Bush returned after a successful India visit. He enjoyed the place and the reception. Apparently, he was happy with the weather and jokingly thanked the Indians for keeping the great weather when what he didnt know was that it is always like that here. He also met a bunch of farmers and most of them later interviewed on TV were like those that had just had a vision of the Virgin Mary. One farmer was interviewed for five full minutes and all Bush did was picked up a chikoo (a local fruit) from his collection and looked at it for five seconds before placing it back into his basket. The Indians stole some 'nucular' energy deals with America in return for some lucrative defense purchases. Overall, the pendulum has swung heavily in favor of India and away from Pakistan. On his way back to the US, Bush stopped by Pakistan, taunted the General about lack of democrary, almost picked a baseball-esque fight with a bowler (pitcher) in a cricket tryout when the bowler (pitcher) pitched him a perfectly legal pitch called the bouncer that hit him in the head. Bush wasnt wearing a helmet because they were playing with a soft tennis ball and even if he was, the helmet would have been wearing Bush for protection :)) (Sorry had to push in my leftist agenda a little)
The perfect imperfections:
My parents just returned from a trip to the eastern Indian state of Orissa and brought back a quilt wall hanging made of silk and cotton patches. The quilt has a beautiful hand-made design that could easily adore the walls of any home. I looked at it and thought for a while how the tiny imperfections of a hand-made garment add so much beauty to it. Despite its lack of symmetry in design and the not-so-precise workmanship, it was still a marvel to look at. And although you can order a fantastic Klimt or Gaugin off allwall.com, it will never compare to this hand-made original in your living room. Incidentally, it is these imperfections that move us away from the all so certain standardized McDonalds menu mechanized world that add color to life. Such is the imperfect beauty of India where machines dont do the work of people. So, three chaps trying to pull down a shutter of a store looks pretty disorganized, but, they seem to get the job done. It also looks unsexy and uncool as compared to an automated motorized shutter door, but, there is lies the beauty of it. I realized that the man-machine relationship in the US had distanced me from these tiny imperfections in life. Both methods lead to the same end result and yet we prefer the certainty and the clarity of the mechanized world over the human element. Putting aside the reason of cost of labor, we would still like to retain the machine over the man in such cases.
Locking everything & monkey nut:
I want to make a statement... here it is, people in India lock everything. If there is a way that it can be locked, then there is a lock on it. If there is a way that the lock can be locked, then that is done too. This is an observation of my Canadian cousin who asked me years ago, why people in India locked any and everything? To which, I had no answer. It is just a habit I presume that is inherited out of insecurity. When you gain socio-economic advantage over your neighbors and your community, you tend to put their lower economic strata as a benchmark to protect your assets. Thereby, being insecure of your own holdings, as miniscule as they may be, need to be protected in all possible ways. Thus, even on the 20th floor of my apartment building with security guards patrolling 24 hours and massive doors jamming the doorway, all windows and doors are locked. An uncle of mine went one step ahead. He had heard of stories of how thieves break into homes by releasing trained monkeys and making them open the latches from the inside thereby opening the door. Apparently, slightly sophisticated gangs of crooks had trained and domesticated monkeys that could do that. So, as an additional measure of security he created the 'monkey nut'. This is a slightly fancy and rather large nut and bolt assembly that is fixed in conjunction with a lock on the inside, so, if ever a monkey were to jump in, it will be confused out of its wits on how to open it ! I can only picturize a monkey staring at this unique assembly scratching its head in confusion and then loudly yelling and jumping in frustration thereby waking up the residents. So, locking is the rule, every door, window, aperture and even cleavage for that matter is locked and secured. Back in my dorm room days, they had locked the entrance to the terrace for reasons unexplained. We had gotten into the habit of breaking open these safes of fresh air and sneak onto the roof for relaxation. Collectively we broke so many locks that the warden stopped putting one on.
Character profiles:
Shoe polish street urchin in train: From this episode I am going to include a couple of character profiles that give you an idea of the kind of people that live here. My first character profile tells a sad yet real story of the problem of street urchin's/ orphans that parade the dirt filled streets of any major city. These are the rejects of society, the surplus produce that became unwanted the minute they kissed the first breath or became an expensive liability once they grew up. A city like Bombay has a million of these kids aged roughly 3-10 wandering hopelessly at traffic lights and train stations doing odd jobs for a buck to get their dose of bread or sniffing glue whichever they have the urge for. While travelling by train recently I ran into Shamu (name changed for privacy purposes: just kidding) the shoe polish boy. Shamu was about 7 yrs of age and had taken up the profession of polishing shoes in trains. He obviously did not hold a ticket as he carried his tools in a shabby bag filled with dirt amongst other things. Shamu was unbathed probably for weeks and unclean, yet, not really as smelly as anticipated. I figure he has to maintain that otherwise his clients in the train might get repulsed of the odor and drive him away. Shamu's fingers were filled with a blend of shoe polish and dirt. He used his hands to spread the primer and the polish cream onto my shoes before lathering it with this index finger. Then he used a brush that looked like it came from the tomb of a pharaoh to shine them bright. Shamu polished my shoes anticipating the time that my destination station would arrive finishing his job just in time for me to pop my shoes on and alight from the train. Street urchins like him do not make it into the already full orphanages and/ or discarded childrens institutions. Most of their parents use them as a source of income working them hard for hours without having a childhood. Many of them beg or wash cars windshields squeegee mops with the expectation of some cash. As a cruel joke, some drivers have moved the winshield cleaning sprays to point sideways at their faces so they are driven away by spraying at them. These kids barely survive and either grow up doing odd jobs all their lives mostly at construction sites using part of their income to feed a dependent they created in the meantime, part to feed the mafia that controls their earnings and part towards their drug or alcohol habit. Thus, high on their ingested toxic, they fall off to sleep on a sidewalk where they wake up to another morning without a future or the lucky ones get run over by a wayward speeding freight truck or SUV driven by some rich drunk teenager.
Vibra-Don:
This is a unique character profile that I have been wanting to write about for two episodes. From the sound of it it seems like some nasty dildo from a cheapo porn sex toy shop. Virbra-don infact is the name of a stray dog that rules the streets near my parents house. Street dogs or stray dogs are a sad menace in India. Pretty much every neighborhood in the country will have hundreds if not thousands of stray dogs. These live in little hideouts of their own and survive on food from the garbage cans or litter. Often people feed them left overs so they dont die and at times, they adopt themselves into a home. After the tragic cancer related death of my 8 year old great dane Leo, Vibra-don adopted my parents as his owners. Now let me get into this name and why its come about. Vibra-don was born 'Vibrator' as he had a paralytic attack that leaves him shaking on one side of the body. He was aptly named Vibrator as he shakes on one side (twitches) of his body. His is a story of survival where even fit dogs dont make it. Vibrator realized that the secret to his survival is aggression. He assumed power by picking up local fights and increasing his territory to around my parents home. He then skillfully started walking behind my parents around the area as they would take their evening walk showing the other local strays that a human was supporting him. On his way following my parents, vibrator would growl and pick small fights just to tick the others off. With his political influence, he grasped power of the entire neighborhood and thus donned the environment driving away local competitors. He thus became Vibra-don. It is amazing to start thinking what other dogs would be thinking about this feeble aggressive one that shakes like Elvis. Would they find comedy in his disability? or would they fear him? I know for sure that he has now perfected the art of acting meek in front of the humans to get food and then using the strength to overpower local strays. Vibra-don survived the August 2005 flooding by climbing up a tall wall and sleeping there through the rain for three days. As funny as this story may sound, Vibradon should be an inspiration to everyone. One with disability overpowering those without any. Every year thousands of such stray dogs are born in litters across the neighborhoods. Most of them get crushed under vehicles, die of starvation or most commonly of disease. In such circumstances, for a disabled dog to survive and capture a territory is a story worth telling on this blog.
The English Patients
After being ruled by the English for about 300 years directly or indirectly, I must admit, we have, subconsciously become English patients in the real sense. India in its adolesence and puberty had to hold the english hand to overcome the distress of growth and maturation whilst gaining its entry into the modern world. As the British pumped money into infrastructure and civic amenities little did they know that they will be leaving behind a legacy that a former colony will not forget. So, years later, the English divorced cricket for soccer, we are still married to it. The English demolished their bridges and buildings and roads to build new ones, while we are still married to them. It's an irony that springs a lot of debate on whether the English rule was actually more beneficial than harmful to India. As extortionistic and selfish as the English were in their business of India, they were also clever to give back to the society, so that, thoughts of revolt would be supressed easily. The English rule of India and it's eventual demise is a very complex case study that can be considered one of the most intelligently managed colonial rules in the history of mankind. As a result of the 'raaj', we drive on the left side of the roads, have fancy buildings like the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai and have virtually indestructible roads that have survived ages of wear and tear.
Counting currency (Lakh-Crore system)
One of the things that I had to go through in my reverse adaptation to India is the comma separation of currency !! really, here, we dont use millions and billions, we use thousands, lakhs and crores. There is something above that called 'urub' that I have never counted to and dont think will do in this lifetime. Here is the difference
In the US: 10,000 : 1,000,000: 1,000,000,000
In India : 10,000: 1,00,000 (lakh) : 1,00,00,000 (crore)
Now, not only do I have to translate everything into millions, I have to translate that figure back to US $. aaaarrrragggggggggggghhhhhh !!!!!
Dubbing of English movies (WWF):
One of the funniest things to watch on TV are the Hollywood movies dubbed in local languages. Even funnier are the WWF or WWE (whatever the wrestling federation is called now), games dubbed in local languages. Languages like hindi dont have the 'in-the-middle' cuss words like 'deuche bag' or phrases like 'ass kicking' or abberations of real cuss words like 'freakin'. So, trying to translate the trash talk of the WWF wrestlers into hindi presents an unique challenge. These translators have taken inspiration from the local wrestlers by hearing their trash talk and come up with some trash talk phrases like 'sit on my lap will you', 'drink some milk will you little child'. These are not even closely infuriating to the opponent in the real world and are outright funny. The funniest thing I've ever watched on TV though goes to a Jackie Chan movie dubbed in Tamil (sanskrit based southern Indian language). The voice of Jackie Chan sounds like that of a dark complexioned Tamilian (Southern Indian) man just returned from a temple visit with a streak of turmeric on his forehead wearing a white lungi (garment worn in southern India) sipping filtered coffee on a street corner in Madras. That was the single funniest movie I have seen in my life.
Small talk is very very small:The perfect imperfections:
My parents just returned from a trip to the eastern Indian state of Orissa and brought back a quilt wall hanging made of silk and cotton patches. The quilt has a beautiful hand-made design that could easily adore the walls of any home. I looked at it and thought for a while how the tiny imperfections of a hand-made garment add so much beauty to it. Despite its lack of symmetry in design and the not-so-precise workmanship, it was still a marvel to look at. And although you can order a fantastic Klimt or Gaugin off allwall.com, it will never compare to this hand-made original in your living room. Incidentally, it is these imperfections that move us away from the all so certain standardized McDonalds menu mechanized world that add color to life. Such is the imperfect beauty of India where machines dont do the work of people. So, three chaps trying to pull down a shutter of a store looks pretty disorganized, but, they seem to get the job done. It also looks unsexy and uncool as compared to an automated motorized shutter door, but, there is lies the beauty of it. I realized that the man-machine relationship in the US had distanced me from these tiny imperfections in life. Both methods lead to the same end result and yet we prefer the certainty and the clarity of the mechanized world over the human element. Putting aside the reason of cost of labor, we would still like to retain the machine over the man in such cases.
Locking everything & monkey nut:
I want to make a statement... here it is, people in India lock everything. If there is a way that it can be locked, then there is a lock on it. If there is a way that the lock can be locked, then that is done too. This is an observation of my Canadian cousin who asked me years ago, why people in India locked any and everything? To which, I had no answer. It is just a habit I presume that is inherited out of insecurity. When you gain socio-economic advantage over your neighbors and your community, you tend to put their lower economic strata as a benchmark to protect your assets. Thereby, being insecure of your own holdings, as miniscule as they may be, need to be protected in all possible ways. Thus, even on the 20th floor of my apartment building with security guards patrolling 24 hours and massive doors jamming the doorway, all windows and doors are locked. An uncle of mine went one step ahead. He had heard of stories of how thieves break into homes by releasing trained monkeys and making them open the latches from the inside thereby opening the door. Apparently, slightly sophisticated gangs of crooks had trained and domesticated monkeys that could do that. So, as an additional measure of security he created the 'monkey nut'. This is a slightly fancy and rather large nut and bolt assembly that is fixed in conjunction with a lock on the inside, so, if ever a monkey were to jump in, it will be confused out of its wits on how to open it ! I can only picturize a monkey staring at this unique assembly scratching its head in confusion and then loudly yelling and jumping in frustration thereby waking up the residents. So, locking is the rule, every door, window, aperture and even cleavage for that matter is locked and secured. Back in my dorm room days, they had locked the entrance to the terrace for reasons unexplained. We had gotten into the habit of breaking open these safes of fresh air and sneak onto the roof for relaxation. Collectively we broke so many locks that the warden stopped putting one on.
Character profiles:
Shoe polish street urchin in train: From this episode I am going to include a couple of character profiles that give you an idea of the kind of people that live here. My first character profile tells a sad yet real story of the problem of street urchin's/ orphans that parade the dirt filled streets of any major city. These are the rejects of society, the surplus produce that became unwanted the minute they kissed the first breath or became an expensive liability once they grew up. A city like Bombay has a million of these kids aged roughly 3-10 wandering hopelessly at traffic lights and train stations doing odd jobs for a buck to get their dose of bread or sniffing glue whichever they have the urge for. While travelling by train recently I ran into Shamu (name changed for privacy purposes: just kidding) the shoe polish boy. Shamu was about 7 yrs of age and had taken up the profession of polishing shoes in trains. He obviously did not hold a ticket as he carried his tools in a shabby bag filled with dirt amongst other things. Shamu was unbathed probably for weeks and unclean, yet, not really as smelly as anticipated. I figure he has to maintain that otherwise his clients in the train might get repulsed of the odor and drive him away. Shamu's fingers were filled with a blend of shoe polish and dirt. He used his hands to spread the primer and the polish cream onto my shoes before lathering it with this index finger. Then he used a brush that looked like it came from the tomb of a pharaoh to shine them bright. Shamu polished my shoes anticipating the time that my destination station would arrive finishing his job just in time for me to pop my shoes on and alight from the train. Street urchins like him do not make it into the already full orphanages and/ or discarded childrens institutions. Most of their parents use them as a source of income working them hard for hours without having a childhood. Many of them beg or wash cars windshields squeegee mops with the expectation of some cash. As a cruel joke, some drivers have moved the winshield cleaning sprays to point sideways at their faces so they are driven away by spraying at them. These kids barely survive and either grow up doing odd jobs all their lives mostly at construction sites using part of their income to feed a dependent they created in the meantime, part to feed the mafia that controls their earnings and part towards their drug or alcohol habit. Thus, high on their ingested toxic, they fall off to sleep on a sidewalk where they wake up to another morning without a future or the lucky ones get run over by a wayward speeding freight truck or SUV driven by some rich drunk teenager.
Vibra-Don:
This is a unique character profile that I have been wanting to write about for two episodes. From the sound of it it seems like some nasty dildo from a cheapo porn sex toy shop. Virbra-don infact is the name of a stray dog that rules the streets near my parents house. Street dogs or stray dogs are a sad menace in India. Pretty much every neighborhood in the country will have hundreds if not thousands of stray dogs. These live in little hideouts of their own and survive on food from the garbage cans or litter. Often people feed them left overs so they dont die and at times, they adopt themselves into a home. After the tragic cancer related death of my 8 year old great dane Leo, Vibra-don adopted my parents as his owners. Now let me get into this name and why its come about. Vibra-don was born 'Vibrator' as he had a paralytic attack that leaves him shaking on one side of the body. He was aptly named Vibrator as he shakes on one side (twitches) of his body. His is a story of survival where even fit dogs dont make it. Vibrator realized that the secret to his survival is aggression. He assumed power by picking up local fights and increasing his territory to around my parents home. He then skillfully started walking behind my parents around the area as they would take their evening walk showing the other local strays that a human was supporting him. On his way following my parents, vibrator would growl and pick small fights just to tick the others off. With his political influence, he grasped power of the entire neighborhood and thus donned the environment driving away local competitors. He thus became Vibra-don. It is amazing to start thinking what other dogs would be thinking about this feeble aggressive one that shakes like Elvis. Would they find comedy in his disability? or would they fear him? I know for sure that he has now perfected the art of acting meek in front of the humans to get food and then using the strength to overpower local strays. Vibra-don survived the August 2005 flooding by climbing up a tall wall and sleeping there through the rain for three days. As funny as this story may sound, Vibradon should be an inspiration to everyone. One with disability overpowering those without any. Every year thousands of such stray dogs are born in litters across the neighborhoods. Most of them get crushed under vehicles, die of starvation or most commonly of disease. In such circumstances, for a disabled dog to survive and capture a territory is a story worth telling on this blog.
The English Patients
After being ruled by the English for about 300 years directly or indirectly, I must admit, we have, subconsciously become English patients in the real sense. India in its adolesence and puberty had to hold the english hand to overcome the distress of growth and maturation whilst gaining its entry into the modern world. As the British pumped money into infrastructure and civic amenities little did they know that they will be leaving behind a legacy that a former colony will not forget. So, years later, the English divorced cricket for soccer, we are still married to it. The English demolished their bridges and buildings and roads to build new ones, while we are still married to them. It's an irony that springs a lot of debate on whether the English rule was actually more beneficial than harmful to India. As extortionistic and selfish as the English were in their business of India, they were also clever to give back to the society, so that, thoughts of revolt would be supressed easily. The English rule of India and it's eventual demise is a very complex case study that can be considered one of the most intelligently managed colonial rules in the history of mankind. As a result of the 'raaj', we drive on the left side of the roads, have fancy buildings like the Victoria Terminus in Mumbai and have virtually indestructible roads that have survived ages of wear and tear.
Counting currency (Lakh-Crore system)
One of the things that I had to go through in my reverse adaptation to India is the comma separation of currency !! really, here, we dont use millions and billions, we use thousands, lakhs and crores. There is something above that called 'urub' that I have never counted to and dont think will do in this lifetime. Here is the difference
In the US: 10,000 : 1,000,000: 1,000,000,000
In India : 10,000: 1,00,000 (lakh) : 1,00,00,000 (crore)
Now, not only do I have to translate everything into millions, I have to translate that figure back to US $. aaaarrrragggggggggggghhhhhh !!!!!
Dubbing of English movies (WWF):
One of the funniest things to watch on TV are the Hollywood movies dubbed in local languages. Even funnier are the WWF or WWE (whatever the wrestling federation is called now), games dubbed in local languages. Languages like hindi dont have the 'in-the-middle' cuss words like 'deuche bag' or phrases like 'ass kicking' or abberations of real cuss words like 'freakin'. So, trying to translate the trash talk of the WWF wrestlers into hindi presents an unique challenge. These translators have taken inspiration from the local wrestlers by hearing their trash talk and come up with some trash talk phrases like 'sit on my lap will you', 'drink some milk will you little child'. These are not even closely infuriating to the opponent in the real world and are outright funny. The funniest thing I've ever watched on TV though goes to a Jackie Chan movie dubbed in Tamil (sanskrit based southern Indian language). The voice of Jackie Chan sounds like that of a dark complexioned Tamilian (Southern Indian) man just returned from a temple visit with a streak of turmeric on his forehead wearing a white lungi (garment worn in southern India) sipping filtered coffee on a street corner in Madras. That was the single funniest movie I have seen in my life.
I was asked once in the US as to what our greeting style was in India. I did not have a good answer to that question. I know and everyone else knows that 'Namaste' seems to be the common greeting, but, it doesnt really translate directly into a 'Good morning' or a 'Guten tag' or a 'Bon matin' as the European languages have in them. So, in India, no one will wish you according to time of day. It's usually a very English 'Hello' or a 'hi' or rarely 'namaskar' or 'namaste'. The word 'Namaste' is more of a 'hail' (from Nazi Germany), a salutation of respect like the japansese bow rather than the japanese 'arrigato'. I wonder why we did not get the greeting thing right. Perhaps, the concept of small talk was not in our genetic makeup. Perhaps the population worries have been going on for so long and have been so elaborate that small talking with soo many people will make you end up spending your entire day small talking. Not many people say 'hi' to one another unless you directly know the person or have some work with him/her. Small talk is almost non-existent. You are either in the business of talking to the point or you are not talking. Besides, the cultural differences will very stark and will provoke a strange reaction when you try to straight talk with people. We are a society more obsessed with 'straight' rather than 'small' talk. We are a society that will call you 'fat' in the middle of a party if you have gained weight. I cant help but remember a superbowl budweiser commercial in 2002, where a guy from the country with his cowboy hat walks into an italian bar in NYC and the italians ask him 'how u doin'. No real response is expected of the guy except perhaps a 'how u doin' in a thick NJ italian accent. In exchange, the man from the countryside takes it literally starts explaining in painful detail how he is doing much to the amusement of the italian bar-folk. I believe an Indian will also respond in the same way..
Next Episode to the posted soon, I wrote too much this time around.
