Also this issue:

Pho Whatever Ails You
-Bruce Schimmel

Street at the Crossroads
-Howard Altman

Someplace Special
A principal for a day, expecting chaos, discovers a school that works.
-David Warner

Letters to the Editor

December 19-25, 2002

slant

Smugglers' Blues

How I became a technology bandit in India.

by Helen i-lin Hwang

On the way to the women's computer center, we four-wheel past a couple of sacred cows, a goat and a few chickens wandering along a dirt road in the Allwyn colony neighborhood, in the poorer outskirts of Hyderabad, India. This area is full of high-caste Brahmins, but that class doesn't signify wealth, wisdom and esteem as it once did in Indian society. We pass by sari-clad women, balancing pans atop their heads, carrying away rocks chipped away by the men; the women's manual labor provides a sharp contrast to the women's technology hub we are approaching.

We are the first-ever missionaries for Empowerment through Learning Information Technology, (eLIT). This wasn't about religious superiority or cultural imperialism. We had no denim jeans to trade and we were no marauding bandits. This time, we, the foreigners, brought (drumroll, please) a single used laptop and docking station. ELIT is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization which sets up free computer centers for women around the world. Co-founder Dr. Safia Rizvi asked if I would agree to bring a much-needed computer for their Hyderabad center when I mentioned I was going to India.

Smuggling may more accurately describe what I was doing, since India does not officially allow visitors to bring electronic devices worth more than 4,000 rupees ($80 U.S.) into the country without taking them back out of their borders. Otherwise, the government requires you pay a duty.

The airport guard requested that we unpack the boxed, bubble-wrapped computer, detected with the X-ray machine. We resisted with lies: too difficult to tape up again, and yes sir, we would most certainly bring it back to America with us. He conceded to the argumentative but deferential Westerners. The last thing the charity needed was to pay taxes on a computer discarded and deemed useless by some big American corporation.

After an overnight train ride, we made it from Bombay to Hyderabad, the fifth largest Indian city and home to four million people, with the computer miraculously intact.

Hyderabad is a city of rich tradition and history, home to Charminar, known as the Oriental Arc de Triomphe, and Mecca Masjid, a beautiful mosque that can accommodate 10,000 worshippers. Nearby is Golconda Fort where the Hope Diamond, the world's largest blue diamond, was mined.

Today, the city is recognized as the major software hub of India. This reputation is partly due to Microsoft, which has its only software-development center outside of the United States in Hyderabad. But even with all this technology happening literally down the street from eLIT, none of the local companies has donated a single thing to the women's center. All of their funding comes from the States. The technology wave has swept the wealthier men up in its crest but left the poorer women flailing to learn on their own.

The center is housed in a pink, cinderblock building equipped with three new desktop computers, and now the laptop we brought. Several women crowd around each computer to learn the hands-on skills.

Since its start nine months ago, 106 women have completed three-month computer courses in Microsoft Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint. Many of them hope to find jobs after they're done, but the reality is that many of them are still looking.

One of the first graduates, T. Surya Nagamani, was one of the lucky ones. She now makes 3,000 rupees ($60 U.S.) a month, typing newspaper articles from The Times of India into a database. The average monthly income in India is 1,800 rupees ($36 U.S.), according to the World Bank. "We are very happy now," says Nagamani. "Better life, better Diwali." She never attended college, only receiving the required basic education that finishes at the age of 15. At 35 years old, this is her first job.

Nagamani doesn't leave the office until 5:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, so her husband picks up their two kids from school. She needed his approval to work and even take the computer class.

"India is still a male-dominated society and we cannot do anything without our husbands' support," concurs P. Vijaya Lakshima. She arrived that day to enroll in the latest class, after hearing about the free courses from neighbors. She expects to get a job by December at her father's office, because he has told her there will be an opening.

Unfortunately, it is not like that everywhere for Indian women. Two days after my visit, the local newspaper runs a police roster article, announcing that two women died from "accidental burns" from preparing tea and cooking. The honor killing of unwanted wives, suttee, is still an ongoing practice, and my heart goes out to the women in the computer classes who have to function in such a society.

(h_hwang@citypaper.net)

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Helen i-lin Hwang is a writer who has traveled in 25 countries. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., Pa. 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.