Features: World View
Excerpts from the Diaries of Local Travelers

Walking out on convention in India

The path to the dairy takes us about fifteen minutes. Through a residential area, all stray dogs and dusty line laundry. Past the abandoned crematorium and a stinking trash swamp, the result of low ground and no public waste collection. White herons stand, elegant princes of the decay.

We watch for stray piles of cow dung on the way. Gifts, called gober in Hindi, that the neighborhood herds leave behind as they nuzzle through the alleys. The dairy is our goldmine though, where we scoop up handfuls fresh to compost and fertilize plants later on.

But so I am the white girl, clean and a haircut no one in India understands. And Manoj, my Rajsthani friend, is gold earrings and a wide belt. And we are hugging buckets of cow shit like only an untouchable would have 50 years before and smiling loud smiles, louder than our attempts at each others' languages.

To onlookers we are the tourist and the dropout doing the dirty work, but it is more complicated and inspiring than that and though neither of us could explain it to either of us, we understand. And so it's this kind of silent conversation, these gaps and overlaps and ledges of communication, that are teaching me about language in India.

I am visiting and working at a community space called Shikshantar in Udaipur where we talk about words a lot. Hindi words that have no direct translation to English. We talk about swapathgami , a word for people who walk out on convention and walk on to their own paths. We talk about swaraj , a word Gandhiji used to talk about community self-government and cooperation. And we talk about shiksha , a word that means living and learning as one.

What are the implications of such accessible and direct ways of communicating these ideas? What does it say about Indian society that these words exist so concisely? And how can the existence of these words and the ideas they embody combat the spreading dominance of English as a superior means of communication?

Shiksha , for instance is a fundamental part of the way Indians live. Children learn skills from working alongside their parents. They learn wisdom and strength through the traditions of their communities and through the experience of their everyday lives. Only with the introduction of English and compulsory schooling have living and learning been separated and compartmentalized.

English, a language with no word for shiksha and no room for the concept within its streamlined education system, is portrayed as a ticket out of India's complicated status as an "undeveloped," uncivilized" nation. So in the summer when the leaves fall from the trees, young Indians have their "break from learning," and in the autumn when the rains come, they return to school to learn about the about the white winters, green summers and red and orange autumns of America or Britain.

But so this spring, as the air dries and the sun sets later, I walk with Manoj, who chose to collect gober rather than take his exams this year. In ones and twos, young people, swapathgamis , in India are making that choice. Preferring rather to learn about their traditional languages, their traditional medicinal practices, agricultural techniques, art forms. At Shikshantar I watch them collect rainwater, edit documentaries and do a theatre workshop with kids from a nearby village. I help weed the tomatoes and later cook them for lunch. Everyone does their part.

The people here are living shiksha , and they are building swaraj too. In pockets all over the country, families, NGOs, community organizations are creating their own unique alternatives to the education system that is corroding their society. And they are speaking in the languages that best articulate their culture.

And it's amazing to think that there is no formula for that kind of action. That it can inspire people all over the place but can not be replicated. Because it is about identity.

And so Manoj knows he is not 'the dropout.' And I know I'm not 'the tourist,' or even 'the white girl.' And really it's just that I can't wait to get started.