Life in Chennai #20: Jumbled Thoughts & Experiences

I am not sleeping well. My room is stuffy and thick, the heat of the afternoon still trapped in its walls, the fan just swirling warmth onto my face. I get up and do a pooja of sorts on my bed, vigorously shaking droplets of poured water out of my cupped hand onto my sheets, floor and pillow and lie back down. Momentarily cooled, I drift back to troubled dreams and sweat once more.

But I have so many thoughts jumbled and swirling in my head that I cannot sleep.

Crowded bus rides through humid air. I love that. Not having a plan. The friendliness and helpfulness of Indians. Feeling the local expert. Laughing at how far off that is. Girls. New friends and old. Reconnections. Walking darkened streets. Quitting my job for good reasons. The excitement, fear, relief and anxiety of that decision. The poetry of my friends, in person and in print. The joys of Indian food, but also of Domino’s pizza. A bar called Pirates. India beats Pakistan in the Twenty20 match. The annoyance 2 nights of power outages in the last 4. Being seriously sleep deprived. Dancing. Monsoon thunderstorms. Fitting in. The smiles and laughs of bright-eyed children. Never taking enough pictures. New ideas. Home? Home. Girls. Unexpected changes. People I care for. Frustrated tears. Giving up. Trying again. Yoga and Swimming and Motorcycles (not at the same time). Ganesh Jayanthi in clay and blinking neon. The Mylapore Temple. Hare Krishnas. Having 6 missed calls on a Saturday evening. Meeting friends randomly in the street. Beginnings. Endings. Transitions. Possibilities.

Culture #11: The Wine Shop Revisited

See my earlier post on learning the value of things at the wine shop the hard way. Here is an update on a recent purchase.

I am buying 2 Kingfisher beer. I give him Rs 500.

He gives me Rs 270 back. I look at it briefly, call him back over and point out it isn’t enough change.

He tells me the price is Rs 220.

Of course 500 minus 220 is not actually 270, but I let that one go and focus on the bigger problem: that the beers are in fact only Rs 60 each so the price is only Rs 120.

He nods OK, OK. Takes the money and remakes change.

This time he gives me back Rs 290 with a smile. We're getting closer, but still short.

I patiently do the math for him one more time: 60 Rupee (pointing at one), 60 Rupee (at the other). 120 Rupee vilai. Rs 380 michapanam kudunga Boss ("change please give") I say smiling, but firmly, looking at him . We’re both pretending it is simply a mistake of math.

He takes the money one more time, does some fancy money swapping at his till box and proffers Rs 380 this time. Finally!

So an updated warning: you really have to keep your eye on what you should get back because in the speed of the exchange, the busy counter and their hope you don't know the cost, they will definitely screw you. But they’re not usually bothered if you call them on it. Funny guys.

Life in Chennai # 19: Massages Good and Bad

The vast industry of hair salons, products and marketing is the reverse here in Chennai than in North America in that it is all geared predominantly for men rather than women. Supply and demand of course. Here boys and men coif their hair, spent hours in the salon, strut about town with dramatic moustaches and, ala 1950’s Hollywood, carry combs in their back pocket. Women on the other hand wear their hair long and straight and held back pretty much as is. So 180 degrees to the trends at home. So here there are hundreds of men’s salons (or saloons as they are variously signed, I’m unsure if this is a purposeful marketing ploy or merely a poor spelling), but my female expat friends consistently complain about the inability to get a decent haircut (and risk of trying).

This of course is mostly all wasted on me given my current (and unfortunately permanent) hair style of clipped short, but on the plus, it does mean finding a place is convenient. I’ve become a regular at one just around the corner from me and I usually drop in on my way home. They don’t speak a whole lot of English, but the demands of what I want are pretty simple so we have sorted it all out.

So in I go the other day, sitting down for my usual cut using the clippers with a 1 guard. At most places, the hair cut comes with a 20 minute “relaxation” head massage. I typically skip this to for getting home to dinner a little sooner, but today I decided to give it a go.

And it was...interesting... I really like having my head and face massaged. But I can’t say this was so much a massage as more a vigorous beating. I can’t say it was particularly relaxing either. My guy appeared to be new to the salon (saloon?) and it at first seemed they were just letting him go and do his own thing on me and see what he did. But I later revised his skill level or at least my appraisal of his musical background when he kept excellent rhythm drumming my head in sync to the music video playing on the TV down the row. Realising this made me have to stifle a giggle, which may have just encouraged him. Oh dear. His technique in the end was probably quite good for what it was. It just wasn’t the kind of “relaxing” head massage I was expecting and it left my scalp feeling if not sore, certainly very invigorated.

So I suppose I need to revise my statement and qualify it as I usually like my head and face massaged.

So my massage goes on for quite a while, far longer than 20 minutes. No one bothers to stop him I suppose and I don’t have a watch on. I do actually feel more uplifted and relaxed at the end, but I question how much that has to do with the massage, how much is the aromatic oil he’s used, how much is because I found the whole experience humorous and how much is simply because sitting, closing your eyes and doing nothing for 20 minutes is calming in its own right. I tend to think the actual massage was the least contributor of the four! But whatever, I suppose the results speak for themselves...

For the grand finale of the massage though, he strapped this giant, clunky metal motor thing to the back of his hand. It looked like some oversized ray gun out of a cheesy ancient sci-fi flick. It looked serious bizarre and like a good, heavy weapon in case of a fight, like if the other guy pulls out brass knuckles, you just smile and put this bad boy on and watch his eyes go wide! He turns it on and magic: it turns his head into a vibrator. Killer idea and this, I have to report, is relaxing and very nice on the scalp, face and ears. I’ll keep things PG and will let you make your own obvious leap of imagination to other uses for such an item. If it wasn’t so bulky and didn’t appear to draw enough power to dim the lights for half a block, it would make next year’s Christmas gift craze for sure. I can’t imagine it is that good for the user long term (carpal tunnel syndrome anyone?), but this at least met the promised muscle relaxant. Just glad he didn’t cuff me with his gauntleted backhand for laughing again... :-)

This is not my first experience with notable massages here in Asia though...

Being in India, one cannot go without trying a proper Ayurvedic massage. Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient system practiced here in India. Part of “alternative medicine” from the perspective of the West, it has proved effective when done properly and is very scientific and systematic in its approach. Like most traditional medicines, it focuses on holistic health and cures over targeted and kill-the-bad-bugs Western style. But proper health care aside, it has entered mainstream and mass marketing most fluidly as a questionably effective subset: massage and essential oils – things easily packaged and sold and most importantly things easiest to pretend expertise and credentials of. So proper Ayurvedic clinics are common enough, but everyone and their brother is adding “Ayurvedic” treatments to their spas, soaps, room fresheners, skin creams and you know the drill. It fits bang on into the world’s current obsession with herbal and essential oil additions to everything (many of which probably do have valid therapeutic effects, just not in the uncontrolled or miniscule doses that are in most of the products hawking them). If Ayurveda has not hit North America yet, don’t worry, it will, guaranteed, certainly on the west coast.

Anyway, back to my story, when I was in Mahabilapuram some months back, an area with a lot of tourist influence, I figured my back and neck were tight and I should try ones of the Ayurvedic massages that was being advertised up and down the street. So I made an appointment and later that day found myself on a table, literally drenched in aromatic oils and absolutely naked being worked on by a Keralan guy who claimed extensive credentials. No bothered by Western modesty, many Asian massages are done completely without clothes. Good thing I’m not shy about such things as I had not had warning going in.

Now maybe I’ve got too vivid an imagination or maybe I’m just too into touch (and am mildly ticklish besides), but I find full-body massage – and doubly worse here being oiled and naked – as entirely too much stimulation to ever fully relax. I mean come on! I may not be turned on by this mildly homoerotic fantasy, but seriously how does anyone handle these things without having to concentrate on igloos and icebergs?

Oh well, the massage goes well enough after a spell. I stop alternating between wanting to squirm and giggling at myself for it and the work on my tight shoulders and neck did what I had hoped to ease tension from bad ergonomics at work and too little exercise. I don’t have any background or prior experience in Ayurveda so I can’t vouch for its authenticity or whether it did anything more than a regular massage, but for a good deep massage, it was worth the paltry cash outlay. After, he gives me a bucket of mud stuff to get all the oil off with and a place to shower and I leave feeling slightly like I should want a cigarette or something. ;-)

A couple months later I get another massage, this time at the fancy spa in my 5-star hotel in Udaipur, with the usual little towel and a pretty Filipino masseuse, and I decide that I am just not wired for the full body massage thing as a relaxation tool. Just too much for me. The only exception maybe being Thai massages because in my experience there is just no way to feel sexy once you are doused in tiger balm and the slight woman has tied you into a pretzel and dug into deep muscles you didn’t know existed.

And that, I’m sure, is far more information than you needed to know about me, but I figured it was worth sharing for the story! ;-)

Life in Chennai # 18: Sleep well, eat well

You just have to laugh. Good thing I can generally sleep through anything.

I happen to live a couple buildings down from a temple. OK, rewind that. In Chennai, that is like saying you live a couple buildings down from a Starbucks on the West Coast (if you can throw a rock in Vancouver and not hit a coffee shop, a sushi joint and a yoga studio, then you’re inside). Here, as a function of the diverse and personalized nature of Hindu worship and a simple matter of population, there are temples pretty much every few blocks, from tiny roadside shrines to sky-reaching monuments.

So, anyway, the good-sized temple I live beside started marking an auspicious time and started doing pooja (worship of the Deities of the Hindu religion). At 4am. Over the loudspeaker. 5 days ago. From 4am to 10pm, solid. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I think they skipped parts of Monday for some reason, although maybe I just stopped noticing. Which is remarkable, because we’re talking loud. But break or my imagination, they were back at it again this morning for day #5, (although with a later 6am start). So hearing and experiencing what their pooja is cool and I have absolute respect for the varied Hindu traditions, but to be perfectly frank, I am not sure why it has to be done over the loudspeaker where I cannot turn it off. I assume everyone at the temple can hear just fine (although maybe not anymore), but over the speakers, it projects like they are piping the broadcast directly into my flat. And of course not being a morning person myself, I cannot fathom why anyone or any god would require anything at 4am. It is simply wrong, wrong, wrong! Not better black and white you’ll ever get out of me! ;-)

Truly, I wish I could share it with you though! My parents caught a piece over the phone the other night, but it is hard to convey with words. It is actually louder inside than out on the street, maybe some weird acoustic thing. I tried making a recording on my camera’s video mode, but it didn’t do it justice. But to give you an idea, it is like waking up on the couch with the TV on super loud because you fell asleep watching it drunk. Or for those who perhaps that example doesn’t resonate, it is like going about your day with a really loud stereo going, always. We actually had to shout over breakfast!

Ahh, India. The first morning, being unexpected, it was a bit annoying, but mostly, I find it just another amusing example of the hundreds of little things you just cannot take for granted here. On the plus side though, I was a real keener getting to work early on Friday. I wish I understood more of what was going on. My housemates and close colleague at work all coincidentally being Christian, they haven’t been much help and what little they’ve explained I’ll withhold so as to not make myself even more ignorant than I already am. Actually, now knowing a little Tamil, I expected to understand more of what was being said, but it was either too esoteric or most likely just too garbled by the low quality amplification. There have been sections of leading prayer and reciting verse, sections of rhythmic chanting and many sections of various kinds of music (no hip hop though unless I missed that set while at work on Friday). I’m not a super fan of traditional carnatic music, it takes a certain appreciation, but much of it was nice; some I noted would have been great with a nice funky base line. I liked the drum sets though. I suppose I shouldn’t really call them sets – it isn’t like they were down there with a DJ spinning (of course I shouldn’t assume…) – but the term works so bear with me.

As I started with, thank God I can sleep with pretty much anything going on. But one side effect was that I had some seriously fucked up dreams as my brain tried to incorporate the external stimulus, especially the chanting segments. I wish I could remember them better, but they always fade, just leaving that slightly disturbing residue of memory that my brain had been just mixing things that ought not be mixed, like coming in to find your 6-year old trying to bake cookies for the first time (does anyone else remember that horrid game show “just like Mom” that was on when we were growing up?).

Of course living with noise and inconveniences is a common adaptation for the most of us who now live in cities and apartment buildings the world over. Chennai is no different in this respect than Chicago or Calgary or Copenhagen. Perhaps garbage trucks bang bins (surely on purpose) in the back alley at 5:30am, maybe trucks grind gears along the nearby thoroughfare, or you have one of those neighbours (I’ve been one of those neighbours) who’s stereo base pounds through the walls 24-7. Dogs bark all night at whatever dumb-ass things dogs bark at, police sirens carry for miles and some jerk’s car alarm is going off, again, but we all somehow get along with the babble of cooking, shrieking and different tastes in music and TV programs carrying through the walls.

Here is no different, although of course we’ve got our own unique quirks. The newspaper wallah and a host of others I cannot identify by their distorted cries carries through the windows as soon as the sun is up. Traffic here produces a wider range of racket with the constant cacophony of beeps, squeaks and horns. The custom (requirement?) here is to have an audible reversing sound on your vehicle, which is usually some blaring, repetitive ring-tone like song. Everyone has ring-tones. But on the plus side, almost no one has car alarms, so major score on that one; the reversing sounds, which I despise, only last a minute (or 2 depending on the ability of the parker and the sketchiness of the space they are attempting). There are different urban bird and animal sounds, but not any more of them and nothing exotic. No monkeys or anything cool, although the peacocks made quite a raucous when I was staying in Jaipur last month. But all in all, I actually live on a quieter street than I have in times past: the concrete walls are much more soundproof than Western construction and I usually sleep with the overhead fan which does a good job in dulling most into its white noise.

Actually, being woken up repeatedly at early hours to singing and chanting reminds me (other than residence at University, of course) of a funny story of living in Vancouver during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. I was living with my girlfriend at the time just a couple blocks from a major downtown intersection, high up on the 15th floor. The World Cup was in Korea and Japan that year and games therefore were at crazy hours of the night Vancouver time. And every day for 2 weeks straight we were woken up at 4, maybe 5 in the morning to the sound of some group or other having an impromptu parade down Robson Street cheering and honking and waving their flags wildly. The honking would start and I’d blearily get up and lean my head out the window above the bed. “Who won?” she’d ask sleepily. “Italy, I think”; “Brazil today”; “Korea again” (they did particularly well that year and have a sizable population in the city). It didn’t matter who won – such is the diversity of the city – every morning without fail the nationals and supporters of the winner would suddenly sweep out from wherever they were managing to watch the game at that hour and parade down the street. It was like it was choreographed. On the plus side, we kept up on the standings. It is a fond and fun memory, no less in the telling. Such is city life, in all its randomness and bother. So I suppose I can be easy on the temple.

But there are other funny noises to deal with this week. We’ve got a cricket holed up in our kitchen and he’s been going solid for a couple hours now. I’ve gone in there to see if I can find him, to tell him, “sorry little guy, but I can pretty much guarantee there are no girl crickets living in our kitchen. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I appreciate your commitment and all to being the coolest, suavist, cricket in the yard, but man to man: they aren’t coming dude. Give it up.” Of course I couldn’t find the bugger so he’s still there. I hope he finds a way out. We had one living there for a couple weeks back in January and never could find where he was hiding.

Bugs and creatures are another thing you mostly have to get used to here in India. I suppose it is the climate as well as the fact that we’re rarely living in a sealed environment (our apartment actually has an open-air window to a central shaft running down the middle of the building, a peculiar, but common design element here so all the apartments are open to each other, though grated, and to the outside). So things find their way in pretty regularly and many just decide to stay and set up shop. I’m generally unfazed by it, although I do admit I jumped and shrieked like a kid trying to capture a giant cockroach that flew into my room one night. I know they are more scared of me and can’t do me any harm, but it is all their fast skittering and flying about! Leslie thought it all very funny, but she’s about as resilient as anyone I’ve met with this stuff. You get used to all sorts of things though and very few of the bugs are actually a bother (except mosquitoes of course).

We’ve got geckos. They’re cute. I talk to them. We have a new little one scurrying around that I sometimes surprise when I come out to go to the bathroom. I try to shoe him out of my room, but figure he is fine living under the fridge if he wants. Not like we can do anything about it anyway. They just wander in and out. And I figure they eat bugs so points to them.

We go through phases of having ant problems in the place, again coming in from the outside. They are mini ones, very common here. I don’t mind them except when they occasionally get into my dinner left out on the table. I don’t figure they’ll harm me though. You have to compromise some. Several of us living here have concurred on there being an ant quota. So if I open my dinner and there’s, say, less than 5 ants checking it out, fair game; above that it gets dicey. On the other hand though, there is no “5-second rule” for dropped food here. With nasty microbes and general grime here, if it hits the floor, it’s DOA.

And that’s the basics of shared living here. It isn’t the most pristine place I’ve lived long term and it isn’t the quietest, but it isn’t the sketchiest or loudest either. At university our decrepit place had mice and millipedes and at one place or another I’ve had the excitement of having a squirrel or bird or bat make its way inside and freak out (my cat particularly enjoyed having the bird around…and around and around). I’ve lived near a fire station with neighbours who had a rock band, the one living there being the drummer. And unlike good friends of mine, I haven’t had bed bugs or fleas. Everyone’s got their horror stories.

So give a cheery hello to whatever critters share your space with you while you eat your cornflakes and give your shared wall, floor or ceiling a couple good bangs just for a chummy “nice to know ya” to your neighbours. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

Life in Chennai #17: Why We Have Bars

The strangest, oddest fucking thing happened to me last night. It was surreal. I’m still shaking my head about it, trying to resolve the details.

So it’s 3am and I’m sleeping. I’m not sleeping that soundly actually. I was up late reading, my brain is still spinning and I can’t seem to get comfortable. So I’m rolling a lot. But I’m mostly asleep listening to the washing patter of rain through the nearby trees. Every once in a while it is punctuated by a snap and thud as the ripe mangos in the tree outside my window get heavy with water, break and fall heavily and satisfyingly to the pavement below. Occasionally a squirrel makes a racket, a vehicle passes along a nearby street, or a truck honks its horn, at who this time of night God only knows.

With all that, I am a little surprised I heard it. Perhaps it was simply the closeness or perhaps it was just a sound that was distinctly out of place, our brains adapted through the eons to pick out discrepancies in the background. Whatever the reason, the odd soft, scrape and knock stirred me.

You know when you’re in a sleepy state, your mind not quite awake and you’re not sure if you’re really awake. That was me. And even fuzzier without my glasses or contacts in.

But I swear I thought I saw a large dark shadow drift down out of sight outside my window. Now that is a very odd thing to see. I wasn’t sure I saw it. There was no sound, just movement of dark in front of the city-warmed night sky and building across the yard. Sleepy as I was, I was having trouble processing what I thought I saw. I thought, “monkey?” but it was too large to be a monkey. Bird? It didn’t move like a bird. It kind of just looked like it sunk. It had human size, but I’m on the 3rd floor (that’s 4 storeys off the ground for those in North America. India counts the ground floor always as 0). And last I recalled, although admittedly I was quite tired and still very fuzzy, people didn’t sink silently and smoothly through the air.

Truth be told, I’m a little fuzzy about all that as I was not fully awake. I was starting to wonder if I had picked up a half-dream from having watched part of “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and an episode of “Heroes” earlier than night. That combo will fuck up your dreams if anything does.

But something still wasn’t right. You know the feeling. Humans are very, very good at picking up subtle queues, even when you can’t put your finger on it. The dark swath shadow of the curtain bunched to the side of my window kept my eye. It didn’t move right as a curtain does and I was thinking it was too big. Don’t ask me how I decided this at 3am. But then it moved and resolved into a man-shape.

Holy shit. There was a man outside my barred, but open window four storeys up at 3am! I can’t say the adrenaline hit me and I leaped to action. I think it was the silence of it all. There was no sound other than the rain. But I swiftly got out of bed and moved to the window as the man slipped silently and smoothly up over the deep overhang and to the roof just above. I gave a quick yell, but didn’t run out of the flat to catch them coming down the stairs. I’m in India, I don’t know how many people are up there and I don’t have any sort of weapon I can grab before they’d be down and gone. Simply not a good idea. Let them go. They didn’t harm me.

But mostly, I stood there because I didn’t feel any fear since they weren’t going to get through the bars on the window and without that fear (and it being 3am), there wasn’t really anger either. Just puzzlement. I stood at the window trying to sort out what I had seen and how it had worked, thinking, “What the Fuck. Did I really just see that?”

How the Hell did he get there and move around so quietly? He was obviously making some noise that woke me. But the roof overhang is at least 2 feet from the wall, the open window panes form a narrow outward barrier to reaching through the bars. And funnily enough I actually have personal experience of how slippery the walls and ledges are from the grime and dirt – and that’s when it is dry, let alone tonight when it is pouring rain. Being a climber, I know how hard it is to pull oneself up over a ledge or even up a rope, let alone quietly and in the rain. I didn’t see a rope hanging. What is this guy, Spiderman, Batman or some sort of circus freak? He moved so smoothly and quietly. I was left with respect for his acrobatics and boldness for what he had to know was a low and uncertain payoff, just whatever was in reach.

I can’t be certain, by a long stretch, whether the first shadow I saw was a second man who dropped down or if it was just one guy who dropped below my window panes and back up to the wall beside them where I finally made him. If there was a rope, I didn’t see it although without my glasses, expert witness I am not. Was there someone hauling him up from the roof? Or did he climb like the geckos that sometimes look at me curiously from the ceiling?

To be honest, so completely odd, even for India, that it was, I’m not sure I would have been sure I saw it at all except that he left his reaching device stuck through the window bars and leaning up on my desk. So I had physical proof of the short affair, but it still left me to sort out puzzle of the unlikelihood of the events.

What he had been doing was trying to steal the stuff from my pockets that I drop messily on my desk – cell phone, ipod, wallet, keys, coins, pen. I don’t know of course what, if anything, he could make out in the dark was there versus how much he was just hoping. He was reaching through with a strip of plastic. It was one of those flat wall panels meant to hide wires and the like – about 1 inch wide, ridges forming a wide “C” along the sides to give it some rigidity. Considering my presumed sophistication of his Spiderman routine, I kind of thought he would use something more specialized to grab things, but who knows. I suppose if you could get the strip under the cell phone, you could tilt it up and slide it smoothly down between the side ridges. And I suppose you could hook it in the fold of the wallet and lift it out too. But all that presents a degree of dexterity and smoothness not anticipated by a person clinging outside a window and trying not to make any noise. It was obviously the nearby soft scraping of the plastic against my desk that was the out of place sound that pinged my sleeping brain.

My next line of questioning was whether I had been targeted as a foreigner who presumably has more value lying around. It is possible as I’ve never been good with closing the curtains. Maybe someone saw from across the next building. But one has to be careful assuming you’re special in India with a billion people and when so much happens at random. Perhaps they just saw me reading tonight. Perhaps it was totally random. Who knows.

As to how they got to the roof, well, that part I know: the watchman, as nearly all watchmen uselessly do, sleeps like the dead all night and the roof is open from the stairwell. I’ve come home several times late on a Saturday night and had to jump the chained gate, tromp past the sleeping watchmen and up the stairs. I’ve no doubt a group of would-be petty thieves could wander in and out dragging furniture and the elephants from their escaped circus and no one would notice. Ah well, such is the way of things here: all watchmen of all buildings seem to sleep so there is no use firing him.

So the whole affair of 2 minutes and then several more questioning the sanity of the universe was over. Nothing taken. A stupid plastic strip as a souvenir. A little bothered because of how close someone had been, only 10 feet or so, but no risk to my person and I was not particularly shaken. What does one do, but go back to bed. Just a weird, surreal story that I had to share or risk starting to wonder if I was crazy.

I’ve always lamented and questioned the bars on the windows and balconies and double locks and deadbolts on all the doors. I hate feeling like a prisoner and not being able to lean out. I haven’t heard of Chennai having a particular petty theft problem, not like Vancouver where having your car or even your apartment broken into has become almost not worth commenting on. And I’ve always thought, come on, 3rd floor? What are they going to do, drop down with a rope and come through the windows? Yeah, that is what they are going to do. There is always one more surprise living here.

So that I now see is why we have bars on our windows. Utter madness, but there it is.

Culture #10: Prayer Flags

Prayer flags are one of my favourite religious observances and a sight I’ve come to cherish and love in the Tibetan and Nepali world. Strung from every place, structure or object of height or significance, their 5-coloured squares of fabric are always fluttering in the wind. Big, small, vertical poles (Darchor) or long, sweeping strands (Lung Ta), alone or by the hundred, no scene in the Himalayan and Tibetan world is complete without them. The 5 colours are: blue, white, red, green and yellow, always in that order (left to right), the blue symbolizes sky, the white wind, the red fire, the green water and the yellow earth.

I love them for several reasons. Romantically and piously, I love the idea of prayers floating off the fabric in the wind to God (Buddha) and their deities. It is a supremely simple idea. The many mantras and prayers written on the fabric are blown upwards and promote peace, prosperity and wisdom to all who the wind reaches. As the images and flags themselves deteriorate with the elements, they become permanent part of the universe and are renewed by the Tibetans by hanging new ones alongside the old.



They also tickle my practical side for their supreme efficiency: Buddhism, without a doubt, has the greatest concentration of prayers per person than any other religion. How do we get even more prayers to the gods with our monks already reciting mantras and clicking of prayer beads 24-7? Simple, get the wind to do the work for us! (And enterprising as they are, they’ve also hooked up prayer wheels to streams for continuous water-driven prayers! What genius!). It does help that Nepal and particularly Tibet are very windy places.

But I think I love them most for their aesthetic beauty. On stupas and Chorten, their fluttering colour contrasts beautifully with the clean, simple lines and clean, white surface of the monuments. Placed on bridges, passes, peaks and even special trees, their human element contrasts, but somehow pleasantly, with the striking, but often stark landscape they are set in. Whether in front of barren, alpine valleys, gleaming white peaks or lush green forest, their translucent colour catches the sun and the eye, complimenting the scene. They would welcome you into town. They would welcome you to the monasteries. They would let you know you’d reached the top of the pass or peak.

Perhaps because of their simplicity and colour, it is not like a “Kilroy was here” graffiti scrawl or the discovery of a candy bar wrapper on a pristine beach, but rather a more subtle sign that, yes, humans were here and they found this place to be special and beautiful and went to the trouble of leaving an offering for it. You too can share this spot.

Although I am not about to turn Buddhist, I wanted a strand ever since being in Tibet last year and regretting not coming back with one. So this time I made sure to pick one up and now have it strung across 2 walls of my room. My room needed some colour. I turn the ever-present ceiling fan back on and they flutter satisfactory. It is not a mountaintop of course – any prayers freed are likely trapped swirling around my room like the moth that struggled chaotically about last night, but I hope, like the moth, eventually that some make it out of the windows and are taken up by the warm breeze.

Life in Chennai #15: The New Helmet Law

So Chennai finally decided to make wearing a helmet mandatory for all 2-wheelers (motorcycles and scooters). No, they weren’t before. Sorry mom and dad. On the plus side, traffic rarely goes more than 30 km an hour during the day. But despite a public disinterest, a court order prompted the government to finally decide to make it mandatory in the name of public safety. June 1, last Friday, was the enforcement date (for the major urban centres, with the rest of the State July 1). It gives a fascinating and telling picture of how politics works here.

Here is how it went.

Pre-law helmet use: maybe 5%.
All last week suddenly roadside stands and wallahs stocking tall pyramids of boxed helmets appear everywhere. They do a killer business. My colleague told me helmets run from Rs 500 to Rs 1500 for proper ones, but although some premiums appeared that week most were kept reasonable by intense competition. Like anything else in India, a need was created and entrepreneurs filled it immediately from who know what supply chain. Apparently and unsurprisingly, the ones sold on the street, the North American equivalent of being sold out of the back of a van, are not up to standards and are of no use in an accident, but rather only to comply with the law and can be hand for under Rs 500.

So we haven’t even started the law yet and this doesn’t seem like it is having the intending effect...


Thursday, May 31, 1 day before: helmet use still 5%
No one seems to be warming up, practicing for the big day. They gave people a pretty good amount of time to get ready from the Feb 22 law passing, but everyone just waited to the last moment and then complained. I wonder how this is all going to go tomorrow. The local paper reports a mix of malaise and malign against the new law coming into force tomorrow.


Friday, June 1: helmet use 95%
Amazingly, out of closets, cupboards or just under their shirt everyone suddenly has a helmet on. If you don’t you’re getting in trouble.

Police are out in force on nearly every corner handing out tickets to those who were foolish to forget. Apparently fines are Rs 300 with a receipt and Rs 100 without. Ah yes... Without the receipt, you pay less and the policeman pockets it. This is very normal and I question if they even bother paying their traffic police for the “tips” they make. However on a day like this, without a receipt you are just going to get stopped again 2 blocks down and then again and again. With low-end helmets costing not much more than a ticket and policemen saving for their kids’ college and dowry funds, there is a strong financial reason to follow the law.

Typical of how these sorts of decisions are made and implemented here, the politicians decided that it was a good idea, set a date and that was that. They’re going with the stick approach, sorry Bugs Bunny. On June 1, if you don’t have a helmet, you get fined, simple as that.

So tough love, but at least it works, or so you would think: they’ve just successfully got everyone to buy, carry and wear their helmets.

But wait, this is India – things don’t go smooth like that, even when instigated in such a heavy-handed way. Nothing in India can ever be called simple and inertia reigns supreme.


Saturday, June 2: helmet use steady at 95%
Police still out in force. The government congratulates itself in the local papers.


Sunday, June 3: government flip-flops
Despite their law being by court order, the government panders to popular discontent and issues a decree for police to not “harass 2-wheeler riders” for not wearing helmets. So it is still mandatory, but not enforceable, sort of? Brilliant.


Monday, June 4: helmet use maybe 70%
It’s only been 3 days and already the enthusiasm has waned. I’m seeing more and more people driving without helmets. Without the enforcement, the stick, and with the politicians waffling things are sliding back downhill quickly and people are back to doing what they can get away with. I think the only reason that the rates are not dropping off faster is that with all the confusion, some people have yet to hear what the situation is. And of course police can still selectively target people as they do with every other law, to pocket the fee.

Admittedly, I partially understand why people prefer not to wear one: they are hot and uncomfortable and you suddenly need one for all 6 family members you cart around on your bike. According to one article, surveys of Indian drivers also cite, “discomfort, fear of hair-loss, headache, neck pain, and some other reasons,” as why they don’t wear one. So many reasons why the drivers don’t want it, some perhaps fair, some ridiculous, but I’m still stuck on why the government gung-ho has fizzled so quickly. I’m quizzing my colleague to try to understand how the various levels of government relate and how laws are getting passed and upheld.

But it goes on...


Tuesday, June 5: helmet use 50% and falling
Backpedal, backpedal...

So apparently, after weathering petitions and a court challenge that upheld the new law, suddenly the politicians had a change of heart, decided they wanted to be the men of the people and on Tuesday revoked the law for women and children. Yes, that is correct, women and children are now exempt again from having to wear helmets while driving. Now, there are some given reasons: for women including the effects on the important cultural practice of putting flowers in hair and excessive sweatiness in the helmet; for children, a concern with the weight of the helmet on their developing necks. All fine and good, sort of, but no crash helmets for women and children? Really?

And more over, if these are such needed exemptions, how did no one think of this just a teeny bit earlier... like last Thursday before everyone had to go out and buy one?

This is one of those things that I’ve learned enough to get that it happens, see some how it happens, but not yet enough to understand the underlying why it happens.


Friday, June 7: helmet use back to 5%
So after a brief excitement period of doing something, it appears the whole deal has simply been forgotten and everything gone back to normal. Oh, helmets still have officially changed from optional to mandatory for men – laws can be changed – but chalk up another example of failing to change cultural practices and of politicians choosing to be popular rather than any sort of leader. But this isn’t simply an Indian inertia thing. Who would ever expect to change people’s practices with so little effort? In order to get Canadians to wear bicycle helmets took years of sustained and multi-pronged effort. Yeah, “sustained” and “multi-pronged” don’t exactly come to mind here.

It reminds me of the auto rickshaw rate enforcement and their fizzled attempts to enforce meter use back in March. Yeah, like where did that all go? It was heralded as such a big deal, the government congratulating themselves all over the papers. But I’ve still only ever used a meter twice and was shocked both times. Oh, the papers would report 15 autos this day with licences revoked for not having running meters or a hundred that day fined for not having the new fare rates programmed in, but it is a feel-good promotion for the government. On the street nothing has changed with the 100,000 auto drivers in the city. You absorb the same through the media news about plans and actions of slum clearance, environmental improvement or following traffic rules – talk is made, money is spent, paper is set a-flying, but a day, a week, a month later, very little changes. You can’t really expect things to change overnight of course, so the sanest solution, true everywhere, is to mostly ignore the politicians making names for themselves and be patient; real change takes longer to take root.


Why do things happen this way? “It’s India”, said with a shrug, the equivalent of the French “c’est la vie”. That is the answer to most questions of “why?” we encounter here. It comes up all the time. To attempt a fuller answer usually doesn’t make it any clearer without a much deeper understanding of their complex socio-political history, of which I am certainly not qualified.

So, a week of excitement, confusion and field-days for the cops and the newspapers and everyone now has a nice shiny new helmet in their closet. Beyond that, not sure what we’ve accomplished: another law on the books that isn’t enforced effectively or consistently, another chance for politicians to play the heroes of the people and a week for me to confusingly quiz my colleague at lunch over WTF is going on today?

Sometimes, much of the time I think, India is like watching TV on fast forward and 8 channels on picture-in-picture. *Shrug* It’s India...

Travelling #13: Traffic and Travel on the Trails

“You know what, we haven’t seen a single wheel since we arrived,” comments my trekking partner Harsh one day.

And as soon as he pointed that out, I knew he was totally right. In 10 days in the region, the last wheel we saw was on the airplane that dropped us of in Lukla – no wagons, bicycles, cars, trucks, carts or even a hula hoop. In a region dominated by sinuous, deep valleys and sharp peaks, much of the lattice network of “roads” and trails are rough and even the smooth, stone-paved ones have numerous stairs. A wheel, that time-worn invention of convenience, simply does not have a place or advantage in this vertical world.

Instead, due to geography and culture, the region is entirely run on the strength of humans and yaks. Despite the advances in technology, here it still makes sense for the entirety of trade and movement of supplies to be carried out by these twin foundations of the supply chain. Between the two, they carry up everything necessary for villages and for the significantly added needs of the thousands of visiting tourists. Foodstuff and beverages for the guesthouses and homes, gear for the tourists, supplies from detergent to light bulbs, and all building materials get carried up, load by load, up from Lukla or to a lesser degree over the high passes along the ancient trade routes from other valleys and even still from Tibet.

You quickly become part of this arterial flow of goods and people up and down the valleys and passes. They become your traffic on the trail – the honk of horns, grinding of gears and diesel cloud replaced by the tinkle of yak bells, the soft slap of the flat shoes or flip-flops of the porter and the cold, dry air that stings your nose if you breathe in too sharply. It is quiet and it is slow. Everything is measured by where one can walk in a day and no more. That is the world. It is amazing how fast you get used to the pace.


Yaks
On the trail, their oncoming presence is always known by the jangle of the bells around their neck. At the villages and settlements, their soothing tinkle provided a constant and pleasant backdrop through the thin walls of the guesthouses and often welcoming you to the morning as your alarm clock as well.

The yak is a foundation of the Himalayan and Tibetan economies. As well as providing a beast of burden for supplies and farming, the provide high-quality milk, meat (usually only when Yaks die naturally, due to Buddhist restrictions on slaughter) and strong, warm wool. For many of the rural, poor and nomadic families, they are their life. I saw this very strongly in Tibet last year, more so than the tourist-modified Khumbu region.

Yaks are funny creatures. They are surprisingly docile, not the brightest tools in the shed and have to be the laziest, most distracted beasts of burden imaginable. Big and bulky and with long, pointy horns, you might think they would be aggressive, but truth be told, whether by conditioning, breeding or just plain disposition, yaks are generally quite skittish. The ones on the trail in Nepal were usually reasonably calm or dazed enough, but the ones I saw last year in Tibet would bolt if you looked at them sideways.

Herding yaks down the trail seems like it would be an easy job, what with the yaks doing all the heavy lifting, but it actually looks like a really tiring job as it is quite literally and exactly like the visuals of the expression “herding cats”. They have to be constantly driven at all times to keep them from drifting aimlessly off the trail or in fact to keep them moving at all. They don’t seem too concerned with getting anywhere quickly. Really unconcerned. They plod down the trails in a daze and as slowly as they can get away with. They often have to be kicked into gear by their owners as if they just forgot all of sudden to move. I have not seen one go more than 10 feet without strong encouragement by their drivers via poke, prod, smack or curse. The yaks rarely complain, actually hardly seeming to notice, and continue on with whatever they were doing like someone on a ‘24’ Season 1 DVD marathon. I don’t think they mind the weight on their back. I think it is just that standing and grazing is their natural state of being and moving holds no interest or inspiration for them.

The result of this on the trail is that you can find yourself stuck behind one for a while. Since they are big, bulky creatures who obviously do not know how to go single file or pick a lane, despite their non-aggressive nature they naturally get right-of-way on the Khumbu highway system. This is fine if you’re approaching them, as you can simple step off the trail and let them pass with a smile and a “Namaste!” to their drivers, but if you come up behind one going the same way, it can be quite some time before you can manage to pass. Resigned to their pace and how much work it is to get the yaks moving in a semblance of a straight line, the drivers cannot afford to aid the passing of every trekker or porter. So you wait and find a passing lane as you can. On the plus side though, when you’re going uphill, the forced slower pace can be a nice excuse to snap some pics.

At narrow points and bridges though, opposing directions of yaks and people can get bunched up and stuck, a “yak jam” (which is not something you spread on toast). You just have to chuckle at it all and wait your turn as the drivers wearily, but good-naturedly coerce a placidly unhelpful group of large animals to negotiate whatever twist, obstacle, bridge or blockage has them stopped and milling again. Ah, the funny things that become your world on the trail.

In truth, I should say that many of the yaks we encountered on the trails are not proper yaks at all, but are actually crossbreeds. In the lower regions, the cross-breeds are actually the more common and trekking, you won’t likely see a real yak for several days. The name pedagogy is rather complicated depending on what type of crossbreed it is (yak-cow, cow-yak, male or female offspring) and the language (Nepali, Sherpa, Tibetan)so I won’t try to sketch it out, but they are variously called Dzomo, Dzo, Dzopko, Dzopkia, Mdzo-mo, or Dzum. So in the southern regions, most of the “yak” caravans were actually Dzopkia whereas higher up, we encountered more full-blooded yaks better suited for the cooler temperatures and thinner air. The crossbreeds have much shorter hair and are generally smaller whereas the full-blood yaks look more like big, walking carpets.


Porters
By far more numerous on the trails than the yaks and responsible for the lions share of the goods transport are the porters.

A porter will carry on average anywhere from 30 kg to a whopping 80 kg of weight and rumours swirled that they would cart as high as 100 kilos when building materials needed to be moved. And all this weight is carried fully off a strap across their forehead. Yes, their forehead. Strong backs and strong spines these men and women have. Most items are carried in V-shaped wicker baskets piled increasingly high and strapped down firmly to ensure it is balanced and doesn’t slip, often towering above their heads. When portering for tourist groups, they will take your heavy duffle back or pack, tightly tie it to 2 or even 3 others into a bulky rectangle, add something else on the top and then hang it off their foreheads. And off they go, slow and steady. Or sometimes not even that slow. The tourist porters often went quite slow since they had a closer destination to go to and very likely all day to reach it, but those carrying supplies to the distant villages would sometimes pass you at a good, solid pace as they carried 50 kg or more a distance in a day you planned to do in 3. Humbling to say the least.

Often however, you’d also pass groups of porters going really slow up the steeper stretches, taking a break every 5 minutes to rest and you can tell they are carrying a really tough load, even for them. The worst we saw were the guys carrying the plywood wall panels. All the guesthouses are built of them – thin, completely un-insulated, but I suppose the lightest wall material they could use. But light as they individually are, those panels, in stacks of 5 or 6 panels of 5x10 each has to be laboriously carried up, balanced on the back, over the rough trails, stairs, rocks and dust by a small, determined army.

Similar to the yaks, these heavily-laden people go at their own pace and their own path, taking the route of least resistance, whatever that appears to be to them. With head down they may not see you until a step or 2 away and even if they do, conserving momentum and concentration, they have to just keep moving. So like with yaks, as the more nimble and lighter on the road, you have to do the dodging or just step to the side and let them all truck by.

The need for breaks to take the weight off has let to a series of interesting innovations though. The porters with baskets use this waist-high walking stick with a T cross on top, which is sized to perfectly fit underneath the basket, so when they need a break, they just slip it under their back and stand there with the load off. Brilliant! For those without this option, you quickly notice benches and conveniently cleared flat boulders purposely laid all along the trail for the porters to rest on. Coming across a nice bench in a village didn’t seem that unusual, but discovering them out cut into some random hill miles from anywhere seemed odd at first. Places to get water too are similarly laid out. The entire community is structured around the needs of the transport system, as you would expect of course thinking about it. It is just that it is different and unusual at first.

The other thing you quickly note is the footwear most of the porters are using or the lack thereof. The most popular seemed to be basic flat sneakers with the second being flip flops. Yes, they carry giant weights up trails and over snowy passes in flip flops. At least they don’t seem to often go barefoot these days although I did see a couple examples of porters in the snow without socks. Some, often the tourist porters and those part of organised group tours where more money gets circulated, have runners or trail shoes, probably the most useful. Very few wear solid hiking boots, but if your ankles are strong enough, the cushioned and less stiff shoes are probably the more comfortable option.


So these were our traffic, our companions and our amusement on the trail every day. By hoof or flip-flop we saw our rice and macaroni, our treats of coke, beer and chocolate, our walls and mattress, our cooking gas and, for many trekkers, their packs, gear and supplies slowly work its way up beside us. Everest Base Camp had a constant train heading up and down to feed its temporary village of canvas and tent.

A whole world at walking pace. And no wheels for more than 2 weeks. It was wonderfully refreshing.

Travelling #10: Homecoming to Chennai

I’m home. And sweating.

It is 38 degrees and 95% humidity. I think with the population of 7 million sweating, we must be pushing it up to 100. I shouldn’t whine though. Actually, outside, with a breeze, it isn’t too bad in the shade if you’re stationary. But I’m at work and the power is out, so no a/c, no fans and no breeze, where I’m sweating just thinking (with an obvious solution therefore presented). Ah India, welcoming me home! A week ago I was standing above 6000m with a bitingly dry wind at -15 and now here I am at sea level, 95% humidity and pushing 40 degrees. Quite the change.

I realise that I have slowly lost some of my adaptations and resistances while away. I am finding it will be a few days before that slight fraying of nerves at the constant chaos and bump of bodies goes away. But I smile at the remembered charms I always liked. I missed the bumblebee-coloured rickshaws and I missed my masala dosa. I missed good Indian chai as the touristy places in Thamel in Kathmandu were hit and miss with it (I blame the indiscriminating tourists). I missed my housemates and our lovely maid, who was apparently quite upset Monday morning when she discovered I hadn’t arrived on Sunday as planned and worried I was lost (so nice!). I missed the wallahs everywhere and I missed the lushness of Chennai – say what you will about its grime and dirtiness, it is at least a very green city with palm trees and flowering plants everywhere. I sit eagerly staring out of the auto on the way to work soaking it all back in.

So it is back to India for another 6 months and back to re-start my project. It has been nice to be off travelling and trekking and meeting people (and I promise to get more stories up on that soon), but it is also exciting to be getting back to work and back to doing what I’ve set my career as doing. I’m excited to restart the learning curve 2.0 and to start Tamil lessons (supposed to have been arranged while I was away, fingers crossed). After 6 months, who knows – my visa lets me stay here until mid-October when I may be doing this all again... We’ll see.

Life in Chennai #9: Survival Skills I Learned in the Last Couple Weeks

1) How to send letters by air mail at the post office
The elaborate, exotic process: it is exactly the same as sending regular mail, just with more stamps. So it wasn’t really that exhilarating. To be honest, I’m a little suspicious that it is that easy as handwriting “airmail” on the top of the letter and adding some more stamps, but that is what they assured me at the post office. The mail wasn’t from me though, so I’ll count this one as “learned” when I have proof it arrived and by air mail.


2) Why people walk slower in the tropics
Because it is hot and sticky. All the time. I still retain much of my Northeaster stride never really losing it despite many years in Vancouver. Summer is coming though, so that might finally kill the habit!


3) How to buy things from the chemists
I know what you’re thinking. “Oooh, the chemist, you intrepid world traveller, you!” But this is a more daunting task that it first sounds. You see, chemists (aka pharmacies aka druggists as they are variously signed) in Chennai don’t have nice aisles to browse searching for what you might want, maybe check the packages, compare “extra strength” vs. “long lasting” brands. Instead they consist of a small street-facing room crammed top to bottom with boxes and haphazard products and a counter barring the front that you approach (this incidentally is the same format for the magazine shop, the snack shop, the bootleg DVD shop, etc.). You can’t look and pick something out – you have to ask the guy (or as is usual, the small army of guys crammed in the tiny space) what you want and have him dig about and produce it for you. So there is an obvious need to get over any vestiges of embarrassment or privacy (because also like everywhere else in India, you will never be the only person at the small counter shopping at the moment so your neighbours will also all know. That’s life here for everything). Man, you thought it was bad buying tampons or cold sore medication at home! It also basically means you need to know what exactly you want, what it is called, and failing that, what the underlying active ingredient is. Now, I know the generic names for the basic painkillers (I play sports), but everything else I only know by brand names non-existent here. And if you don’t know the name, you rhyme off your list of symptoms and hope they have sufficient basic medical training or at least have been working there for more than a week. I’m sure the whole system works for the locals, but as I said, it is one of the most daunting of lifestyle elements to tackle as a foreigner living overseas.

I was asked to pick up something for a colleague who was feeling ill. I was originally hopeful, as I had the actual name of a possible product to buy. Great, easy errand on my way back from lunch. Of course, they didn’t have it. Course not. I never really expected them to, because that would be actually helpful. So I explain (and have to mime) symptoms of fever, chills and tiredness/weakness. It is like medical charades, but with happy pills for the winner! My goodness, I am not sure I am comfortable with being responsible for this! But in the end a foil pack of gel-cap pills is produced that is allegedly (one of my favourite words, BTW) equivalent to what I had wanted. I might have worried about the lack of original packaging if I hadn’t been here for several months already. I pay the asked Rs 21 ($0.54 for those counting) to assuring head wags and slightly worriedly return back to work with the pack. But Hema seems happy with my choice, accepts the proffered change and takes one of the pills with a glass of water. She’s still alive and looking fine this week so I supposed they helped her get through whatever she was fighting.

A few days later, when I myself need something, I drag my housemate John down around the corner with me to help. I needed some antibacterial ointment cream and didn’t want to come back with, well, cold sore cream or anything.


4) That the price of packaged goods in India are listed on the packages.
See my previous post for details on how I discovered this useful lesson.


5) That hot glass looks exactly like cold glass.
OK, no, I didn’t actually learn this one last week here in India. I learned this one way back in chemistry lab at school, but it has always been one of my favourite all-purpose tidbits of advice, so I thought I’d share it.


6) That batting a Square Leg to the boundary for a four with 2 balls on the over is a good thing...I think...

The Cricket World Cup is on! The Caribbean nations of the West Indies are hosting 16 teams for the sports top honour. Yes, it’s cricket fever and I’m getting enough of it to finally gain an appreciation for the sport. And I’m finally learning the rules and scoring, perhaps one of the greatest survival skills here.

I was actually somewhat disappointed that because of the time zone difference to the West Indies, matches are all at night so I haven’t had the chance to see the city truly come to a grinding halt for matches. But with matches running to 2am or later in the evenings, that at least explains why people have been looking tired in the last few weeks. Traffic was noticeably light going home yesterday (Mar 23) as people settled in for the 7pm start of the critical match against Sri Lanka. It was a do-or-die elimination match so was very important. Shops were shutting their doors and people hurrying home as I passed. Sadly, the home team India lost and are out of the tournament, a major disappointment for one of the major cricket nations.

A few specific things I’ve recently picked up:
- “Innings” is singular. This makes no sense to me considering the English are the founders of both the sport and the English language. The Americans sorted it out much smarter with a baseball “inning”. Silly English.
- Getting someone out is called a “wicket” regardless of whether it involved the wicket being knocked off. It took me a while to catch onto that.
- I don’t have the attention span to watch the full 6+ hours of a One-Day International (ODI) match. But what is funny is that ODIs are considered “short” since proper Test matches usually last 5 days.
- Canada has a cricket team. We’re not that good, but we showed well in our match against England last week. Completely unsurprisingly, most of our players herald from the Caribbean.

And I have to admit, now that I’m getting the hang of the rules, arcane statistics and subtle strategy (true of a lot of major sports really), it is an interesting and exciting game. But proving I still have much to learn, I still have no idea what for example this report in the newspaper The Hindu is talking about...

Culture # 9: Now They Tell Me…Tips on Getting Ripped Off

It is part of the charm of the place that prices and sales are interactions and conversations between people, not just transactions. I talk all about it of course in the Personal Touch.

But talking about buying stuff in India could not be complete without a story of getting ripped off. Getting beaten in bargaining, over-charged or generally ripped off is a rite of passage for India (and most travel destinations) and part of the experience.

Before I delve into the story though, I would like to stake out my stance briefly that despite Western ire and distaste at such practices, getting taken in when paying for something isn’t really a question of honesty or goodwill on the part of the salesperson. It comes from a different value and perspective on the transaction of selling stuff and one that takes the “buyer beware” caveat and the global economic principles of “what the market will bear” to its natural conclusion. If they can get away with a price or sell you something lower quality, they can, and it is just as much your responsibility as it was theirs. If you are willing to pay the price, then that was fair market value at that moment. The idea of being “ripped off” is based on the idea that you are a victim rather than a full player, which is not really valid here. You are expected to hold up your end by knowing what you want and asking questions. It is a consistent system that just goes against you if you don’t know all the rules.

A simple example of the consistency of the system that might be easiest to visualize is actually from the shoulder-to-shoulder diversity found in Vancouver and other major North American cities. If you shop in Chinatown on Main Street in Vancouver, the produce shops are known for selling produce cheaply. But, in a departure from the glitzier supermarket stores a few streets over, the quality of the produce will also vary more widely. Sure enough, in concert with this, is the common stereotype sight of the old Chinese women poring intently (and slowly) over every cantaloupe and tomato, picking out the good ones one by one. Next door, other shopkeepers loudly hawk their wares and services and the same old women fire questions (also loudly) of where this comes from or the quality of that, pushing the hawkers back on exactly what they are offering. Taken together the system is consistent and works and patterns how much of the world shops. Conversely, North American standard has become the (dare I say lazy) want of being able to grab a basket full of tomatoes (or whatever) without looking and without asking questions and therefore demanding the store quality is good and consistent enough to support this convenience of not needing to pay attention. See, again consistent.

The problem with travellers and expats is that the systems don’t match up. We get charged more and ripped off because we can be and because we don’t know the price and worth of things or how to ask. We get hassled and pushed by aggressive touts more because we don’t have a strong understanding of the area and value and lack understanding of the language and/or cultural differences to ask the right questions. It is made worse that in most Western cultures we are not used to asking a dozen of questions before buying anything. Here we are expected to be sophisticated in bargaining – it is just what is expected – and since we aren’t, we lose sometimes (OK, a lot of the time). It is admittedly somewhat taking advantage our ignorance for gain and it can be galling when you, yourself, get taken, but it really isn’t personal. In the end, it is a simply a scaled-up version of what goes on with everyone and exaggerated because we can afford it and like annoying advertising or spam, perpetuates because, like it or not, it must works enough of the time.

So I’m not immune of course and have many examples of “now they tell me...” I recall for example getting caught by the common “art student scam” in Beijing the first day, much to my later embarrassment. I recall getting great prices for bracelets in Lhasa, but marked up prices for sandals in Bangkok. But being in India, I thought I’d share a recent story from here. It is amusing and even has a lesson at the end.

So having been here 4 months now and, having been travelling before, I have actually done quite well with avoiding getting taken by unscrupulous vendors. Sure, there may be an occasional foreigner mark-up (being charged an extra 10 or 20 rupees for something), but I don’t totally disagree with that as long as it is not unreasonable, the foreign currency buying power being so dramatic. And whether I agree with it or not, if you are not a local and speak Tamil (meaning from-away Indians also get similar treatment) it is nearly impossible to bargain down to the local price for auto rickshaws, even if you know what that price should be. Those are just the rules of the game. But generally I have done well in holding my own and holding onto my cash.

But I ruined my whole streak in one fell swoop in one a bad day last week.

I got out of the auto coming home after work, picked up some rum at the wine shop (what they call all liquor stores) and then picked up some new razor blades and shaving cream at another shop. Nothing unusual.

At the checkout for the shaving stuff, the computer tallies everything, I go to pay and then realise I don’t have enough cash. A little embarrassing, but I’m only a couple blocks from home so it isn’t really that big a deal. I drop home and back to get some. But what the problem is, is that I should have had enough cash. I know I should have had two Rs 500 notes in there, one of which I just used at the wine shop. I was sure of that.

I knew then what I had done: I had given the wrong bill to the auto driver, who pocketed it without batting an eye, losing Rs 400 in the process. That is what I had done. I had had a tough day at work, was distracted by that, traffic had been heavy and I was antsy to get home. It is dark when I get out & I inadvertently handed him a Rs 500 note rather than a Rs 100, which is my standard fare. In my defence, it isn’t that impossible to do. Some of the Rs 500 notes are a bluish colour similar to the Rs 100 notes. In the dark, like it always is on the unlit street where I get off at home, it is possible to mix them up if you don’t look too closely (they are slightly different lengths too. Yes, I know). I usually hold the bill to a light to be sure, paranoid of this very mistake, but obviously I hadn’t today. I had whipped it out and handed it to him. It is about like giving a cab driver a $20 by mistake for a $5 fare. I actually thought I had done it a couple times before, which is why I usually check, but those other times, upon balancing my expenses, I found that no, I had just spent it; that slightly disheartening discovery we are all familiar with when we find we’ve dripped away cash a bit here or there on coffee or snacks or drinks or whatever. So this was bound to happen eventually. I still felt like an idiot and a rube though, especially after being here for so long. Oh well, I don’t blame the driver for not telling me. Call it a nice, if unintentional, tip for him and his family and a Rs 400 loss for me.

After running back to the store, I then got home properly, a bit disgruntled, groceries and toiletries in hand, and sat down with my housemate John for a drink of my rum. This is where I discovered my luck was indeed poor today. In telling the story about the auto and how I knew how I had lost the Rs 500 note, John stopped me, “how much did you pay for the rum?” … “Why?” I ask... Shit.

Back at the wine shop I had asked for Old Monk rum, “full size” (meaning 0.75L, they use the terms “full”, “half” here to denote a 26-er vs a mickey). The guy hands it to me and asks for Rs 521. It didn’t occur to me to question this. I knew it was premium liquor and I knew liquors have a ridiculous tax on them in Chennai. And the specific price of twenty-one rupees gave it an air of legitimacy. But apparently this wasn’t the price. It wasn’t close to the price. I can normally spot a scam, but this guy was quick.

It apparently should have been Rs 219, perhaps Rs 10 more. So I paid more than double. Whoops. What is even more remarkable was that John then tells me that all products sold in India are required to have the sale price marked on them. Sure enough the Rs 219 is printed right there on the side of the label. (BTW, Old Monk rum is one of the IMFL – Indian Made Foreign Liquors – available here, true foreign made imported is horrendously expensive, but usually higher quality).

Now they tell me.

Why didn’t someone point this out before? Why didn’t I notice before? Somehow it simply didn’t come up. Anything bought in bulk is either negotiated or only costs small change, but packaged products usually have set prices and I obviously came to trust those prices. For one, I realise that when I’ve bought the occasional odds and ends at the grocery store, the stuff goes through the register so the prices are regulated. For two, I long ago learned the prices of the basics from the shops, like pop, chocolate and snacks...although, you know...now that I think about it, maybe I should check those chocolate bar wrappers next time I buy one...

It can also be tough because prices for things are skewed in different ratios than I am used to in North America. So a 0.75L of alcohol may be an incredibly cheap $5 to $6 (Rs 200-240) but the 2L of pop you are using for mix will still be $1.50 to $2 (Rs 60-80), the same as it is in Canada. And then the half chicken take-out you pick up might cost that same $1.50. So it can be hard to guess what one product should be based on other products. Hence being ripe for being taken.

Oh well. One ill-luck evening and I’m down Rs 700, which is rather a lot here. Chalk it up to being distracted and not paying attention. So I got fleeced. And all I had wanted was a quiet end to a tough day. Oh well, I could pretend my drink was some super-premium, special-stock liquor and be thankful I can still mostly use the exchange rate to soften the blow to my ego. No real harm done. I’ve lost more on stupid stuff. ;-)

So here is my lesson to anyone ready: in India all packaged goods are marked with the price printed directly on the packaging, even a bottle of alcohol, so it is easy to check that before forking over cash. It has to have it and the price will always be close to that so don’t let the shop person tell you otherwise.

See, now we’ve both learned something. ;-)

Traffic # 8: Pedal Power

Although there isn’t the flood of bicycles dominating the streets here as was a customary sight in China, they are still very much a major part of street life here. Rickety, single-geared and heavy, they perilously weave through the petrol-choked streets. The bikes are in no way fast or agile – there is no similarity to the quick popping in and out by the nimble, aggressive bike commuters in North America (and who would want to in this heat) – but they hold their own. Of course during much of the day, they seem to be walking their bikes, there being no space or speed to move, simply being another vehicle staking their own niche among the motorized 4-wheelers, 3-wheelers and 2-wheelers crawling along. Other times they weave slowly along the side dodging (sometimes) the pedestrians. Weaving really is the description though as they appear to be impossible to ride in a straight line. Gearing and construction play a role, but in my observation this seems to also be because they are very often carrying an impractically large and precariously balanced bundle of stuff.

It is truly remarkable what people will transport by bike, because they have to or simply because it is normal to do so. Odd shaped parcels are somehow firmly lashed on, sometimes additionally balanced with one arm held behind. Chai wallahs wander the streets with urns of tea or coffee strapped to their racks. I’ve even seen long strips of rebar tied to the bike crossbar and thoughtfully with little red ribbon tied to each end that extended out dangerously in front and behind. How he managed to avoid impaling the usual crowd of pedestrians I don’t know (and whether he actually managed falls into the “I don’t really want to know” category). Last week I saw a bicycle carrying what seemed to be half a florist’s shop worth of bouquets. It looked like a parade float, so packed with colours that I didn’t immediately spot the second guy riding double behind, tucked among all the shrubbery. The same transport practice extends to motorcycles and scooters, but the necessity to pedal and overall rickety-ness of the bikes makes it the more remarkable and funny sights.

My favourite wish-I-had-my-camera sight though for sheer carrying capacity was actually from China where I spotted a man slowly pedalling his ubiquitous tricycle (at least he had the extra wheel for balance) carrying a whole living room worth of furniture somehow piled high above his back rack. He had, I kid you not, a sofa, plush chair, desk, desk chair, side table and coffee table at somehow tied and stacked, if not safely or securely at least mostly stably. It was like 6 feet high above him. I think all he was missing was the chandelier, but who knows, maybe it was tucked inside where I couldn’t see it...

Not content to simply carry their furniture around and with the population density, it is unsurprising to see the cyclists often doubling another passenger straddling the rack behind (and sometimes even a third squished in up front). At each stop or intersection the passenger deftly slips off the back and hops back on with a quick running start. The balance and move of it are harder than they look though as Leslie and I discovered when we tried it one evening on a quiet back-street. So it might be a while yet before we are ready to tackle rush hour (cycling against traffic, of course), carrying PVC piping, boxes of consumer goods, or our furniture. ;-)

Hats off though to the valiant 2-wheelers who are a vital part of the colourful blender passed off as traffic here.

Sidebar #2: Random Thoughts and Tidbits

I've got a few good and more meaty entries in progress, but in the mean time here is another smattering of odds and ends to keep ya' entertained; things that cross my busy mind, things I see in the autos, and the little things that just make me shake my head in wonder.

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Since the autos appear to be running on sewing machine engines, why don’t they install actual sewing machines? Doing double duty while they ferry passengers around, they could make extra money producing fine textiles and they have built-in transportation of the completed goods to collection points. Perfect!

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The elderly groundskeeper of our compound at work plays golf in the courtyard. It’s not that big a yard, but he chips the balls around the square and grass, bouncing them off walls. He’s not that good to be honest. Last month he broke a window. When I see him playing I have to make sure he sees me (and stops chipping) before I exit the door. My boss hates it; he keeps threatening to report it to the police. I just think it is funny and harmless. He mostly now plays when he sees my boss is out of the office. We don’t tell on him.

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I really like population names that end in “I”. Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi. They have a nice ring to them. No particularly reason, I just like them. I’ve also always been partial to Canuck over Canadian though maybe that’s because it alliterates better with “Crazy”...

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It is funny the little biases you hold on to. We’re stopped at an intersection on my morning commute. In the traffic column beside me I see a man riding a scooter and another with a bandana over his nose and mouth. Regular sights, nothing remarkable, but despite their obvious practical usefulness, to me I can’t help still thinking:
Man on a scooter = dorky
Man with bandana = bandit
Man with a bandana on a scooter = really needs to be tied down and forced to watch 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly' for a few lessons...

Sorry to all the dorky bandits out there. It is nothing personal. I know it is my own bias. Please don’t run me over with your scooter next time I try to cross the street...

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A few months ago the latest Bollywood fluff ‘Dhoom 2’ was dominating every media space in advance of its release. The theme song was playing in all the dance clubs and 15 times hourly on all the commercials. The pure commercials (those that were just for the movie rather than for products like Coke and Speed petrol) showed a guy doing cool stunts flying down the highways on rollerblades. It made me miss rollerblading with memories of gliding down smooth, fresh blacktop on blades (sans impressive stunts involving 18-wheelers), tape walkman blaring (this was well pre-ipod days). I wish I had rollerblades here for the entirely literary hook that the experience of trying to blade down Chennai’s packed and potholed streets would make for a really, really funny story...

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I’ve come to really like SMS. Messaging friends often gets me through the long, boring auto rides home when I’ve got time to kill and it’s too dark to write or read or sightsee. Motorola predictive text sucks ass though.

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One should not text and walk however (I realise this is obvious to just about everyone). I am careful about traffic, but I nearly ran into a low-hanging tree branch the other day while tapping a quick reply. Oops...

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There are quite a few water trucks plying the streets here, partial compensation for the city water system sucking and being completely inadequate. They meander awkwardly down the streets, blocking them like linebackers. All of them, without exception, leak profusely. Now maybe it’s just me, but that doesn’t seem to be a good characteristic for water transport trucks to have. But it is so quintessential India. Thar’s a hole in me bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza…

Culture #8: The Universality of Whining About The Weather

It has just been proven! We are all connected in harmony and common bond because I have discovered at least one truly universal trait common to every human and culture on the planet: we all whine and complain about the weather.

That’s right, we all think we are tough, we like to pretend, but deep down, most of us are soft, softer than we like to believe. Canadians are known (or self-imaged) to be able to handle the cold. And to some degree, that is of course true. There is some physical and psychological adaptation. We can and will tolerate eyeball hurting chill and bitter, biting wind...but only if we have to. And more importantly, that does not stop us from complaining about it frequently and loudly.

Same as with India. The myth is broken. Oh sure, they will adjust to 45 degrees C in the shade. They will toil in it. They will tolerate it. But India, like Canada has a constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and despite the occasional debate on politics, economics or inequities, they mostly use that freedom on a day-to-day level, like we all do, to bitch about the weather (and pop stars, naturally). Last week was the first real jump in temperature and humidity here, back up to sticky and draining heat and a portent of the rapidly approaching summer swelter. And I was amazed to find my colleagues were the first to mention how hot it was getting, how uncomfortable, how miserable a portent it was. I kept thinking, “aren’t you used to this though?” Ah, but humans have fickle short memories and although it might have been as hot last year, bodies and minds forget and resent being reminded.

I think it is worse with city dwellers too. We’ve all gotten used to our central heat and our aircon. We’ve gotten used to being able to turn the weather off when we don’t like it and so complain when we’re forced to confront it by (gasp!) going outside to get lunch or not having an a/c car waiting running at the foot of the door.

Forget the GDP or the Human Development Index. For a clear measure of a region’s development progress, we should start tracking the WWI, the Weather Whininess Index.
;-)

Culture #7: The personal touch

While business and particularly government here is excessively bureaucratic, the flipside of it is the personal touch. I’ve come to really value the relationship that having a real person to deal with brings and notice how much it is often missing back home, traded for efficiency and consistency.

Each morning my commute starts by heading around the corner to the nearest auto stand, a spot, unmarked, where a group of auto-rickshaws will congregate. I always go to this one. As usual, my regular auto drivers are lounging in the backs of one, shooting the shit. One reads the paper. They grin and wave as I approach. I really like that they do that, but sometimes have to remember in my morning fuzziness to not get distracted by their jovialness that like following sirens I cross the street without watching for traffic. I have on occasion gotten my elbows brushed over-optimistic motorcyclists. I smile and offer a “good morning” back and hop in the back of the auto they indicate. I do really like have a group of regular guys for my morning commute. I don’t have to bargain with them or explain where I’m going. They’re happy for the regular business and are waiting there for me every morning. Not being a morning person, I appreciate anything that makes my day a little easier before the morning chai has shaken the cobwebs from my head. There are 5 or 6 of them. Each morning they’ll usher me into one auto or another although I cannot figure out how they decide amongst themselves who it will be. Given the usual struggle of avoiding getting taken advantage of and the general pain in the ass of most auto drivers, you can’t imagine just how much a treat this is to have. If only I could find a way to get the same thing home, but the auto stand nearest my work are ridiculously over-priced so none of us use them.

The best example of the personal touch though and a mainstay of Indian life is undoubtedly the Wallah (or sometimes “Walla”). A wallah is basically business-person without a permanent address, a peddler – service that comes to you! Some may have semi-permanent counters erected on sidewalks and street corners (one of the many reasons pedestrians are forced on the streets), many have mobile carts or simply bikes they push around the streets singing their wares in a variety of distinctive cries. There are wallahs for everything. You need your knives sharpened, wait for the Knife Sharpening Wallah to come by. There are Soup Wallahs. There are Flower Wallahs. There are Nut Wallahs who tine their spoons against their roasting woks. There are Snack Wallahs. There are Ironing Wallahs (a particular joy). Of course, the pre-eminent of all are the Chai Wallahs, available at nearly every corner serving sweet, milky tea or coffee. Also of note are the Sweet Wallahs and Betel Nut Wallahs, who create handed-down recipes for concoctions that have people loyally travelling for miles to frequent, and the Mumbai Tiffin Wallahs, who have actually received a 6-Sigma Quality rating for providing meals to Mumbai workers for moving 175,000 of packaged meals cooked at home in the suburbs to their owner’s urban offices each day (while only misplacing one in 6 million, astounding considering the vast majority are illiterate).

The wallah forms part of a rich streetscape of small-scale shops, stands, carts and counters forming a tapestry of formal and informal commerce. Their prevalence and messiness along most any street without 4 lanes of traffic (and even most of the ones with) is one of the most distinctive things you see when you arrive here, but also one of those that most quick fades in the background of normalcy. You get used to the idea that if you want it, it is available from a host of tiny places nearby or if you’re a homemaker, you can usually simply wait for it to come to your door. It strongly contrasts to the Mall and Big Box direction we’ve gone and convinced the rest of the world to follow: the convenience of getting everything in one place…once you drive the 45 minutes to get there of course.

Of course there are many parallels between cultures too, similar ideas just simply wrapped a little different in the West. I am of course used to already being able to get my coffee on any street corner in Vancouver (and about a dozen placed between ‘cause God forbid we have to walk all the way to a corner!). I have pangs of loss for what I could call Vancouver’s “Sushi Wallahs”. There are roast chestnut vendors at Christmas and the venerable hot dog vendors famously revered in New York. And of course we’re all familiar from childhood with that hallowed of wallah: the ice cream vendor, whose tinkling song beckons like the Pied Piper from down the street. Mmmnn, ice cream…

Extending the concept of the Wallah even further and a shade of the current class struggle, is the ability to send people on errands to accomplish those things you can’t get at your doorstep. It is very common and completely acceptable to grab your neighbourhood wallah, a kid loitering about, the building watchman, an auto driver, or most anyone and send them on an errand for some small fee. And they will reliably return with the item and your change. You have to pay your cell phone bill? You ran out of milk and are in the middle of preparing for a dinner party? You have to mail something? You want train tickets, but don’t want to wait in the hours-long queue? Send someone on the errand in your place. No one thinks twice about it. The ironing wallahs pick up and drop off our clothes to the door. A young man from the chai wallah down the street gets, fills and returns a thermos of tea for the office twice a day. My housemate had a 10kg bag of rice delivered to the door of our flat late yesterday (Sunday) night.

The concept of service is deeply ingrained in the culture and going the extra mile for the customer, of the personal commitment and connection, pervades everything. The psychology of it is very complicated as it is wrapped up in the ideas of negotiation and flexibility – that anything here is available at a price; of class dominance and the historical acceptance of servitude; of the vast supply of people needing jobs – any job – and of the concepts of extended family and community which although in flux, are still stronger than in most Western regions. It can also blur into the spectre of corruption. But at the heart, leaving aside the tricky corruption issue for the moment, it is really refreshing to have business and commerce be human interactions again. Every service and transaction has a face, a person and a chain of people being supported. It is about the relationship. And it is about service. It is about business meeting your needs, your actual, real needs, not those they project on you, rather than the other way around. What a novel concept! It is at times shockingly inefficient. But it is shockingly refreshing.

Ask yourself: you’re busy, you’re working, you want an electrician or a TV cable install or a new account at the bank and what do you want, to sit around all day, taking a half-day, then a full-day off work to wait for the person to show up? No of course not. What you clearly and obviously want is for someone to come to you and arrive when you want. Here they do. If you need a service or product, people will come to your home or your office and drop it off. They will meet you after hours at your home at 10pm or come to your office at 2pm.

And what is even more remarkable is that it is not just the little independent contractors who will do it. The concept is ingrained right up the chain. The bank manager was over at the office the other day to talk about my boss’s business accounts rather than demanding to be met at the branch. When I bought my cell phone, the sales guy came to my house after (on a Sunday night) on his way home to take a digital photo of me for the connection to be set up the next morning. He then came by my office the next day for me to sign the final papers. And he gave me his cell phone number so when Airtel inevitably screwed up my account, I could call him to fight that battle for me and “just fix it”. This of course is also a necessity born of India’s other remarkable ability to build the most phenomenally inefficient, complex and mind-bogglingly impersonal bureaucracies yet invented. So you need the counter balance of an array of helpers, runners and queue-ers to possibly make it through.

The burning question for India now is will it lose this vibrant street-level personal experience as they drive to modernize and adopt Western culture of malls and glitzy stores with large advertising budgets? Can they afford to given their vast population? Will India be the same without remaining a little messy and colourful? That remains a very interesting question.

Awww, our office chai wallah, just came up with a bag of fresh banana chips back from Kerala for my colleague Hema, just to be nice because she once talked about liking them. Fuck McDonald’s. Now that’s service with a smile.