Vellaikkaari: elephants and alcohol do not mix

I've been living here in Meenakshipuram/Meenambalpuram/BB Kulam/Ambedkar Colony/Mullai Nagar for going on two months now. Sometimes I'm ignored when I walk down the street, and those moments I cherish. But there are still plenty of folks in this area, I figure somewhere in the millions, who haven't set eyes on me yet, which is going to ensure that I continue to hear screams of "whitey". Can't I just "get over it" and give up feeling objectified? Don't think so. But I can at least try to stop taking it personally. It could be worse, I could be the Dutch girl of Anaiyur who showed her ankles, and whose legend is still being kept alive and well by the residents there.

I think the key to "fitting in" here is to stop trying to fit in. I don't know why I haven't realized this sooner, like 8 years ago maybe. One the one hand, it seems a bit closed-minded to maintain a completely different standard for foreigners. For example, foreigners can reveal their ankles but if an Indian woman does it she is considered morally bankrupt. On the other hand, this attitude towards foreigners could be considered very open minded. People here accept foreigners and their habits as being a completely different beast, and they sometimes don't apply the same standards of judgment that they would to locals. In other words, they sometimes seem to tolerate difference in foreigners quite a bit more than I think Americans would. This is sometimes freeing for me. At the busstop, for example, I often feel that if I would just stand in a certain way, hold my head down in a certain way, try to be as inconspicuous as possible like a good Indian girl, then maybe the pack of young men at the tea stall across the street won't gawk at me as much. Realizing that I am considered to be an alien here, and accepting this fact, can make one more relaxed. Why not just stand however I feel comfortable? Why be afraid to draw attention to myself? Because the fact of the matter is, my skin color does that for me. It doesn't matter what I do, or don't do. I am never going to completely fit in and I am always going to stand out and be considered very strange. Better to act appropriately, but to also remember that you simply cannot hide.

This being said, it is true that it is much better to try to blend in here than to go your own way and stroll around half-naked, for example. Wearing the local clothing seriously reduces the static on the line when trying to interact with folks. Despite being an American, the more time one spends in this place, or any place for that matter, the more one starts to judge oneself by the local standards. I find myself completely obsessed with covering up as Indian women do. Can they see my shoulder? My ankle? Is my incredibly annoying dupatta covering me completely? One begins to become ashamed of one's body, which I don't really think is healthy. You start to realize just how incredibly arbitrary local modes of "modesty" can be. For example, in the US I think it is still considered fairly risque to walk around with your midriff hanging out. Here the midriff is about as titillating as an ankle is to us in the US.

The more you think about it, the more "modest" one dresses the more one actually titillates. Covering up actually becomes a sort of advertisement for what is underneath. For example, the dupatta's entire purpose is to cover boobs when all it really does it draw one's attention to them. Think about bras. What is the point? It's considered improper in the US to go without one, and they are seemingly there to control boobs, yet bras seem to do nothing but foreground the breasts. Think about cultures where women walk around without shirts on. Do you think that is considered risque? The sari is considered the most demure and modest garment that a woman can wear here in Tamil Nadu, yet it is also considered quite titillating for men. Here it is very important to cover up appropriately, yet you will often see very old women walking around without blouses and with their breasts hanging out. This isn't considered wrong or risque, and not just because they are old but because they CHOSE to take off their blouses years ago, in an effort to be less "sexy." In the old days some women would take off their blouses after the birth of their first child. After this point they considered themselves to be of a certain age and point in life at which it is no longer important to attract the male gaze. By taking off the blouse, they achieve this. As someone pointed out to me, if you hold something in your hand so no one can see it, others will try their best to find out what it is.

I didn't expect to go on so long about clothing, especially because I wanted to address animals today. Just yesterday an elephant just showed up outside our house. It's funny because in the US we pay about 25 bucks to see an elephant. Here men rent them out like rickshaws and ride them around neighborhoods, begging for change. Some people were afraid of this elephant and they had good reason. Elephants often go nuts and stomp people to death and I think it's a good policy to keep a safe distance. Wild elephants are a different story, especially the alcoholic elephants of Assam. In Northeast India they storm into villages, destroy huts looking for rice beer, drink to their hearts content, and then go on drunken rampages, killing local villagers. If you don't believe me, just go to the BBC News site and search for "elephant beer" or "drunken elephants amok in Indian village." There was an article also in the NYT magazine a few months ago, talking about how stressed elephants around the world are right now and how are simply going crazy. In Assam they are, no surprise here, losing their habitats and are being forced to forage in human settlements. Unfortunately for elephants and humans alike, the creatures seem to have become addicted to alcohol in the process.

Later I will talk about the cricket den underneath my floorboards. I am convinced the crickets are getting revenge on me because I ratted one of them out to Chellapandi who broke it into 5 pieces with a broom and then swept it out the door. Now at night there is this cricket underneath the floor who makes so much noise I really cannot sleep. I think Chellapandi must have killed his friend. People here aren't afraid of bugs like many hysterical Americans, myself included, and you won't find Indian children fascinated much by animals either. But we'll leave that analysis for some other time.