Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

<> To make the savings just add up to enough so that they could meet the expenses of the summer months when Subeer did not have his assistantship meant that Ratna would work as much as she physically could. <> Waking up early in the morning, she would catch the 6:45 a.m. bus on St. George to get to the house of the Tarafdar's on the other side of town. From the bus stop, a fifteen minutes walk would take her to the home of the Tarafdar's exactly by 7:50 so that she just had enough time to get in so that Mrs. Ruma Tarafdar could hand over her three month old son, Shubhro, and explain all the tasks of the day to Ratna before heading out of the door. She would watch Shubhro, feed him, play with him, read stories to him until Mr. Tarafdar came home at 3:45 p.m. for her to then rush out to catch the 4:00 p.m. bus to the house of Mr. Srinivas. <> It would not be until 6 p.m. that she would reach the Srinivas home to watch Ankit, their four year old son

Thanks to my friend Bud Goodall for the inspiration to take a narrative turn, although I am rough on the edges and a novice with this... Ratna came to the US in August 2010, newly married, with her dreams tucked lovingly in the corner of her Sari and with her hopes to make a life in the US with her husband, Subeer, a high flying PR executive in a large multinational in New York City. <> The first three months in New York were like a dream sequence of one of those Bollywood movies, amidst high rises, surrounded by people all around, and immersed in the glitz and lights of the city. For her, this was a new lease of life, a new opening to make a home in a completely different country with her husband. She used to spend each day taking the subway to a new part of the city, a map in hand. The newness of her discoveries made up for the feelings of missing home in the late afternoons. Her heart filled with hopes and her spirits filled with courage, Ratna immersed herself in putt

Let me just begin by bluntly sharing my response: Yes, I think so. Soumitro's blog postings about hunger in Tippecanoe county, the health emergencies that put people on the streets, and the children who throw their parents onto the streets got me both angry and upset. The stories of Melanie and Fiona left me wondering: What goes so fundamentally wrong in a society that it justifies negligence of parents amidst the individualistic pursuits for self satisfaction and material comfort? What makes a son kick out his mother out of his apartment? Where does the pathology of individualism become so extremely pathological that a child stops feeling for his mother as she runs out of a place to stay, sleeps in homeless shelters, and goes to soup kitchens and food pantries to meet her need for food? The roots of this pathology are perhaps in the narcisstic individualism of American society that elevates the self above all else, and celebrates this form of narcissism under the BS of l

It was difficult to interview Fiona – my last interviewee of the day – because her personality was so bang opposite of Melanie, who I interviewed right before her. For one, she spoke thrice faster than Melanie and kept narrating her story in an intricate web of verbal chaos – sans chronology, sans context. Over and over again, I had to steer her back to the issue of food insecurity – because although I know everything else feeds into it, there were a lot of other intricate personal details which she presented to me that I knew had no link whatsoever to her present situation. But she talked and talked and talked – akin to someone who speaks to herself – her face furrowed with many misfortunes that life had dumped on her. She had a prolapsed uterus AND a prolapsed bladder that caused urine retention. So she went every week to a local hospital so they could put a catheter in her. Her son-in-law had thrown her out and her sons won’t keep her so she divided her time between two local

For me, the toughest part of interviewing someone who is homeless or hungry is when they start to cry while telling me about their misery. Because at that moment, seeing what life can do to you, I see in them a reflection of myself. And I shudder to think: This could be me. Once upon a time, people like Melanie – educated, sophisticated and well-paid – had everything they wanted. But then everything changed. So when Melanie – a White, middle-class woman in her mid-50s, dressed impeccably in a chiffon top and dainty costume jewelry – broke down saying she went hungry almost every single day because she felt humiliated going to a food pantry for help, I could understand where her self-esteem was hurting. Years ago, Melanie was a nurse with a degree from Purdue and life was good till an autoimmune disease forced her to give up working. What followed was a web of misfortunes – divorce, her son running into trouble with the law again and again, a second marriage and subsequent death of

In the past two days I have been listening to the stories of community members participating in our hunger and food insecurity project, and their stories are very touching. The stories range from simple to complex. Simple in that some were simple mistakes that have cost them their livelihood. Complex in that some are constrained by circumstances beyond their control. The stories of hunger and painful experiences that continually rob them of the dignity of human existence. The stories are humbling in that majority of these voices are never heard yet, they are our neighbors. Though their stories are separate, yet related in that the trio who shared their experiences with me exemplify in different ways how everyday persons in our neighborhoods struggle to get food which is a basic necessity of life in a land of plenty. America is globally regarded as a land of plenty, but listening to these stories after stories makes me wonder aloud. Having been involved in a similar study in previous se

For anonymity’s sake, I will call him Ralph – a Purdue alum who once had everything he needed in life, until a rare form of arthritis debilitated him, elbowing him out of the workforce and leaving him in his present condition – homeless. Like my earlier interviewee, Laura, Ralph too had no bitterness in him, no animosity towards a system that had few safety nets for sick people, no one to blame, no anger at all – which surprised me – yet again. How does one do it? I wondered. But Ralph seemed to have no clear answer for his positive outlook. All he said was that when one suddenly found himself in a predicament like the one he was facing, one simply survived it – a simple choice between sink or swim. Unlike Laura, however, Ralph has no family members – being the only child of deceased parents who were the only children of their parents. He never married and is in no relationship at present. His friends – about five, who hadn’t drifted away – help him with gas for his vehicle and the