Last time I came to the Bal Ashram in January, it was brutally cold. I covered up in the few layers that I brought and hoped to not freeze my limbs off.
This time, it's scorching hot - literally hitting the 90s every day. Thus, I whipped out some of my tanks and that wreaked havoc this morning.
One of the kids said to me, "You can't be wearing that. You're a woman. It doesn't follow Indian rules."
Laasya, the amazing on-site counselor, replied in Hindi and said something like "If you boys can walk around wearing your tanks, then why can't she?"
I replied to the 'rules' part of the statement by saying, "Hyderabad doesn't have rules like that and Hyderabad is in India." I literally saw the gears turning in a few of the boys' minds as they realized that maybe all of India doesn't have the same 'rules.' They replied with "ohhh acha."
I made a point to mention Hyderabad because the kids assumed that I wore a tank because I was born and raised in the U.S. I wanted them to be aware of the fact that people, more specifically girls, can wear and do whatever they want even in India. It's just that they haven't been exposed to such things yet.
I'm not sure if any of it actually got into their heads, but hey, at least Laasya and I did our job of trying to inject some sort of equality into their young, protected, and innocent minds.
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