What the...? Strange questions for India experts

Bigzero

A lot of dogs do get hit on the highways. You will see at least one or two of them while on a reasonably long trip. Very rarely are the dead dogs removed from the road, and they get run over again and again by trucks and buses till they completely disappear.

Dogs usually manage to get out of the way quickly though. While driving, they do pose some challenge as they sometime change direction quickly. Cows are easier to manage since they dont change their direction of walk ( or still disposition ) as quickly.

Pigs are the worst - Thank god there are not many of them. I had the misfortune of hitting a pig while on a two wheeler - Didnt fall down thankfully, and the pig too appeared unhurt, but the screams shook the entire neighbourhood.

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karuna

I've seen plenty of dead dogs on the road. More in UP than anywhere else I've been. The Delhi-Jaipur road had a fair few the other day as well.

I recently ordered some carrot seeds here in the UK, and they did have red carrots available. It's just a different brand, if you like. I remember commenting on the same thing though!

Aishah

Donkeys are terrible too - absolutely will not budge. But because they are so large, a car will be less likely to hit them than a dog, small and running. Car will slow down and go around a donkey but a running dog suddenly coming onto the road could strike bad luck. Wouldn't like to hit a pig, and a camel would be even worse.

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reneeautumn

Ugh. I always wonder who picks up the roadkill here in the US. They never seem to stay on the road long, yet I have never seen anything be picked up.

kristinm

There are a fair few accidents in the Australian outback with trucks hitting camels - absolutely deadly!

kristinm

OK - I have another question... given that people seem to exist in various states of illness on the streets without being paid much attention or given treatment - what DO you do if you see something and feel you simply must help???

Usually I was able to let it kind of wash over me and not allow myslef to feel too much anger or distress (I am angry - but save that for another thread). But in Agra there was a woman comatose and skeletal lying on a filthy sheet on the side of the road with a small baby and a crawling baby beside her - both babies were awake, but not looking well, and at first I thought the woman was dead... of course people were walking straight past without a glance.

I really didn't know what to do.. I saw her move and went over and tucked a 10 rupee note under her arm, she didn't wake up - although I'm sure another sharp eyed person would have snapped it up once I left so even that was probably in vain. I couldn't think what else to do.. I asked a stallholder - shrug, a passing well dressed family - shrug, a policeman - shrug - I tried to insist that the policeman do something and he seemed to think I wanted her moved on, so I told him to forget it. I asked back at the hotel - shrug.... you get the drift.

So is there a 000 equivalent? Or a public health service? Or anything.. should the police have been obligated to help her?

Should I have gone and bought some food and tried to feed the babies? How do you find a charity that could help on the spot? Who do you ask?

Nick-H

There was a front page news story a few days ago concerning such an event in Chennai. It just happens that the guy who, in that event, decided to do something was a journalist, which enabled him to both get something done and to publicise the general failure of the system.

He was off to meet a friend for a weekend lunch, and saw an old man lying in a doorway, unconscious, with leg ulcers so bad they were basically holes in his legs. The newspaper said they didn't feel they could publish photographs of his condition, which is quite something, as our press has none of the sterile squeamishness of the West.

To paraphrase (probably with inaccuracy) and cut a long story short, our reporter decided that simply walking past trying to avoid the stench was not good enough, and he decided to help.

There is a number, I think it is 100. He was told that an ambulance could not be sent: yes, they had ten ambulances. No, they used them only to transfer patients to other hospitals, and today they had no fuel anyway. Absolutely no way could one be sent out to pick up this man.

He called his colleagues at work. Obviously journalists on a major daily have contacts and the Mayor of Chennai became involved. He arranged for a private-hospital ambulance to collect the man and take him to a government hospital, where he became a celebrity, at least for the couple of days the press followed the story.

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kristinm

I've just been going through the photos and I have two of a group of kids coming home from school - the first was taken when they weren't aware, and in the second they are posing with my son.

What really has me upset is that the oldest girl, about 13, has her face covered in the posed shot.... Does this mean she is married? Or do unmarried girls sometimes cover their faces in front of men too? They were gypsy kids from outside Bundi.

IndiaJim

On the subject of Tumeric. I had a miracle cure to my scaly hands. A friend dug up a root of Tumeric from the garden, it looks a lot like ginger. He washed it and ground some into a paste and rubbed it on the backs of my hands. 'Don't wash', he said. It looked pretty bright but I left it alone. In the morning my hands were completely healed. The scales come back occasionally and I just re-apply the magic Tumeric...

the opoponax

reneeautumn -- I was once stuck driving behind the truck that picks up the roadkill in the USA. Not pretty.

regarding purdah -- I think it goes into effect once you've started your period, or otherwise "become a woman". Here in the states I see younger and younger girls in hijab, I think because girls are starting their periods earlier and earlier due to nutritional wackiness. Also check out the Iranian film The Day I Became A Woman - in that movie, I think it's a certain age (it's the girl's birthday, I think), not necessarily puberty or menses. I have also seen very young girls, definitely prepubescent, in hijab, which causes me to guess that there might be some very conservative groups who think all girls should be covered regardless of age.

machadinha

Where I live, I'm also of the definite impression it's by way of a reaction or cultural statement with a view to what's going on in the world and in their lives.

Sort of like our long hairs and mohicans etc. of yore Or kids with their crazy baggy pants these days.

In some Rajasthani village, I'm not at all sure it necessarily has to be interpreted as being oppressive as such, nor necessarily a sign of marriage. Interestingly, some tribals there have matrilinear or even matriarchal societies btw, as far as I know.

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the opoponax

Some of the girls I've seen are definitely too young for it to be a religious or aesthetic statement -- I'm talking about girls as young as 9 or 10. Which is why I'd guess it has to do with puberty. Here in the states, as obesity rates surge and our food is so heavily permeated with hormones and hormone-affecting chemicals, girls are starting to go through puberty younger and younger.

In a society where tradition says you're 'a woman' the day you start your period, that means that children as young as 8 or 9 are now considered women and have to deal with the same restrictions adult women deal with. It's definitely not just Muslim, Arab, or South Asian cultures, either -- don't want to get too TMI but I definitely remember not being ready to deal with the reality of being a woman when I started puberty much younger than women are traditionally supposed to.

Victoria

Dogs may try to get out of the way, but I have to admit, I've never seen as many three or two legged canines until I walked around Kanpur. I think the large amount of young men on motorbikes (of which there are very many in Kanpur) actually enjoy trying to get the dogs. I've seen them play as if on a computer game. 10 points per limb style. Sick.

Women on bikes with dupatta/sari and kids hanging from every arm, on the back and sitting as if driving.... well again unfortunatly I was witness to a rather nasty event involving a whole family on a motorbike. Only the father walked away from it and the local man gave me what I can only describe as a Parisian 'shrug' and said.. "sari".

kristinm

I'm really not across the cultural differences between hindu purdah and muslim purdah, or for that matter the orthodox jewish covering up of the hair etc (wlthough it would be fascinating to explore were I a lady of leisure!!!! Where is that Lotto win!!)... but I'm not sure that the Hindu practice holds the same implications of liberation that the Muslim practice does, and I know that since 9-11 - here in Australia at any rate - many young Muslim girls are wearing the Hijab as a political and cultural statement as much as anything.

It was just that at the other times in Rajasthan when a woman covered her face when my husband or another man was around - the explanation given to me was that she was married and only allowed to show her face to her husband. We came across a welcome home to the groom's family house ceremony for a bride and groom in Bundi, and the bride (although apparently he was a lawyer and she had a degree) had her face covered and head bowed.. it was explained to me that basically if her husband's family insisted, she would have to cover her face in front of other men, but if they approved of her being 'modern' she could go uncovered..

I didn't notice teenagers or unmarried women doing it (well not that I knew) - except this little girl, who was from a very impoverished low caste village.

Its possible it is to do with 'womanhood' - its just that it was always explained to me as being associated with marriage...I was just hoping that she wasn't married - and glad she was going to school, covered or uncovered married or not!

Aishah

Purdah Hindu women in village cultural traditions will cover their face as you said, Kristin. They will cover the face in front of any family man who is not their husband.
Muslim girls start wearing a veil but the face is not covered, and half the time the veil is falling off - there is no special time when they start wearing it, they are just copying the older girls when they feel it. It is not 'compulsory' for younger girls to wear it, they seem to start wearing it more often from around 12 - 13 years.(This is in our area that I'm referring to). There is no ceremony or big deal about wearing it. And there is no face covering going on at all.