Of Sita, Ram, you and me.

   
    I am late on this, but it has been a very busy couple of weeks.
Anyhow, so the Bombay High Court, while hearing a divorce case, recently observed that married (Indian?) women should take a cue from the goddess Sita (pronounced Seetah, to rhyme with Cheetah) from the epic The Ramayana.
    The context? The husband was/is seeking divorce because the wife refused to follow him to Port Blair where he was transferred, and presumably chose to lead her own life in Mumbai(and complete a computer training course, media reports say.)
   Sita, the human goddess (unsure if that is a legit term) followed her husband Ram into exile for 14 years, giving up her queen's life for the hostilities of the wilderness.
    That, among other things, makes her the ideal wife, as it does Lakshman, who followed brother and sister-in-law.
    It is another thing that Ram, in the end, returns her favour by asking her to undertake the fire test or "agnipariksha", where she literally had to walk on fire and not get charred to prove her innocence and purity.
    Her fault? The mega king of Lanka, Ravan, kidnapped her and kept her a prisoner for some days before the mighty Ram and Lakshman and Hanuman (monkey god)  beat him and rescued her. So the Doubting Thomases of that age whispered about her chastity, and this was Ram's way of proving Sita's loyalty to them.
    The more I try to simplify this, the more I realise how ridiculous it sounds. So here's an aside for people unfamiliar with the epic. Like all epics, The Ramayana has its own share of extraordinary characters who do extraordinary things. And like all epics, it is a great piece of work not for that, but for what these characters represent and for the plot that is a deep philosophical reflection on mankind.
    Plus, one has to remember that for all of Ram's shortcomings, he was a great man with many virtues that cannot be recounted in one measly blog. The fire test too is much more complex than the one graph I wrote above.
    According to some versions, Ram (who had superhuman powers) had ensured Sita be under the protection of the lord of fires and made sure she would not be harmed. Once Sita passed the test, he explained to her that he did it put malicious toungues to rest.)
    He had a kingdom to rule, you see. And it would be increasingly difficult for him to build that utopian kingdom he did eventually build if his people kept casting doubts and making sly innuendoes about his wife. Image mattered even back then I guess. That however, does not alter the fact that he did give in to peer pressure to hurt his nearest and dearest.
    From what I read in Indian media reports, the husband has some kind of "ship duty" that includes transfers and travels and the woman, refused to join him in Anadaman's Port Blair, which is cut off from mainland India by the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal.
    I do not know what her reasons are, and I will not comment on whether she is right or wrong-- I've seen and heard of enough similar real life examples across the world to know that there are no set rights and wrongs in these cases. My consternation is in the judges' "observation."
    That highly educated men in today's day and age can make such childish and irresponsible official statements is also extremely amusing, to say the least.
    One could argue that the judges, of advanced years, were making a fatherly suggestion in trying to make peace and keep a marriage from crumbling. But if the couple needed that sort of advice, they wouldn't have spent a ton of money and gone to the HC -- they would actually go to their fathers and get it for free.
    And why invoke Sita, of all people? Even if one is at a point where one doesn't doubt her existence, she was a god, married to another. How is it a fair comparison?
    Think about it -- Sita was faced with two choices. Either follow the handsome and largely fair man who won her hand and with whom she was already in love, or to stay behind in a strange land by herself and deal with an extremely scheming mother in law. I don't know about you, but it doesn't feel like a very difficult choice to me. Especially since there were no careers or computer classes to factor in.
    What is interesting is that Valmiki made a big deal of her move. In the rural, or even urban (as the divorce case tells us) India I know, women giving up their careers and lives and ecosystems to move with the men they marry is considered the most natural thing in the world.
  Note-- it does not go the other way. Exceptions always prove the rule, but even as I count in my head, I can think of at least seven families where educated and working women gave up their jobs and lives and moved cities or countries with their men. I can't think of a single instance where the man moved. Maybe one.
    I am not judging, and I understand the need for a compromise in every relationship. But it also begs the question of why is it so difficult to find a man who moved for his woman? And we can't even really blame our history for it.
    That Valmiki (the rehabbed dacoit who turned saint and penned the epic) gave Sita special mention tells us that society back then was more respectful of individuality that it is now.
   Even a 100 years ago, circa when Tagore lived, we were a mature, grown-up, respectful society, if his novels are anything to go by. Basics like you do not read other people's mails even if the other person is married to you, you ask your family if they agree to your world view and do not just assume they will, you give free-will a chance, are quite often the refrain of his works.
    How did we then come to this place where we type away at our iPhones and simultaneously say things like women should "take a cue from Sita" and get away with it?
   

Why I Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg’s brain child now has more than 900 million monthly active users, and chances are it is there that you found this post as well.
900 million—an article I recently read said if that were a country, it would be the third most populous! At least, that is what the latest stats say.
For more details you can always Google the latest news stories or check their filings if you are that fastidious. Or else, you can just trust me and go with it! I won’t link a news article to this blog. Reason one being I think if you are curious enough, you’ll Google it. Reason two, I try to keep my work and blog posts as far separated as possible. As a reporter, I don’t opinionate. As a blogger, that’s all I do.
Well like with anything else, once the first blast of news is done hitting you in the face, people discuss it, and some, even in this day and age, actually try and attempt to go beyond the stats to understand what it means to the everyday man. Don’t pick on me for not saying “woman”, I am not your nitpicking, irritating-to-everyone-else-but-their-own-closed-group kind of feminist and I do have something of a dislike for them.
Anyhow, when some people I know asked me why I Facebook, and presented their ideas on why people should not, it obviously got me thinking.
Here’s this immensely popular social networking tool that seems to have made the world a much much smaller and well connected place than was thought possible. And yet, here are some otherwise very logical, thinking individuals who vehemently oppose its popularity and think it is rotting society in some way. In fact, I also saw billboards inviting people to attend a session titled “is social network making us unsocial?” at the Red line train stop.
I have no desire or will to go and attend that session, but think it’ll be fun to hazard a guess on what the non FB-ing intelligentsia’s problems with the lesser mortals are.
What will be the obvious complaints? “Kids” are always on their phones, FB-ing. Now I am your average working girl with no claims to anything extraordinary, so quite obviously I’m totally in with the multitude. I’m almost always on FB, I have my Blackberry to thank for that, and I have a clinical urge to respond to messages and posts addressed to me. Just like with emails.
And I would like to think it stems from some sense of courtesy. When people talk to you, or ask you something, or include you in a conversation, you respond. If you do not want to, you say “I don’t want to”, or “I think you are a moron, so leave me out of this”, but you still respond. Basic good manners, I say.
That and a bunch of other stuff like my daughter does not talk to me because of FB, I got hit by a truck because I was poking someone etc etc.
Well, here is the thing.
Your daughter does not talk to you because she thinks you are immensely boring, and because you have nothing interesting to say to her that will hold her imagination. Don’t blame it on FB. Don’t blame it on anything, really, other than yourself, because if you had that bond with your kid, s/he would respond. They still do talk to their friends, don’t they? Or to the “cool” teacher from school who is everyone’s favorite? Or the neighbourhood aunt/uncle all the kids love.
You get my drift? Trust me, if there was no FB, the kid would hide in a book, phone, or in anything that could rescue her if she has decided to give you the cold shoulder. The problem lies deeper than that, fix it.
And of course, if you got hit by a truck because you were poking/ commenting while on the road, you are plain stupid. No other words there. If there is one thing that we owe to ourselves, it is to be careful about what can hurt us and what is OK. That you still haven’t been able to figure it out, or are unable to teach your ward the rights and wrongs of life are hardly Zuckerberg’s fault. Just like when my class mate in junior school crashed with his motorcycle, it wasn’t Gottlieb Daimler’s fault.
Oh yeah, my mind has collected enough useless trivia over the years, as I realize intermittently.
Blame the addiction to reading. I remember, as a very young kid I even read the back of the shampoo bottle while my mom would wash my hair. Till she decided to ask me to stop it because I would get shampoo in my eyes while reading and the strange redness would creep her out. I would also cry sometimes, depending on the intensity of the wash.
But I deviate (hey, my blog, my memories!) and I’m sure no one finds an account of a precocious baby getting her hair washed that captivating. So, let’s return to my point.
Which is that, I think most of the so called problems that FB and other social networking sites have given us are really allegations that we can easily ignore. Indeed, if we are honest enough, we might even accept our own shortcomings here and agree that these sites are really not the villains they are often made out to be.
There is only this one “crime” charge that I am not sure I can totally defend social networking from. That of creating shallow bonds and making us lazy. And, of encouraging very bad use of grammar and language. OK, so that makes it more than one. But let me try.
My use of FB grew tremendously in 2010, when I was away from India for the first time, and was phoneless for about a week. FB was an easy and accessible way of keeping in touch with friends and family, and it helped them to know that I was safe and not dead/robbed/raped/dying/sick in some foreign country.
I have kept at it since, and have found many, many long lost friends and acquaintances through it.
One of those people I mentioned among the anti-FB group avoids social networking studiously because that person believes if someone really wants to talk, or cares enough, they will find a way to get in touch without help from a poke/tweet/comment. And say something meaningful in the process. It is a great thought, and as someone who loves reading long emails that are NOT forwards, I totally understand that demand.
But here’s my counter argument. If I really want you in my life, I will definitely find a way. But does it prove anything when you make my attempts more difficult by avoiding a popular platform that could make you more accessible to me?
And what guarantees that the people that do manage to connect with me beyond the shallow “likes” will, in fact write or say anything that is more meaningful?
I once had a teacher who was brave enough to encourage discussion in class. Not a common trait among people anywhere and less likely when your paycheck depends on finishing a syllabus that no one really cares about.
I learnt from him how important it is to hear other people out, and to try and give everyone a fair chance. It might not be the most perfect platform, but I would like to say social media does it. The number of arguments, discussions, conversations I’ve personally had on FB over countless issues that touch our daily lives is proof in itself.
All shallow, you say? How many people in your friends list do you really know about, you ask? Not all, sure. Do I want to be best friends with the girl from school I reconnected with after more than a decade? No. But do I still want to keep in touch and exchange occasional snippets of our lives and share her happiness when she puts up wedding pictures on her wall? Yes!
Would this be possible in an age before FB (or any other social media that you like, but 900 million commands respect. If you haven’t already figured, I’m using FB as the generic term for social media here. Like “Xerox” and “Maggi”)? Having lived in that world, I think we’ll all agree and say “no”.
So shallow bonds with many notwithstanding, it really helps to communicate. And you never know when an acquaintance becomes a good friend, right?
Now the bit about making us lazy—that people would rather wish friends ”happy birthday” on FB and comment on walls than pick up the phone and make it more special. And that people do not remember birthdays unless it is on your calendar.
Guilty as charged. I have done that at times, and I know it is not a good excuse to say I was tired and it was the middle of the night for my friend. But how about this—thanks to the websites, I could at least let my friend know that I tried but was not able to get through, when that was the case. Better than getting lost in a hole of non-communication, no?
So that leaves us with the bad grammar and bad language charge.
*I surrender*

Sex is not such a bad thing. And neither are strip clubs

There, do I have your attention now? Good, because the rest of this entry is about algebra.

    Hah, got you!

    Why I'm writing again is because I visited a strip club last week. Not my first visit, may I add, but being there as a customer is definitely nothing like being there as a reporter who's trying to be all business-like.

    Because for starters, I could actually stare. And second, I could get out when I wanted to.

    So that was that, and apart from the initial 10 minutes of ickiness, we all eased into the ambience pretty well, and was at home enough to compliment a dancer on her shoes, and reject a lap dance.

    And no, I'm not going to give you a blow by blow account of their routines. You get your own trip for that. Or read Savita Bhabhi or whatever. Basically, look elsewhere because what I would actually want to do here is make some observations, as always.

    1. Didn't Bernard Shaw ask whoever looks at beauty when it's been around for three days? Make it 30 minutes. The rule still holds, and equally well for everything from the nice painting you paid a bomb for, to SRK (yeah I met him once when I was in college) to naked women. None of us said the experience was life altering, all captivating, or even that big a deal. And yes that includes the man in the group. His wife appreciated the lingerie, my other friend liked how fit the dancers were and I, well, complimented one girl on her shoes.

    2. When I was over the gaping, I noted how controlled the environment was in the lounge/bar. Not one person misbehaving, not one unwanted or unsolicited comment or even gaze. If you want some action, you pay and you get it. If you don't, no one will bother you. One might argue that the big bouncers have that effect on people, but hey, it is a dark room and the bouncers aren't everywhere. Plus, the men who were getting dances were not allowed to touch the girls, and I actually saw one poor person's hands go up and then him willing them back on the couch. Couldn't help but feel bad for him, poor bloke. I really did think it comes from people trying to behave by themselves. I mean if external control stopped men and women from misbehaving, why would we have weirdoes touching themselves in a crowded bus?

    3. Which brings me to the real reason why I am writing this. Sex and sexuality is so very oppressed in the society I come from, it is really ridiculous. And it is refreshing to see a change from my norm. And this extends way beyond strip clubs into everyday living.

     Most Asian families I know behave like the very concept of sex does not even exist, and yet we give birth to more and more children every passing year. I mean sure I am happy that society has cast some rules that people are expected to follow.

    A free rein sounds cool, but think about it-- would you like to be the person who is not really sure of who your father is, just because no one can tell? Call me a prude, but I like to know where I come from. I also like the fact that I get to decide who I want to be with, and no one has the right to force/persuade me if I don't want them. And that in the current social framework, all sensible men accept that. Or I've just been lucky.

    But does that mean we turn a total blind eye to the very fact that men and women have some urges and that it is needed that they satisfy some of it? Mostly to stop them from turning  to be weirdoes that get kicks from throwing themselves at random strangers in public areas?

    Think about that man I just described at the bar. That he could freely walk in and buy his dance probably saved New York City one sexual offender.

    And what is the other option anyway? Fine, we as Indians (my favorite sample, because I know us the best) won't accept that our children have any physical desires, so we don't allow "dates" and if we are really that stuck up, we don't even allow free mingling of both sexes. Do we even look around us?

    Each public park that I have been to in India is a make-out spot for teenagers and sadly, even older people to various degrees and at different times of the day. We are generally still not at home with kissing in public, but we accept the fact that grown men and women can slip their hands inside each other's clothes at places where children can watch, under the safety net of an umbrella. An umbrella!

     I appreciate cultural differences, and I subscribe to the idea of not everyone needs to be "Westernised". But why is it that while we have no trouble accepting Coca Cola, mini skirts, Hollywood movies and even foreign accents, we can't man up and accept this one true fact of life? One of us did write the Kamasutra, did he not?

    I have seen parents being extremely protective about their children-- no boys/girls, no late nights, no sleepovers, no nothing. And I know for a fact that ALL of those protected children have consistently done all of it, but without telling their parents.

    Or, the one chance they could try out "freedom", they went totally overboard leaving the rest of us to clean up after them. Literally and metaphorically. Concept of freedom lost, and concept of self restraint totally done away with. Not funny. Especially since these very boys and girls grow up to be men and women and still do the same. Why else would 50 year old men throw up after drinking too much at parties? Most people across the world would agree that the throwing up stage comes and goes with your teens.

     At 50, or for that matter even at 30, you need to know how to hold your drink. Or how to control your hand that "slips" below your lady dancing partner's waist or rubs against her in such a way that you can't tell if if was deliberate or not. Why do people do that? Here are my guesses:

    A. Because they do not know that there is another way of propositioning. That you can actually talk about it without being sleazy.

    B. Because how can you ask! It is so "isss chee chee". Or because even if one did ask, there are very few people that will say "at least s/he was upfront and respected my decision of going with it/not going with it." Most will say "OMG, can you believe what s/he did?" And the honest person gets branded a philanderer for life. So let us just molest each other and pretend nothing happened.

                                                                             

    From what I understand, on a deeper level, this culture of having a fake respectability also breeds a more dangerous culture of lying. I mean, because most parents won't say "yes, I am ok that you have a boyfriend at 16" even if they are and even if they know it is really normal, in a twisted manner, they force their children to lie.

    Were you with that girl? No mama. Is aunty lying? Maybe mama. Where were you? In the coaching class that was never actually scheduled for that day and so on and so forth till meddlesome local boys find the young kids fornicating under the slide in the park and raise hell. 

    The park keeps coming back, sorry about that.

    Wouldn't you rather these kids had some chance at normal mingling under some supervision than be forced to hide in dark alleys? I know a 8 year old that was introduced to pornography by a 13 something year old. In India, in a decent, bhadralok middleclass environment. So the naiveté of "our children are not like that" is lost on me. Every children is like that, ignore the English.

    Having siblings and cousins that are as much as 15 years younger has its benefits-- I am unusually up to date on the latest in teen and tween town. And take my word for it: 14 and above year olds in mid to big cities in India not only have sex, smoke, and generally do whatever their parents think can never be done, they also do it under the constant pressure of not letting people find out. Which equals to lying 24 X 7.

    (I add my usual caveat here: not everyone does it, and I did not conduct an official poll. But I do know that the percentage is rising, through first hand accounts and anecdotes.)

    You think I am exaggerating? I am not.

    Now give me the argument that not having any control or rules will only create a mess of everyone. Yes, I agree, but the point never was to do away with all kinds of rules and regulations. The point is to do away with rules that are so far removed from reality that you would think those who come up with them never lived on planet Earth as we know it.

     So do I have to sleep with someone just because they want it, because we are cool like that, and society won't disapprove and/or I want to one-up them? Hell no.

    But should people be able to do it if/when they both want to without fearing the collective raised eyebrows of everyone they knowl? "Yes" seems to be the only logical answer, does it not?

And that begs the question: is it so bad then, to pay for it? 

Beneath the jazz, we are all the same.

I was reading President Obama’s response to the Trayvon Martin murder, and couldn’t help wonder at how similar all the people in the world are, once you cut through the jazz of lifestyle, region and developed versus developing economies.

While  reading the articles (I hope there aren’t many who don’t know what I’m talking about, but if you are one of them, I do hope you have clicked on the link by now) I was reminded of this one instance where I was having a particularly tough day in college, and poor mom called at the wrong time.

Well, Bengalis have a bit of racial snobbishness ingrained in them, and I had just been exposed to new levels of inanity – a Gucci wearing classmate who had just said something to the tune of Thomas Hardy being one of the Hardy boys—I kid you not.  And she was my partner for an assignment which I obviously was doing all by myself, not trusting her film evaluating capabilities after that statement.

Now the mother is a riddle.  She is your average middle-class Indian parent with middle-class values that are constantly having head-on collisions with the urban, global platform the kid brother and I find ourselves operating in.

 And yet, from time to time, she will say or do things that will totally overwhelm us with the “modern” approach (“of course your daughter should get out of your house and live by herself. She is 19. How else will she learn to be independent?”) and make us thank our collective stars.

For those of you who are a little lost, it is not very average for kids in middle-class India to be on their own. Hell, we have 40 year old men living with their parents. Some families resist the move on excuses of safety, others do not even think of it as an option, especially if it is a girl, and yet others don’t just accept the fact that there are things in life that you never learn unless you are on your own, paying your own bills.

So while I went on a tirade on how I could lose my culturally rich Bengali mind if I was exposed to such intellectual stimulus for 2 years, my mom stopped me, and said, “You have to learn to deal with everyone and learn that beneath all the jazz, we are all the same. You are a Bengali and you like your books and music, but she is from the class that makes the money.  Each people have their own skills and that does not make anyone good or bad. She might drop dead if she finds out about your great mathematical skills.”

Despite that reality check (yeah ok, I suck at math), I still can’t wrap my head around Thomas Hardy being Fenton Hardy’s fictitious son.  But the bit about ‘everyone being basically the same” stuck on, and has helped me appreciate a lot of people in life.

What does this have to do with Martin?  A lot, I think. I am not going to get into a discourse on the unfairness or the unbelievable outrageousness of the entire episode. That will take 100 pages. But to my non-American eyes, it did bring out one basic problem in the American society that most of us are only too happy to ignore, or overlook.

People in the “emerging world” celebrated with absolute gusto when Obama was made the President. Office chatter revolved predominantly around how “only in America can you break free of the slave trading history and have a Black president”, college kids wore “yes you can” T shirts and bags, and people sang praises of the great democracy.

No conflicts of opinion there— it is, in many ways, a great country with great people.

 But the image most Indians or South Asians have of this country is kind of airbrushed.  

And as the Martin murder shows, the problems here are not only about distant issues of Ponzi schemers and rich, irate ex bankers.

We deal with our cross of caste and creed, and Americans deal with their baggage of apartheid.  And it is a dangerous baggage. Most people (needless to keep reminding everyone, most in this blog is most of those I met or have interacted with) in the country that has a black President still largely sees “blacks” as a group to be avoided when you are a minority in numbers, categorizes fashion in terms of “this is very black, I am not sure I can wear it”, and advises you not live in areas dominated by them. My through and through American familiarization guide categorically told me this and this block is more black and so unsafe and my rental agent told me she would not set up viewings in those areas at all, even if there were good or cheap apartments. Not that I had any particular liking for any of the off-limits places or that I am challenging their judgment. These women have been doing it for more than 15 years and they know their job.

But that is pretty much like we treat Muslims in India, I thought. Most of us have Muslim friends, respect the fact that there are many erudite Muslims who are a blessing to the society, and know that there is no reason for any educated and rational being to feel any bit threatened by them, and yet we treat Muslims pretty much like how black men and women are here. Avoid in large groups, steer clear of areas dominated by them especially after dark, discard fashion that is associated with them, and go on in our fake erudite lives without accepting that this is a problem.

Now I know from experience that there is some valid argument to this. At least in India, it is true that many Muslim neighbourhoods tend to have high crime rates, and from what I hear, such is the case here too.  As a Muslim friend says, “it is true that all of us are not terrorists, but it is also true that 99 percent of terrorists are Muslims.”  So ok, no smoke without fire, agreed.

But India is a backward, developing nation that is still struggling with basics like clean drinking water everywhere (which is not available everywhere in the US either by the way), female infanticide and general discrimination against girls (which I would love my American friends to give my Indian friends a lesson in), and so on and so forth. So on that level, I still grudgingly accept the fact that the large lot of Indians will have these illogical biases. But how does this persist in one of the most developed nations in the world? What is their excuse?

There need be none, because like my mother in her non English speaking wisdom realized, basic human nature tends to stay the same despite the differences of how and where you grow up. More so in its fallacies and biases. 

PS: did you know apartheid is still a huge problem in South Africa, as vouched for by my South African friend on a project here? "If I date a black guy no white guy will ever date me again." Her words, not mine. And judging from the fact that this is a 30-something working individual who has traveled quite a bit of  the world, I would bet it is not a "certain section of the society" there that we are talking about. I mean if the urban, working crowd says this, it can't be any better in the really rural, orthodox parts of the country. So all in all, it is the story of the pot calling the kettle black. 

Oh, pun was not intended. Maybe we should change that idiom and make it "dirty" or "sooty". 

Mind your Ps and Qs

    Of the many things that Indians have to adjust to in this country, one of the most difficult is understanding and maintaining the standards of propriety in daily living.
    I said in my last post that there is great respect for people and their work in this country.
    I have noticed almost without exception, tenants talk to the building boy the same way they talk to their neighbours and all human labor-- from your carpenter, to house cleaning, to whatyoumayhave is extremely expensive.
    A simple translation is: "you are using my skill set, so you had better appreciate it. No one is stopping you from cleaning your house yourself, or mending your bathroom sink, but if you want my help, you pay. And that does not make me a lesser person than you."
    (most)People in this country think like that, so the regular cleaner is often asked to join for a drink after work, and also tipped while at work.
    However, years of practising this has extended this well measured cordiality to such extremes that one has to be blind not to notice the plasticity in the entire scheme of things.
    Commuters on a bus at 6 in the morning wish and greet the bus driver on the way out. I know, because I take that bus everyday (yes, I wake up that early.) Sounds good, but before long, I was forced to wonder if every single person in the bus is actually grateful that the bus driver is doing her duty, or it is just a reaction mechanism?
    I took a closer look at those people, and realised that none of them were even looking at the driver when they said thanks, and neither did the driver. People just go through the mechanism because that is the way they have grown up.
    Just like people in India do not even think of greeting the bus driver on the way out because that is the way they have known.
    It IS a reaction mechanism. I don't blame anyone. No one can be that bright and cheery everyday so early in the morning, but then the natural question is, why make yourself to do it?
    And I will preempt you and say this here. A fake greeting is probably better than the stand offishness drivers and other blue collar job holders get from the rest of us back home, but what gets to me at times is when that falseness creeps into all aspects of life, and somehow makes it difficult for people to interact.
    People here may be friends, but they formally check with each other every single time they make any small decision or move. For example, my Indian friends would think nothing of taking a bottle of water from my desk for themselves if they need it, or sharing my food.
    My American friends will. Actually, most won't even ask, because they do not think it is nice or courteous to ask me to share something I bought with my money.
   Now when it comes to my pricey stilettos, makeup or even wine, I appreciate that mentality like every other urban, educated, working friend or acquaintance back home.
   But I doubt people can take it beyond that to everyday living without some kind of a hit. Manners practiced in extremes does have a way of draining you out.
    In this case, it is easily noticeable that it is more difficult for a person here to let others in than in India.
    There are so many "rules" to follow, that natural interaction is almost always stunted, because you are busy keeping a mental tab of the dos and don'ts.
    A friend who has lived in this country for some six odd years, had a date the other day and was describing it to me.
    "You have to keep note of all the rules, especially if it is a first date, because otherwise you will be cast as a 'type'."
    This is so well ingrained in society here that people practice it subconsciously-- you are a cat person or a dog person, you are an icecream person or a chocolate person, you are a trousers person or a skirt person.
    Difficult for someone like me, who dislikes both cats and dogs and wears trousers or skirts depending on what ironed top is avaliable to go with it.
    True, I like chocolates and have no great love for icecreams, but I dare you to stereotype me for it!
    Rules were always meant to help people, not turn them into zombies. A Delhi and a Calcutta can probably do well with following the rules of the road, which say bus stops are the places where the bus should actually stop.
    But if it is an emergency, sure, go ahead and stop it at the first convenient spot.
    Not so easy here. I had gone out for dinner one day when on the way back, it started snowing. We saw an empty bus in an empty street waiting at the light, and a friend asked if we could be taken in and saved from the snow. The driver said no, waited for the lights to turn green, and then stopped at the bus stop that was less than 3 feet away.
   Sure, me caught without a hat and gloves in the snow may not exactly make it as an "emergency" (I will give in to that argument, thought trust me, it felt very much like an emergency to me), but that somehow mirrors society here in its obsession with rules.
   There is this other anecdote that comes to mind. Someone I know had to recently call NYPD after he found a fellow student and roommate in such a state of waste it was difficult to figure what he had taken.
    In his words: "the guy is unconscious and retching, but because NYPD cannot touch him physically without a fair warning, they keep asking XYZ,  to please cooperate."
    Apparently after 3 such questions which were obviously met with no answers, my friend and his other pals butted in to assure the cops/paramedics that it was ok to lift him and do what it takes to take him to the hospital.
   You see what I mean?

Customer service, professionalism and efficiency: what we can learn from the US of A

Yesterday, I went into the Nike store on Michigan Avenue to buy running shoes. A pronounced cat, I left the ones I owned behind when I moved, quite confident I would never ever need another pair. As a friend once pointed out, it is a wonder I don't get along with those feline furry domestic animals. I think it has to do with the fact that we are too alike, at least when it comes to curling up on the couch and enjoying some cheese.

But I digress from what I set out to discuss.

So I walked into Nike Town, fell in love with a pair, over paid, and came home. And because I had to justify the money I spent on them, I went for a jog (I don't/can't/won't run).

But when the great wise men came up with idioms, they must have put a lot of thought into it. A leopard, you see, never really changes its spots.

The initial euphoria of the purchase over, I went on a guilt trip on how much I spent for shoes that I could not even motivate myself to use regularly. I'm not telling you how much, it is much too embarrassing, but let's just say I paid more than double of what I could really afford. So I looked up Nike's return policy.

Now I was more or less familiar with such policies thanks to my job, but even so, was completely bowled over by how efficiently stores here run themselves.

The entire process can be described in less than 10 words. I went, returned, got my money back. Just like that, no questions other than the necessary asked. (Do you have the receipt? Do you have the card you paid with?)

When that happens, it is but impossible not to compare similar Indian experiences. I am not your poster starry-eyed-over-Umreeka kind of person-- there are things about this country that totally get my goat-- but inefficiency is not something I can fault this land with.

I remember when I had to exchange (not even return) a pair of shoes at a Metro store on Bangalore's 100 feet road. I had to wait for about 15-20 minutes before a store personnel could tend to me. He took the pair from me, asked me edgily about when I had purchased them even though I had handed him the receipt, and then vanished into the interiors for another 15 minutes.

When he came out, I was told they do not have the size I wanted, so I had to check with them next week. Could they call me to let me know? No. Note here, stores in India do not have a refund policy-- shoppers can only get store credit.

And it is not just pricey Nike. Shop at Ikea, the mecca of everything affordable for home furnishing, and one sees the same kind of efficiency. Sure, you won't have two store people waiting on you when you shop at Ikea, but then they never promised you that. What they promised is cheap and efficient furniture, and that you will get.

On a budget, I bought lamps that were towards the lower end of their price range. When I set them up at home, the bases were wobbly. I told myself that cheaper products will come with some defects, until the Ikea person fixed them for me. And I realised what India lacks in its "shining" and why so may foreigners have some genuine problems adjusting to the ways of the country.

We make too many false promises, and take too much for granted.

A shopkeeper can be cocky with his client there because they know they can get away with it, especially if the client is younger. (We still try to stick to a strange code of respect towards elders that is getting more and more irrelevant, but more on that later.)

Shoppers deal with the fact that the ready to eat dinner they bought will not taste/feel like what is on the box, because "waisa hi hain."

Here, Trader Joes, a grocery chain, will take back an open pack of dip/sauce/food if the buyer is not happy with it. Almost no questions asked.

And I won't hear of the argument that there are too many people in India who would resort to cheap tricks like using the merchandise and then returning them. There are people who do that here too, and anyway, I don't see the lower income group shopping at Nike, Spar or Shoppers Stop in India either.

Respect begets respect, and I realised that all other points I talked about : customer care, efficiency, professionalism, are natural derivatives of that.

I respect the fact that you are taking time out to meet me, so I will be on time. I appreciate that you are not happy with the purchase you made and don't want to spend money on something you won't use, so I will accommodate you without making you feel cheap.

I understand that the boy waiting on me at the store is probably doing it to save up for his college funds, so I won't be snooty to him and talk to him like an equal.

India as a country has a long way to go to cover these basics, to say the least.

Let there be snow

So there was snow yesterday. Of all the things that I am having to adjust to, right from showering in the restricted space of a bathtub to food proportions that can feed the entire population of a small village in Asia, the snow is the most unsettling. The cold, you can live with. Trust me, if I say you can live with the cold, you actually can. I am a summer babe if there ever was. But the snow! It is nice, white, fluffy and pure when it first falls to the ground. It turns everything into a magic fairyland, just like the picture postcards we seee back home. And then, just when you think it is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, they turn to slush. Grimy, black slush that wets your shoes and feet if you are stupid enough to not wear snow boots. Grimy black slush that is more ugly than normal after the virginal, angelic beauty of the first shower.

And it is here to stay. Unlike in India, where it is summer all the year through in most parts, most of America has winter all the time. Chicago definitely does. And so I am going to take a page out of my mother's life and train my mind to adjust and accept. Over 45 years of experience has taught her that doing so makes everything much more bearable. And I sure need bearable at this time.