Sublimity…

Jesse and I were heading out from my house this afternoon on our way down to Mussoorie proper to explore a little bit before he went back to Delhi that evening when we came across something that really hit us both – hard. Just around the corner from Sister’s Bazar (about 3 minutes from my house) we came across a little girl standing on the side of the road, bawling. She looked to be about 8-10 years old, was well dressed in a pink shirt and jean overalls, looked clean, healthy and well cared for, and though she had brown skin, I had a feeling that she wasn’t a local Indian. She was standing on the side of the road right at the head of a path that went down the steep slope, and as we neared, she turned slightly away from us but didn’t move, and continued to cry. It wasn’t just normal crying though, she would bawl in what seemed like pure terror/agony for about 30 seconds, recover her composure for around 30 seconds, and then continue bawling, in a never ending cycle. Occasionally she would shuffle a half-step down the path in a way that suggested she felt compelled to go down or see something down there, but was just too terrified to go. A quick scan of the scene (and looking down the path/slope) revealed no other people about, and nothing visibly wrong with either the girl or the surrounding area that could give any clues as to why she was so upset.

Situation assessed (with no useful results), it was decision time – what to do?

What would you do?

Keep in mind that I am a foreigner traveling in a foreign country that I only partially understand. However, one of the things that I do know is that a man approaching a young girl is something that is really frowned upon here. The last thing I would want would be to be found alone with a young girl who was bawling, because I think the instinctive assumption by anyone who came by would cause an immediate and unpleasant reaction. Basically, I wasn’t going to approach too closely unless she calmed down and asked me to help, but there was no sign that was about to happen. So the choice was to either keep going, or try to talk to her, but even then, what do you say to someone you don’t know in a country you don’t know when you have no idea of what the cause of the problem is, what the local customs are, or even what language she speaks (and it may not be one you can speak).

Despite all the uncertainty, I felt I had to try and talk to her. The situation jolted me enough that I found myself speaking English out of habit, helped by the fact my instinct told Hindi wasn’t her native language so English would be the next likely choice. I started with some cautious, calm questions along the lines of “What’s wrong” and “Can I help you?” which caused the girl to stop crying for a moment, glance timidly/warily up at me in a way that indicated she acknowledged my presence, but didn’t show whether she understood my words or not, then she would turn away and start crying again. After a few attempts, with similar results, I decided to give my fledgling Hindi a try just in case and so I tried (I think successfully) to ask what had happened what her name was and where her house was, but was met with the same response as my English questions. By then five minutes had passed and it was becoming clear that talking wasn’t going to do anything.

So again, I asked myself what to do, what could I do? I had tried (unsuccessfully) what I felt comfortable doing in the situation and so the choice was either to approach her and force a situation, or to walk away. It seemed that there was little that I could do to help – I didn’t really know the area and certainly didn’t know the people, and in most of the possible scenarios I could think of, it seemed like it would just make it worse. I thought of going off to try to find someone else who would be better able to deal with the situation, but in quiet Landour there aren’t many people about and the only people I thought I would likely find at the time were the old, male, Indian shopkeepers back at Sister’s Bazar, and instinct told me that they weren’t going to be able/willing to do much more than I, and for some reason I almost feared that they would force the situation unpleasantly and thus only make it worse. I couldn’t just stand to stay there and watch her suffer any longer, but I couldn’t think of what to do to help and she didn’t seem in any danger – just distress, so I honestly considered just leaving her to sort out the problem on her own, or with someone else who might come by and be better able to do something.

However, how can you walk away from another human being – especially a little girl – bawling their heart out and still consider yourself a good person? The situation made me realize that even though I may be in a completely strange and different land inhabited by people physically, culturally, socially and economically different from myself, our similarities are far greater – our common humanity means that there will always be a fundamental bond between us. It was an especially strong realization for me, a “westerner” coming from a North America where society seems to constantly be trying (successfully) to get us to alienate ourselves from the rest of our fellow humans, and thus with every passing day we forget our similarities and instead only see the differences. In a culture where we are taught from day one to be wary of strangers, where anyone who looks/acts/thinks different than us is investigated for terrorist connections, where we constantly told to live in fear, we forget that we are all human, all the same. However, our universal link to all other members of our species is there all the same, and despite all our indoctrination, all it takes is one small girl crying on the side of the road to realize how much we have lost, and how wrong the direction of western society is.

I was thinking this over, putting off my decision, when suddenly I heard a call from behind me, from up the road. I turned to see a lady walking towards us, and was very much relived. The lady called out again, saying a name I didn’t catch followed by, “what are you doing up here still?”. However, the girl certainly heard it all, for she stopped crying and calmed down a bit, and then slowly began walking towards the woman. I stood in place and watched as they met, the woman putting her arm around the girls shoulder to comfort her, but continuing to quietly ask her questions in a voice that sounded mostly annoyed to which the girl offered halting answers. I couldn’t catch what they were saying – though it was certainly in English, and before I could really process what had happened, the woman was ushering the girl up a nearby driveway towards a house above the road. The girl never acknowledged either Jesse or I, but when the pair was halfway up the driveway, the woman gave us a brief, strange look which I didn’t know how to interpret, but said nothing, and then they disappeared out of sight.

Jesse and I both stood there silently for a few moments, pondering over what had just happened, and then slowly and quietly we both resumed our trip along the road to town. It was only after a couple minutes of walking that we broke the silence, and even then it felt strange. The problem had been solved – apparently happily – but the questions/realizations it raised took a long time to fade, to let anything else into my head, and won’t go away for a long time – if ever. So while I may still be in a foreign country, I’ll appreciate the differences that do exist between myself and its inhabitants, but won’t let myself forget that despite it all, we are all still human. All because of one little girl crying on the side of the road…

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 8:36 pm and is filed under India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.