"In India, we do like this."

It’s stressful to watch the girls fill up my survey. They don’t understand my questions and I can’t explain it to them in Hindi. The women are usually busy gossiping or sewing so they ignore the girls until it’s convenient for them or until I ask them firmly to help. I feel like I’m missing out so much valuable information because I cannot understand what they say when they’re gossiping. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t say these things if I didn’t understand what was going on.

I feel Chandrakanta's pain as she reads my questions and writes out her answer. She doesn’t understand most of the questions and has to ask Santosh to explain them to her. She takes about five minutes to write out her answer. I’m afraid that she will give up halfway but she thankfully keeps going.

Chandrakanta filled some questions up yesterday and I got my boss to translate her answers. One of my questions asked her if she went to school and if not, why. She replied that she does not because she failed 8th standard. Today I asked her why she didn’t just repeat 8th standard. After a lot of discussion with all five women in the room, Lakshmi, the woman with the best English, explained that she didn’t want to study; she wanted to go to a private school, not a government school. After some more discussion, Lakshmi spouted a flurry of words at Chandrakanta, and Chandrakanta fell silent and serious; her beautiful eyes were focused softly on the ground, her fingers lightly gripping the pen poised on the sheet of paper.

“What did you tell her?” I asked Lakshmi. Chandrakanta is never that pensive; she’s usually very cheerful and boisterous.

“I told her,” Lakshmi replied, “now she study and learn stitching because later she get married, her husband, her father-in-law no allow her to study. Then what she do? At least now if she learn, later she can sew, can make money, help family.”

“Does she have to get married?” I asked, even though I knew it was rhetorical. In my world I can choose if I want to get married, who I should get married to, when I want to get married. In her world, she doesn’t have any say in this matter. If she did, she might be ostracised by her family, which is everything to her.

Lakshmi responded as I expected her to. “You are from Singapore. She is from India. In India, we do like this.”