Darling, yeh hai India
By R. Akhileshwari
Why are we like this, asked an anguished NRI dancer after we established eye contact in the railway compartment and got talking. Why are our roads so dirty? Why don’t we follow traffic rules? Why do our buses/bureaucrats/bosses treat us so badly? The questions put my back up. Isn’t this the attitude of all NRIs? Find fault with everything in India India
Sleeplessness, brought on by the stress of daily deadlines prompted me to advance my morning cuppa of caffeine brew to pre-dawn. The venue was changed from the dining table to the sit-out and as I was sipped the heart-warming drink and drinking in the new experience, I spied upon my neighbour, a religious woman, who was collecting flowers from across the neighbours’ compound walls. She also got her share of exercise by the acrobatics that were necessary to reach flowers that were blooming tantalizingly almost out of reach, over the compound walls or on higher branches. She tried to pull a branch of pomegranate tree, trying to reach the flaming “anarkali” but it proved a tough task so she gave up. I discovered subsequently that the flowers were for her morning puja and this method of gathering flowers was a daily ritual. Surely, when the neighbourhood had ready flowers why buy them from the vendor who shouts his heart out every evening trying to find a customer? Besides, doesn’t the Hindu philosophy enjoin the faithful to do their duty (of worshipping God with flowers) and not bother about the consequences of depriving the neighbours of their flowers and fruits, in the semidarkness of pre-dawn hours? And without their permission to boot.
A neighbour in our office complex decided to expand his wholesale business since his road-facing office was ideal for a retail outlet of readymade clothes. He remodeled his office into a posh shop, removed the hitherto broken pavement in front of his office and replaced it with gleaming granite and soon installed iron rods and connected them with chain, cordoning off the space in front of his office so as to ensure that his potential customers were not inconvenienced by having to rub shoulders with the traffic of humans into the office building. A painted sign warned that the enclosed parking space was meant only for his customers. The only trouble was that the space belonged to the municipal corporation. The access to the building was reduced by half which led yours truly to approach the building’s elected body for redress. They regretted they had no control on the municipal space. Evidently, the businessman worked out an arrangement with the contractor who had “contracted” the parking space by “sub-letting” the space to the businessman. If we complained to the municipal corporation, my colleagues argued, the inspectors will come, take a bribe from the businessman and continue to allow him to use the space. Thus, we would ensure one more source of income to another corrupt official. Besides, we would be incurring the ill-will of a neighbour. So what if the reduced parking space inconveniences the visitors and often a two-wheeler parked literally on the road, obstructs the free flow of traffic and results in a jam?
Then there are neighbours who let out their drains on the roads instead of laying an underground pipe to connect to the neighbourhood’s drain. There are others who in the cover of darkness dump garbage in the unused corner outside your house. Again, those put out the trash can in the corridor of the apartment complex to avoid their kitchen from getting dirty. There are others who wash the sit-outs, merrily splashing the passers-by with dirty water. Take the instance of this office building I often visit for one reason or the other. The airconditioner is placed outside the office, mounted on a steel stand that effectively occupies almost all the space in the corridor. As we walk past the whirring machine as everyone who uses that floor has to, we are sprayed by film of water. Then we have to watch our step because a constant leak of water keeps the area wet. In such conducive conditions, it is not surprising that moss grows luxuriantly…all in the middle of a corridor of a public building!
Festival times are risky times, I realized. With Holi round the corner, we put away from public eye all our cane and wooden furniture, ladder, unused wood, bamboos and so on. The cane frames to help creepers to spread themselves are also fastened strongly, or the over-enthusiastic neighbourhood youth will smuggle them away to help them in the process of cleansing the world of evil by burning its effigy. Your goods that they smuggled out facilitate the burning! Come Ganesha festival, and your decorative plants are endangered. The crotons, coleas, and the evergreens are all useful in beautifying the local Ganesha installed by the neighbourhood army of brigands who not only coerce you into making a hefty “chanda” or donation but also slyly take away both potted and other plants that you have placed within or outside your house. All in the name of Ganesha, of course.
Anyone who has lived abroad will bear me out. An Indian will be an Indian among Indians, especially in a foreign country. An Indian family when eating out in say, an American hotel, behaves just as an American does. The Indians add “please” and “thank you” to their orders, speak softly so as not to intrude on fellow patrons, remove the plates if the place requires it. And then the contrast hits us when we step into a Indian-run, Indian-patronised joint. The atmosphere is, well, what else but Indian? The waiter is shouted at, given orders rudely, the conversation is loud, the children unruly, and worst, the tables are messy after the food is eaten. Worse, the patrons will try and bargain for a “discount” in the bill. In turn, the establishment will try and fob you off with stale food and refuse to replace a wrong order or spoiled food as is the practice in the mainstream eating places. Why are we like this? I fear the answer is, we will be always like this only. After all, we are Indians, no?
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