Postcard from Bagalkot

It’s been a week in Bagalkot, north Karnataka, a district bordering Maharashtra. It’s a rural area and the landscape of gentle sloping hills, perspective of so much sky and land, reminds me of Ganeshpuri, a village in Thane. People at peace with themselves, and walking with a confident stride.

People walk a lot in the villages so they look so much more healthy and agile. And of course, no sign of the computer-related illnesses here that all of us in the cities are falling prey to. Young people complaining of back pain and joint pain.

The air is so pure and pollution free, no noise. From my hotel – a fairly decent newly built one -- I can hear the roar of the bus once in a while on the road a few meters away. I have been pretty much in the hotel helping out local field researchers working on AIDS create some communication materials. I went to Nirlakere village the other day with Ambika – just like that. She did the talking, I was just listening and since I don’t understand Kannada that doesnt add up to much. Ambika would stop to translate once in a while.

We were meeting Vidya, a 24-year-old widow who belongs to the village and has been working in five villages in the area for the last four years as a link worker with an AIDS prevention project. We were sitting in Panchayat office a small building with three rooms. We also met some Gram Panchayat members, who has part of the Village Health Committee, were also playing an active role in AIDS response.

The village exudes quietitude. I could hear the pre-noon village sounds -- moo of the cow, the cock-a-doodle-doo of the rooster, jingling of cowbells. And then the schoolbell! The primary school was just nextdoor and it was time for mid-day meal so all the children came running out, playing, collecting at our window to examine the ‘new’ people who had entered their village. They touched the car, looked at themselves in the mirror, and laughed easily.

As I stepped out, I saw them being served lunch – it looked like khichadi. Some were sitting lining the corridor others were sitting on the parapet of the school wall making quite a pretty picture holding their aluminium plates and eating mouthfuls with their hands. I took a picture of a nice chubby boy, who must be 5. The kids saw the camera and came running. I obliged, took some more pictures. They loved it. So beautiful – children are so curious – they are attracted by anything new and unfamiliar. They want to know, touch, feel.

Vidya was wearing a sari, the middle-aged Panchayat men dhoti kurta. It was nice to be in a place which seemed removed from globalisation. So nice to hear people speak their language in their dialect; wear costume woven in the place. So we can look at it and say – okay, this is from this land.

So different from us in the cities – we can wear a Kanjivaram one day, sport a Pune weave the other. And yet, if you consider urban India – at least in the upper middle class – the sari is becoming fast extinct. The grace of the garment is unable to match the convenience of trousers, skirts, and salwar kameez. Young women across the metros will probably wear the same brands from the same stores.

Coming from a place where a person’s attire hardly tells you where he’s from, it was interesting to be in a place which seemed removed from globalisation as we know it. Reminds me of what Pico Iyer says in his book “Global Soul’ – all this globalisation has resulted in the mongrel soul – we are a mix of so many things. We eat the same food, wear the same clothes. The language we speak today is similar across – thanks to the email and internet. Even our English is no longer the Indian English which would have been in the pre-internet days.

In my hotel, which was built only last year, I get all the creature comforts. The place is running and bustling – perhaps because this is a trading center for the local crops of sugarcane, sunflower. And there’s multicuisine on offer – Chinese, North Indian, pao bhaji and bhelpuri, and of course South Indian. Is interesting – we asked for Chinese crispy vegetable the other day – we are determined to try everything on the menu over our 10-day stay – and we got vegetable pakoda! We also tried the samosa – which was also an imitation of our north Indian version. Ask for something – not quite sure what will come! This is fun – aren’t we glad for no Macdonalds!

Bagalkot is an interesting place to study community response to AIDS. I am here to develop some communication materials for a Project on AIDS that has done considerable work in the area over the last five years. It was established with the help of Canadian funding, and is now managed with USAID support. It’s a border district where a lot of cross migration takes place. People come in when its harvest, go out to other districts rest of the year to work as agricultural labour. This is a drought prone area. Many of those who migrate are the landless labourers. Culturally, this place has been a center for the devadasi tradition. Earlier, the tradition may have been something else, today it is nothing but prostitution. A practice banned by the Government under a 1982 Act, the youngest devadasis we met were in their early 20s. They would have been dedicated 10-12 years ago.

What a tradition – breaks all concepts of what you consider acceptable. Most of them come from the SC community. There will be extreme poverty, father will be an alcoholic, no food, so the daughter will be dedicated to goddess Yellama while she’s still under 10. The ceremony is like a marriage. The girl wear a tali – which is like a mangalsutra – and identifies her as a devadasi. She is also called nitya sumangali because she can never become a widow. Can you beat that -- married to God.

Just as she attains puberty she will be ‘initiated’ into selling sex. The initiation is quite a hyped event. A man among the rich and powerful in the village, will be invited to ‘have’ the girl. A lot of pomp and show will happen, money will change hands.

Socioculturally, the devadasi is an interesting concept. The devadasi has a certain place in society so as long as she doesn’t disturb the fabric too much, she can live reasonably well. Unlike the ‘hidden’ sex worker who must do it secretly, hide from family, she doesn’t face any self stigma, guilt etc. She has resigned herself to her fate. Most adult devadasi women are not bitter – they say well, this is the way it is, not something I can change. But of course, they don’t want they daughters to lead a life like theirs. Most of them are spending a lot of money in educating children, sending them for higher studies, training in professional courses such as nursing.

The devadasi lives in her home with her parents, brothers and sisters and will practice out of her house in a room reserved for this. She can never marry – she is married already – but she can have children. Children will not get father’s name or any right to family property etc.

So in a way, she is the modern single mother. Fends for herself and her children.

I thought about it – of course everyone knows men go out for sex. But this kind of socially acknowledges this. Married women will not be available. Therefore, create a section of women for this role who cannot marry and are hence ‘free’. Sex no strings attached.

Sometimes I think the modern single woman is in a parallel danger. Women don’t like us because they know men will go out and only single women will be ‘free’. So they see us as a constant threat. And its true – most extramarital romances are with single women. The man is happy – no strings attached, the woman so taken in by the man’s power, wealth.

My understanding from this is that in today’s world the men-women relationships we build must be entirely free of economy. A woman needs to ensure she’s not financially dependent and the man needs to know that. Where a relationship’s foundation is money, it implies unequal relationships, losing freedom, liable to be abused and exploited.

In a world of AIDS, such is the wisdom I have gathered after working in this area over the last eight years.