Painted Window

Outside my window are tall sky rises, shops, and advertisements. Ahmedabad is bustling with activity. Everywhere there is noise and crowdedness except for right outside my window. Directly below my room is a scene that seems it was shipped from the countryside. Nowhere else is there a large plot of grassy land with two shacks. A clothes line holds a few articles of clothing that a cow walked under a couple of hours ago. New to the scene is a man who seemed to have come from the beautiful house next door. He is standing on the roof and talking with another man. I noticed that there is a gate surrounding their plotted land, except the gate is open. Soon after I notice this I see the white skinny cow walk outside the gate and down the street. Is that a wild cow that just roams these streets? Or does that cow know to come back at the end of the day back to where the food supply is. I noticed another baby cow nervously standing by the wall for a long period of time. I could sit here and stare out this window down at this scene for hours. Oh yes, that is what I did.

I keep staring at a woman who is wearing red and want to know her story. How is she living on this plot of land when there are sky rises surrounding her everywhere? How is she living what seems like a poor life when that piece of land is surely worth a great deal in value? Does she like it here? What are her dreams? "We live in society and cannot automatically assume a position above or separated from the gender-based expectations and disabilities that are routine in social interaction." This quote makes we think about this woman 5 stories below me in a different light as I see her cleaning and taking care of this plot of land. Initially I looked out my window and saw the garbage piled behind the house and the poorly constructed buildings and thought, "what a horrible view." But now, I see how neat the inside of there house is, how much pride the people on this property have in clean clothes or making sure there fire wood is neatly piled. This is my favorite view from a window. Instead of a beautiful sunset, building, or ocean in the distant, I have someone's home with layers of a different stories that have painted my window.