All That Is Bitter and Sweet_ A Memoir - Ashley Judd [173]
Mr. Rai retook the stage and seemed not at all perturbed by my impertinence. In fact, he made a surprise announcement: He was going to take care of all the orphans I had met on my trip and pay for their educations! What a remarkable, humbling, and rapturous answer to my searching prayer for these girls. What a priceless, indescribable gift. It seemed it would be radically life-altering for these children. Education is the surest way out, and tonight theirs was guaranteed.
The spectacular nature of the night was not yet over. After Mr. Rai’s announcement, I spontaneously decided to retake the podium and make a special plea to the guests. “There is a gross miscarriage of justice to which I would like to draw your attention,” I said. “I am a white American. What judge here is going to listen to me? I urge each and every citizen of India here tonight to use your voice to help Naina, a child born in a brothel, rescued by her mother, but now, insensibly, by a judge’s order, in a remand home …” and I told the story.
Before the evening was over, Mr. Rai told me that two very prominent lawyers had agreed to help Ruchira with the mother and daughter’s case. He explained that the lower courts, where this judge made the obscene ruling, are corrupt, inefficient, bothersome, mired. But in India, cases may be taken directly to the highest court in the land—which the lawyers were willing to do to reverse such a travesty of justice. I was ecstatic (and even happier when I learned that Naina was soon released and reunited with her mother).
It was ironic that in the days after such good news about the lawyers’ intervention on behalf of Naina, and the scholarships for my girls, I finally hit the wall. I was so homesick and allowed myself to go through all sorts of petty angers: I resented that I was going to miss the lilacs and the Bradford pears back home. I looked at India’s pollution, the slum visible from my hotel window, and I hated it all. I had been increasingly bothered by what was going on outside of me, unable to withdraw my attention and senses from irritants the way my meditation practice advises. Things clanging, banging, scraping, and slamming in the noisy hotel. It all triggered anger and hopelessness and obsessive worry (“I’ll not be able to sleep, it’s going to wake me up early, I am going to be tired …”), which usually indicated internal anxiety.
I was weary of working so hard at not letting it rankle me, the noise, pollution, sprawl, pouring my soul out in an honest desire to be useful and ending up on the fashion page (and misquoted to boot), watching smiling girls suddenly go blank when asked what they loved about themselves. I was haunted by Neelam’s neighborhood, the river of sewage, the family living alongside it, the robotic, exhausted man I saw on the sidewalk ironing still-dirty clothes (who for some reason devastated me especially), the three generations of women sitting in the garbage pile sorting trash, saving useful bits for themselves. I was terrified of my own inadequate vocabulary to describe all this, my own bargaining brain that prevented me from truly grasping it all. By processing, I realized I was in a very negative head and heart space about India. I hated its government, policies, and history and the overpowering magnitude of its problems. Yes, many creative grassroots programs work, lives have been touched, but all of the fixes that any NGOs and government programs offer barely touch the tip of the iceberg.
It was overwhelming. I didn’t want to spend any more time sifting through epic despair to find that one shard of hope. I was done. I just wanted to go home.
And then I came down with a case of “Delhi belly,” a bout of sickness that nearly rivaled my meltdown in Bangkok. I gave up trying to move or sip even water; everything I did created worsening cramps. Apparently, my body was purging everything I had taken on board. I had to respect its