The Kids in the Park

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It’s hard to know what’s sincere and what’s not sincere in India.  The night when Spencer and I were heading to the train station, we saw a playground near us and decided to go play.  A bunch of little kids – like under the age of 7 – ran up and started screaming happily at us, and some even blew kisses or whatever, which was kind of weird, and definitely looked like they’d been taught to do it because that is NOT really acceptable in Indian society.

 

Anyway, they kept screaming “PICTURE!  PICTURE!” so I took pictures of them with flash since it was night and they smiled huge and then JUMPED to look at it on the camera, and were basically trying to rip it out of my hands when I was showing it to them.  I couldn’t tell if they really wanted to look at themselves on an LCD screen, or if they just wanted to take the camera from my hands and get away with it.

 

At one point when I was showing them a picture, they noticed that my left hand was firmly over my left pocket, and one of the girls pointed to it and shouted, “CASH!” and then they all started shouting, “CASH!  CASH!  CASH!” and I said no, I don’t have any money, sorry, no money, sorry, sorry.  Their parents were nearby and at one point one of their fathers said, “Don’t give money,” and it seemed like almost the only English he knew.  The kids asked for “PEN! PEN! PEN!” as well, but I only had one, and I didn’t know if it’d be worse to give it to them and make them fight for it, or to not give it at all, but I decided just to not give it at all.  I would have had to have rummaged through my backpack anyway, and it was the only pen I had on me.

 

I left feeling confused.  I don’t know what the kids wanted.  I feel like kids in America aren’t that happy to see foreigners, and so I doubt foreign kids are really that excited to see Americans.  I feel like it’s probably an act that just happens to work.  But maybe seeing American people with money and cameras and pens really is that exciting to poor Indian kids.  Maybe that’s genuine.  I seriously have no idea, and the worst part is that I have pretty much no way to find out.