women

Waiting for hours. zippping thru the sands of the Thar dessert, passing camel caravans, donkey cart and oil trucks. Landscape is dotted with the brick 'factories' I recently read about in the NY Times. Women are scarce, a wisp of color inthe stark landscape. Always in groups. Rarely if ever alone.

"Men are like kings. The birth of a male child is greeted by great rejoiceing and celebration, while the birth of a female child is a cuase for commiseration." ~Lonely Planet

The dowery system is still a significant part of the social framework. It has become an illegal practice, but is remains rooted in the Rajasthani bloood. Parents of the bride to be can be plunged into incredicble debt while trying to keep their honor. If the dowery-electronics, clothing, jewellery, cash is not adequete, further demands can be made. As India grows into a super power, these treads are slowly changing. Girls are begining to go to school and stay in school. They are not marrying immediately out of childhood and love marriages are even begining to take place.

Women wear a saree every day regardless of the day's task. Six meters of fabric folded and tucked while they cook, do laudry, sweep the roads, build a building, milk the cow. Girls, and we foreigners wear a Salawar suit-big baggy trousers and a long tunic top with a scarf around our shoulder backwards. Women, especially one that is married, always covers her head if not her face, going through life looking through a veil. Here in Pushkar, the women on pilgrimmage from the desert are also barefoot with somesort of jewellery that indicates the tribe they are in.