I awaken suddenly as somebody bursts into the room where I have been sleeping. A bright light comes on, blinding me. Within a minute, music blaring at a deafening volume emerges from across the room. I groan.
Elibeth, from Venezuela, another female volunteer with whom I have been sharing the double bed, jumps and gives me a distressed puppy-dog expression. We are far from rested from the short sleep, but there is no question of sleeping in. We burst out laughing, in a bid to maintain our sanity.
A slideshow of colourful deity pictures streams across the TV screen. It is only 4am yet the devotional music playing from the DVD player is so loud it is painful. There is a strange concept in India, whereby quality and quantity can be interchanged. Anyway, our hosts seem intent on waking up the entire village. I wonder whether they do this everyday or if this occasion is in our honour!
It is a few weeks now since I have been assisting a non-profit organisation based in India. I am currently on a food-collection programme in rural Bengali villages. Among other things, the mission distributes large quantities of food, so we are out collecting rice and potatoes. We spend several days and nights at a time moving from village to village, accepting the generous hospitality of the villagers to provide our food and shelter.
It is usually a sweet experience, but this episode is certainly a little bit odd. In fact, today is the first time in eight days that I truly miss not waking up in the simple room which has become my home at the ashram.
“Oh look, the mouse!” I say pointing over Elibeth at the vegetables stacked in one corner of the room. We crack up laughing again, rolling inside our sleeping bags. Five pairs of smiling, questioning eyes observe us – they do not understand our behaviour, just as we do not understand theirs.
Yesterday at around midnight we had to submit to over twenty people – almost the entire family – crowding at the doorway of this room trying to convince us that the big, fat mouse that lived there would not disturb us as we slept! And how could we protest, when they had given up their bed for us, only to sleep on a mat on the hard floor, with the mouse?
The language barrier does make it a little more complicated. Although in the city most people speak English, many village people are uneducated. However, it is quite amazing how much you can communicate with people without using spoken language. Even now, we somehow allow two ladies to lead us out of the house into the darkness, clutching our toothbrush, soap and towel.
Along a dirt road, down a path and past a large pond surrounded by palm and banana trees, we are led into another house. A neighbour is kindly allowing us the use of her bathroom so that we could have a real warm shower. We appreciate the alternative. These past few days our only option has been an open-air bathroom about four feet by four feet, complete with a metal bucket full of cold water from the hand-pump, which we had to pour over our heads using a plastic jug.
Elibeth and I both have our turn of being shown around the fancy house while the other was taking her bath. Even in this setting, four generations live in the same house, but with one room for every family unit. I am intrigued by the way Indian families always live so closely together. I have even seen up to fifteen people living in one large room! It is no wonder that there is generally no sense of privacy in Indian culture.
We find that the men in our collection party have not been privileged with hot bath water. But that also means that the six of them are ready by the time we return. Swami-ji, the monk who is leading the group, is keen to move along. We take our seats inside the small bus, which corridor is already piled with sacks of rice from the previous days' collection, but departure is delayed by the several ladies paying their respects by touching Swami-ji's feet and then their heads as if in obeisance.
Eventually our bumpy ride comes to halt. The lush green makes it hard to believe that we are not far from the heart of Calcutta at all. Instead of haphazard buildings gone grey from the pollution, this Hooghly district is covered in bamboo forest, palm and banana trees. There are large ponds everywhere, which act as reservoirs of water collected during the rainy season to last through the dry season. At one edge, the brightly coloured clothing of some ladies doing their washing catches my eye against the green backdrop.
A family is expecting us, arms in the air and sounding conch shells in welcome. I am impressed by how well-organised the collection system is and how profuse the welcome is when we arrive in every new village. After a breakfast consisting of pakora, muri and aloo subji (deep-fried vegetables in batter, puffed rice and potato curry), the head of the household, Pakira, accompanies us walking around the village from house to house.
At every house, Pakira introduces us and Swami-ji is honoured rather reverentially. Some people even want to wash his feet. We are invited to sit and receive some rasagula or other milk-sweets. I am surprised that every household seems to have an endless supply of fresh sweets for unexpected guests! The welcome is constant and we easily smile and interact with our hosts.
Eventually a rice donation is poured ceremonially into a sack. Bowl-full after pot-full fills sack after sack, which are wheeled back to Pakira's house on a bicycle. Sometimes an entire sack of rice is donated, each sack containing over fifty kilogrammes of grain. The generosity is always extreme. The man whose sandals at his doorway are so worn that the entire heel section is missing, gives enough rice to feed a couple for a month. He donates beyond his means, and does it so happily that I suddenly feel very poor compared to him who is so rich in spirit.
Having completed a large portion of Pakira's village, we return to his house for lunch. An open veranda runs along his entire house, with the rooms leading from it – a common feature of Bengali houses. We are invited to sit there on individual mats on the floor and cut and washed banana leaves are placed before us.
We are served a sumptuous lunch of rice, lentils, three vegetable preparations and a selection of sweets. At first I think it must be impossible for me to eat, after consuming all those sweets during the course of the morning, but the meal is so delicious that I leave nothing on my leaf.
Rest after lunch is the norm. I stir before any of my companions do, and two of Pakira's teenage grand-daughters, Supra and Runu, take the opportunity to spend time with the foreigner and practise their English.
They take me for a walk around their land. It seems that most families living in rural areas own some land and some cows, which allows them some degree of self-sufficiency. It is also why, despite having little money, village people may afford donations of rice and fruits from the earth. Many alternate between crops of rice and mustard, the oil of which is used extensively. The girls' family also grows potatoes, beetroot, cauliflower and other vegetables.
Elibeth calls me and we join Swami-ji and the rest of the party for an afternoon spent in much the same way as the morning: collecting from house to house. We are feeling rather tired by the time we return to Pakira's house at the end of the day. We have been all over Pakira's village and the surrounding area, and we feel very satisfied that today we have collected more than five sacks of rice, over 250 kilos.
As we walk into the inner courtyard of Pakira's house, we hear the sweet, high-pitched jingle of a bell. We make our way towards the veranda and catch a glimpse of worship going on in one of the adjacent rooms. Runu's father is standing in front of some religious icons, with the bell in his left hand. He has distinctive clay marks all over his body and is wearing a traditional dhoti cloth. He offers incense, flowers, water, a handkerchief and a lamp with ghee-wicks, and finishes off by waving a yak's tail and then a fan of peacock feathers.
All the while, all other members of the household that are not engaged in cooking observe the puja and play cymbals and a drum while singing a song of praise. Apparently, this ritual goes on at sunrise and sunset every day, without fail, and is common practice in many households. I am impressed by the religiosity and spirit of dedication of this culture.
In one corner of the same room is a small altar with a picture of a young man. Noticing my curiosity, Supra tells me that he was her uncle who passed away in a car-accident. Supra indicates the widow wearing white, explaining that she remembers her husband by offering him incense and flowers daily. This is also not uncommon practice in this country, where a husband is often looked upon as one's worshipable Lord.
Runu's 17-year old elder sister, Devaki, is a perfect example of this concept. She has been happily married since eight months to a man ten years her senior. The marriage was arranged by the parents. She has gone to live with his family, as dictated by tradition, but at least they live nearby and she is allowed to keep contact with her family. Her husband's house is where Elibeth and I must sleep tonight, as Pakira's house has no spare, separate room available for us ladies.
Devaki is sweetness personified yet we are shocked to see how mature she is for her age, tending to her husband's needs and ours. She behaves like the perfect, chaste wife, covering her head when any man enters the room. From our perspective, we feel that her happy-go-lucky days of youth have been stolen from her too soon!
Devaki, on the other hand, is shocked that at twenty-four and thirty-one, Elibeth and I are still unmarried. We know that she is secretly wondering what could possibly be wrong with us; why nobody would want to take us for marriage. How can we explain the differences of our culture? We do not even try... we have given that up many marriage-related questionings ago.
But Elibeth and I are very happy with tonight's accommodation arrangement. Devaki and her husband give us their room, which we do not have to share with any mice, and our hosts are gentle and uninvasive. In fact, we feel so at home that we happily join the whole family for a reading from shastra: spiritual scriptures. I feel inspired by Devaki's husband's overview in English, noting that the teachings may be practically applied to one's life regardless of culture or creed.
A power failure. Nothing unusual. The oil-lamp is handy, it is lit and everything continues as before. As cozy as the atmosphere feels, Elibeth and I are weary and we know that we have another long day tomorrow. We retire quietly to our quarters.
As I lay to sleep, my consciousness drifts with thoughts of the world I have left behind in Malta: how far removed from that reality my life here is! The stark contrasts from life as I know it lead me to think that volunteering is giving me so much more than I could possibly be doing for others, while the people's simple-hearted humility and generosity remind me inevitably of my own shortcomings. Perhaps it is true that simple living leads to high thinking.
Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math is a non-profit organisation. Contact SCSM Malta via lotusroom.org.