Being practical

All week, Kottayam has been aflutter with a “flower show.” For four days, a dry, dusty piece of land has become the center of town. Shops have been set up inside, selling everything from lizard repellant to bindis to sugarcane juice. Flower arrangement contests were held, businesses donated potted flowers to be arranged in spirals and windy paths, and the biggest and brightest flowers were put on prime display under a tin roof.

Yesterday, I finally got to see the “flower show.” Some parts were spectacular; others not so much. But my favorite part was the henna vendors. For just five rupees (that’s $0.11), a man would decorate the entire inside of your hand with sprawling, crawling designs. The only henna I have ever seen done has been done painstakingly, slowly, like writing on a cake with icing. A small plastic bag filled with brown goop, looped over someone’s stiff-from-staying-still hand. This “henna” that was being done at the flower show (I’m still not sure it really was henna) was much easier. Several carved wooden stencils lay next to a large box filled with mushy, hard, spongy material soaked in a dark dye. I watched as someone stretched out their hand, and the vendor pressed his stencils into the outstretched hand, covering it with patterns.

I couldn’t help it. The non-Indian inside of me was leaping with the joy of novelty. I had to have it done!

I pulled out five rupees from my wallet, handed it to the man, and stretched out my right hand. The crowd that had gathered around the strange white woman (me) gasped. “No! No! Left hand!” Oops. I stuck out my left hand. Thirty seconds later, it was covered with golden brown flowers and leaves. Beautiful. I protected this hand all the way through the flower show, all the way back on the bus.

Later that afternoon, I made my daily trip to see the young girls at Balika Mandiram. “Cammy Auntie!” the youngest ones cried as I arrived, and ran toward me to take my hands. As they came running, I realized – one touch from their sweaty hands and my perfect hand-artwork will be smudged. There wasn’t time to act, though. Pretty soon, my hands were in theirs. When they realized that I had been stamped/henna-ed, they called the other girls over so that everyone could grab my hand, run their fingers over the quickly-smudging designs. The bravest ones would grab my hand and press their hand into it, then laugh and how the pattern had transferred just a little onto their hand.

When study time rolled around, I headed to the study room. “Cammy Auntie, ninte sahayam venam!” Cammy Auntie, I need your help! Two girls were sitting on the floor, styrofoam, cardboard, tissue paper and glue surrounding them. I sat down with them, helping to glue colored tissue paper to styrofoam kidneys and cardboard cubes. When I was finished, despite my best efforts to protect my left, henna-ed hand, bits of glue and tissue paper had been incorporated into the design. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, it was nice for awhile. It was nice to do something touristy for awhile. But it isn’t practical. I’m going to need to use both hands.’

After dinner, and after preparing myself to say goodbye to the possibly-fake henna, I washed my hands. Orange suds dripped from my hands. I rinsed. I looked at my hands. The design was still there! I washed again, and still the design remained.

And I thought, ‘Maybe this wasn’t so impractical after all.’