Getting to be That Time

I just returned from another trip to Mumbai which has solidified its spot among my favorite places in the world.  This is the one city that is rich with the flavors of traditional India as well as everything you can find in the west.  Street dancers, gifted artists, fantastic food of all kinds, bright colors, beautiful views and stately architecture.  Bombay boasts some of everything the world has to offer inside its gargantuan boundaries.  I know New York has coined "the city that never sleeps" phrase but Mumbai really is about as lively as a city can be day and night.  It has everything from a vibrant nightlife in world class nightclubs to casual Sunday cricket games on dirt pitches off of the main roads (that draw hundreds of spectators from around the neighborhood).  The Sea-Link bridge, the remarkable coexistence of poverty and wealth, high rises lining 100 kilometers of ocean, trees shading cobble stone streets, beautiful old buildings in Churchgate and home to the people that make up the creative heart of India.  I have no doubt that the future of not only India but the world will continue to be influenced by Mumbai.  It really is a place to be experienced.

But after what feels like years of experiences my three months are nearly up.  As much as I will miss my life in India (nothing more than the loving relationships I've forged with my once distant and unknown relatives) I am ready to come home.  Of course I miss my family and friends but more than anything I am ready to start on life's next challenge.  As grand an experience as India has been one can only vacation for so long.  I feel as ready as I ever have to take the next (and biggest) step in my life and go from school to career.

It's funny to me how this feeling has crept up in the last month.  Last Spring leaving college seemed so daunting.  I did not feel ready to throw myself into the working world quite yet and I hadn't the slightest idea what graduate program would suit me.  I couldn't have imagined having this confidence I have now nine months ago and I can't pinpoint the exact source.  Somehow a winter spent in India has helped me find it; find the Alex that is going to take over for the one that just finished college.

What happened for me in India is hard to articulate.  I have spent time in Mexico, Sweden and Japan but no culture has fit me like India's has.  I have written about nearly everything qualitative that has happened to me from different cities and sights to scams and staring.  But all of those things have been what any American might experience and write about.  They have all undoubtedly had an impact on me but I think a little something more has happened to me here.

The feeling is hard to describe because it's brand new and it splashes over me in a wave then drains away in seconds.  This deep but fleeting connection to India is most powerful when I see someone that reminds me of my mother.  It happened to me once over a homemade dinner with welcoming strangers in a Delhi train station and every now and then at home when I see Seema with the girls.  This is the first time in my life that I am being reminded of my mom by others.  This probably hasn't happened to me in America because it would be near impossible to find a woman that looks, speaks and carries herself quite like my mother (let alone run into one in Fred Meyer).  It has taken 22 years and an extended stay in a country on the other side of the world for me to find this feeling.  It sounds so simple in writing but I can only say that such a potently welcoming feeling was worth flying around the world to experience.

All my life I have been saturated with white and black culture with pieces of Latino, East Asian and Native American mixed in.  India has been a fresh look into an entirely Un-American world of music, movies, languages, traditions, and customs.  I have soaked up as much as I can for now and I will use Skype, my i-Pod, Bollywood DVDs, Hindi classes and my mom's cooking to keep everything alive for as long as it takes me to come back.

Cultural Differences: Eating, Tea, Bollywood and Me

If someone put their mind to the task an entire volume of books could be written about the cultural differences between the U.S. and India; subtle and not so subtle.  I don't have that kind of expertise or patience but my 3 month stay has given me a few things to talk about.

Movies were one of the first big differences I noticed.  I love Bollywood movies but in a very different way than I love American movies.  If you were to put my favorite five Hollywood movies next to my favorite five Hindi movies I don't think there would be any similarities.  It's not just about my taste but about how and why movies are made in both countries.  After looking past all the idiosyncrasies (like no kissing out of onscreen wedlock) it seems the foundational difference between Bollywood and Hollywood is why people go to the movies.  In India they show up in droves to see their favorite heroes and heroines (yes this is what movie stars are called here) and a good number of fans will actually go see movies multiple times simply to boost their favorite hero's box office numbers.

People in India go to the movies to have fun; probably because everything about city life in India is so mentally exhausting.  The high temperature is never below 80, often in the 90's or above and AC is hard to come by.  Indian traffic is so chaotic and unpredictable that the morning commute alone could be as stressful as half a work day in America.  Most people, even those in the upper middle class, seem to be quite drained by everyday life and as a result aren't prone to pay money to see movies that stress them out any more.  Almost always they opt for singing and dancing (6 songs in every movie) and three hour a break from the grind of everyday life.

A lot of people in the U.S. also go to the movies to have fun, but a large portion go for other reasons.  Many people go to the movies to be scared by Freddie, Jason or that girl from the Ring.  Many more go to movies that revolve around turbulent and tragic circumstances (Road to Perdition, Mystic River) or raw accounts of modern day life like Training Day.  Some people in the U.S. actually pay money to go to The Hours or The Road and feel like crap for the whole day!  The English films currently playing in most of India are Tron Legacy and Harry Potter.  They happen to be raking in money in every city.  If any of the other movies I just listed were shown in India they would be epic flops.  To my knowledge the most recent genuine Hindi horror film was made a decade ago and that seems to be enough for this generation.


Not just the movies, everything is different in India.  The way people talk, work, drive, dress and even eat are as different they could possibly be from back home.  Just take eating as an example.  Here almost everything is eaten with the hands.  Sure most restaurants offer silverware if you ask, but most foods are meant to be eaten by hand and are actually more difficult to negotiate with knife and fork.  At this point I might have even had enough of the Indian Kool-Aid to believe that eating with your hands makes things taste better.  Of course most restaurants are also vegetarian, the level of spice in everything is sky-high and beef is strictly prohibited because cows have special religious significance for Hindus.  Finally, I should mention the most difficult adjustment for me eating in India; when meals are served.  I don't know about you but I'm pretty used to a standard eating schedule in the U.S. that goes something like this:

Step 1:  Have a bowl of cereal (or at least a banana) within 30 minutes of waking up.  (If waking up happens at 11:30am or later then I just skip to step 2).

Step 2:  Eat lunch sometime between 12 and 1.

Step 3:  Sit down for a big dinner at 6pm give or take a half an hour.

Step 4:  Late night snack if I'm still up around midnight

None of these things are set in stone but that is generally how my day is aligned when it comes to eating.  In India this has been turned completely upside down.  Most Indians don't eat breakfast; they have tea.  This cup of tea (and maybe a biscuit or two if you're lucky) is supposed to kill your appetite until lunch, which comes by 2pm at the earliest.  And big mistake if you don't fill yourself to the brim at lunchtime.  As far as my three month experience goes, dinner has never been served earlier than 7pm and often comes closer to 9 or 10!  I found out the hard way that almost all restaurants in Hyderabad are CLOSED from 4pm to 7pm.  That's not a joke.  95% of restaurants, that serve food in order to make a living, lock their doors and go Lord knows where from 4pm to 7pm every day of the week.

Tea is the foundation of this Indian eating schedule.  Tea breaks are taken strategically at least 3 times a day and for most Indians this balances out the wide gaps between meals.  Sadly, a cup of tea only buys me about 30 minutes before my stomach starts eating itself.  As a result I have been trained to carry excessive amounts of snacks and do research on nearby restaurant hours whenever I am traveling somewhere new.

The good part about this difference is that life doesn't die by 7pm during the week (like most places in the U.S.).  I'm not talking about downtown or the bars but rather every average neighborhood.  People from 3 to 80 years old are out in the streets eating, talking and laughing in groups until at least 11pm every night of the week.  The weather certainly plays a role in this, but even in the summer months your average U.S. neighborhood isn't quite so lively.  Must be a combination of late meals, hot weather, mom and pop shops and a generally warmer attitude toward neighbors and strangers.  All of the above are more difficult than you might imagine to get used to but things I know I will miss.

India in my shoes

Although I'm half Indian I don't really look it.  When I'm dressed up in traditional South Asian clothes I tend to look more like an Afghan Muslim than anything else (especially with the 10 day beard I have going).  Up north in Delhi folks are fairer and my features and skin blend in well with the crowd.  In Mumbai foreigners and people from mixed backgrounds are more common so I rarely get double takes on the street.  But in Hyderabad, even if I were to don a silk shirt, polyester slacks and leather sandals (standard attire) my light skin would give me away.  And when I walk down the street wearing Nike Frees, white Jordan basketball shorts and a KU shirt with a big Jayhawk on the back everyone looks at me like I'm from another planet.  Actually, not quite that much staring but I do have a good comparison for you.


I want you to picture one of those guys that does street performing in your city.  I know you know this particular guy because I've seen variations on him all up and down the west coast.  In Seattle he's at Pike's Place, in Portland at Saturday Market, San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf and Venice Beach or Santa Monica Pier LA.  He's the fully clothed guy who looks like he's been spray-painted silver or gold from head to toe.  He's usually on a box posing as a statue until someone gives him money to burst into action/dance.  Now I want you to imagine taking the dog for a walk around your neighborhood early one morning.  You turn the first corner and see this guy--in full costume--walk right past you.  Now, this would be someone you had seen before under rare and select circumstances but most likely never in your neighborhood.  This is exactly how people look at me when I go to the store, the movies, walk through the park, anything in the neighborhood.  I'm not something they've never seen before but I'm someone they've never seen in this particular context.