Happy Halfway!

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned in India

PDA between a man and woman is frowned upon… however men openly hug, hold hands, and walk with their arms around each others’ waist. In fact, at the Gokulashtami festival there were two male students on the ground grinding against one another dancing. So that’s okay? But don’t think twice about holding hands with your husband, gasp! Although, there is “make out park” behind our hostel where cute little couples sit in a muddy park on dilapidated benches and show enough PDA to make any passerby blush.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a job here. The shops are often filled with enough sales people for every single shopper to have their own personal assistant. There are also no “racks” to shift through, this means whatever you want you have to ask someone to show you. Which means they will show you 20 different items, none of which you want. “Hm, you didn’t like this ugly purse I picked for you, how about this equally ugly one in a slightly more offensive color?” They may think they know your taste, but they don’t, so they will continually pull all the items off the shelves until your protestations of “nahin” (no) finally sink in. But it’s all good, it gives the “shelf organizer” a job to do.

You can’t deviate from your job, the cashier is the only person in the restaurant capable of tallying the bill, the door opener can do nothing but open the door for you, and only one man in Welingkar is capable of fixing your internet when it repeatedly goes out and he screens calls (I think to avoid us). And don’t think about a special order at a restaurant. If it’s not on the menu, they can’t help you. Another interesting job here, certified ear cleaner. No lie. There’s a story there.

Most mornings on my walk to school, I have the pleasure of matching the timing of the garbage truck, which smells like nothing I have ever smelled before (worse than the paper mill in York). Ironically, there are four or five attendants to the garbage truck that collect the trash. Now picture this, India is covered in trash. There is no such thing as trash containers on the streets, so often waste is discarded by throwing it on the ground or into the nearest foliage. The trash attendants work diligently to sweep up the leaves to throw in the truck, but completely ignore the trash. Hmm, ineffective and pointless you ask? I think so. The leaves are bio-degradable, the soda bottle, not so much.

India could use some orange cones. Gaping holes in the sidewalk are leveled off with trash, so that no one steps in them, missing man hole covers are replaced with palm fronds, and wet concrete? No warning. I have now “left my impression” in four spots in Matunga. Oh, it’s alright. Not like I really was going to bring these sneakers home anyway.

Traffic here is insane! There must be an accident a second, as cars drive precariously close to one another and to pedestrians. No one seems to mind. BUT, whatever you do, don’t hit a cow! There will immediately be 10 police officers on the scene investigating the situation (in this case, fatal) of the cow… never mind the damaged bus filled with people that hit the cow. Is the cow okay?

There’s no Battle of the Sexes here (females clearly lose the war in India, just compare the boys hostel to the girls hostel!), but there is a Battle of the Wheels that can be witnessed at every traffic light. The four wheeled vehicles look down upon the three wheeled vehicles that look down upon the two wheeled vehicles. In order to compensate, the motorcycles sneak between traffic to get at the head of the line and start revving their engines. The first one to take off when the lights turns close enough to green (traffic signals are mere polite suggestions) wins… until the next light. Oh, and don’t forget to honk your horn at anything around you. About four honks per block should put you on par with the rest of the vehicles around you. And only honk at pedestrians, don’t be the loser that actually brakes for them when they are in front of you.

Worried about motorcycle helmet laws? How about motorcycle maximum capacity laws! There are oftentimes at least four people on a motorcycle (which is a bicycle built for two at the most), including small children. Helmets? No. Now, I have to wear my Helmet when I am biking on Port Herman Road… can you imagine not wearing a Helmet on I-95 while riding with your two small children and sari wearing wife riding side saddle on the back of your dinky motorcycle?

Horn Ok Please. A lot of the vehicles are elaborately painted with “Horn Ok Please,” which surprisingly means, it’s okay to honk at me. Why is this? Because there are very few side view mirrors here. This is because they are easily stolen, so replacement costs per month can become exceedingly high. So no need. Just assume there is a car on all possible sides of you. And if you are a creepy taxi driver, don’t use your rear view mirror either, just adjust it (obviously) to be fixated on your white female passengers in the backseat.

Autorickshaws, like elephants, have been banned from “Mumbai-proper,” which is southern Mumbai. Autorickshaws, in the suburbs, travel in flocks. I keep expecting them to do some fancy formation as 50+ go across the intersection at once. I think there is a market there… kind of like the Indian version of the Blue Angles.

Personal space is a lost art in India. This is probably because in a city of 18 million people, there is not enough space to go around. Therefore, if you want something, you have to learn to put aside your politeness and forge on full speed ahead. Especially when at the Welingkar Canteen, there is no room for polite line standing. The first few weeks I was polite, but after weeks of having hands with money appear on all sides of me demanding their order first; I finally have the routine down.

Napkins? Toilet paper? Bring Your Own. It’s ironic that they don’t offer up napkins here since often times the dishes can be eaten with your hands. The Welingkar canteen pretends they don’t have napkins until you point to the spot where they are stored. You know this, because you had to demand for one from yesterday and saw where they were hidden.
The girls and I measure the cleanliness of bathrooms here by “degrees”… as in the degrees you have to hover above the toilet as to not get any diseases or entirely gross yourself out. The hostel and Welingkar usually fall at about 10-15 degrees, but you know it’s bad when you have to use a 40 degree toilet!

Slums comprise 50% of the residential dwellings here. Ironically some of the “slum houses” are really well equipped. They may be perched precariously alongside a highway, but they are tiled in a lovely marble and have cable and air conditioning. There is literally not enough space to build. Once a squatter has set up a house, they must be paid to move, this is how the slums have been able to grow so rapidly and become so permanent. You may wonder why this law has not been changed. This is because the slum vote controls the legislation here (they outnumber “property holder” representation). That’s right, the slums can elect representatives to serve in parliament. Even if they are paid to relocate, and provided with an apartment… they will rent out the apartment for income, and move into another slum.

India is a very conservative society where I am blatantly stared at when I dare expose my knees. However, down the street from me is the Government-sponsored abortion clinic, and further south from me is the strip of highway where the cross-dressers (yes, Indian men wearing beautiful saris) stand with hopes to raise enough money for that sex change operation they had their eye on.

The train system here is fascinating and has been studied by foreign mathematicians. A train runs every 3 minutes at every station and thousands of trains run through the central line every day. The train system is at its capacity. Mathematically, no more trains can run. Trains are overcrowded and people often hang out the side of the car. So what to do? Well, make sure you are planted firmly towards the center of the car and pray you make it to your destination without being pushed out by accident at a stop.

Rainboots? In India? Unheard of! Let’s stare and draw pictures of them. True story.

Having Americans in your shop is good for business. Especially if they can be placed in a prime view window table. I have been to the Spaghetti Kitchen three times, and each time have been placed prominently in the front window and asked to sample new menu offerings by the Chef and to write about them. Good thing I watch the Food Network, I am sure they enjoy my well informed culinary critiques and this is why I keep getting offered samples.

The first phrase of English any Indian learns is “Yes Madam.” Rinse and repeat, excessively. In fact, call out “Yes Madam” repeatedly to any westerner walking by your shop, surely that will entice her to come in. Or, better yet, once she is in the shop and walks down the counter, take turns and each time she passes you say “Yes Madam,” cause chances are she didn’t hear the guy two feet from you that asked her half a second ago.

They have more festivals here than hours in the day! They all involve loud drums, flowers, water, and mysterious red powder. You would think the last thing you would want during monsoon season is to have buckets of water dropped on you and a hose aimed at you! Especially while forming a 9-story high human pyramid. Think again. Happy Birthday Krishna.

Classes here are a little different too. Often times we get tea delivered to us during our breaks, class participation is invited and then quickly ignored, grades are announced publicly and commented on, and they don’t think twice about making us sit in the same classroom for 40 hours a week. All of our textbooks are the “Low Cost Edition”, for “Sale Only on the Indian Subcontinent” and are basically photocopied versions of standard textbooks. Resources are very limited, there are a total of 4 “stacks” in the library, and the life of a dry erase marker is about one class period. Also, students here “pass out” of their degree (as in earn). But the first time I heard “Once Rajesh was able to pass out in his exam, he began working.”

I’m afraid it’s easy to develop quite the celebrity complex here in Mumbai. Everyone stares, and often takes pictures of you with their phone. Or, in a restaurant called DPs, we got our picture taken for the manager… perhaps we’ll be featured in the next marketing campaign. I’m surprised we don’t cause more motorcycle and taxi accidents with people leaning over to take a peak at us. I wonder what they do with the pictures of us on our phone…

You can get McDonald’s delivered here... yep, McDelivery. It’s bad enough you’re going to eat greasy food… but you can’t even get up off your couch to collect it?

Thanks to India… I can now get the word for “traditional Indian oven” in a crossword puzzle- Tandoor.

You never know how long it is going to take to get to your destination. The traffic in Mumbai is as unpredictable as the monsoon. But most taxi rides are entertaining enough, especially the ones equipped with “taxi bling” including flashing light up idols (all 70,000 taxis (with 169 square miles) are old Fiats that I wouldn’t test the reliability of by powering up superfluous dashboard decoration. When we travel on “flyovers” I will often lean over to my travel companion and whisper “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.’ Taxis can be really frustrating though, because a taxi driver will never admit he doesn’t know your destination or the way, instead, he’ll stop along the way and ask ten different people for directions. Just tell me you don’t know!!

Hindi is a fascinating, and challenging language. The pronunciation changes from person to person, and it’s hard to find consistent phonetic spellings of words (all words all also spelled phonetically in western characters). Interestingly enough the word for tomorrow, is the same as the word for yesterday. Perhaps therein lies some of the efficiency problems in Mumbai! Also… the dogs here don’t speak Hindi, in case you were wondering. Families will speak to their children in Hindi (Chalo) and their dogs in English (Come).

So, I have made it halfway through my time here in India! I have learned many of life lesson, and will cherish these memories and adventures (or misadventures) for the rest of my life. I have no doubt for the second half of my journey there are many more discoveries to be made and mishaps to occur. There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss my home terribly, but I know I will miss some of the chaos and vibrancy of India (although will certainly not miss the smells, tastes, or sounds) and do not regret my decision to take a step out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to adapt to a few months on a very foreign land. In fact, I'm fond (or tolerant) enough of India, I would like to give it some Christmas presents (or I guess Diwali foor Hindus) including: stop signs, trash cans, and a new infrastructure that doesn't mix water and sewage pipes!