First Day in India?

I thought so.

We took the bus into the city of Bangalore with our two Indian hosts.  A group of white people taking public transportation is not too common a sight, and I felt more out of place than a Yankees fan at Fenway Park.  We got off the bus underneath an overpass where an army of rickshaws was parked.  After a few eager drivers gave us a complete tour of all 4 seats in their vehicles (meanwhile assuring us that our group of 10 would fit, “noh prohbleem”), we had to tell them that we didn’t actually need a ride.  We walked a few blocks outside of town to the railroad tracks. I kept stepping over these small streams of water and could not figure out what they were or where they were coming from, until I realized that every time I saw one there was also a cow standing uphill from me, apparently very well hydrated. Crossing the railroad tracks, we met up with another guide, a local, and entered into a completely different world.  Sensory overload.  The average number of people per square acre skyrocketed, while the average income dropped.  Without even realizing it, I walked right into a government recognized slum of the city of Bangalore, housing about 20-25 thousand human beings.  In the county I grew up in, there are about 400 people per square mile.  In this slum, there are about 12,000 people per square mile.  And I thought I grew up in a big family.  I am naive.  I still don’t understand much of what I saw that day, but in two particular instances it really hit me that I had no idea what I was doing in some country half way around the world, considering the color of my skin and the size of my bank account.
As we walked up the streets, we would wave and say hello to the people we passed, and were acquiring quite a following of kids calling us “auntie” after only a few minutes.  There was one little girl who started walking right next to me, and without even thinking, I touched her head.  In 5 seconds (I’m not exaggerating!), there were at least 10 kids surrounding me, all touching me.  I had just broken a cultural barrier of untouchability.  The people surrounding us were of the lowest caste, the Dalits (Untouchables), which literally means that the other Indians consider them so dirty that they should not even be touched. To my untrained Western eye, I could not tell the difference between a Dalit child or a Brahman child, aside from how much dirt was on their clothing or where they were living.  But to an Indian, the distinction couldn’t be clearer.  Brahmans should be treated with respect; Dalits are worthless.  What is this system that glorifies some and dehumanizes others?  In the physical act of touching that little girl, I had unknowingly given her a small piece of her humanity back.
The second instance was also in the slum.  We walked past a family sitting under a tree: father, small boy, mother, baby in her arms.  The mother raised her hand, and I thought she was waving to me.  I waved back.  As I got closer, I realized that she was asking for money.  My face flushed; how clumsy an assumption.
First day in India? I thought so.