The Green Tara Project

On a sunny Friday the 13th, I hit the road to Babuan.  Like in 2010, Dheeraj was my driver up to the tiny town on the Nepal border.  The road has been much improved and was less bumpy.  However, it still was an elaborate obstacle course to navigate.

At late morning, the motorbike swung into the familiar drive of Ritu’s family’s house complex.  Ritu, the girls’ teacher, stood there.  We kind of stared at each other in amazement before hugging, me jabbering away in English about how much I had missed her and the girls, unable to give voice to my feelings any other way.  And then her sisters Niha and Shadna appeared, little changed from our prior meetings.  Next was Gita, all smiles.  And then, Urmilla, Ritu’s mother, and again the awed moment of disbelief that we were once again in each other’s company.  A trip across the street took us to Micky, newly married and pregnant with her first child.  Changes.

I took tea while the school girls were assembled for class.  All new girls, about 14 in all.  I warmed them up with some footwork drills, and then moved into self defense techniques.  Wrist grabs, face scratching, knee strikes, web hand to the throat – we did them all.

In no time, the sun’s rays were lengthening, and it was time to leave.  My brain buzzing with “I wish”s (‘I wish I had more time,’ ‘I wish I could stay,’ ‘I with they could all come with me,’ ‘I wish…’), I swung my leg over the end of the motorbike, and was on my way.

Saturday, April 14th, was my last day at KGBV.  Several girls were getting ready for their karate competition in Patna.  I was so happy to be able to give them a few pointers for their forms performance (‘strong eyes’) and their fighting (block-counter and ‘over-the-top’).  Once the girls had departed for Patna, I gave the remaining girls a self defense class.  We reviewed all the techniques, but this time with more aggression from me, necessitating quick and powerful response from them.  The girls did great.

Afterward, they received certificates and also “Fight Like a Girl” wristbands.  I wanted to get a group photo, but they were all so enamored by the certificates, they disappeared with them straightaway to show each other and the house moms.

And then it was time for me to leave, to get the last train to Forbesgunge.  This seems like it would be a relatively easy thing to do.  But do not underestimate the house moms.  Ever. Keep in mind, I have a very special friendship with the house moms, and they are dear to my heart as I think I am to theirs.  This said, they do not like when I have to leave.  And thus begins a comical undertaking which consists of: 1.  me getting my stuff together and making assurances for why I need to go; and, 2. house moms devising all sorts of ways to keep me from leaving.  This night, there was the ‘give her food’ tactic – they all know how slow I eat, and that I will not insult them by refusing the food.  So, 40 minutes before my train leaves, a huge plate of veggies and rice is put in front of me, at least 15 minutes of eating, leaving me 15 minutes to wash, pack,  say my good byes, and 10 minutes to walk to the train.  My response tactic is to eat as quickly as I can, to not eat everything, and race through my good byes.  Soon the clock indicates it is 12 minutes to eight.  If I miss the last train, I will have to spend the night, which will interfere with my Shishu Bharti morning class.  Time is ticking. I have my bags and start to head for the door.  It is pitch black, and I, not knowing I was going to be here so late, do not have a flashlight.  I ask for one, and Sabira Ji goes away to find one.  One minute passes.  Two minutes pass.  And now no one knows where Sabira or a flashlight is.  Rightly or wrongly, I feel like if I stay there one more minute, I will miss the train.  If I leave, I will be making a mad dash through the darkened streets of Simraha.  I make my decision, knowing that the KGBV ladies are going to be angry for me taking such a ‘risk’, and move for the door.

Now, it has to be said that Simraha is a very sleepy agricultural town.  I have never felt threatened here.  The only other evening I walked to the train, with one of the KGBV watchmen at my side, the house moms had discouraged me from being out at night.  “Girls not good walking at night.  Only bad girls out at night after dark,” they warned.  I laughed.  First, my demeanor when I walk any street, be it here or in a U. S. city, is a proactive ‘do-n0t-mess-with-me’ attitude. It can hardly be construed as anything inviting.  Second, after a day of working with the girls, a thick film of dry sweat and dust clinging to me top to bottom, I am hardly a site for sore eyes.  So the ‘risk’ I take is maybe stepping in something unpleasant while not having a light.

The first few steps in darkness are like a hit to the stomach via my head, if that makes any sense.  I am disoriented for a bit until my vision adjusts.  There are people and animals about, and some shops are open with light spilling across the road.  I connect the points of spilled light with my footsteps, racing along the streets, backpack straining on my shoulders, the smells of wood smoke and curry flooding my nose.  I veer to the right once, and then again at the next junction, and the darkened spot at the end of the path is the train station.  As I get closer, a solitary light glows in its ticket window.  I navigate toward this, and soon I am through the small corridor and onto the train platform.  Only a few people are here, waiting in the gloom.  I find a bench, and sit to wait. A few seconds go by, and my peripheral vision picks up movement, a man in a red t-shirt with a white stripe across its front.  I know if I make eye contact or speak, it might mean trouble, so even when a gentle, “Hello?” is uttered in my direction by the man, I make no move, I do not speak.  He makes a vague exasperated gesture, but then moves away.  A second later, a whistle sounds in the distance.  The train is coming. I grab my bags, rising from the bench, then rapidly walk past the man in the darkness and down the platform.  I maneuver around dark shadows of other people.  The train roars past me, its windows washing me in a flutter of light. As the train stops, I spy a seat, and jump on in.

My seat is by the window, and I have just placed my bag in the compartment overhead, when there is a commotion on the platform, people shouting, and then there is the beaming angry face of Sabira Ji in the train window (holding a flashlight), followed by Manju…and the man in the red t-shirt with the white stripe, Papu, my store vendor friend.  My American impatience has once again gotten me in trouble, and caused hardship.  If I had just waited a second longer, these ladies would have escorted me.  After a bawling out from Sabira (and it has to be said, rightfully so), her face quickly transforms from anger to caring.  I try not to cry.  We reach for each other’s hands through the rusty window bars, clasping them in farewell.  I am on the last train from Simraha, leaving Sabira Ji and the girls behind.

These are the eight young ladies who went to a karate tournament last weekend.  They took several medals, and not just because of how pretty they are.  Join me in congratulating them!  Post a comment, and I’ll send to the girls via the hostel managers.

Here are a few pictures from the self defense class on knee strikes:

In 2010, I met a young lady named Priya (not her real name).  An older girl of probably 14, she had recently joined the other girls at KGBV from circumstances unknown to me.  However, her shy and withdrawn demeanor suggested that her situation could not have been happy.  She kept to herself for most of my time there, sitting or sleeping on her bed.  Priya joined one, maybe two, karate classes, but otherwise kept to herself, rarely smiling.  Even when she did smile, it looked as if it required great effort.

In 2012, Priya is almost unrecognizable as an extroverted young woman.  Her smile is easy, as is her laughter, and she engages with other girls effortlessly and confidently.  She is a member of KGBV’s competition karate team, and in the classes she has taken this time with me, she exhibits very good technique and a great deal of power.  The girl has brains, too: Priya  is second in her school class.

Priya’s transformation was possible by the excellent and caring KGBV staff.  It is an honor and a privilege for me to come to this place and give even a small amount of support and attention to these girls, but my respect goes to the house mothers of KGBV – Sharda, Sanju, Pinky, Reetu, Sabira, and Manju – who day-in and day-out take care and attend to the sometimes daunting needs of these girls.  Hats off to you, my dear hard working ladies!

At KGBV, there is a woman of indiscriminate age who comes to the dorm from time to time.  She stands barely 5 feet tall, with her round, brown face ringed by curls of salt and pepper hair peeking out from under her dupatta scarf.  Her features are pixie-ish, bordering on cherubish, and she has a ready smile for any who want it.  She cleans the girls’ toilets.  Her name is Indra.

The other day, I passed by Indra in the courtyard, and I smiled at her, and she at me, and I reached out to take her hand in a friendly shake.  Just before my hand touch hers, one of the girls rushed to me out of nowhere and grabbed my arm.  “No, Sistah,” she insisted.  I looked at her with my eyebrow cocked and replied, “Kyu nay-hee?” which means “why not”.  The girl, all of ten, glanced at Indra, then back at me, and whispered, “She cleans toilets.”  To which I responded, “So do I,” and removed my arm from the youngsters grasp and proceeded to hug Indra.

Ankles are no longer swollen.  Woo-hoo!

All girls I start to train make their first attempts at executing the techniques in silence, as if the worst thing in the world is to draw attention to themselves.  It’s surprising to me because they can dress up and be these gorgeous dolls, and that kind of attention is okay and even desired.  But it is almost an unwritten rule that to appear strong and confident is frowned upon and discouraged, that it is maybe somehow ‘unladylike’.  And in my experience, this is not limited to girls in Bihar.  Be it in an Indian schoolyard or a Chicago-area dojo, when women and girls are given the chance to make a loud vocal noise, they are often reluctant.  So, part of what I am doing here is to try to break that silence.  Wish me luck.  This is a very steep road indeed…

So last Sunday evening, I enjoyed the company of several people here in Forbesgunge.  One of these, Lalita Banyawala, runs a private girls school for 700 girls.  Additionally, she has established a hostel to take in underprivileged girls and give them a first class education while boarding them in a cozy dorm setting in her home.  Upon hearing about the hostel, which currently houses 20 girls, I offered my services for one class.

It turned out that the next day I had some time for a class, and Lalita Ji requested that I show up at 2:45 pm. After a peddle rickshaw ride through the mud, brick, and concrete patchwork of streets, I arrived at the school, a building of stucco over concrete (the preferred building material here).  A set of gates separates the street from the school, so after the rickshaw driver was paid, I slipped through the gates.  A pathway stretched in front of me for about 100 yards, at the end of which were some girls in school uniforms.  They seemed to be very excited to see me.  There were probably 10 of them…and then 20…and then 70.  OMG.  These girls were from the private school.  A bit of miscommunication. And so started my first class for Shishu Bharti.

For many of the school girls, the concept of hitting a pad was too much for them; of the 70 who had assembled, only about 35 actually tried some of the exercises I was showing them.  All shapes and sizes either jumped at the chance to strike and kick the pad, or were pushed (literally) or cajoled into participating.  Crowds of other school children also gathered around us, absolutely fascinated by the activities.  The concept of personal space is not practiced in this area of the world, so school girls and other children alike pushed, shoved, pulled, quarreled and jockeyed for positions to better see.  Several times, after almost stepping on a small foot, I had to request that the ‘non-class-taking’ kids move back…which lasted all of about two minutes.  While I don’t think the session was ‘productive’, it certainly challenged these girls in a way they never had been before.  I love to see the look of wonder and intense curiosity beamed out of a small sea of dark brown eyes, seeking to pick up and understand every word or gesture I make in order to learn.  It is really a remarkable feeling.

The school girl class concluded after about 30 minutes, and then began my next class with the hostel girls.  Twenty-two young ladies in all, ranging in age from about 8 to 16.  They assembled in a grassy side yard adjacent to Lalita Ji’s house.  Their faces were big question marks, which got even bigger when I started my class with the question, “Where are boys weak?”  Silence, eyes askance to pick up clues from a compatriot.  “Eyes,” I begin, “Nose.  Ears.  Throat.  Neck.  And…” (this is where I insert a pregnant pause for my conservative young audience, but make a small circular gesture in the groin area, causing gasps, giggles, averted eyes).  And so began our first class together.

So today was the seventh class with the KGBV girls.  I am amazed at how fast these young ladies are picking up the techniques.  In the first class today, we reviewed wrist grab escapes (in which I’ve included biting), and striking to the throat.  In their second class today, I decided to change things up a bit and do situational settings, like girls finding themselves physically cornered, and when a verbal altercation escalates into a physical one.  During the ‘cornered’ scenario, I realized that the girls were letting me get way too close, even though I had explained to them that I was posing as a bad man.  Repeatedly, and one after another, it was clear that the majority of the girls did not have an instinct of a physical boundary for themselves.  This is not uncommon in people who have experienced substantial physical abuse.  And I think, from my discussions with people here, that there is a cultural component as well – Indian people, especially in rural areas, do not have a sense of privacy, and thus have that lack of a concept of ‘personal boundary.’  Regardless of why, I worked with the girls with the help of Sharda in trying to get this concept across.  This is one of those cognitive skills that will need to be reinforced over time, but in looking into their eyes, I did see a small spark of ‘Aha!’

This happened again when I was trying to explain the ‘No is a complete sentence’ concept, and that a man who does not respect ‘no’ effectively does not respect the girl who is saying it.  Sharda once again translated, trying to piece together what I was trying to explaining to her in a combination of english and hindi.  And as she was speaking to the girls in a blurring rapid stuccato, I watched their faces.  Their looks ranged from confused (as if it was just such a foreign concept to them) to almost dumbstruck (as if they were thinking, “You mean that a man has to have respect for us?” in a combination of wonder and…Aha!