Culture Clash

April 13, 2002-Frights
(photo:Delhi, India)

We’re finding people in & out of the hotel to be extremely helpful. Employees at the hotel all work for tips. In the original sense of the word tip means “to insure promptness.” We’ve been told that tipping early on will get you better service down the road. The people on the street are helpful too & protest that they don’t help for money. The drivers of three-wheeled motorized metered auto rickshaws (they resemble the tuk-tuks of Thailand) are very aggressive & will follow you until you or they give up.

As we emerged from our hotel after noon clutching our map, it was obvious we were up for grabs. It was much like Morocco, Egypt, & Asia in that we just kept moving & fending off offers of assistance. That worked until we realized we were going to get hopelessly lost. We were looking for government sponsored craft shops & finally succumbed to the offers of one man for guidance. He was “going our way” anyway & “didn’t want any money.” Many others tried to help along the way, but our “man” kept them at bay. I was much more nervous than David. I think his term for me was paranoid & racist. I defended my discomfort by quoting the guidebook & basing my disquiet on the Indian perception of us. We stand out as rich tourists & the poverty here is crushing. It’s their need that frightens me.

Sights

The sights on the streets were all we expected & worse. We sidestepped puddles of urine, temporary shrines set up in the middle of the sidewalk, & piles of garbage. We were led past countless beggars in various states of physical distress. I saw my first leper. We out maneuvered countless amputees & managed to dodge a mother with a sickly baby. We actually found ourselves scurrying to get away from a person with one arm & no legs. If it were not so horrible I’d say that it was like being at a sideshow at the circus. We were shown how to use the underpasses to cross the busy streets & finally arrived at our destination. David did tip the man who then waited for us so he could help us on our way back to the hotel.

I wanted to start to learn about the fabrics used to make sarees (their spelling), but prefer the styling of the Punjab (pajama-like outfit). Women here always look so elegant & cool in their attire. I think the styles add a certain grace to their movements. Speaking to the woman at the Government store was the beginning of my education.

The temperature runs in the high 90’s this time of year. It’s described as almost being in the hot season. Summer temps are well into the 100’s. I must say they do air conditioning very well. I’ve even been chilled while indoors. We were tired & hungry as we made our way back to the hotel & the McDonald’s sign seemed inviting & safe. There are unarmed guards at the doors to most shops & restaurants so this was my first experience of a McDonald’s that had a doorman. I guess he’s a McGuard. It does seem we’re going to more McD’s in our travels than at home, but we usually do stop in to see what indigenous foods are offered in each country. This was one we should have figured out, but really surprised us. Remember, this is the country of “sacred cows.” There was a prominently displayed sign that said, “No beef or beef products are served here.” All the burgers were vegetarian or chicken. We chatted with a man from Minneapolis while we were standing in line. He was reassuring about personal safety in India & said that pickpockets may be a problem in crowded areas, but that attacks were not common. He also said he’d been in Madras for a long time & that the TV ads for McDonald’s didn’t emphasize the food, but rather that it was a place to go with the family. It was the “appearance to the eye” of the food “looking like” beef they wanted to avoid. It’s similar to some Jews who will not eat corn or peas during Passover in case it should look like they were eating grain. Our meal of one double chicken burger, one veggie burger, two fries, two cokes, & bottled water was 190 Rupees (about $5). David had an ice cream cone for dessert for $0.20.

Refuge

We’d been on the streets for three hours & collapsed when we got back to the hotel. We slept until 7 PM & decided to eat at the hotel for dinner. The same gorgeous & helpful hostess was on duty & brought us a sample of a fish dish in addition to what we ordered. The portions we were served were small but tasty. David had a variety of chicken & mutton & I had a chicken tikka. We had six chunks of meat in each order & a garnish. We ordered some nan (bread) as a side. We should have tried the buffet in order to learn what was what. There was an Indian family sitting at the next table that really knew what was going on. They asked questions of the server & really understood the menu. I don’t remember what that feels like. It’s been eight months since I have “custom” ordered food to my specifications. Even in Australia, it was easier to eat what I got rather than trying to explain what I wanted & how I wanted it. The family spoke a language other than English among themselves but spoke English to the server. David said that the one thing that the British did for India was give them a common language. I don’t even know how many hundreds of languages & dialects are spoken here.

After dinner we wanted to make a phone call to the U.S. Does “In a lonely shack by the railroad track I spent my younger days” sound familiar to you? The words from that song would aptly describe where we had to go to make the phone call. There are no phone cards in India. The long distance charges at our hotel are $5.11/minute or $312/hour. Where we went it cost us $1.28/minute or $76.80/hour. They call these phone kiosks STD/ISDs. It has nothing to do with the STDs we know (sexually transmitted disease). The directions from the hotel were simple. They involved a few lefts & rights with the landmark of where to turn being a bank. This was our first venture out of the hotel at night on foot. The streets were not as crowded as during the day & no one offered to show us the way. We made the correct turns, but the office was closed. We started down a side street & I wanted to turn back. It was giving me the creeps. We asked a guard at a restaurant where we could find an STD & he started to lead us to one. It too was closed, but he said he could take us to one farther along. He turned down a pitch- black alley & I balked. David was following him, but I called out that I didn’t want to go there & we could try the next day. Guidebooks say to follow your instincts. The guard seemed to understand & directed us down the main street & around the corner where there was “more light.”

We ultimately found what I’d call a tin, cardboard, & wood lean-to with an illuminated sign proclaiming it to be a “communication center.” They had four phones one of which had long distance capability. The man who ran the operation showed us how the meter worked, explained the charges, & the three of us crammed into the space around his desk that was barely larger than the desk itself & comprised the “office.” He sat across from us & couldn’t avoid listening in as we spoke. It was difficult to be candid about where we were or what we’d experienced so far. Besides, the call was costing a fortune.

Hope?

I learned more about women in Indian culture. Hindus believe in reincarnation. If you lead a good life, you come back as a higher life form or in a more elevated position as a human until you reach “moksah” (Nirvana). It’s impossible for women to attain moksah. The only way they can do that is to come back as a man & keep trying. I guess one alternative is to be a Muslim woman. Now there’s the proverbial rock & hard place option.

Toby