Any festival in India is by definition a promise of colour, lights, energy and a mess of a lot of people. So when a French boy comes to my city during the Ganesh Festival, to show him around the festivities is protocol and a cause for people to say, 'You're mad, you're going to the see Dagdusheth on a Sunday, moreover in the evening!' But I do find my way around and such things don't bother me or my friend Sasha much. In fact we enjoy it. So we set off, went to places we hadn't been to in our own city. It involved a lot of walking, going in the wrong lanes, loud music, rangolis, different decors, each came with a different story to up Ganesha's or Shivaji’s glory and people on the roads like a river of bobbing heads, dispersing into little lanes and us being caught in it, trying very hard to stick together and stick to the right path. After we finally were done seeing the galore we were on our way back, little did I know all the seeing wasn't over yet.
I believe we Indians can make a profession or a living out of anything, everything and anywhere, so to see vendors selling their stuff at every corner is no surprise and one can expect the most bizarre things in motion. But what I saw was plain, simple shocking. Almost like I had all this while been kept away, or had only seen such things at a distance, on television or read about it in articles, but there it was, in my face.
What was it?
It was a machine, that came out of a little, old tin box, a bundle of rusty metal pieces tied up in loose wires ending in a fat, broken NIPPO battery, which weakly powered a needle. Yes, it was tattooing machine.
It was a flourishing business set up by these women, a whole line of them sitting along the road in one of the most crowded areas in the city offering a wide range of designs. There were various crosses, OMs, hearts with arrows, with initials, the typical. Initially we thought they were just making those henna tattoos but we heard a peculiar buzzing sound that drove us closer to them.
Let me describe to you how it was done. This one man came to get his name tattooed on his arm, the lady first applied Parachute Coconut Oil on his skin, dipped her buzzing needle in a small, green, plastic bottle of black liquid and pierced the needle into his skin in unskilled fashion to scribble his name, and also, the battery kept going on and off. The last step, she smeared turmeric on the tattoo, turmeric which is supposed to be yellow but was actually brown.
People kept coming to get it done, not one of them was unoccupied. I went to one of the ladies and asked her how much for a 1 inch cross, her answer was, Rs 40, a bigger one with a dragon and flames and the works? Rs120. And clearly these rates were exaggerated considering I was with a European by my side. Horrifying
An unhygienic HIV/ AIDS spreading, money- making, unaware, uneducated racket. I had never seen anything like this before, IT was the first time I came so close to it. I cannot believe I saw those 10 people in front of my eyes, putting their lives, their family’s life at such a cheap stake. But then again what can be done? Educate them? Then what? In a poverty laden country like ours convince them to give up their income, it’ll work? Talk to the people who get it done? You think they’ll believe? You think they’ll listen if you or I went to talk to them? How many of them can we educate and eradicate? Most of us don’t even know such practices exist around our own neighborhoods. You think these people who consider themselves to be enduring and macho will have the strength to accept truths like they have a good 100% chance of being infected or already are by a lady on the road behind a temple during a festival, while giving an insignificant test of love? From the most serious questions to the trivial ones, how does one respond to situations like these?
It angered me but then what? I’m posting it on my blog, but to what conclusion or expectation from myself or you readers, I don’t know.
