same difference?

She was telling me about how her husband was murdered. She was telling me about how she wanted her children to complete an education. She was telling me about how she wanted to afford her daughter a new dress for Diwali. But she wasn’t complaining. She was telling me, very simply, about her life.

Lalita was the school’s main cleaning lady. Although she couldn’t speak English, she could speak Kannada (my first language) and over the course of eleven months we formed a strong relationship. One afternoon, as she entered my room to clean, I was lying on my bed feverishly, unable to move. This was one of the numerous occasions I fell ill in India. I told her that the medication I had tried didn’t work, but insisted that I would eventually be fine. I was planning to wait it out. Soon after, Lalita ran home to her village – a least two miles away – to bring me her home remedy.

I couldn’t believe someone cared that much.

Something about speaking with a stranger in your native tongue – the one that is spoken by your family – makes you feel closer to that person. Anyone who can fluently speak more than one language will understand this sentiment. So yes, I felt close to Lalita. I felt like she could have been someone in my family. But the reality is: she could never have been someone in my family. Socioeconomically speaking. 

The degree to which social class, caste, and poverty intertwine and separate the entire course of the lives of the people in India is striking. While I was in India, I would meet people like Lalita, or my students’ parents and speak with them in Kannada; I would think: wow, this is just like my family. If my parents had never moved out of India, then this could have been me. But that just isn't true. My family in India is what you might classify as upper middle-class. Had I grown up in India, I would never have had to wipe the floors of strangers, walk barefoot for miles in the sun, or struggle for an education.

Had I grown up in India, I would never have met Lalita. I would also never have traveled through the country on overnight buses, ridden on elephants with a white girl in Kerala, spoken to Bollywood directors in Mumbai mansions, motorcycled through Goa, befriended European vagabonds in the Himalayas, confided in village women, or ended up in The Times of India after Cricket World Cup celebrations. I would not have had the same level of independence to explore as a female. Most importantly, I would likely not have met the students of Shanti Bhavan or cared so much that their lives are different because not everyone in India is the same.

Had I grown up in India, I would never have experienced life in the country through so many different perspectives. I would never have experienced the compassion of a village woman who treated me like a daughter. And I might never have known that real family can break the confines of socioeconomic class.