Yikes, time is just rushing by! I'd blame my silence on the power outages (which have been frequent, water as well) but to be honest I've just been busy, and not with anything really worth writing about.
Today was the trial run of Children's Day at the school and it went off quite well. The teachers all came and pretended to be the parents, watching the students' presentations and then we had a (long) critique afterwards... mostly in Tamil. I now know how Jean must feel during her meetings about the new building. I found it hard not to zone out as everyone was talking incomprehensibly around me.
This evening we were invited to the house of one of the team leaders at DHAN who has been working with the film crew for the last few months. He lives in a new housing development (many buildings are still under construction) near Madurai, which is about an hour away. It turns out middle class India isn't so much different from middle class America. The development was quite large, with row homes along treelined streets. Every house had a car or motorbikes beside it and there were people out walking and chatting with their neighbors. The house was large compared to the other houses I've been in here, two bedrooms, with three beds, a large dining room / living room space, a decent sized kitchen and a semi enclosed patio on the roof. The bathroom looked similar to ones I've seen in restaurants, a squat with faucets sticking out in unusual places. (Although since the building is new I'm sure they purposefully put them there, I just don't know why)
He lives with his wife and mother and two children, a very sweet 14 year old girl and a 19 year old son who had been called out on a mechanical engineering project. His mother is a retired school teacher and her husband was a follower of Gandhi and through her son was telling us about some of the protests he was involved in. She met Gandhi when she was a young girl and said that she walked in some of the marches as well.
They seem to be a pretty modern family. His daughter was wearing jeans and no shawl and he spoke to her in English. There's a girl staying at the illam for a few days who used to live here and is now in engineering school. We brought her and it was interesting to see the two girls talking to each other.
Another affluent couple from the neighborhood stopped by while we were there to invite them to some function tomorrow. And as seems to be universal custom, bearing a gift of food for the family. Dinner was preceded by these crunchy sticks that we've had before, and cake. I couldn't decide if the cake is a normal thing or just for our benefit. Also, the icing here tastes like bubblegum.
We also talked about some of the social support provided by the government. He showed us their 'ration card', which is given to each family. They come in different colors depending on income level and certain groups are eligible for certain support. The only thing that is across the board, I think, is gas which is partially subsidized. People below the poverty line are eligible for much more. There's a shop right by the illam's land where the village residents can purchase government subsidized food and the government also gives out grinders, fans, TVs and even houses to those who are eligible. Students get bikes during their 11h standard year and computers for college.
It was a lovely evening and really interesting to see their home and have the chance to talk more about Indian life.
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