceremony. It shocked me out of my dream. India has a way of doing that. One second you are sipping on imported French wine, the next you are traipsing a path through oppression and segregation.

As a resident of India, I am aware of the plethora of delicate social imbalances and somehow forget that my experience here, the one peppered with the luxuries of Western life, isn’t the reality of most women living in this country. It’s humbling in a way that I would never have the opportunity to fully understand as just a visitor. For that, I am thankful. Thankful for my home, my health, my friends, my family, my work, my brain, and all the opportunities awarded me simply because my parents chose to give birth to me in a country full of potential for a clever little girl.

I’m lucky. Lucky to be learning every day. Lucky to fall more in love with this country and lucky I don’t have to stay. I’m lucky I have the choice to change the world in which I live. Glass ceilings shatter everyday for women all over the world and I wonder, will these women crouching on a dirty floor ever have the opportunity to climb?

Bingo Night

Bingo Night

Walking home last night, taking the short cut from Hill Road through the small Catholic village on Varoda road, I stumbled onto Bingo Night. Without hesitation, I was offered a Bingo card, asked to join a mission trip to Kurla to convert Muslims to Catholicism, and hit on by a single father refugee from Kashmir. All in all, a good night.

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I am Bombay

Bombay is built on trash. It’s incredible story is literally buried under miles of garbage. Waste so deep that you really have to concentrate to see it’s wonder and beauty. But if you are patient and willing to put in the work, the moment you get a glimpse you can see her: glorious, busteling, creative, shining, beautiful. And it’s worth it. All of it. Just to see her true self shine.

I’ve buried my heart. Deep down inside myself, under layers of hurt and disappointment and yearning and breaks. I’ve hidden it so deep that it’s almost impossible to see what and who it really is: glorious, busteling, creative, shining, beautiful. So I am digging, breaking away the layers of detritus until my heart can sing again. It’s been silent for too long. And it is worth it, the digging. Because buried underneath all that crap… is me.

First day shoes, last day shoes.

This is War

I am a peaceful person. I enjoy quiet mountain mornings, soft ocean breezes, classical music, the buzz of spring in the forest. A naturalist, preserver of God’s green Earth, lover of animals, etc. But recently I’ve been engaging in the violent purging of household pests. I’m not talking about mice or rats or even cockroaches. I’ve been forced to engage in a war on God’s least valuable living thing: the mosquito. To date, I’ve murdered an average of 4 mosies a day. Mostly in the morning. And most meet their death in the violant clasping of hands against a unforgiving surface. Sometimes I watch them wriggle their last wriggle and wonder who will miss them. Then I slap another one and wash my hands.

Living in India, land of non-violence, I am constantly forced to reflect on these violent outbursts. But seriously, I’d rather live with the fact that I am a murderer than be hospitalized with Dengue or Malaria.

Yesterday, arriving home from a beautiful weekend at the Taj Palace Hotel in South Bombay on a steamy pre-monsoon afternoon, I was met with yet another urban pest. A creature, without whom, forests would become overgrown but with whom, urban apartment buildings crumble to the ground. I am speaking of course of the dreaded termite.

It took a few hours of research for me to identify these little guys shedding their wings all over my windowsill, but after consulting Orkin.com, I’ve concluded that they are subterranean termites; the most destructive of the species. Again, I don’t consider myself a violent person but the fact that colonies of these aggressive beasts are living in silence in my home is quite a threatening thought. Not to mention gross. And creepy.

After reading about these extraordinary creatures and their complex system of tunnels, unusual digestive methods, and monarchic society I suffered a moment of sympathy for them: the impending genocide, the mass murder of a sophisticated society, the ruins of a once powerful civilization reduced to dust.

Silently reflecting on my decision to wipe them out with poison I felt a tinge of guilt. Then one flew into my tea. The guilt melted quickly into rage. Say your prayers termites. Tomorrow is Armageddon.