ONE SMALL LIFE IN INDIA...
After spending a month backpacking India, I felt compelled to write a day in the life of one Indian woman.
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BY KRISTEN JOKINEN
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MAY 16, 2016
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The sounds of the minaret pulsing in my ears rouses me from my sleep. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, the smells of spicy Chai hit my nostrils and I am rudely aware that it is time to get up and start making breakfast for the family. After stripping off my sleeping clothes, I pull out a freshly washed sari and dress quickly before waking the children. After rolling my sleeping mat, placing it in the corner, I wash my hands and face with water from the bucket.
Pulling out some kindling the boys brought home yesterday, I squat and make a small fire and set our large pan over the flames and begin chopping garlic, onions, and pulling out bags of spices. When the pan is hot, I add oil and throw it all in. The smells fill the room and the children begin to rouse from their sleep. Off I send the girls to fetch water and boys to collect more wood. The flour is almost gone, but I'm able to mix just enough for a few pieces of naan bread. When the children arrive back from chores, I spread out the food on the freshly swept earthen floor, and we all eat. I feed my husband and the children first, and when they are full, I lick the last bits of the plate clean.
While the girls wash up the plates and pot, I feed the baby from my breast and tidy the room. There is a loud argument between the husband and wife who have their hut next to ours. He drinks too much and his wife is again upset. There is a slap, tears, and I cringe hoping that was the end of the fight for today. As I peek out the sheet for our door, I see people from our village beginning to make their way out to the fields and jobs for the day. Our other neighbor is an older man with a great job driving taxi. How I wish my husband could afford his own car, but for now he just drives a taxi car belonging to a wealthy man who lives in a much larger and grand house in the city.
I head to the toilet out at the edge of our village, and since I am late, the smells are almost unbearable today. After squatting and doing my business, I hurry back to the hut and try and get everyone out the door for the day. My husband is upset that his shirt is not pressed well enough and the girls are getting yelled at for it as I arrive back home. After he leaves, I send the eldest boy out to start his work for a small repair shop many kilometers walk from here. Hopefully he learns the trade well enough to begin making enough money to bring home and help us out more. He is almost of age to begin looking for a proper girl for him to marry and his father and I have begun talks late in the night in whispers over girls we are considering from our caste.
After my husband has left for work, I quickly dress the young ones, wrap some naan bread into a sack, and we make our way out to the far field to begin another hard day in the sun. I look down at my cracked and dry hands. Such hard work it is in the fields. I am tired. My eyes wander down to my feet as I make my way over the cracked dry earth. It hasn't rained in so long. These are the dry months, I feel it in the dryness of my feet and skin. The earth is craving water. The sun is not yet high in the sky and yet I feel it's heat through my sari. The desert sands are blowing and ever shifting, changing the landscape every day of my walk. I startle a small lizard that was sunning itself on the sand and it darts quickly into the grasses.
I reach our patch of farming land, where our rabi crop of wheat rolls like waves in the sea. Many hours of many months have I spent bent over to scrape ditches into the dry earth to allow for water to trickle down to my beloved pea plants. They are beginning to swell with fatness and will be ready to be picked soon and taken to sell at market. The day is long. It stretches into late afternoon as the children and I work on the land. I dream while lying in bed at night before sleep takes me away that my children would walk to the next village to the school there. That they wear matching uniforms, carry books, tell me about the world outside this place. But they are needed here.
The baby is fussy and we must make it back to make supper. On our long walk back, my youngest child is walking slowly and I grab her arm to pull her to make her quicken her steps. My small sack of curry powder is getting low, I will need to make it to the market to buy more once my husband brings home some notes. As the girls begin the naan, the boys gather wood to start the fire. I fill my large pot with water from the bucket and set it on top of the flames. My vision blurs as I stir and fold the vegetables into the curry sauce. The tips of my fingers are dyed red from the powder.
My husband arrives, his shirt is beaded with sweat from the heat of today. He sits with the boys and young children to eat. After they are finished eating, I eat what is left and begin the wash of plates. After the sleeping mats have been rolled out on the floor, each child kissed on the tips of each finger, songs sung softly into their hair, and lulled off to sleep, I slip into my sleeping dress and into my bed roll next to my husband. He is already snoring into the pillow. I gaze up at the cracks in the ceiling. Imagine myself small enough, like the lizard, to crawl into the crack. To hide from the big world and disappear. My eyelids are heavy. They close and I drift off to sleep for in only a moment will the sounds of the rooster wake me from this sleep to start over another new day.
Pulling out some kindling the boys brought home yesterday, I squat and make a small fire and set our large pan over the flames and begin chopping garlic, onions, and pulling out bags of spices. When the pan is hot, I add oil and throw it all in. The smells fill the room and the children begin to rouse from their sleep. Off I send the girls to fetch water and boys to collect more wood. The flour is almost gone, but I'm able to mix just enough for a few pieces of naan bread. When the children arrive back from chores, I spread out the food on the freshly swept earthen floor, and we all eat. I feed my husband and the children first, and when they are full, I lick the last bits of the plate clean.
While the girls wash up the plates and pot, I feed the baby from my breast and tidy the room. There is a loud argument between the husband and wife who have their hut next to ours. He drinks too much and his wife is again upset. There is a slap, tears, and I cringe hoping that was the end of the fight for today. As I peek out the sheet for our door, I see people from our village beginning to make their way out to the fields and jobs for the day. Our other neighbor is an older man with a great job driving taxi. How I wish my husband could afford his own car, but for now he just drives a taxi car belonging to a wealthy man who lives in a much larger and grand house in the city.
I head to the toilet out at the edge of our village, and since I am late, the smells are almost unbearable today. After squatting and doing my business, I hurry back to the hut and try and get everyone out the door for the day. My husband is upset that his shirt is not pressed well enough and the girls are getting yelled at for it as I arrive back home. After he leaves, I send the eldest boy out to start his work for a small repair shop many kilometers walk from here. Hopefully he learns the trade well enough to begin making enough money to bring home and help us out more. He is almost of age to begin looking for a proper girl for him to marry and his father and I have begun talks late in the night in whispers over girls we are considering from our caste.
After my husband has left for work, I quickly dress the young ones, wrap some naan bread into a sack, and we make our way out to the far field to begin another hard day in the sun. I look down at my cracked and dry hands. Such hard work it is in the fields. I am tired. My eyes wander down to my feet as I make my way over the cracked dry earth. It hasn't rained in so long. These are the dry months, I feel it in the dryness of my feet and skin. The earth is craving water. The sun is not yet high in the sky and yet I feel it's heat through my sari. The desert sands are blowing and ever shifting, changing the landscape every day of my walk. I startle a small lizard that was sunning itself on the sand and it darts quickly into the grasses.
I reach our patch of farming land, where our rabi crop of wheat rolls like waves in the sea. Many hours of many months have I spent bent over to scrape ditches into the dry earth to allow for water to trickle down to my beloved pea plants. They are beginning to swell with fatness and will be ready to be picked soon and taken to sell at market. The day is long. It stretches into late afternoon as the children and I work on the land. I dream while lying in bed at night before sleep takes me away that my children would walk to the next village to the school there. That they wear matching uniforms, carry books, tell me about the world outside this place. But they are needed here.
The baby is fussy and we must make it back to make supper. On our long walk back, my youngest child is walking slowly and I grab her arm to pull her to make her quicken her steps. My small sack of curry powder is getting low, I will need to make it to the market to buy more once my husband brings home some notes. As the girls begin the naan, the boys gather wood to start the fire. I fill my large pot with water from the bucket and set it on top of the flames. My vision blurs as I stir and fold the vegetables into the curry sauce. The tips of my fingers are dyed red from the powder.
My husband arrives, his shirt is beaded with sweat from the heat of today. He sits with the boys and young children to eat. After they are finished eating, I eat what is left and begin the wash of plates. After the sleeping mats have been rolled out on the floor, each child kissed on the tips of each finger, songs sung softly into their hair, and lulled off to sleep, I slip into my sleeping dress and into my bed roll next to my husband. He is already snoring into the pillow. I gaze up at the cracks in the ceiling. Imagine myself small enough, like the lizard, to crawl into the crack. To hide from the big world and disappear. My eyelids are heavy. They close and I drift off to sleep for in only a moment will the sounds of the rooster wake me from this sleep to start over another new day.
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