The Practice of Witch Hunting

The sun was a dark pink as it rose this morning.  I watched it from my yoga mat on the roof top seventh floor.  The assortment of machines were still sleeping and memories of roof top yoga across India, Nepal and Palestine all came flooding back, rolled into one dusty memory of stillness amidst the madness of the day which was always seems to rise with surya. My mat was held down by random bits of metal as the morning breeze whisked dirt and non-descript smells over me.  A two hour practice through arm balances, hand stands, standing poses, twists, forward folds and mudras.  Its days like these that I am so grateful for my practice. Days like these which remind me why I not only began this journey into Yoga but also began to share it.  Pre-dawn is a magical time.  It’s my solo time to explore movement within one place, to focus, to breathe, to prepare – in silence.  Several times I caught the mechanic attempting to watch from the corner, yet he was shy and for this I was doubly thankful.

Breakfast was extravagant.  A buffet which an eager waiter walked me through.  There was enough to serve the whole of Howrah train station.  I took a plate of papaya, feeling guilty for disappointing him and guilty knowing the amount of good food wasted on those who likely had never experienced what it was to be truly hungry.

The driver arrived in his huge jeep, both vehicle and man tired from a lifetime of driving through traffic and over broken roads.  His horn was pressed for most of the journey, despite the requests from the team that it was useless.  He wasn’t taking any risks, besides it was part of the daily theme tune, which every other car, bus, bike and rickshaw orchestrated.  I smiled as Urmi chastised him for having no insurance.  The horn was his insurance.  We drove for much further than I had anticipated, through Ranchi and out the other side.  Concrete buildings turned to brick and corrugated iron which made way for open dry and dusty fields.  Tribal life came to life.  Baby goats tottered through the traffic, along with stray dogs and kamikaze pedestrians.  Eventually we turned down a partially existing road and parked outside Asha – a local organization opened a decade earlier in service of the children of migrant workers, persecuted and displaced.  Our welcome was humbling.  Two lines consisting of the Asha staff waited to give us tikka and throw rice over us. The building was beautiful.  Simple, with an open court yard and lined with potted plants and hanging baskets.  In Indian style painted in bright colours, which a friend had earlier commented was most likely chosen depending on what paint was on sale at the time of construction.

As is customary in any part of India we were given sugar saturated chai and seated down under the shade of a bael tree.  Our host explained a little of the history of Asha and his own personal involvement in our project.  Mass bonded labour is very much still alive and kicking all over Asia and here is no exception.  Smart and unscrupulous men visit rural villages.  Workers are offered a 5,000 rupee advance and are then taken to the outskirts of Kolkata to work in the coal mines, steel factories and the brick industry.  Their “advance” comes with huge interest which the workers then spend generations paying off.  The kids go along for the ride, and are often given the most dangerous jobs, yet of course child labour is illegal.  Therefore all that Asha did was visit the factories and take the children away threatening to bring in the police if the owners didn’t comply.  Initially, Asha simply provided a makeshift school inside on the factory premises and then eventually managed to move the children (around 150 so far) away from the site where they now attend local schools during the day and have a safe home with adequate food and support for eight months of the year.  When the parents return home for the wet season they are free to go.  Many of the 89 children who currently live at Asha prefer to stay at the centre all year round.  Asha’s projects have rapidly expanded and promoted by our hosts own personal story this has included work with the witch hunt.

The founder of Asha is only too aware of the social consequences of being branded as a witch.  His own grandmother had suffered such a fate.  As a result his mother grew up tormented and discriminated as the daughter of an outcast.  Now the history of witchery runs deep.  Like in all cultures around the world powerful women – medicine women, wise women, women who were considered “special” have been feared.  In England women accused of sorcery were weighted down with stones and thrown into the river.  If they floated they were innocent, if not...their fate was sealed.  Women have been burnt at the stake, hung, humiliated and taunted to death.  Here in Jharkhand five women were slaughtered on the 9^th August 2015 in five different villages.  Often stoned to death.  Often times it is because the women are widowed, disfigured, or have valuable land covered by their neighbors.  What’s more is that wizardy is still common.  Villagers with problems such as ill health or failing crops would visit the wizard for a solution.  A typical “solution” is for the wizard to describe a local woman as a scapegoat and she is then deemed responsible for the spell and a vigilante team gather and punish her.  Other women have been declared a witch if a child dies (she must have eaten it) or another member of the family.  

Although the practice is illegal the local police often fear to interfere with the wizard’s decree.  Her life will never be the same again.  Asha works both directly with the women and more importantly with the villagers to educate them on the practice and open their ideas to the immorality.  One of the social workers at Asha (a wonderful young woman from Darjeeling) explains that attitudes are hard to change.  The belief in witches is a powerful superstition: “People’s mind’s don’t change”.  However, no matter what great work we do over the next four days to uplift, inspire and support the women on their way to meet us, without a radical shift towards compassion and wisdom from their villages little in their external reality is likely to change.

I have no idea what to expect.  

 

Magic Carpet to Ranchi

The train was due to depart at 6.05am.  Now trains in India generally leave on the dot – or hours late.  I woke up at 5.45am.  I had a moment to decide to go for it, or to go back to sleep.  I throw my blanket into my bag and fly down the stairs.  Wake up the night security – an ancient man whose spirit appears to be contemplating staying in the dream state for the rest of eternity.  Eventually he rises, remembers where the keys to the front gate are and then stands completely still, for ages.  His stillness prompts him to  wake up the hotel manager just to check that I am allowed to leave.  I’m laughing inside, well aware that no amount of stress from my part is going to speed up the process – which after all was all of my own making.  

Out onto the street and all I find is empty taxi’s.  But my rucksack and gait is a great advertisement and before long a head pops up from the backseat of a cab, quickly followed by a body and then a voice, which assures me he will get me to Howrah station in time for my train, but the price is non-negotiable and I know to haggle may sacrifice my trip. He cartwheels my bag and I into the back seat, and grabs his laundry which was airing on the bonnet. The taxi transforms into a magic carpet and fly we do.  The horn is pressed the entire way.  It seems to be no concern to the driver which side of the road we are on, and I trust him fully, as he livelihood depends upon how he navigates these roads.  

We career over Howrah bridge, past the countless slums which I used to know well.  The train to Ranchi leaves from platform 10 he shouts at me, through the station doors and to the left.  As I run I pass the city of the station: Several thousand people have made this their home.  Many who once dreamed of making it to the city of Kolkata are now made to be content with making their landing pad their base. It does after all have a water supply, toilets, shelter in the monsoon and each train which arrives contains a huge supply of left over food.  The population of Howrah has even evolved its own dialect – a mix of languages from all over the country.  Once again, I give thanks to the months of work I spent both here and at Sealdah station, as otherwise in this very moment I would have been totally disorientated, perhaps overwhelmed by the chaos. 

I glance up at the clock its 6am.  I can’t believe it – or maybe I can, as I didn’t seriously doubt that I wouldn’t be on this trip.  From the moment Emil and Anouk invited me onto their “Beyond Asana” Yoga retreat which initiated this trip, I have allowed my intuition and not my rational mind to guide my journey.  This was no exception.  Urmi and the team were in coach C.  Which felt like miles down the platform.  Many other ran besides me, until eventually I found what I was looking for.  Plastered to the outside of each carriage was a list of passengers.  The remnants of the British Raj never fail to astound me.  The organization that functions under the structure of apparent mayhem, with a country dealing with 1.2 billion inhabitants, works.  It may be at times corrupt, or insufficient, but organizing huge groups of people is managed to precise details.  Other examples include the Victorian sewage systems, which were designed to cater for a small group of wealthy inhabitants and now operate well beyond capacity.  Likewise, highly inefficient paper work greets tourists through the now computerized evisa system and pops up every time you register at a hotel.  Colonial style markets populate every major city, only now they crumble under the onslaught of pollution and time.

I walk through the carriage and Urmi laughs:  “Of all the people I would worry about making it last minute, you were not one of them!”  I throw my bag into the overhead shelf and sit down.  Ready for the next adventure.  Grateful to be here. 

Right on time the train master’s whistle blows and slowly the Kriya-Yoga Express pulls out of Howrah.  These trains often hold over a thousand bodies, of varying degrees of wealth.  We were seated in an air con cabin, and waited on the entire journey by an appropriately named “Meals on Wheels” service.  Tea and digestive biscuits, were followed by omelet and toast and finally a huge vegetarian lunch with dal, tarkari, rice, roti and curd.  Finally fennel seeds to cleanse the palate were passed around upon a tray for tips.  The contrast to the station dwellers who I had just ran past was extreme as always.  Previously on these trains, the excess of food had made me collect what I could to distribute to those who were fighting starvation at whatever station I departed.  With the exception of Delhi, which had been rigorously “cleaned up” prior to the 2010 Common Wealth Games. Police equipped with large sticks would frequently sweep the station of any uninvited guests.  Similarly, it felt like a bizarre movie to stare out the window as we passed the industrial areas of Bengal.  Brick and steel factories pumped continuous dirt into the atmosphere, farmers squatted in their fields, ploughed fertile with hard dirt and garbage. Lines of freshly washed and brightly coloured saris lay out to dry on the banks of misty green rivers.  The country of contrasts.

Our destination – Ranchi in Jharkand – is in one of the tribal regions (defined as by the state as Primitive Tribal Groups) of India.  After a hard won separatist movement the state was recently formed.  The people here are darker and smaller and when we finally piled out onto the platform 7 hours later I felt like a fumbling giant.  Porters decked in long maroon shirts followed passengers, carrying huge cases onto of their heads.  Urmi searched the car park for pink coloured tuk tuks – auto-rickshaws driven by women.  After a while she gave in and we dumped ourselves and bags into a jeep, driven by a man, and this would become our vehicle for the next days.  

Arriving at the hotel was strange.  It was a fancy hotel by local standards.  Whose staff had been extremely well trained, and yet even though I appeared to be the only foreigner in the hotel, it seemed to have a distinctly colonial air. Its as if some traditions die hard, and now it’s the wealthy elite who have stepped into the Brits shoes, and at times the airs and attitudes of the other guests were extremely uncomfortable to witness.  I remembered the words of one teacher Geog Feuerstein: “The more awake you become, the more ordinary you appear”.  I seem to be continuously surrounded whether it be in Ubud or Kolkata by people who so desperately wish to be extra-ordinary.  Later in the afternoon I attempted to leave the hotel and walk around the city.  The hotel security cautioned me “not to dally”  he seemed terrified that I might wander off never to be seen again.  His concern was so great that he attempted to follow me, literally ducking behind corners whenever I turned around.  Eventually I gave in, returned to the confines of the concrete block and instead searched for some internal space…I found it seven floors up.  On the hotel roof.  A ramshackle collection of machines grunted and churned, I rolled my yoga mat out and to the amazement of the mechanic, dived into a three hour practice.

During the evening meal the collection of women who had invited me here all discussed their experiences of being a woman in India.  Stories of waking up at 5.30am every day for no other reason than to pay the milkman because the family had always had fresh milk, to be considered a rebel for exchanging a sari for a salwar khameez (long shirt and pants), or the wonderful tale from our ceramic artist of how she had began study as a scientist but the call to be an artist was simply too strong to ignore.  As it is in many parts of the world, value is given to certain profession and Art rarely one of them.  She explained that her friends and family used to associated artists with hippies and drugs. Yet she was fortunate in that she had the approval of her father and also the financial support of her husband’s family.  These two dominant parts of her life gave her permission to follow her passion.  The conversation, the hotel, the lack of room to roam without questions, made me feel like a wild animal trapped in a different life.  My ferocious independence, embodied free will and Aquarius ways reflects that right here right now I am indeed a different creature.  A creature that simply cannot fit under the label, stereotype and role of “woman”.

Yoga Activism

The combination of yoga and activism is controversial.  The main resistances I face are the following arguments: I teach in cultures which are different from my own – therefore can I be truly sensitive to what is needed? I don’t speak the local language so how can I effectively communicate? I teach for a short period of time, therefore what can I give to the sustainability of the project?  I undoubtly receive a great deal in return – not of course in financial terms - but in what I learn.  Therefore is it even ethical to call what I am doing “teaching” when in fact I am being “taught”? And here in India the most common query, which is why can’t a local teacher be employed to do what I am doing?  Each one of these points is valid. I always believe there is an element of truth in every criticism. Yet if I were to let any one of these arguments dissuade me from giving it a go, I would also fall prey to inaction, which is in itself an action.  

During the dance section of the workshop with the “working” mothers today, Urmi came and invited me to join the team on their next project in the state of Jharkhand.  She said I looked so natural with the women, that it’s a rare quality to have someone jump straight in, feel at home and be at home.  And it’s true – I did.  I love to dance and I love to share movement with these women.  It’s hardly ecstatic dance at the Yoga Barn, but the freedom of movement which over the years I have developed there is strong in my body and free in my mind. As those of us who regularly dance may regularly forget, this space to be physically expressive and creative is a rarity for many.  Yet once gifted, I feel we have a responsibility to share it.  As the music played I encouraged the women to let go a little, to laugh, to play.  Feet moved, eyes smiled.  The next workshop begins tomorrow and is seven hours by train from Kolkata.  It was an honor to be invited.  I said yes without a pause.

The group of women I will be working with are from a tribal community which has systematically been repressed, and as they have no part in the caste system they rank beneath it.  Moreover, the group of women in focus have been branded as “witches” and therefore outcast from their community.  You could see this as triple repression: Ethnicity, gender and finally superstition.  Even tonight a wide eyed American volunteer was aghast when she overhead what I would be doing.  She leaned over and warned me to protect myself from sorcery.  I replied that fear was perpetuating discrimination. The answers to the above questions are also worthy of a reply.

There is something powerful about different cultures coming together to learn from one another.  I might not be a tribal woman, but even working here in the red light district I felt that many of the women were able to connect with me because I was different.  I don’t fit into any box.  I have no caste.  In fact, I observed that in some ways I had an advantage over the local facilitators who in many ways represent a position of power and hierarchy that I appear to be free from.  I also work with the body.  We all have one.  It needs basic staples to survive.  No exceptions.  I work with the mind.  We all feel joy and pain.  The causes for these cross cultures and ages, genders and religions.  And finally, I have no preconceived ideas.  I have my eyes, ears and heart wide open.  I’m ready to be sensitive to what is needed, and of course to listen to the advice of those who do have more experience.  Even looking at my own labeled “culture” it is radically diverse.  And in many ways I am no longer sure where indeed I am meant to “fit” in.  I’ve also been told that simply showing up, paying attention, listening to stories gives a powerful audience to voices which are often silenced.

Now to the point of language.  I don’t indeed speak their dialect or even Hindi and will be working through an interpreter.  However, we communicate in a myriad of ways.  Through body language, tonation, movement, our eyes, our smile.  I see this and I feel this.  To limit our communication to speech alone is indeed to limit our senses and ways which we connect with the world and one another every day.  

The project in Ranchi is a total of four days.  Is it worth it?  In response I think of life changing experiences I have had in one day, in one hour, in one moment.  I see it all the time.  Through the medium of yoga I am sharing a tool to be present.  To listen.  To quiet the mind.  To perhaps not worry for a minute, or an hour.  That is powerful and that is worth it.

As for learning more than I am sharing: Absolutely.  Yet what has become clear is that every project I work on, every time I step out of my comfort zone, every time I teach “outside of the box” and off the proverbial yoga mat, what I am learning is enriching what I am able to teach.  I firmly believe it will be beneficial to someone at some point.  It is also vital that we don’t judge our actions purely by the outcome, but to check in with our intentions and to make sure they remain in alignment with “compassionate action” – the essence of Yoga Activism.  

Finally, what is the point of bringing in a Western teacher to teach yoga when surely there are thousands of local yoga teachers who could be receiving a much needed income which my “service” work is actually stealing?  This one is interesting, right off the bat I would guess (and I might well be wrong) that this is a poor area and I would be very surprised if there are any yoga teachers even in the nearby city of Ranchi.  If so yoga teachers in the area are most likely men.  We are creating an all female group in order for the women to be free from gender discrimination – overtly or covertly.  Moreover, if these women are indeed outcasts, I wonder if there would be a local female teacher prepared to work with them?  And another point which I am seeing more clearly every day, is that what I am doing is not teaching yoga per se.  It is part of a process.  The process of gathering women together in recognition of their power and ability to rise.  This can be very profound and have benefits which perhaps aren’t apparent until after the workshop.  Perhaps these four days will provide a break from the routine, a break from the discrimination, an opportunity to simply have a break, and by doing so build resilience  - this is life affirming.  So yes another yoga teacher from the area might well tick the boxes, however the technicality of it is simply scratching the surface of the potential of this project.

I have no idea what to expect.  After my initial reaction to join the project I then spent the rest of the day debating whether it was a wise choice - precisely because of the above points.  Yet as always the only way through is in, and I feel grateful for the opportunity, prepared for the unexpected, without expectations and thoroughly dedicated to the mantra: “Don’t let the wounded discourage me”.

Missing Women

A figure of a missing girl painted on a wall in Kalighat, one of Kolkata's red light districts.  The painting is part of Missing a nation wide public art project dedicated to the estimated tens of thousands of girls who go missing in India understood to be victims of commercial sex trafficking.

So many different faces, so many different eyes, expressions and lives.  Different cultures, different tongues, different constellations born into poverty, different storied.  Some sold into slavery.  Some forced to sell the one thing left they had to sell.  Women whose years fade beyond my age. Who have endured what I thank God I have never had to endure.  Who have tasted the insatiable appetite for sex, distinguished from rape only through the passing of a few dollars, sometimes less, and then minus commission.  Who exist only on the underbelly of the male of our species, often condoned by the retired matriarchs in their field.  Tired women who sell the girls whose nubile body’s are worth more than theirs.  Who were initiated through fear and broke through into resilience.  Women who now have no qualms about feeding off the next generation, the next cycle of discrimination.  Of power over.  Physically, economically, symbolically.

Girls wise beyond their years, tough beyond the fragility of their young skin.  Decades younger than I.  Fucked by hundreds if not thousands of men.  Some sold by their families, others stolen or tricked, trafficked and renamed.  Stuck in a profession of opening their legs because they never were taught how to read or write, because they were viewed as nothing more than a girl child, with no potential than wife and failing that hooker.  And if they tried to escape, if they refused to work, a thousand tactics could be employed to remind them they had no other hope.  No other choice.

Women who were married and widowed.  Women who were married and deserted.  Left with children to provide for, children to feed, by whatever means they found possible.  Women who numb the pain with cheap liquor and makeshift drugs, intoxicants to allow them to endure what they endure, until its no longer so horrific, that is of course until a client takes more than what he pays for – cigarette burns visible on chests, scars as signs of split eyebrows, bashed cheeks, broken bones.  Children who were taught that this is how the world works.  That this is their food and shelter.  That the definition of safety is different from the one you or I grew up with.  Survival of the fittest.  Torture to the weakest.  

Hearts that still shed tears, years later and only hours before the evenings work is due to begin.  Kohl smudged beneath the windows of the soul, with a depth only Kali knows the limit to. 

I bow down to each and every one of you.  I have no idea.  None.  Our concepts, terminology, ideas of Life are so different.  But thank you for your dance.  For being here.  For the gift of survival you have given yourself.  I cannot even comprehend the fortitude you have.  The strength of your spirit.  The lack of power you have over who touches you, how they touch you, when they touch you, where they touch you.  And even the word “touch” doesn’t qualify for what inter-action takes place.  Yet your internal power blinds me with its beauty.

May the shakti in you blind all those who dare to violate you.  May the dakini in you rise beyond your wildest imagination, until the internal reflects the external and its on your terms, your way.  Until you no longer need listen to customers haggle your price down to what is less than a cheap meal, change for a beggar.  May the grace of your Bodhisattva guide your liberation, not in some imaginary future life time, but right here right now.  For you dear sister, mother and daughter are not worthy of this patriarchal trade.  You dear sister, mother and daughter are sacred and precious, divine and I pray, one day – completely free.