Last Night I Met A Big Ball of Hate

It has happened. It even happened in the flat I am living in. The Indian boy, age 20, believes Hitler was a great man. In fact, he even grins when he tells me, "Modi gave us a free pass to kill Muslims. It is too bad we didn't get more of them."

I was cornered in my own home by the very people I hoped to avoid while in Gujarat. What makes matters worse is that these two amped up- balls of hatred are part of an international student group who hosts most of the people staying in the flat. Though the views expressed by the big balls of hate are not representative of the hosting organization: one must take a moment and wonder...

Why the fuck are the Marwari funding the BJP and VHP? And if someone can tell me- when the Marwari decided they were the "most pure" caste in India- I would truly appreciate it.

I kept my cool, played along, I felt like I was in the presence of two brown-skinned skinheads. If they were bald, I would almost treat them like they had a good tan. A holiday in the sun perhaps? If I had my skateboard (which I haven't even ridden since age 14) I would have smacked them with it.

What gets even more interesting is that two of the women staying at the flat are German- adamantly opposed to presenting that era in a favorable light. They were shocked to find out that many in the state government (this state from which I write my communiques) is the very one that supports rewriting text books to reflect the very idea this installment began with. I typed it once- I'll be goddamned if I every type it again.

So back to this whole Marwari bit- I just thought it was the other so-called high-pure castes who support this crap.

Mythbusters Revisited

Got the card back- but the bank in the US says they can't turn it back on.

So Myth #3: It's always easier in the US of A. BUSTED.

Mythbusters: India

Myth #1: If you lose something here, you will never get it back not enough people are honest.

Myth #1 ½: If you get it back, there is always a catch.

Myth #2: Don’t give anything to a beggar on the street, child or otherwise, because if you do, they will only keep asking for more.

Let’s enter the mythbusting lab and see who’s here to help us debunk or justify today’s conundrums… Mr. Talkie is here. He is going to tell us the story and let’s see if we can bust some myths…

Mr. Talkie if you please:

“Alright, so there are two scenarios and one hanger-on. Let’s get cracking on the first and see just where the second one comes into play.

Two scenarios in particular that had their start this past Saturday. It seems that the Indian work week lasts six days, because as one co-worker stated, one day is enough. Enough for what I might ask- personal time, time with the family, time to enjoy historical places around the city, to do your laundry, to shop for groceries, to pay your bills, to sleep in an extra hour?

So I find myself in a pretty little predicament on Saturday evening; I am walking out of my internship with 10 rupees in my pocket. I ask an auto driver to take me to an ATM machine near the flat I am staying at, and he says okay. But as we pull up to get him cash for the trip- he gets all belligerent with me. I tell him to chill and that I will be right back. (Done mostly through universal sign language for sit your ass down and take a chill pill)

Somehow I leave my ATM card in the machine, take my money and go about my business. Fast Forward to Sunday.

In my desire to learn how to tell an auto driver to sit his ass down and chill- in Hindi- I get this rather odd local guy to drive me to a bookstore. (More on him later) If I didn’t know I was in India, I could have sworn I was in a Borders bookstore somewhere in New Jersey or on the eastside of Seattle. We get the books I need and head for the counter. I go to pay and realize that the ATM card is gone.

I am able to pay for the books- but am now distraught. We walk outside and there is this kid- probably 12 years old asking to clean my shoes. I am not thinking and I actually yell at him; he asked me seven times and got seven no’s. I yelled at his kid who surprisingly was rather upset (hurt) by my reaction. I know- he’s a good con man in the making, but I have worked with enough street kids to know the difference. If I was his father, I would have beaten me for yelling at my kid that way. I felt horrible about it all day, woke up on Monday thinking about it again.

So day three; I go to the bank this morning and find out that normally my card would be shredded because it is not an IDBI card. I turn on the water works (now who’s the con man) and say that I won’t have access to any money without that card and I am going to be in the country for another two months. Mostly true. I do have other means of getting money, but I wanted my card back.

Come back at four, she says. So I do, and I get it back. Though she compares my signature on every piece of identification I have, every library card. She notes that my handwriting has changed from year to year. I ask if has gotten better. She says no, just more legible. (My mom’s going to get a kick out of this one) I draft a letter staing who I am, what I am doing in India, when I plan on returning and with what NGO am I working. I list my supervisor’s name, his contact number and provide a copy of my internship confirmation letter.

One would think I just bought a fucking house. She was nice, though, which made the interrogation easier to deal with.

Then I come back to the bookstore (same one from Sunday). I am meeting couple of flat mates to check email and then go see a bad movie. Sounds good. Who should I see but the kid I yelled at yesterday. He takes one look at me and knows- I will give him whatever he wants. He still feels bad- but it is clear I feel worse. So I buy him and his friend a sandwich from the Subway next to the bookstore. He then proceeds to ask me to buy him sandals, and when that doesn’t work, he and his friend ask me for a juice to drink. Waves his hand like he’s just given me an order. I just laugh and walk away.”

Well Mr. Talkie let’s see what we got:

Myth #1: Rampant dishonesty, never get anything back if you lose it in India: BUSTED

Myth #1 ½: You get it back- but write your first memoir and recraft your CV to keep it. TRUE

Myth #2: For what it’s worth- TRUE

This morning I saw parrots and the Minaret…

One might expect WB Yeats to wax repetitious on the widening gyre right about now, or some other ode crafting poet to sing and praise Indian secularism and religious harmony with a massive minaret of the nearby masjid peaking through the haze of a drizzly morning. But it’s more a story of how what is unseen, stays that way until something simple focuses your attention. Truth be told I have looked toward the direction of the masjid at least a dozen times in the last two days and never saw it. The gathering of parrots, green, bright green, who gathered one by one on the terrace of a neighboring building triggered my attention. Only then did I see the tower, capped with a conical crown easing its way into sight. And in front of it, several kilometers closer, the five parrots seem to hop around each other, flapping their wings and jumping from terrace to power line to terrace.

The Train

Anju wanted me to see the country, and the train would cover five states; Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Chatisgarh, Maharastra and Gujarat. 36 hours from Chennai to Ahmedabad doesn’t sound altogether unpleasant with a bunk to sleep on and air conditioning. Which it wasn’t, though my meals consisted of dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, three packages of biscuits and an order of dal wada which were paraded through the car piping hot.

I was warned about accepting food- any food from people on the train. Gangs were working the Navajeevan Express slipping mickies to unsuspecting passengers and robbing them blind. Come to think of it, the morning coffee on day one was hot, overly sweet and a bit suspicious… was it the chalky undertaste? Was it the work of the notorious biscuit gang—a group of bandits who lurk from car to car posing as passengers, drugging the tasty buttery cookies that now served as sustenance for unsuspecting ABCDs? Or was it my paranoia running amok? But why did the coffee make me soooo sleeepy?

Just my luck- drugged out of the gate. I bit my bottom lip, tapped my fingers to “Bulls on Parade” I sang Walt Whitman’s Niece”, to myself of course. Anything to keep awake, stay alert for any biscuit wielding thug who might happen by… but alas no one did. I dozed off for a solid ten minutes before my phone rang and the ‘drugs’ wore off.

The scenery was vast. It is a subcontinent after all. I wish I had a map of some use with me, crossing vast rivers and even vaster dried up riverbeds it was hard to know where we were at any given moment. Unlike the States, they are no signs welcoming you to such and such state—one simply pulls into one station to the next Yesterday we crossed one in particular that made me gasp. There below us a hundred meters or so down was an intricately carved staircase, old, decades, even centuries old, leading down to an immensely dry river. I believe these were steps to a bathing spot or something of daily use. But now, the dam that spanned the width of it looked dilapidated and particularly useless, a clear reminder that the river was gone, and so were the livelihoods of those who had trusted its waters. On either side were clusters of grass huts a few patches of greenery that were marked by the telltale brick of a ground well surrounded by dust. How these people eat and make ends meet is beyond me.

While other dry riverbeds gave some indication that they would fill up again with the monsoons, a tree or clump of grasses, animals trekking through the basin and birds. But this river showed nothing. What does it mean to watch a river die? Or worse yet, what does it mean to kill a river, if that is possible to do?

My bunkmates included a rather wealthy pair- mother and daughter heading home to Ahmedabad- and another friendly older man who talked to me about Columbus, Ohio. He was impressed by Americans’ professionalism and discipline. He said that the one thing that Indians lack is one or both of these things. I have heard this same line phrased in different ways; that Indians would do great things if… that Indians had the potential for… but lacked…one thing or another.

It is a bit disappointing really to hear such negativity about someone’s own country- while in that country. I have heard negative views about India my whole life from those who had emigrated in the sixties and seventies, but did not expect such self-loathing here and now. In a country that has shown remarkable resilience these last few years in dealing with natural disasters, though their collective denial is alive and well when it comes to man-made disasters (like riots and mass murder), and is both celebrated and mocked by economists for ‘moving’ a huge population into the fray of the ‘global’ economy. It seems that people are starting to recognize that the growth they have experienced has come with a snag or two.

Anju mentioned that the size of the Indian middle class is larger than the entire population of the United States. But only 2% of the total population, I was told by this nice man on the train, has experienced any benefit from this so-called economic growth. The line between the rich and poor, said Kenneth, our first host in Chennai, has grown wider than ever before. Where once he felt comfortable as a middle class (caste unknown) man walking through the colony of houses and shops that sprung up around the guest house in the last few years- at night no less- he now feels like no one would come to his aid if he were in trouble. And vice versa, the new middle class IT workers following the path of the new IT Corridor (‘the road of our dreams’ we are told) would sooner walk over the body of a village child in need of help than offer any sympathy or help.

The landscape as much as I can tell from a comfortable seat on a moving train tells a somewhat different story. The style of hut changed from Tamil Nadu into Andhra, where the rectangular frame and gabled roof of palm fronds and banana leaves of the southern most state gave way to square huts with pointy hats made of grasses and palm fronds in the southern most Pradesh. But the placement of those huts seemed rather consistent, huddled next to the railway tracks or off in the distance next to water wells.

I saw an older man instructing a young boy how to drive an ox plow. A group of women helping each other draw water from a well, with a gaggle of little kids at their feet also carrying small pots of water on their heads- little girls and boys no less. By late afternoon on the first day I could see a simply clad Imam holding his right hand to his mouth, calling out for prayer, though from the confines of an airtight train car, I could hear nothing; and in the morning on the second day I could see Hindus gathering around tiny temples (you can see these everywhere). People out here seem quite capable taking care of the basics- faith, food, water and each other.

Psycho Fancy and the Indian Penchant for Hero Worship

“We suffer from a collective psycho-fancy,” said the man. I looked away for a second to try and figure out just what he meant. My observation of NGO culture here (that’s just observing 3 separate organizations) has come up unanimous; if I wanted to become a godhead, I should start an NGO right here in India.

Back in the States I keep running into young and fresh Indian college students falling over themselves to cash in on the money to be made in the non-governmental arena. Here I am, ten years out of my undergraduate, having only worked in restaurants and non-profits, derided by the US-based Indian population for not being an engineer, doctor or otherwise, wondering where’s the dilly-Yo?

At my first non-profit gig I was offered $8.50 per hour (Dallas). My second job $8.85 plus commission (yes this was a non-profit in Seattle). My third job $11.33 (also Seattle). At six years after graduating from college, in 2002 I landed the mother of all loads; a miraculous $15.00 per hour. Ahem… for 20 hours a week. So what’s hub—bub?

So psycho-fancy I quickly surmised was sycophancy. Psycho indeed. “An uninterrupted anal assault of butt kissing and drool,” which was how my first editor described the act of ‘sycophanting’. But here in India it is not quite so vulgar. In fact, it is down right respectful. We stand when the director enters the room. We address our leaders as madame, or ma’am, or sir, or bhai (brother), eyes to the ground, head slightly bowed in some cases.

As a godhead, I can remain aloof; unavailable when people are needing to speak with me. In some cases I can leave someone waiting for an hour and a half before letting them know, via psycho-fancier that I am no longer available. I can even send my kids to ivy league schools in the United States.

The guy who came to sell us an internet connection this morning here in Ahmedabad asked what we did for work. I replied that five of us worked for NGO’s. He laughed and looked me dead in the eye and remarked, “ so you all have an inflated sense of purpose.” Touche bhai! Touche! He quickly followed with what he believed would be the snub of all snubs, “I only do this for extra money, I am a software engineer!” I took my cue in stride and said to him, “seems we have the same problem.”

But damn- if what he said wasn’t true. All these kids, all these brown skinned kids in undergrad and grad school dreaming of the godhead. And why not? Who the hell stands to attention for you in the US? That same pittance wage, paid at a US social service agency, even when cut in half is remarkable wages for a loyal Indian employee. I didn’t get it before- this nouveau desire for the non-profit sector- but I get it now. My first question is, are they doing the work for the money, the status or both? Which leads me tol my second question: might that just leave the ideals, the justice and the desire to do good in this world outside the door?

The Story of the Indian Crabs

So there was this shipment of crabs from India to the UK. So tells Kenneth, the host at our guest-house. There a whole shipload of these baskets, uncovered and filled to the brim. The crabs were all alive and accounted for. So this British customs officer comes over and asks the captain of the ship if the covers had been removed. “No sir, no covers,” replies the captain. Well, says the officer, “How is it that all thee crabs are alive and not one was lost at sea?” “Well, sir,” replies the captain, “these here are Indian crabs.”
“Yes, and so,” the officer leans in, not quite understanding the captain’s comment. So the captain explains, “these are Indian crabs, every time one of them claws its way to the top the others grab onto him and drag him back down.”

I tell this story, not because I think it’s particularly funny, or that I believe that the British officer is the real point of irony in the story, but more so to address an issue that has plagued me personally for the last few years. I spent a good part of my life (younger years) thinking everything Indian was lesser in quality than anything American. This is exactly what I was meant to believe- from my teachers, to classmates to just about anyone we came in contact with. But then came the epiphany: If everything Indian was lesser, and I came from Indian parents- I too was lesser in the minds of these people. Well…Bullshit.

Then it hit me while I briefly ran my own South Asian newspaper, that the people in the community were ready to shit on the project, because they themselves believed that the end result would just be mediocre. All the friends and community members who worked on the project believed something totally different; that here, along with some other new projects and organizations that were forming, we had a chance to create foundations for a community with a renewed sense of pride. We were trying to produce something good. No, not just something good but something great.

All our positive thinking vs. the negativity of the older generations in our community. It’s down right depressing really. A bunch of crabs that really dragged the project down- dragged me down.

So is it that the crabs in the story pulled each other back into the baskets because they were Indian? Or because that’s the nature of being a crab. Why is it that the Indian captain is so willing to share his negative insights with a British officer- of all people? How proud that officer must be, to justify his belief that the jewel in the crown was better off under tyranny.

And yet so many of our community go about their days making jokes and snide remarks about other Indians—remarks that they are willing to share with people from other groups before actually dealing with or making things better for those in their own. And for anyone trying to make things better in a way that doesn’t include our new obsession with IT, I find it ironic that we are viewed either as a threat to the status quo or naïve- or both.

Of course if anyone wants to witness the story of another type of Indian crabs, please go to VGP Golden Beach Resort outside of Chennai. There on the beach after winding your way through the amusement park, is a lovely larger than life papier maché umbrella there in the sand. Under which a security officer holds a whistle in his mouth with his left hand, blowing it at relatively constant intervals at anyone he thinks is doing something wrong. The right hand, however, is permanently under his balls scratching himself at a regular pace.

Comfortable Serving But Not Being Served

Last night Anju and I got up from the table to put our dishes in the sink. Shanthi, the cook, looked at us and smiled, gestured to the sink and said thank you. Earlier, Anju got chastised by our hosts for helping set the table. The day before Shanthi yelled me at for rinsing out my coffee mug.

One of the other guests staying here is a young guy, around 24. He has lived here for the last two years working across the street at a new tech company and business solutions firm, Cognizant. He was up this morning cleaning his scooter because his dad was flying in to Chennai. Though only to visit with him during a two-hour layover, here he was at 6AM diligently scrubbing the sand and dung off of his ride so his father wouldn’t be angry. I asked him if he knew whether it would be okay to go in the kitchen and make myself a cup of coffee. He looked at me and shook his head, “Probably, but why bother? I don’t bother with such things.” Why bother? I was stunned. Here I was trying to figure out how not to be a nuisance to a woman who cooks and serves the hosts and guests from 6:30 in the morning till 10 at night by making it so that she makes one less cup of coffee in the morning for my sorry ass- and he says don’t bother.

Without a single note of malice in his voice, he summed up the problem I have been dealing with: I spent the better part of my adult life serving others. Whether as a cook, through community organizing, labor organizing or simply my day jobs with various non-profits. Hell, my tattoo reads Janatha ka nokar- public servant, or servant of the people. {The only title Ho Chi Minh ever allowed his propagandists to use to refer to him and ‘promote the revolution’. I believe they suggested over 30 names in 10 years; some were ‘leader of the people, father of the people, savior of the Viet people… you get the gist. But he repeatedly refused any name that put him as something other than a Vietnamese person fighting for Vietnamese people.}

The Naxalites of India, now a disreputable bunch of communist hoohas, now known for their ingenious ways of extorting money rather than the village-led rebellion they once were- used to chant some odd slogans including—Inquilab! Zindabad! Viva viva Vietnam! Janatha Janatha Janatha ka nokar! Long Live Revolution! And the rest you can figure out. {Did you know that the average Vietnamese farmer earned the equivalent of $10 a year in 1967? Old Uncle Ho paid himself $11/year.}

But it hit me; Vivek, the young man and his scooter, was no more a malicious oppressor of the poor as he himself fits the mold of a modern-day servant. We may call it the service sector- we may call it the technical assistance field- but much like a line cook or sous chef- he fulfills a role by serving the needs of some client needing business solutions in today’s ‘global’ economy. (Please let me know if there was ever a time the economy wasn’t global and I will stop putting that word in quotes) His company ‘farms’ him out to any number of clients worldwide, where he performs exactly what they need. He and others like him are at the center of the new economy, paid well by Indian standards but shortchanged at global prices.

In this part of Chennai, where three worlds are colliding between the drainage ditches, burning trash, expanding highway and IT complexes that remind me of Plano Texas, everything is about serving and being served. World one is the oldest part of this area, there are grass-thatched huts, open air with barefoot children walking passed piles of cow dung on dirt roads surrounding a tiny temple. There is a government-sponsored school that appears to be open only a few hours a day for the kids in the area. Across the field is world two- a concrete paved network of streets with one or two-room homes. The women in this neighborhood work across the street at a number of factories and the men seem to run various retail shops that surround a tiny temple. This was the first industrial push here in Chennai. World three are a series of concrete apartment buildings with big iron gates out front. They are named MSN Anuradha and Sree Tech- no temple. Our guesthouse is one of the older buildings in this part of the neighborhood. It stood here when there was nothing but a village surrounding a tiny temple. Something like 15 years back. It once held three generations and three siblings’ families. Now it holds up to 14 guests who work in IT, for NGO’s and the like.

A guesthouse that serves a new crop of servants.

And what are Anju and I doing in India in the first place? Working for NGO’s. Fulfilling one meaning of serving the people.

So what irks me so much about the situation that Shanthi and Shesh, the groundskeeper/fix-it man/ house assistant, are in? Anju pointed out that Shesh is not required to garden according to our hosts, but he does so with utmost care and attention to detail because it is clear that he enjoys it. And Shanthi makes food that clearly she enjoys to make (and to eat) not just what she is told to make. What I see at first glance is unfair options for work, Anju points out that in a country of 1.2 billion people, jobs are actually scarce. Doing what you can and make money while doing it- is no small thing here. She is correct. Whether during this ‘global’ age of economics or after the revolution; there will still be a need to finds ways to support oneself and family.

Even though one cup of coffee can’t shift the balance, I can’t help feeling compelled to make it.