Desensitization

It's a curious phenomenon, really.  More frightening than curious, but in my second trip to India I can both feel and see myself becoming slowly desensitized to the chaos around me.  It becomes natural, and therefore one develops this skin built for protection against the sensory overload, the frustrating and backward politics, and the depravity of so much around you.

The first time I saw a beggar on the street was in Delhi, obviously, since that was the first place I went in India this time around.  There are definitely more on the streets of Delhi than in Bangalore.  I remember walking through a shopping complex with Tinku and Anand and there being an old woman on the granite footpath writing on the ground.  I was mid-sentence through something inane, I'm sure.  I couldn't speak for a moment, but we continued to walk, sidestepping the horrifying sight at our feet.  In these situations, you feel helpless.  Do you stare? Call for help? Continue walking?  

At some point, you have to ask yourself when countless people come up to you, begging for money with their dirty, sleepy children thrown over their shoulder, what can I really do to help this person?  Where is this money going? After a while, most people stop looking at them.  You stare in the opposite direction, suddenly both blind and deaf to their requests.  And I saw myself begin to do it too, desensitized.

Another example.  On Monday night, we all went for a movie.  For those of you unfamiliar with SUPERSTAR RAJNI (Rajnikanth), he is a fat, toupee-wearing, former traffic policeman now incredibly popular actor in South India.  His newest creation that we saw, "Sivaji: The Boss," is about how this multi-billionaire wants to build a hospital and school with his money, encounters some troubles, tries to marry a "traditional" Tamil girl, goes bankrupt, etc. etc.  Seemingly harmless plot, no? Well, the actual movie is impossible to give justice to.  The traditional Indian bride spends the entire movie either crying or screaming, and while she is chaste and wears a nice braid and sari during the "Reality" portions of the movie, in the "Dream Sequences" or song-and-dance numbers, she sports ridiculous wigs, scandalous outfits, gyrating around like a robot and sexual object for the old, skeezy Sivaji.  That's not a word, but I'm using it anyways.  The entire movie was awful.  Please YouTube it so I can stop trying to explain the inexplicable. 

So, back to the point-- after the movie, I was horrified.  Madhavi couldn't sleep for a while.  I couldn't get Sivaji's idiotic catchphrase ("Cool!") and theme song out of my head.  During the movie, I couldn't stand to watch most of the song sequences, so I took to watching the audience instead.  The theatre was packed full of your typical South Indian families, sitting happily as the movie blared at the highest possible volume and displayed these vulgar scenes of scantily-clad women in black leather juxtaposed with traditional scenes of a Tamil family feeding their guests and offering them tea and coffee.  Everyone seemed to have a pleasant, glazed-over look on their face.

But on Tuesday, I managed to go the entire day without thinking about it.  That's desensitization.

There is a difference between being desensitized to the harsher realities of this country and being ignorant to them.  I can no longer call myself ignorant, as a second visit has now begun with a better baseline of knowledge for what this place is all about, how it functions, and what its people are like.  I find it harder to go to the school now, and see its problems continue for another year.  But at the same time, seeing this thicker skin develop has only led more questions.  The problems I encounter in the school, for example, may seem even more difficult to deal with, even more rooted in systemic or cultural issues, but now its time to put a more informed finger on where the problems lie and find out more deeply why they exist.  

But I'll never understand Rajnikanth.  I almost don't want to, and I'm glad that I've developed some sort of tolerance strong enough to let me sleep peacefully at night after four hours of "Sivaji: THE BOSS."