Commodity and Human Value

A woman’s fingers reach toward my face and smear a red vertical stripe from my hairline to eyebrows. I look up into her eyes and she presses her palms together. I return the greeting, but apparently a minute too late as she moves to the next guest. Beyond her a classroom full of men, women and children stare directly at me, my face painted red and my chest, hands and hair clad with strands of bougainvillea, hibiscus, plumeria and oleander.

Earlier today the journalist Shanta (pronounced san-tah, or Santa sans red suit) introduced us to a teacher she was meeting for the first time. He told her of a program in which a group of dalits and nondalits in a village outside Dahran will sign a promise to end untouchability in the area. Untouchability is already illegal; we were somewhat skeptical about the effectiveness of holding a program to sign a sheet. As we traveled through the village, the tall, thick-lensed teacher lead us to the organizers of the program, who we asked:

What was your involvement with the program?
Do you think this will create change?
How is it different from a law?

And, the one which appeared to be the most difficult to answer: If the law isn’t enforced, how will signing this sheet be enforced?

After meeting the organizers, and interviewing a few people from the village we made our way to the schoolhouse where the program would be held. Sitting on a bench in the back of the classroom, the teacher came to me in a huff, “Where is Jes?” I didn’t know. The teacher made his leave, searching the grounds. Moments later Jes arrived at my side, “The teacher was looking for you. I think they’re waiting to start…” I couldn’t finish my sentence before the teacher interrupted.

“There you are, come up, we want to welcome you.” Jes passed the camera, was whisked to the front of the class where he gave a namaste to the crowd and was adorned with a crimson tikka and flowery garland.

Moments later he was off, and the teacher asked for me to join the front of the class. Handing off the camera, I too took my place in front of the crowd, gave a namaste, and was welcomed to the program with flowers and tikka.

Shortly after, I held someone’s blue eyed baby surrounded by a gaggle of women, spoke with a student about her work on ending discrimination while group of twenty watched from a foot away, and shot the blaring speeches, songs, and announcements piped into an open field through an amplifier. More eyes were on Jes and I than the speakers.

Taking leave from the program, I felt like a cultural spectacle. Our image as Caucasian filmmakers was used to draw attention to the poorly advertised program, however we simultaneously distracted from the positive message presented. Focus was directed on us specifically rather than the issues at hand, and judgment based on external features was reinforced rather than quelled.

I came to Nepal to help fight against discrimination and to give the unrepresented a chance to craft their own image. As a foreigner, I was perceived in a very positive and excited way. It must be intolerable to be despised. I had no idea that through doing human rights work, I could become a cultural commodity.

Six

I have few memories of being six. In kindergarten and first grade I sat on colored carpet squares. I learned to read, and scrawl characters on paper with three lines, one for the bottom, top, and a dashed line for the center of the letter. Climbing the loquat tree, coloring, painting, and playing with Kyle at Christina Court…

Yesterday a young girl put her palms together and smiled shyly at me in a polite namaste. She stands at most three feet tall, and looks up at me with brown six-year-old eyes. I give her a big smile and return her greeting. She flees behind her mother’s skirt.
Two journalists from Radio Jagaran have brought us to this girl’s home, canopied by guava trees and bottlebrush. The community lies outside Butwal and is picturesque with its verdant paddy fields surrounded by hills. To Nepalis they’re hills, but ask any American and they’re mountains.

In this lush settlement, the young dalit girl in front of me, chewing a guava fresh from the tree, was raped two months ago. A non dalit 15-year-old boy lead her away from school, down a path toward her home, and… I’d rather not think about it as I revel in how tiny she is gnawing on that guava.

I’m unsure how to fathom and comprehend. How can I empathize with this small-handed girl or her mother and family? Our experiences are so divergent, but I realize I am also doing everything in my power to help them.

Although this is the boy’s second offense in 2 years, no legal action has been executed against him. With the six-year-old he raped last year, his family gave hers a plot of land and called it even. No such compensation has been accepted this year, and the family demands justice, not a settlement. By capturing the family’s plight, as well as gathering visual evidence, including the girl leading Prakash down the same fateful trail, Radio Jagaran hopes to use the footage to bring action to the case.

Feeling disheartened, we left the settlement and headed back to Baglung. The image of the teeny girl in a dress and her mother stuck with me. Would I know these people if her daughter wasn’t raped? Probably not. Ethically I’m apprehensive about potentially exploiting such a sensitive subject. At the same time, media may be their only hope for justice.

Being passionate about human rights and the role that media can play in changing people’s lives for the better also takes its toll; it’s difficult to restrain my own empathy. Improving people’s lives, even in a basic way, is one of my great driving forces in producing creative work and teaching others how to produce for themselves. I hope that I’m giving all I’m getting.

Work of Their Hands

Embers glowed orange and vermilion below the heavy bottomed karahi. Spices sizzled and smoked, filling the small cyan concrete room with a pungent, nutty aroma. The woman of the house crouched on her haunches, slicing green chilies lengthwise on a knife protruding from the floor. Skillfully her fingers grasped the chilies, slid their flesh apart, and collected them in a bowl next to her bare toes. Her cochineal kurta dragged on the packed dirt floor as she turned from the chilies to the pile of papery shallots in a basket on the floor. Surrounding her were baskets full of okra and eggplant and bowls fresh sliced tomatoes and potatoes, each cut uniformly and meticulously. Looking into her wok-like karahi and sniffing the spices, she urgently sliced the allium and added it to the pan.

She rose from crouching on the floor, and peered into her pot, stirring vigorously without a slight cough from the smoking onions. Her sweat from the hot fire gathered quickly, and she wiped it from her face using her shaal. Opening her favorite jar of mango pickle, she inhaled deeply, enjoying the sweet, spicy fragrance. This was an occasion fit for such a delicacy.

The clang of metal pounding metal was as frequent in her kitchen as the sizzle of potatoes in oil. Outside her door, a man worked with her husband shaping brass vessels for water and food. His sweat was as thick as hers, gathering on his shoulders, neck, and back as rhythmically he drummed the brass into a perfect cylinder. Like her knife protruding from the floor, a huge iron stake protruded from the earth and he maneuvered the basin, then banged it against the stake with his hammer. Rotating the brass over and over, he forged a large, sturdy container, removed it from the stake, and laid it to rest with the other pots he’d finished this week by the entryway.

The woman heaped out plates of rice, carefully added the mango pickle, and served her curries and dal in single bowls with ardor. Shooting in the indigo and lavender sitting room, I interviewed this family’s daughter. At only 23 she is a journalist and human rights activist, and is also studying in university. Over the clang of the metalwork, she explained softly in Nepali about becoming involved in human rights due to discrimination.

As she spoke about not being allowed in the kitchen of homes as a child, for fear she would pollute the food, her mother entered bearing heaping plates of rice and a smile that could warm Greenland. Putting the camera to the side, we accepted the food with bowed heads and empty stomaches.

More and more bowls arrived, and the woman of the house returned to fill our home made plates and water glasses. At that lunch both her parent’s work joined and synthesized a new story; one about the respect and reverence for foreign guests, one about the cooperation of family, and one about the work of their hands.

Inadvertant Trekking: Nepalis Living at the Top

Baglung is a hillside town, huddled at the base of the Himalayan foothills. After meeting with Mahesh, the journalist and training him in photography, then having dal bhat with him and Purna, the senior journalist, we began our ascent to the Dalit settlement high in the foothills above the quaint town.

While traveling abroad I didn’t expect to do any recreational trekking, as there’s a documentary to be made, people to help, and more fiscally responsible ways to see Nepal. To my delight, we spent the afternoon climbing up a steep set of stairs, past huts, fountains, and mineral springs, to reach the Dalit settlement at the top. An hour and a half climb from Baglung would be a veritable journey for the elderly Nepalis we met on their way down to town bearing walking sticks and weather lines.

Mounting the top, we all took a rest under a huge Buddha tree and talked with a few female villagers who were gathered around a fountain. From our hilltop vista of the town below, they told us about the legal complications of the drinking water, as well as showing us a temple where Dalit have been restricted from worship. Their story of discrimination was disheartening, but their eyes and spirits seemed strong. Children herded buffalo and old women came out from their home to greet us with their palms pressed together and their heads bowed offering us water and shade. Humbled can’t begin to describe…

Mahesh and Purna came to the settlement to interview a woman for an article who married a man from a higher caste. She was attending university in Baglung when her landlord evicted her for the trespass, and she was forced to move to this remote settlement. Although her story was gathered in Nepali, her body language and inflection crossed all language boundaries, and was powerful to witness and record. Mahesh and Purna took copious notes, asking her to elaborate. Before we left she offered us water, and I pondered her sacrifice to fill our cups.

Traveling back to Pokhara from Baglung my legs shook gently, reminding me of the climb and my heart reminded me of the people who were already home. Traveling is not only imperative for philanthropy and to tell a story, but to craft my own and develop into the self I want to be. Slowly, I think I’m becoming that person. Gradually, I’m home.

Ethical Dichotomy

Dichotomy is the word of the day. While staying lakeside, the most expensive and touristy part of town (not our choice), we’re visiting Dalit settlements and making a documentary about the most underprivileged and excluded community. I feel extremely uncomfortable visiting the most impoverished population by day and living the most luxurious lifestyle by night.

We hired a taxi for the afternoon and drove 15 kilometers out of Pokhara to reach the Dalit settlement. To get to the community, we walked 10 minutes from the road, then descended through a steep cavernous gorge to a patchwork of paddies. Small clay huts were interspersed with rice fields full of men, women, children and oxen. Men and boys were plowing, yoking the oxen in parallel lines, while women and girls cut the grassy paddy and shook the loose earth from their fibers.

After interviewing a woman about her life and experiences, she looked me deeply in the eyes and touched me on the back. She said something to me in Nepali, and Prakash said, “I’m having some trouble with language… she said she really liked you and loved you and would like to smoke corn and eat it with you.” Her eyes were dark and shining as we both placed our palms together, bowed our heads, and joined momentarily.

The taxi driver came with us down to the settlement; he watched us with unabashed curiosity as the bags which were just in his trunk contained cameras not clothes and camping supplies, and we spoke with people open heartedly rather than in the cold, distant language of trekkers. Down in the fields, he was attentive and engaged, and even offered to carry Jes’ camera bag on our way back up the steep stairs through the gorge out of the settlement. Of course, Jes declined but was touched that he was as giving as the people we’d just interviewed. I hope the taxi driver had a good tale to share with his family, or at least experienced something as new as I did.

While talking with the community, visiting their homes, and spending time with them in the field, I was invited into a man’s clay hut which he’d built with his own hands. How humbling to see the one room he and his family shared, with one light bulb, and small fireplace to cook their daily meals. The entire ceiling was covered with corn in the husks, drying in spiky stalactites. Their toilet was in a shack outside, shared with their neighbors. Mine was connected to my room glossed in white porcelain with a bath tub and shower head.

Escape from Kathmandu

Today an adventure within a journey begins- like always I suppose. With Prakash-ji, our small camera cinematographer, guide, friend, and accomplice, we’re headed from Kathmandu throughout Central Nepal to meet journalists and human rights activists. For this trip we’ll mostly be in tourist-economy locations, like Pokhara and Chitwan National Forest. Luckily, we’ve planned a rest day in Chitwan to get some footage of riding elephants (elephant cam), going on leopard safaris (jeep cam), and strapping Prakash to the roof of the bus (Prakash cam).

For July we’ll be traveling by microbus, which is a glorified minivan, most often through rural and impoverished areas. I’m prepared for massive quantities of dhal bhat (traditional lentil, rice, and vegetable meal) and copious mosquito bites. More than that, I’m excited for the individuals I will meet, the experience of traveling throughout the country, and diving headfirst into a new environment. Living in Kathmandu the past month has shifted my ideas of luxury, culture, development, pollution, and design; I’m curious to see how all these perspectives shift, slide, and landslide. I just hope I can catch it on the landslide cam without getting mud on the lens.

Dalit Storytelling

I’ve been fine tuning the synopsis for the documentary Jes and I are producing this summer, and began shooting at the opening of Dalan last Friday. Dalan is a 24 episode Dalit produced and focused tele-serial to be aired on Nepali National television. It feels good to hold the camera again, especially when documenting such a monumental event. A feel a scene a-brewing.

One of the most dramatic, beautiful, and geographically diverse countries in the modern world is also one of the poorest and most socially divided. Nepal, renown for its pristine Himalayan backdrop, has annals of untold and unrepresented stories of caste discrimination. The practice of untouchability, where upper castes will not consume anything ‘polluted’ by the touch of a Dalit (lowest caste, untouchable), has been illegal for fifty years but often remains a way of life for the fifth of the Nepali population who are Dalit. Clean Hands explores a variety of Dalit experiences throughout rural and urbanized Nepal with a focus on the young activists who are raising their voices for equality for all Nepalis.

The documentary follows my own experience of teaching a group of young Dalit journalists, all age 20-30, to use digital media to create narratives. Often excluded from the privilege of image creation, Dalits have relied on others to tell their stories. By teaching this outcast population how to use visual media, we learn about their successes, hardships, failures, joys and griefs, directly through their own unique voices. The characters include: the first Dalit woman journalist hailing from the prostitution caste, a teacher turned journalist after being disfigured for his low caste, an actress in the first Dalit-based nationally televised tele-serial and human rights activist, and the editor in chief of an internationally distributed e-bulletin. The final version of the film will weave the co-production of all our stories.

Life after Sati: Widows in Nepal

Sati is an ancient Hindu practice in which recent widows throw themselves onto their husband’s funeral pyre, and was outlawed in Nepal about 75 years ago. Since it was outlawed, there has been a question of what to do with widows and their role in society. I met with Lily Fapa, the Chairperson for Women for Human Rights, expressed the backlash from having such an influx of widows. She explained that when sati was made illegal the religious leaders changed the customs regarding widow’s behavior (since they didn’t behave at all while dead). By misrepresenting the holy texts, men with the power to interpret the Hindu documents created unsupported rules to control women.

Widows may not wear colorful dresses, bangles, makeup, and are frequently not allowed to speak with other men. If a widow speaks with a man, or marries another man, her deceased husband’s soul moves from heaven to hell. These practices are not mentioned in the holy books but are taught by Hindu religious leaders and obeyed. Widows have no legal rights, no inheritance, no pensions, and are frequently outcasts from both their family and society, especially if they choose to not follow these rules. They are third class citizens, and are seen as bad luck.

Lily told me, “Many women who are widows will say, ‘I am socially dead, even though I’m physically alive.’”

In Saptari District of Nepal girls are frequently married at age 8 or 9 to boys of 10 or 12 years old. The girl continues to live with her parents until she menstruates, and then moves to live with her husband at his home. If a nine-year-old’s husband dies of a snake bite or illness, she will be a widow for the rest of her life. These children usually end up living with their parents for and relying on them entirely for support.

Through Women for Human Rights, I hope to meet one of these girls on our journey through Saptari and have her as a participant in the documentary. Being a widow is a difficult plight in itself, but being a widow, Dalit, and under 20 years old is an incredibly difficult life.

The Red Movement, which Lily has participated in greatly, is attempting to break down the taboos and barriers built for widows. A widow herself, Lily has fought for women’s rights through the legal system. She is optimistic that the new Maoist government in Nepal, will support widow’s rights for a more equitable and compassionate approach to the death of a partner.