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teach Western science in asian culture. In the West, he dis-
covers, there is only one true answer. lightning is science,
he tells the nepalese children, it is weather, electricity and
heat. okay, the children tell him, but thunder is also kali.
The goddess kali, destructive avatar of durga, she dances
and makes the thunder. I see this everywhere in my family.
a loving acceptance of dualism and rationality. an accep-
tance. We are open. We believe in education, not wealth.
but we have Jam from america, and you don’t. This is our
class. Jai kali. hail to the goddess.
I go to India because of a goddess on a mantelpiece, and
I think I will understand it. It is hot, and wet curls of my
blonde hair stick to my temples. I am as white as milk. The
streets of Old Delhi are alive and filthy, crowded with poor
women in dazzling red saris glittering with sequins, and
men in sweater vests. a part of India in which men are un-
deniably shafted -- sweater-vests versus saris, na? There are
cycle rickshaws, cows rummaging through street garbage,
beggars rubbing the hem of my kurta shirt. The steam
of chai and fried korma and jalebi float like liquid sugar
through air already thick with the stench that is particular
to delhi. look! pretty lady, come buy! 400 good price, very
good price! sirf 400 rupiye. Mafkigie, I’m sorry, I don’t un-
derstand.
India shows me rich and poor. every day, there is a
woman in the sprawling urban intersection of delhi. she
is a woman with sinuous ankles and bangles. a mysterious
women, with grimaces and a sleeping baby, maybe drugged
to sleep to beg the rupees of foreigners and fools. Maybe she
is a mother, maybe not. she reaches her hand into the rick-
shaw, she clings to my own milky ankles. her eyes are large
and curved. she crams the baby into my lap, the baby does
0 blue moon
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