11 Nov - Terrified

Everyday India is full of shocking activities. We've been here long enough now that we thought that little could raise more than a wry 'this is India after all' eyebrow. There's the sewage that flows down the high street, the foul hacking that all the men do ritually every morning, the spitting, the utterly upsetting state of the dogs, and utter disdain for personal safety. Only today did we watch three children playing with bangers. None of them can have been more than 6 years old, and we winced as we watched them light the fuse, scurry to a tiny distance and then run back to the incendiary to find out why it hadn't gone off.

But I sit here writing this this evening still in a slight state of shock, surprised at how one event here in Pedong has affected me more than any other.

Sarah and I were out running, as we do. A lovely day, and a really enjoyable gentle jog, gentle enough for us to chat and take in our surrounds.

Then from ahead of us, the sound of a child in obvious distress. Looking ahead it was clear that it's mother was beating it with a cane. I have no idea what it had done wrong, or why she felt the need to chastise it so. But the sound, God, it was awful. We ran past, aware that this is India, and their business is their business. It was harrowing, but not nearly as much so as running back up the road past the same house to find the child still hysterical and the mother still wielding the stick. I genuinely felt sick. This wasn't the cry of a whining child, or one who has cut their knees, this was a wail of pure and utter terror; one of such incontrollable horror that no child should ever ever find themselves uttering.

I'm actually not sure what else to say. The look I shot the mother could have killed at a thousand yards, and it took everything I had not run over and rip the stick from her hands and offer her the same treatment. No doubt she suffered the same as a child at some point, not that that is any excuse.

This is India, and we've had to stamp out the odd smack of the ruler across the hand in the classroom here, but wow. Truly shocking. Ignorance is bliss they say, and I feel guilty even saying that I will not miss certain aspects like this when I get back home. This abhorrent behaviour is now something that I cannot simply pretend doesn't really happen. One hears of terrible practices - cultural, religious - happening around the world, but in our comfortable Western lives one perhaps never expects to have to confront them.