First Notes From India (3^rd Year)

Tamil Nadu Training

December 10, 2003

Thanks to the emotional and financial support of many of you, I am back on Mother India’s Soil almost 6 weeks at this point.

I am in my third year now working full time (basically 6 months out of the year) in India training Wenlido (women’s self- awareness/self-defense) Instructors. The added feature this year is training some women towards facilitating these Instructor Trainings.

Special thanks to the Wenlido Organization in Vancouver for providing the ticket half way around the globe, and to my partner for not given up on me. On the Asian side so much appreciation goes to Savi and Dhiviya and the many others who have worked (and still are) so hard on the organizational aspects since last spring.

This first part of the report I wrote on the train from Madras to Pune, with much time (24 hours) to reflect on those (then) 3 weeks since my departure from British Columbia.

Two days after I left Nelson (my home town) my very good friend since 13 years, Nan, passed away. I am grateful for all the hours and months we were able to spend together this summer. I think of her often and wonder how she is doing now…on the other side…

I flew via Singapore and was met at the airport in Madras by N. and S.. My luggage literally was the last one being dropped on the ‘belt’. A relief beyond words.

Three days I had in a hotel to adjust myself to time (13.5 hours difference!) and climate change and then we all met at the IWID (Initiatives: Women in Development) office. They are a women’s documentation and training center (main focus for years has been teaching gender awareness trainings, amongst others…). These womyn organized this first Wenlido Instructor training for South India. From here we took a minibus about 2 hours south to the Delta Training Center. What a precious place! Right on the so-called ‘backwaters’ of the ocean, the Bay of Bengal. At night we could hear the roar of the ocean waves. From my room I could see across the backwaters to islands, where small herds of cattle were kept. During morning meditations I could see men gathering up the fishnets with their ‘catamarans’ (planks of wood tied together to make a very simple 3’ wide, 10’ long boat, propelled forward by a man standing on the back with a long stick). Sometimes I’d hear them chant in the distance.

Delta is the training center for nurses, catering students (imagine the luck of that!) and human right’s groups.

We had 17 students, from skilled gender training facilitators, to village level activists, average age: 25, some in 30ties up to 40 years of age. It was a delight to have an assistant (who is training to facilitate these Instructor trainings) this time, who understood where I was going and could speak the local language (Tamil). She taught nearly 20 Basic Wenlido workshops (18 to 20 hour program) since her own instructor training last December in North India. She holds a full job as well (!).

Our days started at 6:30 am with yoga and meditation, 30 minutes break for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then we’d go until 9, 10 or even 11 o’clock at night. Such a tight program that took some getting used to. The energy and enthusiasm was certainly there though to learn as much as possible in our 2 weeks together.

As in prior trainings, on day 2 and 3 they were students of the Basic Wenlido Program (20 hours). Day 11 and 12 they taught it themselves (in sections and in teams) to a group of students (here the nursing students). The days in-between were spent in two sections.

1. Integrating the Basic Wenlido Workshop concepts and techniques to be able to teach it.

2. The advanced work: Besides learning more advanced self-defense skills and learning to deal with the ‘unexpected’ in the workshops, it also entails understanding the overview of this work. Where we come from: Thousands of years of conditioning in a patriarchy (domination culture mindset). Where we are: The effect (damage on the collective women’s psyche) Where we want to go with what we have.

All the participants are activists already working on issues regarding women and violence. Patriarchy is a common word in their vocabulary. They are used to lobbying and fighting for women’s rights on various levels. What is unusual in our work that we work on the personal (and very practical) level of women’s empowerment.

(For those of you not familiar with Wenlido…) As part of the Basic Training we look at how to make clear boundaries (assertiveness in everyday situations), listen to our intuition and recognize when things don’t ‘feel right’, assess situations and act accordingly, how to speak and act effectively when threatened, how to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous situations and how to fight (physically) to stay alive if all else fails. Information, discussions, role plays (problem solving, moving out of the inner state of powerlessness/paralysis) and practice of self-defense techniques are the foundation of Basic Wenlido trainings.

As part of the advanced training we look at ‘Violence against Women’ being a very basic strategy (and a successful one at that) of the patriarchy to keep an essential part of it’s power pyramid intact. Since this is the very thing we are challenging, we all agreed to question our own internalized ‘domination culture mindset’ for the duration of our group. Thru an effective participatory group process we applied (agreed upon) tools to take note and change our behaviors/speech/relationships in a way the group saw fit to operate from a ‘life serving’ mindset rather than a ‘domination culture’ mindset.

An exciting and challenging experiment indeed that each of us personally agreed to. I certainly have respect and honor those women who come from a very traditional village life style, who had never been exposed to any of these concepts. Just as an example: many of these women never wear anything but a sari and had difficulties adjusting to our request to wear a Punjabi suit for obvious practical purposes.

I had spent a lot of time this summer to improve on the tools to make this experiment more effective even than last year. Incorporating aspects of “non-violent communication” skills, basics in “trauma release”, effective tools on “goal setting”, as well as “Adventure Based initiatives and debriefing processes”.

Not only does the language (and it’s script) change in every state, but also the whole culture and the resulting needs are different. Therefore the framework I bring is ‘filled’ differently each time. I feel quite handicapped not being able to speak to everyone directly. This time I had 2 to 3 dependable translators, which you may or may not imagine the importance of. To keep the group’s dynamic it is important everything gets translated but not take double the time. Some translators (well intended) add their own ideas/explanations to the group (not knowing where I am headed…) and others may edit what they think is not important for me to hear. So you may imagine the frustrations, us unilingual folks, would go thru at times!!!! And we all did amazingly well considering all those obstacles and handicaps.

It is the monsoon season here now. Lovely warm downpours several times a day. Never have I enjoyed the rain more than here!

On day number 8 we had our ‘traditional outing’ in the afternoon. The ‘goddesses’ were with us as the sky stayed blue all day! The group decided on the ‘water experience’. The fishermen came to pick us up in their 4 ‘catamarans’. It turned out to be quite the event with at least 40 men (all the male workers of the center?) sending us off on the shore.

Of course the boats are not water tight, so you sit in a puddle of water. They tied the 4 boats together and it took the fishermen with their long sticks about 40 minutes to get us to the open ocean. On the way little minnow like fish kept jumping into the boats or floating thru the cracks. One woman caught a fish (2.5’) by hand! I didn’t see her do it but was quite impressed. We all ate it that night. The whole way the women sang their energizing activist songs. The fishermen never led on what they thought of that!

I had borrowed a synthetic kameese salvar (Punjabi suit) that would dry quickly. I was dealing with the tail end of a bad cold virus and here the women go in the water fully dressed.

The ocean was wonderful, as the Bay of Bengal is luke warm water. The waves were strong but not huge and a beautiful wide, white sand beach. The village was far enough away that it was clean and unpolluted. Generally people here are in awe of anyone who knows how to swim, so we all stayed in knee-deep waters.

First we went in holding hands and jumping with the waves. Slowly courage increased and we submerged almost fully. Then I started riding the waves (still in shallow waters) and some joined me in the fun. For whole 3 hours we bobbed in the waves having the beach to ourselves, allowing the current to take us south along the beach. So much fun and laughter and surrendering to Mother Ocean (which would certainly take more courage if you don’t know how to swim or do it for the first time…)! How much I appreciated ‘my’ synthetic clothes, as they dried quite fast. Soon we were back in our boats singing (me clapping…) songs and watching the bright red sun set behind palm trees and huts.

One of the favorite songs was against globalization (in Tamil). This is the short translated version of it and imagine it with a very catchy tune…

Song against Globalization

We are told that our country is progressing like Japan, Germany and America.

To quench our thirst there are pepsi and coca cola.

For other washing purpose, mineral water is available.

In reality, we have no drinking water but promised rose water to goggle our mouth

Such politicians who make such promises to be slippered

[slippered means: take your sandal off and hit him with it, a great insult]

Schools are there, with 3 walls and no roof.

No teacher and the children are on the tree top (playing).

Only illicit liquor business is going on in government run corporation schools.

Rich children are going to costly convents and eat all nice foods…

But our children only long for it by seeing them.

Primary health centers, run by government, have no infra structure.

During operation, after cutting the body,

the doctor announces he has no surgical thread to stitch.

Rich people utilize costly private hospitals,

but government shows pity to the poor only to do their postmortem.

After this break from our tight routine, it took some effort to get back into it. Plus the tension was mounting now for them as they were preparing to teach their workshop in a few days. There were still techniques, discussions and concepts to be clarified, studied and practiced. As they now knew all the tools (effective communication, conflict resolution, self defense and teaching strategies amongst all the rest…) I was slowly withdrawing myself (much to their dismay still…) and they were left to figure things out on their own…

The big day arrived! Unusual circumstance with 17 teachers for 13 students! It went real well. Mistakes were made, recoveries handled. The feedback sessions (after the students left) were filled with roaring laughter as they recounted their follies.

This afternoon my friend A. who lives in Auroville (only 75km away from our training center) came up on her motorcycle to witness this special event. The women were so enthusiastic to welcome another white woman into our circle. A. was very touched by their openness toward her. In the tea break they made her dance with them. What better way, if you cannot speak with her …make her dance!

As far as the nursing students went, the 1^st day they wondered why their director made them come to this and the 2^nd day they didn’t want to leave, they were so enthusiastic.

They came with ideas like, that we were ‘spoiling’ them by making them ‘unfeminine’ by breaking the board. They also came with the belief that the solution to rape was forcing the boy to marry her. The group handled responding to these issues in excellent ways. These young nurses promised themselves in the end to support survivors of rape and violence and assist in changing the attitudes of the (misplaced) guilt and shame in their communities. The emotions of the group were running so high; I had to cry when they taught the following song to the young women after this intense discussion:

Song on Women’s plight

We have borne children for 10 months… equally for a boy and girl..

But why is there a lot of jubilation when a boy baby born, and so much worry when girl is born?

Why the term chastity is meant for women and not for men?

No punishment to the erring men but only the victimized women are being punished.

Even a three year old girl is brutally suppressed.

No safety for women during train travel…on the bus...in the street…in the home…

Let us put an end to this slavery state of women

Let us emerge as a new wave and wash away the existing oppressive system.

Let us emerge as sisters, free and strong, as a new wave…. Let us emerge…

These women will go out and affect a lot of women’s lives. They will stay safe, they tell me and they will never forget...

After they finished teaching their first Basic Wenlido, all of us, including the nursing students, danced up a storm of emotional charge. Their powerful songs accompanied by M. and her tambourine and dancing feet.

Day 13 is filled with more advanced self-defense techniques and discussions. That evening was the long awaited ‘cultural program’ as they called it, with songs and dance around a campfire. Many of the womyn are 'Daliths', or so called 'untouchables', with their very unique dances and acrobatics. Two women are experts on dancing so gracefully with 3 big pots stacked on their heads. Since we did not have the 'pots' they made us imagine it by wearing a trash can!

Everyone feels a sense of relief/celebration and a deep sense of sadness. Meaningful connections have been made, insights, skills acquired and all of us enjoying the affection that has developed (I find it hard to believe when they tell me Tamil women are not usually affectionate!).

This day we manage to find time to debate around philosophy, spirituality and activism. Several questions are posed on our Canadian Women’s Movement and our local Nelson Women’s Center.

Two of the participants live in a commune of 12 people (7 men, 5 women) that challenges traditions like marriage and the Indian law. They told me that right before coming they managed to free 27 people out of bonded labor! This is when the employer lends money out and exploits worker in taking part of the wages and charging interest so that (s)he can never pay it off (illiterates, not aware of their rights), in some cases they are bonded for generations.

These same 2 women got a last minute notice during the training that they had to appear in front of the magistrate for a bail hearing or go to jail. The dates were mixed up so when they appeared, it was a day to late. 200 people showed up at the court house (rounded up within hours!) in protest, so they were freed in the end and got back to the training within 20 hours (3 hour trip away!). What a feat!

M. tells me that 10 years ago she went with a group of activists to the state of Bihar, where as part of a ritual young girls were raped and often sacrificed by priests of a certain prestigious ‘Kali’ temple. In an attempt to uncover and stop the practice (it supposedly has stopped now), they were attacked by a group of men. Her friend next to her was killed and she had a cracked skull and spent 6 months in the hospital…

All of us in our group managed to connect, bond and be affectionate despite caste differences, age and cultural differences. In these regions out of respect a teacher is addressed as Master (!) or at least Madam. As we were challenging the ‘domination culture’ mindset I asked to be called Gitta. This was extremely difficult for them up to the last day. Some asked if they could call me ‘akka’ (elder sister).

Day 14, organizational details for apprentice support, safety strategies for the village women apprentices, games, handing out the certificates for those choosing to become apprentices and the closing round. Lots of tears and sobs and close hugs. Promises to stay connected, to face the world safely with new eyes…

IWID treats S. and myself royally with a fancy hotel room in Madras where we have a chance to debrief and gather energy for our trips. She goes north to Delhi for an activist meeting and I head to Pune, Maharashtra for a Basic Wenlido training.

As gifts I received a beautiful tray with a peacock traditional Tamil design and a lovely Punjabi suit. My skimpy wardrobe could not be overlooked in those 2 weeks. I don’t like shopping and really appreciate clothes being chosen for me (with exceptions.. smile).

Right now I feel quite queenly as IWID provided me with this 2tier A/C sleeper on my 24-hour train ride (6 times the price of the ordinary sleeper, which I usually take). I am provided with fresh sheets and blankets and a curtain for privacy.

Looking out of my window I see the cultivated fields of cotton and grains. Some of the fields have little busy mud/grass huts with lots of activity. Then there are uncultivated regions with shrubs and bushes. Their deforestation by the Maharashtas and the British happened long time back.

Now again I see a tribal family just waking up from sleeping under the open sky with a herd of goats. The tribal women are decorated with heavy ornaments in their hair, on their clothes and on their arms and ankles. Sometimes I see them work in the cities in construction and wonder how they handle that.

The train stations we come thru are busy with people selling their goods, beggar (wo)men, widows (wearing no blouse under their saris), blind and deformed folks asking for baksheesh to feed themselves. They don’t come thru my bogie (wagon), only thru cheaper ticket bogies. If I want to buy anything at the stations I have to go out and worry about the train leaving. I feel insolated here with so much space, protected from the heat and the people. It feels artificial. For now I decide to appreciate the privacy, which allows me to write and study. Not often do I have this luxury.

In Pune I am welcomed by my friends S. and S. and their son. They live in a very nice apartment building and it happens that their neighbors are working abroad right now and I may stay in their flat. This is quite the treat! The next day I have a Wenlido Basic Workshop planned at the BAIF office building (which is funded by CIDA). As I enter the building I remember how startled I was last year to be welcomed by a big Canadian flag next to the Indian one.

After the workshop I am called to Delhi to meet with the trainers there. I arrive after a gory train ride to Bombay in the middle of the night on an unreserved ticket and having to change stations in Bombay at 4 am by cab. It was one of my fears, I admit, and I made it thru! Sigh…

Delhi, I arrive in time for the launching of the ‘16 days of activism’ event on November 25^th. On these 16 days there are different community events every day all over the city to bring awareness to issues regarding WAV (women against violence). There are forums, rallies, films, plays, etc. Jagori (women’s documentation and training center) had done some fact finding on women being killed (or committed suicide) in the region over the last year. There were hundreds of black posters each with a name of a woman killed and why and where. These were worn around the neck by each participant of the rally today, which was at India Gate (a famous memorial for dead soldiers in the center of the city in a park). As well there was a group of 44 women from Burma with a huge banner (women against violence in Burma) and each of them wearing names of women killed in their country this past year. I heard they were troubled and arrested at the Indian border and they claimed human rights violations.

It was a powerful and impressive rally. We posed in front of India Gate where tourists from everywhere took their pictures of the monument...with us in it!! One banner said: While some men do violence on women…why are the others staying silent?

It was nice to see so many familiar faces again as well. I was staying with a friend (Wenlidoka) who I believe I mentioned in one of my past notes. Then she was struggling to move into her own flat. She is 28, has a very good full time job, works as a women’s activist on the side and does not want to get married. It has been a long struggle and she was delighted now to welcome me into her own home. In her flat search she was turned down several times because she is a single woman, and her mother is still refusing to visit her. Moving out of tradition, or swimming against the current (of mainstream) is never easy anywhere. She has 2 rooms, a small kitchen, bathroom and a lovely rooftop terrace. She tells me how terrified she was the first nights being on her own. Still it takes her courage to walk in her flat at night.

It was good to meet with the English speaking trainers/apprentices individually and see how they are coming along and the difference the training has made in their lives. I stayed with C. and her family one evening. It took me 2.5 hours to reach her house because I got caught up in a very ‘auspicious’ evening when 12 000 weddings took place in the city!!! My oh my…would I have known! I enjoyed meeting C.’s two children and husband. They insisted on me spending the night with them. Not a bad idea under the circumstances!

Then we had a half day advanced training at the Saheli office. The Saheli group (non funded grass roots women’s organization since 30 years!) brought me back to India 3 years ago. They are open every Saturday for drop in and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing some of those women again. They are a well respected active group in the Indian Women’s Movement, doing a lot of good work in lobbying (state and federal levels) and putting out a newsletter.

Delhi is becoming infamous for the amount of rape cases reported. Some high profile women, like a Swiss diplomat and a woman in the Indian ministry are some cases of late. So much of a problem that the police are doing self defense workshops for women. Only the reports we have gotten from that are discouraging. Military type trainings. Slapping the women for doing things wrong and even a case where a police woman broke the wrist of a participant.

We have not quite figured out how to find women in cities like Delhi or Bombay with a gender perspective, familiar with issues on WAV, who are not already working full time for an NGO. Brainstorming continues…

I am sorry to miss the rally in Delhi on December 6^th on WAV, as I loved doing it last year knowing many of you in Canada doing vigils as well on this day.

After leaving Delhi I stopped for a day in Chandrapur to visit my friends S and G and Gokul. Gokul is the little boy whose arrival in this world I witnessed and supported 8 months ago. It was a very nice get-together with the two sisters and the now almost walking, happy, smiley boy.

Now I am back in Pune doing some major dental treatments. Happy to return to ‘my own’ little flat, since I don’t make good company when I am in pain. I read today 40% of Pune’s population lives in the slums… The air pollution here is horrific, giving me headaches when going to town.

News has come out that BJP (Hindu party) has won state elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Some social activists are concerned as this might increase communal tensions in the future.

Next week I shall return to Tamil Nadu for apprentice support / trainer support, possibly visit a friend and then back to Delhi for a meeting and the next Instructor Training in Rishikesh (foothills of the Himalayas, by the Ganga).

I hope you all are keeping well and as always I am happy to hear from you! It is good to stay connected across all these oceans and continents…

Happy Holidays and a good beginning for the New Year!

May Womyn’s Strength, Courage…and Peace (in the home and on the planet) prevail!

In the spirit of global sisterhood

Gitta