On Being Famous

“Ap celebrity hai?” (Are you a celebrity?) That was the question a man asked my co-SALTer and I as we were traveling on a crowded bus to an isolated rural area. Sometimes being in India does make me feel like a celebrity. In America, I was used to anonymity. I could go out and about, walk into stores, go to events and usually get relatively little attention. But here is a different story. Walking outside brings automatic stares and attention. Once I was seated outside of a store drinking juice and there was an entire group of people standing on the road staring at me. However, adults are usually too discreet to stare openly at me in public. Children are a different story, though, especially the small ones.

People often want to take my picture, especially Indian tourists on holiday. When I was on vacation with other service workers, we were asked frequently at tourist places to take pictures with random families. I’m sure they were excited to go home and show their relatives and friends pictures of the interesting foreigners they met on their vacation. I was even asked once by a young girl at a zoo if she could take my picture. School students have asked me for my autograph and a store owner advertised a particular brand of shampoo by telling customers it was the one used by the foreign girls.

At first, it was difficult for me to understand why people are so interested in foreigners, but then again, I come from a country where immigrants from all parts of the world are relatively common. In India, many people spend their whole lives in the same area where they are born (Interestingly, moving from one part of the country to the other is referred to as migration). This is particularly true in rural areas. Foreigners are not common in most parts of India. In Ranchi, a city of 850,000 people, there are only about 100 foreigners (In the rural town where I first lived, it was 2 foreigners out of 100,000 people). So it makes sense that people are excited to meet foreigners since they are uncommon and unusual.

So I have adjusted to my life of fame. It is amusing sometimes, but mostly, it makes me feel awkward. As much as I love India, I will be happy when I come back home to the US and I can go about my business as just another face in the crowd. :)

Rural India

Like the streets, the rural areas of India were one of the first things that drew me to this country. Every time I rode a bus, train, or car through the Indian countryside, I would sit by the window transfixed, unable to unglue my eyes from the places I was passing through. Everything looked as though it came out of a national geographic magazine – miles of green rice fields, women in brightly colored sarees carrying jars of water on their heads, bullock carts, herds of cattle in the road, the mud houses of villages. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. Although I spent most of my time in India living in cities, I always felt a sense of excitement when I was able to get out into the “interior” areas.

My first assignment in rural Chhattisgarh was an eye-opening experience for me. Although I lived in a fairly large town that was only a few hours from a major city, I was still struck by the isolation. In spite of the size of the town, few goods were available. Traveling was difficult. It took 14-16 hours to reach our organization’s office in Calcutta, first a two hour bus ride to the nearest city and then a 12-14 hour train ride to Calcutta. The town only had one internet café that never worked and I used to spend my lunch hour using the internet on the school’s computer so I could check a few emails on the slow, dial-up connection. Most of our students did not have mattresses, but instead slept on charpoys, a bedframe with strips of cloth strung across it. We were supposed to teach reading to the students, but we had almost no English books. The ones we had, we only had one copy – how could we teach reading with only one copy of a book for 30-40 students? The lack of resources and opportunities in the rural areas made a big impression on me.

In so many ways, life is tougher and more difficult for people living in rural areas. Access to services is low (or nonexistent), meaning that many places lack medical services, electricity, schools, running water, and sanitation facilities. Living on a hospital campus, I didn’t have to face many of these challenges personally but I at least began to gain a little more awareness of them. When I moved to a major city, my life became much easier. I could easily travel by train, use the internet and other communication facilities, access newspapers and books, buy any kind of goods I might need, go out for entertainment, etc. But I find myself often missing the rural town where I first lived and missing the people I met there who were so resourceful, creative, and strong. I consider it a privilege to have had the experience of living my first few months in rural India because it taught me about a way of life different from anything I ever imagined.