I'll try anyway.
I'm a first generation Indian girl who grew up in the Texas and I'm now eighteen. Pretty standard right? My parents have always wanted me and my sisters to really appreciate Indian culture, so it was only natural that we would visit India every 3 to 4 years. Besides, all of my extended family lives there and it's nice seeing them every once in a while. Now to tell you the truth, my perception of India is somewhat different from the perception of other Indians, and this can basically be explained by the fact that both my mom and my dad lived in more rural areas of the state, Kerala. There are few bustling streets, no smoggy polluted air, no street vendors shoving things in your face; in fact the city Parapuzha was quite serene. Check out google maps- the city is comprised of thick forests and the occasional building. To make it a bit more understandable: the more well known part of India is like New York, and some parts, like the part that my parents lived in, look more like west Texas. Farmlands dominated the area. With this in mind, we lived with my grandparents whenever we visited India. My grandparents' house was on a hill and there were a bunch of stairs leading up to the front door-it sounds weird but it's actually kind of normal for the area. The house is surrounded by the land that they own, which is mostly shaded by rubber trees which loom tall. Besides the acres upon acres of tall trees, the house was complemented by a small shed where the cows used to live, a small dog house with a senile dog, and a slightly raised patio in the back. Now this is the house that my father grew up in, however recently it's been renovated. When my dad was a kid they didn't really have washing machines, refrigerators...even modern toilets. So of course, to get with the times my parents invested in making the house better for my grandparents. The only part of the house that wasn't renovated was the kitchen. It was extremely traditional: it had no doors and led to the open patio. This meant that if you're standing in the kitchen you had a clear view of what was going outside; I'm sure this was handy when my grandmother was cooking and also trying to keep an eye on her boisterous children or laborers in the fields. In this area, the population is kind of small. The nearest neighbor is maybe two miles away? Yeah, small-town. But everyone in the town is extremely Catholic, and attend a large church at the center of the town. Thing is, over there people only really use cars if it's a trip to the airport or to a far city. That said, it's no surprise that I was exhausted after six miles of walking to the nearest church.
What shocked me was the amount of beggars there. It was insane to see so many people with so little hope asking for, what is in the United States, a dime. My parents told me not to talk to them because our accent would give away that we had money and that we were foreign. Of course, I would always feel guilty. But this isn't to say that my parents didn't have a reason: some of these people were borderline insane, and many of them were either alcoholics or drug abusers. I didn't really remember many of the loiterers except one in particular. A woman approached my dad and it seemed that she was blind. Upon further examination it was obvious that she was; she had blue cloud like cataracts obscuring her eyes. Her hair was wispy and white – I know, I know, it seems pretty cliché but honestly she was one of the scariest people I'd seen in my life. This particular woman would not leave my parents alone. So, instead of giving her money, which could've been used for alcohol, they offered to give her a home cooked meal if she followed us home. This sounds shady but since everyone in the town looks after one another it wasn't too big of a concern. Plus she was old and frail and couldn't see. My little sister had to hold her hand as we walked. I found it rather surprising however, how much she could tell about the landscape without even seeing: you could tell she had been blind for a while, the way she talked about the rustling in the leaves indicating a road ahead, or how she would pick upon faraway noises of birds or laborers. She was even able to tell things about us. She knew what kind of outfit I was wearing just by the sound, and she could place our American accent without a problem. She swiveled around when my mom dropped her shawl. We finally arrived at my home where she ate a meal. She told us about how she had been in med school until she started hearing the voices in the walls- mental illness is not taken as seriously there as here, so my parents shrugged it off, offering prayers and more dahl. She seemed to tilt her head towards our walls, then pointed at me, and said "just listen" in Malayalam and promptly left. To be honest I felt a little bit creeped out but my grandmother told me that they did this with many poor people, feeding and listening. She also said that that all of them said crazy shit. I decided she was right and to forget about it - I didn't want paranoia ruining my vacation.
Night rolled around quickly as monsoon season occurs in summer. At approximately two in the morning I woke up from the air-conditioned room and realized I needed water. I found my way to the kitchen trying not to be creeped out by the dark coal walls and gleaming metal plates and pots. I decided to walk in with my back facing the patio so I didn't have to look outside. But then I heard something coming from behind me. And no, it wasn't heavy breathing or anything like that, and no I wasn't scared at the time. I figured it was a small animal, not weird at all considering the farmland. But when curiosity got the best of me and I turned around, I saw the woman from earlier. The beggar. She was hunched over and I am not quite sure what she was doing but, and I swear to God I couldn't be making this up, she looked at me. And I didn't know quite why I was so nervous at the time- not scared- nervous. As I walked back to my room I remembered she had cataracts. She must've heard me from about 100 feet away. I asked my grandmother the next morning whether it was normal for beggars to stay on the property and she said that would happen occasionally if they wanted to stay and receive more. I asked her if the woman had come by again she said no. At the time what I felt was confusion, a little bit of anger, combined with a little bit of sympathy for the poor elderly women. I forgot about it.
But something weird just happened. I'm back from my trip, and I can hear my sister in her room upstairs painting her nails. I can hear my neighbors down the street's TV blaring. I can hear the dripping of my kitchen sink as if they were crashing symbols.
I can hear the walls.
Submitted July 15, 2015 at 01:59PM by sunglassesemoji123 http://ift.tt/1V1MyrY nosleep
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