So it’s past 11:30 pm, and I really should be asleep right now, since I have to get up in 7 hours, but I just had a night of utter surreality and needed to get this out.
So Anna and I decided we wanted to see the Dahi Handi celebration that was happening tonight, where in honor of Lord Krishna’s birthday people make human pyramids to try to break a pot (and consequently win a large sum of money). We were told that it was starting at nine, so at 8:50, a security guard from downstairs came and walked us the couple of blocks over. It started really fun—there was no pyramid, but a really large crowd of men dancing in the most ridiculously festive way. The was much shoulder wiggling and arm floofing. It was really cool.
Except that people kept staring at us. Anna’s Korean, so just kind of blends a bit more into Indian society than pasty ol’ me, but we definitely were receiving American levels of attention. We were in spotlight. People would take pictures of us, or video (they thought they were being subtle, but really?). That’s actually how we met our additional security guard. He wouldn’t stop taping us.
It was intensely awkward, but it was funny, too. Kids would stare at me, and I would smile, and then they’d be satisfied. Until the kids who wanted a picture with us. So we did. Suddenly there was a whole circle around turned to us, because evidently it made some commotion. We moved to the back of the sidewalk, where most of the women were.
We were fine there for a while, just being bored and waiting (it was now past 10 and there was no pyramidizing). So we decide to sit, just on the curve in some shop’s doorway. Suddenly, three big men in uniform storm over and throw out the middle-aged guy who was sitting on the ledge a bit above us. The entire crowd, which was already intimidating, was glued to us. We sat, because there was nothing we could do, and tried to ignore the people gawking. Failed.
So I didn’t think I could ever possibly feel more uncomfortable in my own skin, until fifteen minutes later. Finally, many scooters and a truck of competitors showed up to compete for the pot, so we all circled around them. Including the TV cameras. Which found me in the crowd, and everyone parted to let them film me. God god god god god.
We didn’t stick around too long after that. The teams started climbing for the pot (at its highest before we left, team 2 was at 7 people high—the 7th being a boy who couldn’t have been older than 10) and there was much cheering and back and forth. We beat it when the rain came, though, so we never got to see how it ended. Too much discomfort. I just heard a bunch of cheering and some fireworks, though, so I guess it ended somehow.
I’m not glad about how I’m still feeling itchy in my skin, or how I won’t be able to sleep for a while from it, or how I didn’t get a chance to do my Hindi homework, but maybe going was good for me. It’s true in sociology when they talk about how we always study down—studying gender means studying non-biomales, studying race means studying non-whites. So it’s not something I am aware of on a daily basis. I am here. Even though I think of myself always as Jewish, not really white, here and everywhere I’m perceived as white (and American, although now when people ask I say Canadian), with all of its connotations. I was dreadfully uncomfortable looking visually different, and I’m in a place where light skin is beautiful, and English is seen so positively, and people just want to take pictures with me. I have so, so far to come in my own confrontation of racism. I’ve been complacent, and I’ve been thoughtless. I will try to be better.
Maybe now that’s out, I can sleep. I can think about the good bits of tonight. Like the guy in the striped shirt who danced like a fettuccini noodle clown with a group of little girls who couldn’t join in the dancing fun.
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