Milk Migration

In India, the ways that people have been doing things for hundreds, if not thousands, of years are performed alongside some of the most ubiquitous modern technology. Many of the things I see every day are so basic and obvious, I wonder why we don't do it this way in the US. So many aspects of daily life involve community; it's no wonder people feel so comfortable giving unsolicited advice and being in "your' personal space all the time. 

On Friday afternoons, my roommates and I, tired from the week's work, usually take it easy and stay at home. Saturdays are the days we explore this crazy megacity, see movies and go out to dinner before we go out at night. Sunday is our day for recovery, and we usually spend it at home, catching up on emails, cooking for the week, doing laundry. This past Sunday afternoon, I headed down the street to the Mother Dairy down the block, and the corner store next to it to get bread and milk and other stuff for the week. Mother Dairy is a national distributor of milk and dairy products, serving as the middleman between farmer-owned dairy cooperatives and individual consumers. Every day from 10AM to 1:30PM, and again from 4PM to 10 PM, the shutter of the little stall is lifted and the disgruntled but generous man who operates the store awaits the customers from across the black granite counter. He always seems grumpy but acts glad to see me, patient with my flailing Hindi and with the children who can't decide which ice cream to get. Next to the counter are two machines that look like those automatic coffee vending machines, but instead of a small niche for a flimsy plastic cup to drop down from, there is a huge space between the spout and the drain. 

"Three Cows" by Subodh Gupta,  National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi

On Sunday afternoons, people come from all over the neighborhood, mostly children with a few aunties thrown in the mix, bearing tall, empty, aluminum canisters. The children come holding the weightless cylinders by the long, wire handles, banging them lightly against their legs as they walk. They wait in line, pay the Mother Dairy, and fill their containers to the top at the milk dispensers before heading back home, weighed down by their loads. Like bees leaving the hive to get pollen for the queen, the kids head out when the shadows are long, pockets full of change for the milk and sometimes a cold treat, fetching milk for their mothers and grandmothers who await them at home. It's such a simple act: buying milk. There's nothing fancy or exciting about going to the Mother Dairy with an empty can, filling it at the machine and going home. It's not that you can't buy milk without your own container--milk also comes in boxes and plastic bags. Yet the way that it happens in this way is so communal. Plastic and cardboard aren't wasted on packaging. Kids see their friends and neighbors before the hectic week begins. The grumpy man who works at Mother Dairy spares some milk for the families that live in makeshift slums by the side of the road and the unbathed children who hold out their empty hands to him. The fruit wallah and vegetable wallah play cards in the park next to the dairy,  jumping up and making their way to their carts when they see a potential customer approach their carts.

The Mother Dairy is literally around the corner from our house, but I get to see all this meeting and interaction the second I step out my door. The building on the corner is under construction, and that in itself is a sight to behold. The construction crew consists of both men and women, with men doing most of the hand work and women doing most of the carrying and transporting of materials. They are always wearing saris, usually chiffon and always very colorful, with the pallu made long so as to cover their heads with it. They place a small terry cloth ring on their heads, on top of which they balance up to eight red bricks without anything to help them hold it or balance. Sometimes they have big baskets that they fill with dirt or concrete powder to bring it wherever it's needed. On Krishna's birthday they decorated the inside of the unfinished building with colorful banners and marigolds. I wonder where these workers live, how it can be socially acceptable here for women to do such physical labor, when there are so many other restrictions on what they may and may not do. I think about how difficult it is for me to walk in a sari, tripping every few feet, and often holding it up to allow me to move, and how gracefully these women schlep bricks on their heads and lay mortar for the walls. 

The stray dogs in the neighborhood are familiar to me now; like the seniors who congregate daily in the park across the street, the dogs often congregate to laze in the shade under cars, bark at birds and sniff the trash. At night they sleep on top of cars, roused rudely from their slumber in the morning by commuters and cleaners. Men pass by on bicycles at all hours of the day, a bag hanging from their handlebars, soliciting recyclable cardboard and newspapers which they sell by the kilo to collection centers. 

Sunday afternoons are relaxed here, but so much happens all the time in this neighborhood, in this megacity, that I feel like I'm the only one for whom these afternoons are lazy.

On Thursday we leave for three days in Varanasi and then a week in Kolkata to celebrate the major festival of Durga Puja. In other words, it may be a few weeks until I write again. Until then, enjoy the rest of what the internet has to offer! 

Sending much love from Mother India, xoxox