My “disco” teacher, whatever ability he has, is intolerable to me. He is too strange to be my teacher and Nandan says he will find another within a day or two.
The last thing I will say about oblivious disregard for the notion of alternative sexuality is a description of something that I saw on TV. Some top-ranking state-level U.P. police officer appeared on the news in a sari with a pierced nose and makeup. It seems that he quit his job and all pursuit of financially gainful employment and has spiritually wed Lord Krishna. The reporter and crowds he has attracted portrayed this dramatic change in lifestyle as a miraculous epiphany, rather than a midlife crisis as I would identify it. I talked to Nandan about this after we watched the piece, and Nandan understood my thoughts on the matter but said that for himself, he will regard it as nothing but sincere and true devotion. He told me that this was not strange.
Conversation with my peers – I guess they are my peers, because they are my age and have the Indian equivalent of my education, experience, etc – continues to focus on American sexuality. No matter who I meet the conversation immediately heads to seeking confirmation that Hollywood accurately portrays American sexual habits. I am frequently asked about prostitution in America and I tell people that it is largely an underground market, only legal in Las Vegas, and nowhere is it particularly shunned or praised because it is mostly out of sight except in that one city.
The story here is that men sometimes have sex with prostitutes at something like strip clubs only in bigger cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. This is illegal, so the bars which do this actually have no light bulbs in sockets with no electricity so that no illumination can be turned on in case of police raid. For some reason, this is done within a building which has restaurant-style tables and a functional bar. The girls here have intercourse and condoms are not used because they do not have sex with people with AIDS. All intercourse is genital-based and even between married couples variation – oral sex or whatever – is considered by the collective consciousness to be grieviously aberrant. For example, I have more than once heard anedoctal testimony along the lines that the administration of oral sex is something that many prostitutes would not consider doing for five times the pay rate of unprotected genital intercourse.
I have no idea what to think of their arranged marriage system. On one hand, I meet a lot of men who love their wives and have good kids and seem to be happy at home. But these same guys want easy and possibly dirty women for intercourse. This is to spare their wives dignity, or for some strange reason. I suspect that with the increase of internet use an AIDS epedemic will be identified here as it was for my generation in America, and quite possibly that will shock some of these guys into realizing that sex with strangers can be dangerous, rather than safer because of lack of marriage and risk of responsibility for pregnancy, which are the cited advantages.
I am able to read Devanagari at a reasonable pace but of course, I often do not understand it. When I try to write words myself I come into the difficulty of distinguishing sounds, especially the “t” and “d” ones. The most concise way that I can describe te problem is to say that “t” and “d” sound almost the same, and furthermore there are four “t” sounds and four “d” sounds that sound identical to each other to me. I have learned to position my tongue and I am told that when I make the sounds, Hindi speakers can tell a difference. Still, it all sounds the same to me.
I went looking for a dictionary today but I am not sure what I want yet. Nandan is a good minder and I will ask him. I continually surprise myself with whatever attribute I possess that enables me to attract people who are willing to provide me with things that I want and keep me out of trouble while I wander around cluelessly. So many people that I spend time with just assume that I will put myself in danger if I am left to my own devices, and they want to do so much for me. It is true, though. I have no fear of going to places where I should not be and were it not for good God and good minders I should not be here intact. I also need a grammar book.
I love eating at Nandan’s house. I eat there twice a day and the food is always different, despite it being made from probably almost the same ingredients everyday. I still can identify very few of the ingredients.
Nandan took me to a park today and he told me and we watched Dalit children. The casted children seem to naturally separate themselves from the Dalits, even to the extent that the Dalits controlled all playground equipment and the others played in open space with no toys. The Dalits were a bit dirty and with torn clothing. As usual, after one gets the nerve to approach me ten others crowd around. Nandan told me that they refer to foreigners as “hello people” because of what we say. They asked for money but Nandan chalo’d them as he always does, like a good minder. One of the boys had a really nasty bloody wound on his foot. He asked for money for that but as yet I have not given any money to any beggar.
A man in his young twenties asked me for money and after he went away Nandan said that he would never give money to someone of that age, only to an old person. My sympathy runs the other way, although since I have been here I have refrained from donating to everyone… almost everyone, maybe four dollars total since my arrival.