[WFS-India] [OT] Indian un-civilization

[A. Mani]

India is a terrible sub-human place because of traditional values and
lack of sex education. The social, economic and political system
obviously represses people. The writer fails to see that religion has
an essential evil role in all this.
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http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/world/american-student-india-sexual-harassment-irpt

By Rose Chasm

When people ask me about my experience studying abroad in India, I
always face the same dilemma. How does one convey the contradiction
that over the past few months has torn my life apart, and convey it in
a single succinct sentence?

“India was wonderful," I go with, "but extremely dangerous for women.”
Part of me dreads the follow-up questions, and part of me hopes for
more. I'm torn between believing in the efficacy of truth, and being
wary of how much truth people want.

Because, how do I describe my three months in theUniversity of Chicago
Indian civilizations program when it was half dream, half nightmare?
Which half do I give?

Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we
danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on
and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American
women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men
filming our every move?

Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris
costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood
watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?

When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the
man who stalked me for forty-five minutes after I purchased them,
until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd?

Do I describe the lovely hotel in Goa when my strongest memory of it
was lying hunched in a fetal position, holding a pair of scissors with
the door bolted shut, while the staff member of the hotel who had
tried to rape my roommate called me over and over, and breathing into
the phone?

How, I ask, was I supposed to tell these stories at a Christmas party?
But how could I talk about anything else when the image of the smiling
man who masturbated at me on a bus was more real to me than my
friends, my family, or our Christmas tree? All those nice people were
asking the questions that demanded answers for which they just weren't
prepared.

When I went to India, nearly a year ago, I thought I was prepared. I
had been to India before; I was a South Asian Studies major; I spoke
some Hindi. I knew that as a white woman I would be seen as a
promiscuous being and a sexual prize. I was prepared to follow the
University ofChicago’s advice to women, to dress conservatively, to
not smile in the streets. And I was prepared for the curiosity my red
hair, fair skin and blue eyes would arouse.

But I wasn't prepared.

There was no way to prepare for the eyes, the eyes that every day
stared with such entitlement at my body, with no change of expression
whether I met their gaze or not. Walking to the fruit seller's or the
tailer's I got stares so sharp that they sliced away bits of me piece
by piece. I was prepared for my actions to be taken as sex signals; I
was not prepared to understand that there were no sex signals, only
women's bodies to be taken, or hidden away.

I covered up, but I did not hide. And so I was taken, by eye after
eye, picture after picture. Who knows how many photos there are of me
in India, or on the internet: photos of me walking, cursing, flipping
people off. Who knows how many strangers have used my image as
pornography, and those of my friends. I deleted my fair share, but it
was a drop in the ocean-- I had no chance of taking back everything
they took.

For three months I lived this way, in a traveller's heaven and a
woman's hell. I was stalked, groped, masturbated at; and yet I had
adventures beyond my imagination. I hoped that my nightmare would end
at the tarmac, but that was just the beginning. Back home Christmas
red seemed faded after vermillion, and food tasted spiceless and
bland. Friends, and family, and classes, and therapy, and everything
at all was so much less real than the pain, the rage that was coursing
through my blood, screaming so loud it deafened me to all other
sounds. And after months of elation at living in freedom, months of
running from the memories breathing down my neck, I woke up on April
Fool's Day and found I wanted to be dead.

The student counselors diagnosed me with a personality disorder and
prescribed me pills I wouldn't take. After a public breakdown I ended
up in a psych ward for two days held against my will, and was released
on the condition that I took a "mental leave of absence" from school
and went to live with my mother. I thought I had lost my mind; I
didn't connect any of it to India-- I had moved on. But then a
therapist diagnosed me with PTSD and I realized I hadn't moved a
single inch. I had frozen in time. And I’d fallen. And I’d shattered.

But I wasn't the only one, the only woman from my trip to be diagnosed
with PTSD, to be forced into a psych ward, to wake up wanting to be
dead. And I am not the only woman who is on a mental leave of absence
from the University ofChicago for reasons of sexual assault and is
unable to take classes.

Understanding my pain has helped me own it, if not relieve it. PTSD
strikes me as a euphemism, because a syndrome implies a cure. What,
may I ask, is the cure for seeing reality, of feeling for three months
what its like for one's humanity to be taken away? But I thank God for
my experiences in India, and for my disillusionment. Truth is a gift,
a burden, and a responsibility. And I mean to share it.

This is the story you don't want to hear when you ask me about India.
But this is the story you need.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1023053
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There's a response to the piece by an another American girl who was
part of the same student group, which presents a somewhat different
picture:  http://travelingwhilefemale.blogspot.in/2013/08/a-response-to-rosechasms-cnn-ireport.html

And this response is by a young Indian woman:
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1023884

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PS. I haven't seen the last two links.



Best

A. Mani



A. Mani
CU, ASL, AMS, CLC, CMS
http://www.logicamani.in