This was by far the least tourist-like excursion we havebeen on and in my eyes by far the best! We had the awesome opportunity toexplore the rural lifestyle of the people in Rajasthan. The InternationalCouncil of Cultural Relations NGO’s founders Meenakshi and Vinay took us tomeet two of the tribes they have been working with.
On the way we went to go visit our first Jain temple, inTizara. This was great to experience and learn about another main religion ofIndia. Jainism is a sect of Hinduism that emerged from the influence ofBuddhism. They believe in three ways to reach enlightenment- pray, drink onlyfiltered water, and don’t eat after sunset. One sect doesn’t believe in wearingclothes and they are often pictured meditating naked. They also don’t believein giving money offerings or donations. Mostly Jainism prays to Hindu gods andpractices Hinduism, but they also pray to the prophet who founded theirreligion. I’m not sure why but in both Buddhism and Jainism have the symbol ofholding an umbrella over the prophet. Meenkashi Ji also told us the story aboutwhy people ring a bell before entering a temple or hang them on doors. Whenstanding underneath a bell, a vibrating sensation goes through the body and issaid to provide relief from pain. Somewhere down the road this concept has beenforgotten and people just ring the bell because of the ritual practice.
After the Temple we proceeded to go visit a Tribe called theBawariya’s who used to be a hunting tribe in Royalty times. The Mirajah’s lovedto go hunting, but hunting is now banned in all of India. This displaced theBawariya Tribe and gave them no means to survive. Chinh got involved and hasnow given them land to farm and produce organic produce to distribute and sellfor profit. On the way to see this tribe we got stuck on the road entering thevillage. Dorah, the head woman of the tribal family encouraged us to use thenew road they had made, so in the efforts of pleasing her we got stuck in thefine sand for 3 hours. Her, her two daughters and a huge team of young boysfrom the village helped us dig it out. It seemed like people were so eager tolend a hand and help, however there were no grown men helping which was odd.One daughter formally welcomed us at their home by blessing us with red pastebetween our brows, sprinkling water around our feet, giving us coconut sugar,and tying a handmade Rakhi bracelet on our wrists. The Rakhi holiday is betweenbrothers and sisters, and is celebrated by giving sweets and tying thesebracelets on each other’s hands. We hadchai and got to see the farm fields. I especially loved petting the cows andplaying with the baby goat/rabbits. I went to see how the cow food was made andanother younger woman named Dhora started talking to me about mypiercings. She was so interested in thembecause they are in odd places. The Nomadic women have many piercings, but theyhave meanings and purpose. In broken Hindi I tried to explain that I have thembecause they are pretty, which she didn’t get. She asked why I have my tonguepierced and if it hurt. In the end I just explained that I’m American andthat’s why I pierce myself in weird places. She was eager to show me her children as well.The young girl was dancing around so adorably in traditional style. Dhora wasgoing to teach me a dance with hands covering your face, but we got distracted.Meenakshi said that she was monitoring me carefully with them and was surprisedthat they were so open and asking questions. I was earlier describing my dreamto work with Nomadic tribes. She conveniently provides internship projects withher NGO. The tribe doesn’t usually open themselves up to a lot of outsiders,but our whole group of people seemed to be well liked and accepted. I feltproud of myself and had hope for my anthropology dreams of working with thesepeople, but I know there will be many challenges to face with research that noone can predict. I can already see the language barrier becoming an issue. Ihave tried to bridge that gap by taking Hindi classes 5 times a week for atleast 2 hours, but there is only so much you can do in 5 weeks time.
The next day we went to visit the Jogi community. Thesepeople have an ancient ancestral tradition of entertaining and telling storiestrough music. Unfortunately their art was dying as more people gave up the artto make money in commercial jobs. Chinh helped them create a world orchestrawhich plays at festivals and universities all over the world. The IndianGovernment now funds their travel expenses to increase the countries pride fortheir artists. They sing and play a guitar type instrument made out of apumpkin called an ‘ektara’. They usethese half tambourine type instruments to clack together and play the ektara atthe same time. It was cool to watch and sounded great too. The girls of thecommunity were eager to snatch Sophia, Dollar, and me to practice their Mehendiskills (henna). One of the girl’s nameswas Bubble. We went to see a Bhopa ruin and the empty temples where women wouldmourn their husbands by lighting themselves on fire on top of them in thetemple (Sati).
This experience was incredible!! Meenakshi Ji and Vinay Jiwere impressed with my determination and interest so they offered me an amazingopportunity to come back and study anthropology with the nomadic tribes. Theywant me to set up a U.S. chapter of their company, and bring some students withme do an internship! ATTENTION ANTHROPOLOGIST FRIENDS, get in touch with me! Thisis something people would be dying to study. It is hard enough to gain accessto these tribes, and this organization has access to 7. There are alsocountless things to study. Botany/Ecology, farming life, musical influence,jewelry and craft making, and film and media is even a huge opportunity forsomeone. They are starting to build a dormitory for students to come study aswe speak. I’m so excited this opportunity of a lifetime has flown my way!
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