Making a Living by His Sweat and Blood

I don’t want you to think that this is normal—in the 10 months I have spent in India (last trip and this) I have never seen anything like this. Not that there aren’t beggars in India. There are plenty women carrying babies asking for milk money, kids touching your arms again and again repeating “Ma!”, and handicapped people laying on the side of the road displaying their deformities for money. But this, this was different.

I’d seen this “family” before—one man, an adolescent girl, and a small boy about 6 or 7 years old. On Diwalli we watched the man crack his whip and walk down the street to the sound of bells on his anklets. The girl will often play the weird sounding drum—I’m struck by her dirty salwar camis and her missing scarf. The boy often tags along with the drumming girl.

This Saturday afternoon we were standing at Gandhipuram waiting for the bus 96 to take us home when the family began. The man cracked his whip a few times in front of the waiting crowd. The young boy wandered through the mass with what looked like red paint splotches covering his chest. The girl started playing the weird drum while the boy and man emerged from the crowd and started stomping around with their bell covered feet, dancing on this makeshift stage--the road.

When he felt like enough of the apathetic crowd was watching, the man pulled out a knife turned so we could all see as he began cutting his forearm again and again—slicing it like the “cutters” I learned about in my psychology class. My stomach turned as I saw pink flesh. I tried to look away, but noticing the many scars on his arm I couldn’t stop staring. This was not the first time.

Like he had pulled a magic rabbit out of a hat he displayed his bleeding arm to the now fidgety group. He walked back and forth ignoring a bus as it pulled through past him and making a show of smearing some blood onto his own chest.

The drumming increased, but I didn’t appreciate the added dramatic flare. Horror came as I watched the boy lay down on his back, the man kneeled next to him and squeezed his fists over and over again so blood would drip onto the boy’s chest—making one more red splotch. The man then stood, cracked the whip a few times—intentionally hitting his arm with the tip as he wrapped it around himself.

The money collecting began. The girl, boy, and man wandered through the throng their hands out ready to collect spare rupees. The crowd was amazingly still and silent and a few reluctant people gave. The man stomped his feet in front of a group of well dressed Indian men, gestured to his bleeding arm, and stared with pleading in his eyes. It was a look that said, “I’m giving my sweat and blood here—can’t you spare a few rupees?” As I watched his face I could only think, “I didn’t ask you to do this to yourself. I’m not going to give you money, encouraging you to repeat this sadistic performance. There has to be a better way for you to provide. Your children should be in school, not taking part in this.”

I swallowed the bile in my mouth willing myself not to loose the contents of my breakfast. I tried to avoid counting the large drops of dried blood on the boy’s chest as he neared me, but I wondered how many times they’d done this “show” today. I hoped he wouldn’t get too close to me—the blood on his chest. I did what I normally do in India when I want to avoid contact: I gave that practiced blank stare and with it the tight control on my emotions. I have this smooth, apathetic look that helps me keep the tears from coming.

I watched as the family collected maybe 5 or 10 rupees for this little performance—20 cents for those drops of blood. There has to be another way. There has to be. I've thought quite a bit about that family since then, but I don't have any concluding thoughts. I'm still trying to figure out what this very vivid scene means to me.