Ashley Judd’s Journal from India, Day 10

Mar 22nd, 2007 4:00 PM UTC
By Jenny Eaton Dyer, DATA

Actor and humanitarian Ashley Judd, board member of Population Services International (PSI) and Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, will be writing posts for the ONE Blog during her March 2007 travels through India. During the trip, Ashley will address women’s issues, and have the opportunity to discover how families can be empowered to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

We walked down very, very narrow poured concrete paths, in the middle of which open drains flow. Any questions about poor people’s lives and diets, just check those ubiquitous gutters. Tiny rooms darted off in every direction, left right, high, low. It was another claustrophobic labyrinth teeming with poor people’s lives, stories, and fates. Most had only cloth for doors. Music poured out of many. Babies cried. It was all so small, like a surrealist’s version of a doll’s house, except one that mockingly tries to accommodate thousands.

Ruchira Gupta had to walk behind me; two astride don’t fit. She explained the girls group wanted to show me a bird’s eye view of their world. I carefully stepped up the tight steps which took several turns, before emerging onto a small roof that indeed overlooked this neighborhood. I thought of Matisse’s tile roofs in the south of France, of how Cezanne took the art of interpreting space and structure into little triangles. I wondered what Van Gogh would have done with it, could he have found in this cramped view space for his curvilinear brush stroke? It was their subject matter, but India, 2007. The roof levels varied and they each were so tiny, like the houses below them.

We traced our steps back and entered Apne Aap Worldwide, a very grassroots anti-trafficking NGO (non-governmental organization). Ruchira is well versed in the reciprocal cycles of poverty and exploitation, and how gender inequality sets the stage. Her NGO is based on two Gandhian principles: Ahimsa, and the one that says so eloquently that the destruction which happens in the soul of an abuser is absolutely equal to the victimization of the abused.

She operates the NGO right in the ‘hood,’ inviting anyone to join. They teach their members (who pay 10 rupees to join) self reliance, self efficacy, self respect, self love. It’s capacity building of the most essential sort. They have vocational classes; I ran my hand over the black sewing machines, blessing the steel that helps a girl learn a trade that can save her life. They have English and computer classes, social skills building. It is a simple, clean swept, beautiful place with murals painted by members and simple, flat woven mats to sit on.

The adolescents did a play that illustrated a typical scene in their lives: a young married woman, harassed by her in-laws for not doing the chores quickly enough, who tries to protest. She is beaten for insolence, and eventually she is turned out. Soon, men spy on her and note her vulnerability; they offer her tea. It is drugged. She wakes up in a brothel. You know the rest; you’ve been there with me. But they showed an alternate ending, one in which a girl, given good information and taught to use her voice, can unite with other girls to form empowered circles which replace isolated, powerless, lone girls.

The kids asked me lots of questions about HIV. My gosh, they are so serious, so proper when addressing me. There is a sweet formality in the way they stand, fold their hands, state their names, ask the question. When it was my turn to ask them questions, I approached topics like, “What do you get from being here at A2W2? What was life before? How have you changed? What are your dreams? How do you define abuse? How can we survive abuse? Have we abused others? How do we learn from that?” One girl shared that her parents have chosen her husband, and she is resolutely denying the marriage. She insists she will marry in her own time, for love. She is learning there are alternatives; there should be alternatives. Her folks are furious. “A2W2 is spoiling your attitude and mind,” they tell her. She just keeps coming back.

When we talked about abuse, one girl said, “Oh, when they beat us, it’s okay if we’ve done something wrong. That is not abuse.” I died a thousand deaths. Cultural change is so slow. I anguish over it sometimes, it is so slow.

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