Field study in Koppal district

This last week I was out on my first field assignment, sounds cool right? The whole group took an overnight train to a northern district of Karnataka (the state in which Bangalore is located) called Koppal. This is a very rural district where we helped build a meditation building for the less privileged people to find peace and serenity. We also spent a lot of time with girls who are descendants of temple prostitutes and spoke with women who have taken a stand and been able to declare themselves the last generation of temple prostitutes in their districts. During the week we spoke with farmers and bonded labor children who have to work to fund their fathers’ drinking problems, human hair wig makers, handloom and machine loom household industries, Dalit “untouchable” people, the superintendent of the police force in Koppal(the police in India are notorious for their corruption in soliciting and taking bribes), and we visited Hampi(ancient Hindu ruins). It was a packed week in which we met with and exchanged cultural knowledge with countless people.

We went to a movie one of the nights and I had a wonderful chat with one of the Visthar staff members named Nasser. Him and I discussed concerns about the psychological affects of the Devidasi (temple prostitution) system on the girls who have been brought to the Visthar schools. I mentioned having noticed a closeness between Nasser and the girls, a claim he acknowledged by saying many of the girls saw him as a father figure. These girls’ fathers do not publically acknowledge them or often even indirectly support them. It is strange for me to wrap my mind around the idea of parents not claiming their children where my parents often embarrass me with social, public praise at gatherings.

We began to chat about how so much of what we learn as socially acceptable is from watching and being advised by parents. Nasser told me the girls do not replace their mothers with the house mothers that take care of them at the school, yet in most cases they do not ever know their fathers so they are easily replace by him. It may be due to their lack of interaction with the opposite sex at an all girls school and coming from a home where the only parent was female. Visthar has, in the past 1 or 2 years, begun to mentally prepare their students for a world where their are men they will need to positively interact with and causes me to shudder at the possibilities were this counseling not available to them. I super cautious when it comes to men, yet if these girls are either paranoid or careless in their dealings with the opposite sex in a world where men mainly dominate their lives could be inexplicably difficult despite the great start Visthar’s education and practical skills teaching has given them.