Good Morning, its 8:36 a.m. here in Kovalam and i'm sitting in the apartment alone eating home made dosas and sambal. I say home made, i didn't make them, Muntaz the apartment owner who lives in the downstairs apartment did. Sarah and Ruthy are off on a rice boat cruising the Keralan backwaters, think gourmet Keralan food, Norfolk Broads plus rice paddis, duck herders in canoes, 30+ C lounging on day beds as the world floats by and you will get the picture. I on the other hand have spent the last two days bouncing over some monster waves, reading a Robert Harris novel, sleeping on the beach and last night watching a Stalone/Arnie film while eating a chicken tikka masalla and downing a couple of tins of Bud, each to their own.
Breakfast this morning was a surprise, or rather second breakfast, as i'd already had a couple of weetabix. Muntaz had decided as i had been abandoned by these feckless women I would be unable to feed myself and delivered my second breakfast. She also took one look round the apartment and decided i have to hand in my key so she can clean when I'm out.
Being a self reliant "modern man" (ok ok i can hear the howls of laughter from the rice boat from here) the job description for being a man or woman feels very strange and rather awkward here to western eyes. For example, back home we have several unwritten rules, if you cook the meal the other person washes up, (this isn't just courtesy but a survival technique as we both make rubbish sous chefs), once it becomes impossible to tell the TV is HD its time to dust, hovering is to be done when the plain carpet is beginning to look patterned or when we had dogs when it had a black Labrador sheen and in the main it is a joint effort.
Here this is "women's work", Muntaz and Jodthy (our friend Chris's wife) find it very strange that a man should or even could cook or wash up in their own home when they have a wife. Not very manly, ironic in a country where most of the men wear skirts.
This is amusing side to gender here but there is a much much darker one.
A month ago the Hindu reported a rape of a village woman in the north of India, disturbing enough but the details were horrific. It was a gang rape, not by a drunken mob or a sex offender ring but by a village. The woman had "had relations" with a man from another village and the headman in the village had sentenced her to be raped in the village square by the men of the village and her lover to be forced to watch.
She had not immediately reported the crime as she was afraid if she did the village would shun her and her family, indeed members of her family have now disowned her for doing so.
In the celebrity section of the paper a famous actor was telling the world how he hates India being labelled as a "developing nation" as it is the world's largest democracy, had a centuries old culture, is a world power, had hosted some of the most impressive technological advances of the 21st century and had "arrived".
I think he needs to take a look around and get back on the bus.
And now I think i'll go have a quick tidy round, do the washing up and make the bed before I go to the beach and before Muntaz pops back upstairs....
K
Breakfast this morning was a surprise, or rather second breakfast, as i'd already had a couple of weetabix. Muntaz had decided as i had been abandoned by these feckless women I would be unable to feed myself and delivered my second breakfast. She also took one look round the apartment and decided i have to hand in my key so she can clean when I'm out.
Being a self reliant "modern man" (ok ok i can hear the howls of laughter from the rice boat from here) the job description for being a man or woman feels very strange and rather awkward here to western eyes. For example, back home we have several unwritten rules, if you cook the meal the other person washes up, (this isn't just courtesy but a survival technique as we both make rubbish sous chefs), once it becomes impossible to tell the TV is HD its time to dust, hovering is to be done when the plain carpet is beginning to look patterned or when we had dogs when it had a black Labrador sheen and in the main it is a joint effort.
Here this is "women's work", Muntaz and Jodthy (our friend Chris's wife) find it very strange that a man should or even could cook or wash up in their own home when they have a wife. Not very manly, ironic in a country where most of the men wear skirts.
This is amusing side to gender here but there is a much much darker one.
A month ago the Hindu reported a rape of a village woman in the north of India, disturbing enough but the details were horrific. It was a gang rape, not by a drunken mob or a sex offender ring but by a village. The woman had "had relations" with a man from another village and the headman in the village had sentenced her to be raped in the village square by the men of the village and her lover to be forced to watch.
She had not immediately reported the crime as she was afraid if she did the village would shun her and her family, indeed members of her family have now disowned her for doing so.
In the celebrity section of the paper a famous actor was telling the world how he hates India being labelled as a "developing nation" as it is the world's largest democracy, had a centuries old culture, is a world power, had hosted some of the most impressive technological advances of the 21st century and had "arrived".
I think he needs to take a look around and get back on the bus.
And now I think i'll go have a quick tidy round, do the washing up and make the bed before I go to the beach and before Muntaz pops back upstairs....
K
No comments:
Post a Comment