My conversation with Sundari Sardar still leaves me stunned. Talking with her solidified something I have long suspected. The circumstances that come with being poor in any country weaken a woman's humanity. To be poor in India, however, is to accept the circumstances of your plight with such finality that it is THIS that actually seems to weaken a woman's humanity more so than just poverty itself.
Sundari Sardar was uncomfortable during the entire duration of our 20 minute conversation. At first, I thought it was because here I was, this strange lady from the west with strange hair and a note pad (on which I wrote non-stop) interviewing her for some strange reason in one of the homes she cleaned every day. I was soon to find out the discomfort had begun for a much more complex reason.
Sundari did not want to sit on Mausumi's dining room chair to talk to me (through Mausumi) because then she would be on the same "level" as her employer. She was Mausumi's maid; to sit in her chair, make eye contact with her guest, talk to the guest and the boss casually...it didn't seem right.
"She really wanted to sit on the floor," Mausumi explained to me.
Born in a rural village, Sundari was not sure of her age. Through her boss, I deduced she had married very young and currently had a 15 year old daughter. We estimated her age to be around 30.
This was the beginning of my conversation with Sundari. A woman whose name meant "Beautiful," but who didn't feel worthy enough to sit in a chair. A woman who had no birthday.
A woman who had no dreams.
The two middle class women I interviewed in Kolkata saw it as their duty to sacrifice and compromise for their families; Sundari saw her status in the lower class as "just the way it is." Her own version of duty. When I asked her the same questions as I asked her boss, Sundari didn't understand why I was asking them and sometimes she didn't understand what the questions even meant.
"I didn't have space in my life, in my head for dreaming," she responded to my question about what she wanted for her life when she was a younger woman.
When I asked, "What brings you joy," she looked even more uncomfortable, but eventually replied, "Whatever comes my way."
Women who make a living cleaning houses is not alarming to me. It is one of far too few ways that the uneducated can earn a modest, yet comfortable living. Women who marry young simply because there is not enough food in their parents' houses to feed them do not cause me a great deal of distress. Marrying a man who can afford to feed you is a very sensible way to avoid the other options offered to you in a city infamous for its "hidden" yet visible cluster of brothels.
I was (and still am) disturbed by Sundari's unquestioned acceptance of her status. She is beneath her employer. And not because her employer has told her so. Because customs have. Because her own sense of status has.
She actually said to me: "I was born for sacrifice. This is my lot in life." It was Mausumi who made certain I knew that her maid had planned out her adult life the best she could. She and her husband decided early on to have only ONE child. "That is very unusual for women in her class," Mausumi told me. "Normally, they don't really plan pregnancies; they just have children. Several." Mausumi also stressed that Sundari made a point to try to put her daughter in special art and creative classes in addition to sending her to regular school when she could.
Trying to latch on to any thing, I asked Sundari if she had wanted to take those types of classes when she was growing up in the village. She looked timidly at the floor before telling Mausumi in Bengali that such thoughts never entered her mind when she was a child. It was not something she even knew to think about.
I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1980s, the height of the crack epidemic. I have friends who grew up in New York City at the very same time during the very same epidemic. To know a poor person who has grown up with insurmountable odds is to be a Black American during any point in the United States' evolution. Despite the inhumanity of not having the same opportunities as Americans with whiter skin and larger bank accounts, even the most hopeless, poverty-stricken girl I encountered in New Orleans wanted SOMETHING. Dreamed of SOMETHING. Even if it was simply to go to Biloxi with her friends for her 16th birthday. To be one of the booty shakers on a 2 Live Crew video. To be the dope dealer's girlfriend. Some. Thing.
Sundari never thought to want even an art class. She didn't know "wanting" was an emotion she could access.
Even though my conversation with Sundari was the shortest of the three, she left the most powerful impression on me. I found her acceptance of her plight and the status it brought difficult to understand. Even while I struggled to wrap my brain around a woman who never knew she could WANT, I acknowledged how her peace with such a dismal reality probably served her well.
In my brief time in Kolkata, I have seen children roaming the street in only filthy underwear, bombarding passengers in taxi cabs with pleas for rupees. I have seen mothers barrage these same taxi cabs holding naked babies on their bony hips. They stand at the window and repeat their pleas over and over and over until either the cab pulls off or the passenger pulls out cash. The sight of this makes me sad, nervous and with each beggar who approaches, afraid. I have wondered once or twice why the aggression of these mothers who simply want to feed their babies make me fearful beyond explanation. Deep down, I know my fear of them stems from thinking of myself in their position. Being certain that to be that hungry, to be that in need would fill me with such rage I would lash out at each and every person who had the nerve to know the silence of a full belly. Ripping the skin off of each tourist who had the audacity to ride in a private cab, claiming she did not have even 10 rupees to give me and my filthy, hungry baby.
The absence of such rage has to be what salvaged Sanduri's sanity. To not access want is to never have to confront the truth of your life: it was not built to fulfill wants. It is not large enough to house dreams. With enough careful maintenance, it will do a decent enough job catering to needs.
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