Today I was incredibly lazy. I spent most of the day and evening hours sleeping. I think jet leg – or my lack of sleep on the previous night – has finally caught up with me.
Faisal, Yasho, Gayatri (Yasho’s younger sister), and I met for supper at 21:00. It was strange eating so late, but there were a number of people eating at the various restaurants while we were there.
In India, people do not often use last names. A person is only known by their first name – or in the case of a married woman, her husband’s first initial appears before her name. Because of this, it’s difficult to trace who is related to whom without asking or being told the relationship.
For dinner, we went to the Royal Afghan at the Sheraton. Yasho worked in the hotel industry for a number of years and both she and her husband Hari worked at this Sheraton hotel. Hari was working this evening, so I had an opportunity to meet him tonight as well.
For dinner, we ate food from northern India. Yasho ordered chicken, prawns a lentil dish, roti and naan breads. It was wonderful. Yasho tells me that it takes very special training in order to cook in the tandoori ovens. The ovens are over 500 degrees and chefs place their bare hands into them in order to handle the food. When she was training to be a chef, learning to work with the tandori ovens was one of the most exciting points of her training.
Everyone agreed that I need to visit Hyderabad and Madras before leaving India. Faisal suggests we make a group trip of visiting Madras and that we should go by train, as it is a unique experience in India. I have read about traveling via train in India – and t is highly recommended that you travel at least once via train before you leave the country, so I am looking forward to a weekend trip to another city.
Cultural differences were the dominant dinner topics. Gayatri husband lives in Detroit and she has been to both the US and Canada. We discussed the different levels of service in the various countries. Gayatri mentioned how surprised she was when she was staying in US hotels that she was expected to serve her own breakfast and put her own milk and sugar into her coffee. Faisal mentioned that when he was in Jacksonville, Dan cleaned up the orange juice he had spilled. Both of these things would not occur in India. Hotel breakfast service – where you put together your own meal from a buffet – was an area that seemed to especially surprise my India hosts. Gayatri said that in India, if she had asked how to make a Waffle in India, you would be told how the server made it, how his father made them, and his father before him. During the explanation, she said that you’d have 10 waffles made for you by the server and all would be sitting on your plate.
Yasho suggested that the difference in service is directly related to our cultures. In India, people are attentive and polite, always ready to serve, because it wouldn’t occur to them to be anything else. Yesterday, when I expressed feelings of guilt for making my chauffeur wait in a parking lot while I was working, Faisal advised that this was normal for all taxi drivers. Unlike North America, where many taxi drivers are educated, Faisal advised that those who hold the position drivers in India are not. He also advised that the sheer numbers of educated and uneducated workers in India plays a role in the level of service you experience when at a hotel or restaurant. Labour is very cheap, and it makes good business sense of for upper class hotels and restaurants to hire a higher number of concierges and waiters in proportion to the guests they are serving. Having a large support staff ensures that you do not wait long for service or assistance in India, like you would in Canada or the US.
I told a story relating to Drews’ experience in Amsterdam a few years ago. After eating a meal in a restaurant, he and a number of his fellow co-workers stacked their plates in an orderly fashion at set them to the side of the table. In Canada, it’s considered polite to clear up after yourself and it is common for Canadians to stack their plates if they liked the food and service in order to ensure the waiter or waitress has less work to pick up after you. However, In Amsterdam, this behaviour was considered shocking. The stacking of plates has an entirely different meaning. Instead of conveying pleasure with the service, it implies that you hated both the food and the service and are attempting to leave the restaurant as quickly as possible. This same attitude exists in India. It would be a supreme insult to the staff if you were to stack your plates or move them to the side after a meal. While it will be strange for me, I will have to make every effort to leave my place setting as is when a meal is complete.
Faisal was surprised to learn that in Canada, our health care coverage is provided by the government and we do not have to pay for life saving surgery or trips to the hospital due to illness. Like Americans, Indians pay for trips to the doctor or hospital and many people can not afford basic health care which Canadians take for granted.
Gayatri mentions that many people are immigrating to Canada and that she has asked her husband about moving from the US to Canada in a few years. The climate change would be extreme based on what I’ve experienced while in India, but the culture of tolerance and acceptance in Canada appeals to many India citizens.
My biggest surprise was related to marriage.
Faisal had mentioned that I should attend an India wedding while I was here, as it is an amazing experience and great fun. When I asked if he knew someone who was getting married in order to wrangle an invite, he jokingly suggested calling his mother and asking him to arrange one for him while I was there. At least, I think he was joking. He says his father is always threatening to marry him off because he has too many late weekend nights partying. When I said I’d never be able to marry someone selected by my parents, Faisal advised that his mother knew his tastes and would pick a good mate.
In North America, it is normal to choose your own mate and arranged marriages are extremely rare. In India, the concept of selecting your own mate is quite foreign. Gayatri explained that her marriage was not an arranged one, and because she and her husband had met and chosen to get married on their own, they had to wait 6 years in order for their upcoming nuptials to be accepted within their families.
In India, there is a marriage season (December) and couples would book weddings at marriage halls a year in advance in order to reserve their place. Gayatri had 4 marriage ceremonies – 3 different religious / traditional ones, and a more standard wedding in order to obtain the marriage license for her return trip to the US. Currently, Gayatri currently lives in Madras while her husband stays in Detroit. She is completing her PhD in Bio Chemistry and works at a local government lab. While it is becoming more usual for couples to have a renewal of vows ceremony to celebrate a milestone in their marriage (ie: 10 or 25 years), I can’t imagine having 4 weddings in a period of 2 days!
Another striking difference is the attitude towards consumerism. India could never be described as a consumer society as we North Americans understand the term. We are very much a culture of instant gratification. We want what we see and we want it now! While in Canada it’s normal for a household to have multiple cars, televisions, VCRs or DVD players, in India people rarely have more than one car shared amongst all family members. North Americans are members of a ‘throw away’ society and believe that bigger is better, while Indians are concerned with ensuring their basic needs are met and that there is little to no wastage of food. Faisal described his shock at the portions of food that are served – describing the concept of upsizing a meal in a fast food restaurant and the amount of waste that often occurs during a restaurant meal.
Food waste is such a concern in India that is it common for notices to be posted in buffets advising customers not too put too much food on their plates. If they are hungry at the end of their meal, they may return for seconds. In the Convergys cafeteria, there are pictures on a bulletin board with the caption ‘actual food waste occurring’ and pictures of food being thrown out in the garbage bins.
Size was also another noticeable difference. In North America, my 5’3”stature is considered petite and I am considered shorter than the average woman. In India, women are tiny, often 5’or under. Rather than being seen as short, I am considered to be tall for a woman. Gayatri spoke of attempting to shop for clothes in the US and how strange it was to try and buy clothing based on her concept of size. In stores, clothes ranged from sizes 4 to 16, and she – thinking that she was bigger based on Indian standards, tried on clothes in the 12-16 range. Of course, since she is tiny by North American standards, the clothes floated on her and were miles too large. Faisal mentioned his attempts to purchase a shirt in the US. He had tried on a mens small, but it was so large on him that he had to go to the childrens department and purchase a childs’ medium in order to get clothing to fit his shape and size.
Obesity is also a European and North American phenomenon. Gayatri , who by our standards would be considered overly thin, advises me that she’s considered to be quite large by Indian standards. At approximately 5’5”(by my eye), she is considered to be both tall and broad shouldered. The idea of a 200-400 lb person, something which has been on the increase in both Canada and the US, is something that most Indians can’t understand unless they have traveled to the US or Canada and seen such people for themselves.
While there are many differences, some things remain the same no matter where you are in the world. We talked about when we were children, our families knew everyone in our local area and we were often sent out to play for hours on end with no supervision. Now, people don’t seem to know their neighbours as well, and people are more wary of letting their children roam free unsupervised. While it has not reached the extremes in India as it has in North America, it seems that some things are becoming a world wide phenomenon.
It is 23:30 and we had spent over 2 hours in the restaurant eating a leisurely dinner. During that time, the wait staff was attentive but not once did they attempt to hurry us along or encourage us to leave.
The Lycra MTV Style Awards party was taking place in the Hotel while we were there, and Hari managed to get Faisal and I into the party. We spend 15 minutes looking around, watching the youth dance and party it up to extremely loud music. Faisal advises that this is a good party and that similar parties are very common in Bangalore. In order to get into the party, you need to obtain a pass. As with the US and Canada, getting a pass is based on who you know. The remainder of the people attending would have won tickets in a contest. I’ve come ¾ of the way across the world and have finally made it to my first MTV party. Look out Hollywood, here I come!
Faisal, Yasho, Gayatri, and I leave the Sheraton and hop into the car to go home.
In the car, I mentioned that I had seen a number of dogs throughout the city, but had not yet seen a cat. Gayatri told me that there are a number of cats in India, but that they are very different from cats in North America. The friendly domestic cat living in a house or apartment in Canada is not the norm in India. Instead of socialized lap cats, almost all of the cats in India are feral, and are rarely seen. Even cats that live in peoples homes are more feral than domesticated. I’m told that if you put out fish or chicken bones, you will quickly see cats. Otherwise, they are not normally easily seen. As strays, feral dogs and cats often scavenge food and regularly eat chicken bones. In Canada, we go out of our way to ensure that our domesticated dogs and cats don’t eat chicken bones – to ensure that they don’t choke or perforate their stomachs or digestive tracts.
After dinner, we visited Yasho’s home. It is a bright spacious apartment and you ride an ancient elevator to reach her home. Yasho loves antiques and many of her furnishings are older than most of my country. The woven cane seats are wonderful and just the perfect height – my feet touch the ground when I’m sitting in them. Gayatri tells a hilarious story of Hari’s visiting cousin falling through the chair he was sitting on.
Tomorrow is a big day with plenty of shopping planned. We are meeting outside of a music store on Brigade road at 12:30 and Gayatri warns me that Yasho will walk me off of my feet if I do not have a set plan for what I want to buy. Since I’m as interested in seeing the shopping districts and wandering about looking at the streets and people, I tell Gayatri that I’m well prepared to walk miles to keep up with Yasho.
