Fish Porn

We had to ask around to find the first shop, my Norwegian friend and I were informed this afternoon that there was indeed a store that carried what we were looking for. “Go down the stairs,” we were told, they have what you need. Indeed, I thought, indeed. So down the stairs we walked, only to find out we came to the back door. A brilliant combination of aromas emanating from the establishment was intoxicating. No, they couldn’t help us. But they did have chicken, mutton—and pork. This last word he whispered, truly, and looked behind him to see if anyone had quite stealthily crept up to the front counter while his back was turned.

“Pork?” I asked, also in a muted whisper. Yes. He provided a one-word response that belied the severity of such a product within the confines of such a contentiously religious state. No thank you. Not because I am adverse to the pork product- much to the contrary- but I have seen what pigs eat in this country. I haven’t seen what pigs eat back home. “Mai ‘pish’ karto hou.” He looked back to the street and pointed in a direction, “go to big building opposite construction site. ‘Pish’ inside.” We thanked him and graciously exited out of the store, this time through the front door.

The way this adventure was going I half expected to see a store with blacked out window, a wiry neon sign with the words ‘Live Fresh Pish” blinking on and off. What we found was the cleanest fish and chicken market. Cleaner than butcher shops and any fish market in NYC. I would want this guy in my neighborhood back home. The order was simple, but glutinous. Could we make it home before the ice melted. Could we afford to buy more than one kind, a full kilo – hey- what kind of fish is that one?

As we ordered a crowd of young men gathered around us. They watched our every move. Clearly pure vegetarians- all of them. Entranced by the foreigners buying the flesh, they spoke to each other in muted voices. Were they tempted? Had our act of non-veggieness prompted a coup among the religious masses? Would they ban the sale to future shoppers?

Grins on our faces we were clearly enjoying the rush of doing something that felt so bad- so dirty. As we walked with our fish porn it hit us how visible such a bag would appear, the whole world would know by the look on our faces and the tell-tale black plastic porn bag in which our fish flesh was wrapped. We quickly opened my companion’s satchel and hid the evidence, crossed the street and went home by a different route.

I Got to be in Chennai For Our Anniversary

I love my wife. She is pregnant. She is beautiful and I got to be with her for our 4th anniversary. I am happy. This is her belly. There is a cute baby inside.

Two Sadhus, Three Autos, and a 4 PM Deadline

The following story is true. Should you choose to believe it, please forward a copy to as many friends and family as you can. It won’t bring you luck, Microsoft will not send you a check, come to think of it— it really won’t do you any good one way or another.

Accosted on the streets of Ahmedabad! Victim of Clueless Auto Drivers and Gujarati Extortion Conspiracy!

I needed to research something for work. As they only have a dial-up modem on one computer, I grabbed my laptop and headed for the nearest A/C WIFI café—Mint. A bit of a pricey joint, but conveniently located by my favorite shoeshine boy. (see earlier post)

It should have only taken me six minutes by auto to get there; it was 2:45. I had enough time to get there, get the info I needed and get back by 4PM for a meeting with my boss. (Who needed the information I needed the internet to procure).

While crossing the street, I spy with my little eye the first sadhus I have seen in Ahmedabad. They are large, wide and tall men, long beards, sun-faded orange clothes, one even with a walking staff. Wordlessly they make a bee-line for the one guy on the street who won’t understand a word they say; me. I zig, they zag. I cut and roll only to get snagged by the large hands of the taller of the two. He has me by the arm and bellows something I can actually understand.

“You are a man of size. (thanks asshole) You must have been a sadhu in your last life. Share with us everything you can!”

If only I knew how to respond I would have said, “ yeah- I was a sadhu in my last life- that’s why I am back here again to make up for being such a lazy, self-indulgent asshole.”

A nice young man was walking by- I looked, no implored him with my eyes to come and help me. He walks over, “Sadhu-ji, this man is from England [sic], he cannot understand your speech. If you let him go, perhaps I can help him understand what you are saying!”
“BAH!” says the Sadhu. But as he says “Bah!” he pulls his hand from my arm to gesture his disgust as being rebuked, just enough for me to step out of his way. My helper and I break for the end of the street leaving the sadhus yelling at the top of their lungs. It is now 3:00PM.

I thank him profusely and get into an auto. “Crossword Bookstore. Mithakali Circle.” “Yes Sir I know where,” he responds. If I said Mint, he would have said he knows where. If I said Lexington and Fifth he would have said he knows where.

Two minutes into the drive I notice we are heading somewhere, not entirely wrong, but definitely not the fastest way to Mint. I try to correct him. He says “it is shortcut.” He makes a turn, goes around the roundabout and pulls off to the left. “Here sir.” Where sir?

This is wrong I say. He says “No sir, CG Road.” Ummm. Yeah.
He then proceeds to demand 15 rupees for a ride worth no more than 8. I pay him 8. He starts to yell and grabs for my hand. Out of nowhere I pull my hand back and bellow. It is the best way to describe what came out of my mouth. “GO! GET OUT OF HERE!”

He pulls off, knowing he was trying to cheat me and I turn to this other auto standing right beside me. “Crossword Bookstore. Mithakali Circle.” “Yes, sir I know” where should have been my first clue. 10 minutes later I ask, “Where are you going?”

“Here sir.” Where sir? “University.” The University? “Yes, sir.” No sir. We head back literally to where we started. 10 more minutes go by. He says, 25 rupees. I pay him 7 rupees. He starts to yell at me. I…yes, bellow. [Where I picked this ability up from I have no idea]

He peels out, difficult to do with a two-stroke engine and three wheels. A third auto driver is staring at me, laughing his ass off. I ask him what’s so funny. Well, more like “Kya Hai?” He says “where you go?” I say “Crossword Bookstore. Mithakali Circle.”

He says… “Get in.” He charges me 7 rupees for a 12 rupee ride after I explain everything that happened since leaving the office. I say thanks; he smiles. The time is now 3:35PM.

I go inside, ducking past my favorite shoeshine boy, order a coffee, get the information I need and get back to the office at 4:03PM.

The Comma

When I was in sixth and seventh grade I had a teacher, English teacher, who hated my guts. Every chance she got, she would carve up my essay, poem, prose, or paragraph. But in those two years, it is safe to say, I learned nothing of grammar, let alone about the crusade against the comma. “Your paper is rather insightful Mr. Gupta, but you have far too many comma usage errors. Please note chapter five of your grammar text on the ‘comma splice’.” I read the chapter. I counted four commas on the first page. All sentences were short. The next page seemed like one consecutive run-on sentence as if the author forgot to taking a break take a breath and see the breadth of damage one long sentence could produce on any given page in a particular grammar textbook that was supplied by the school district in the hopes of winning the war against taking pause…

I mention this only because I have been trying to teach myself basic tourist level Hindi with extra vocabulary. I really just don’t get where I am supposed to pause, inflect, rest or imply an end to my sentence. An English correspondent once wrote a book called “No Full Stops” all about the fact that Indians operate with implied commas, pauses, tied more to the rhythm of what is being said than particular grammatical requirement. In the end, it is the grammar. Mrs. Shaver would have croaked.

The Old City of Ahmedabad

On another day, I was taken to the ‘Old City’ (more stories from the Old City later). As we crossed the Sabarmati river from new to old, I looked out to the left of the auto (what we call autorickshaws) and saw the patchwork of a river settlement. It is a slum quite like no other in the city. It is a place where auto drivers drive up to their blue-tarped dwelling and switch on the television. Two women cooked a stove, and there was even a refrigerator behind them. Whether it worked or not, I will never know. Perhaps it merely provided a safe place from the ants to store food. But here there is no road, only the dirt of above a levee overlooking the floodplain and river.

I asked a few residents if they knew why there was such a distinction between the street dwellers in the west of the city, the shoe shine boys in front of bookstores, and color television watchers along the river. Why they seemed to be clustered by ethnicity and by trade; how intentional it felt, though probably by personal preference to be with your own rather than outsiders. I also asked why it was that each neighborhood seems to sell the same exact merchandise. They don’t seem to have an answer.

I asked some people working in the microfinance world- the world I had originally intended to be working in here in India, and got an answer I don’t much like. There is this entity called a Self Help Group (SHG). They apply collectively for a loan from a bank, microfinance institution (MFI) or through a NGO. Some of these operate with more care than others. It seems that it is just easier for a loan officer or equivalent to sign over money if it goes toward similar services (or products) A shopkeeper selling school supplies is merely selling next door to his buddy in the SHG. In order to minimize conflict, competition becomes less about business viability, as in selling these products in other parts of the city, but more or less letting the bargaining begin between shopkeepers.

But there is something else to note here. This is pretty much the same trend in any given neighborhood. Jewelers by jewelers. Tailors by tailors. Caste by caste. Religion by religion. Ahmedabad more so than Chennai or Pondicherri. The only semi-equalizer/unifier is this amorphous being called the middle class. Well over the size of the population of the United States, India’s middle class makes nearly 7 times more than the next rung down in society. The gap is growing, but at least Hindus, Muslims and the rest seem to be all up in the mix.

Go to a restaurant in Chennai or Ahmedabad and there will be hejab, dupata and blue jeans. But more or less people stick to their own- whether by choice or by design. The SHG explanation can only be useful so far as the microfinance/credit options are concerned. The rest is borrowing from relations – family, friends or caste. This puts your shop right smack dab in the middle of shops just like yours. No great insight here, just finding it interesting.

Settling Down

I am starting to wonder if I need the assistance of motion to keep my eyes open and mind clear. In traveling across the country, I came to realize that there are many questions that one can ask and answer rhetorically on one’s own. Then, the very simple act of moving your belongings into a drawer and onto shelves, getting up in the morning and going to work, the mind begins to accept the passing of faces and disturbing images as quickly as a two-stroke engine autorickshaw will take you. Until you are snapped out of the equivalent of a nine-to-five mental shroud and brought mistakenly back to reality.

A few days ago a kind, youngish Muslim auto-driver took a wrong turn. Wrong only because it was unintended. We snaked through a few side streets of one of Ahmedabad’s many slums. Tucked behind and between larger apartment complexes, storefronts and houses, the slums don’t spread outward as they do on the edges of Chennai, rather they sit bundled and apparently illegal, between yet another Tata-owned complex and that Chitra advertising billboard. These slums receive electricity through jumper wires that draw power from nearby circuit boxes. The water from a few taps here and there. These are the neighborhoods of NGO’s, like the one I work with, a physical representation of why we do the work, and why young corporate types here in the city think we have over-inflated senses of purpose. They feel we think too highly of the work we do, while their daily engineering of software is better for society. I have yet to see more than one computer in a slum in India. And that machine was put in place by an NGO a year or so ago- they held a few training classes, but then abandoned the project when their international donors pulled the funding.

It is the same as I found in the United States. Foundation meets NGO. NGO woos foundation, foundation falls in love with an idea, idea becomes reality. Foundation afraid of commitment, runs to the Swiss Alps, and changes wardrobe a few times. NGO left alone and confused in Ahmedabad’s streets. Foundation sends Dear John letter. Foundation takes credit for the idea and pulls the plug on funding. NGO- feeling used finds rebound love with a new suitor while the computer sits idle, but connected to the internet.

So my driver began to apologize. Over and over again as he sped up and nearly clocked a wayward cow. As we sat there for nearly an entire second waiting for the animal to move its tail end, I quickly put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘slow, aste’ He spun his head around. The first word he understood perfectly well. The second he just didn’t expect out of my mouth. The third word, not spoken by me, but by him was, “why?” ‘Safe only,” I replied. With that he drove through the remaining two blocks at a normal auto-driver’s pace. (Which many will realize is still rather swervy, jerky and nauseating enough.)

As we pulled back to a main road- name unknown because Ahmedabad’s city planners don’t believe in placing a sign with the name of a street where it is visible if at all anywhere - a group of young children smiled and waved. “Hello” said one of them. I waved back, smiling. These kids didn’t have the sun-bleached hair of others living in slums in other parts of the city or in makeshift encampments leading up to Shivranjini Crossroad. In fact, they appeared comparatively quite well fed. Their skin was less tanned, not dusty from car exhaust and sand. They wore shoes- mostly.

As we turned onto the main road I spun my head around toward the kids and something amazing caught my eye. I immediately asked the driver to stop, ‘ek minute’ I told him, got out of the auto and stared at the seven foot papier mache standing Ganapati. Next to him was a seated Ganapati, who, if he stood would equal the height of his neighbor. All around the ground were smaller versions the God, seated, standing, laying down, one reading a book.

I watched as a dozen or so men and boys dipped what appeared to be some sort of woven paper, much like canvas, into vats of white sludge and applied in steady, rhythmic motions to various statues taking shape. The only sound I heard was the honking of horns. These sculptors appeared oblivious to the noise, which by my standards was overbearing. They were focused, not even looking at in my direction as I stood there gawking at them.

The auto driver got out of the car and stood next to me. In broken English he said that this was the only place that people throughout the city came to purchase statues for Ganapati Puja and other festivals. Some he said, pointing to more statues sitting inside the hut that had been constructed out of corrugated metal, blue plastic tarps and a mile of rope, were painted in the most garish, outlandish colors of red, orange and green.

This slum apparently makes the majority of its money off of this trade. They have secured a place in the workings of city holidays, religion and commerce. And for that, the siphoned-electricity and ‘illegal’ water connections are ignored by officials.

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.

Taco With My Sambar Please? Friday at Planet Yumm

No kidding, they even have a Malaysian guy serving roti canai and frankies.*

I am inside the Ascendas corporate office here in Chennai at Planet Yumm. The temperature outside is a balmy 40C, and inside the interior of this (think Plano Texas) building is a comfortable 60F. I have just sipped down a frozen Frazzio™, coffee flavored of course. Starbucks frappacino™ be warned- this sugary goodness will beat the caffeine out of any US coffee chain.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry while typing on my free wifi. There’s girls in jeans, a DKNY t-shirt. I think- yes- that young man is wearing a heavy metal t-shirt.

Next to the roti place is your garden-variety Indian tali served on banana leaf and right next door to the noodle shop is a special seating area where people serve your food. Hold your breath, a KFC opens next month.

I spent the better part of my life believing that Indians hated people like me, born in the US, speaking only English and when I speak of development, I don’t mean software, I mean dealing with poverty. But now I know they were just jealous. I, on the other hand, have spent the better part of my life loving granola and organic fresh produce, while all this time, these guys wanted fried chicken and the market-driven right to a heart attack ala the colonels secret recipe™.

Or am just missing the true meaning of Christmas? Let’s check off our list…

This food court in any other Bellevue (WA that is) would be filled with Indians. CHECK

In December there may even be a tree with lights. EX (no tree—it is only May)

There would be families and kids and other Indians sweeping the floors. CHECK

There would be a rash of VPL (ask Anju re: this one). CHECK

There would be a group of older men wearing lungis. EX (no lungis at the mall in WA)

Last but not least, one guy will always be there wearing a Hawaiin shirt. CHECK

4 out of 6…. hmmm

Perhaps my brand of development is not the wave of the future and I have spent my life in vain. The omnipresent food court, however, is the new multiculturalism; the modern marvel of international exchange. The height of progress in this redundantly ‘global’ world.

*For the uninitiated a roti in the Malaysian sense is a flat, yummy buttery bread made from butter and I think a little bit of flour. The canai (pronounced chanai- sound familiar?) is a chicken or potato curry from Malaysian street vendor fame ala Tamilian immigrants to the Southeast Asian peninsula. The Frankie is your garden-variety Indian burrito made with a roti and stuffed with greasy goodness- alloo, gobi, paneer etc.