the rise of india
for the past four years of my life i've been surrounded my indians. once and again i've had the conversation on the multiple similarities between mexicans and indians, from the food to the way we interact. one particular example that i find very funny is the way we do things together—even if it results in a quite inefficient use of our time. perro gave it a name the other day—what was it?—when acho, he and i were walking back home and he suggested that we enter our building through the back door, just to accompany him for another 15 meters as he walked to his place. that’s it, he just wanted us to walk with him for another 10 seconds just to stick together the longest time possible. quite ridiculous when i think about it in retrospect. but then i remembered the time when a bunch of us (paula, sabrina, ana gabriela, ignacio, ... all latin americans) and sofia (moroccan) were running errands around penn as we were walking back towards our dorm. one had to stop by the library, another one had to pick up a check, and so on... and we all walked together and stuck together. sofia said she had noticed this several times, “it must be the most inefficient way of running errands, although it is also the most fun.”
so for a while i’ve been surrounded by indians and i’ve talked about visiting india but other places have been in my priority list of travel destinations. yes, it is true that india has been continuously rising in the charts. friedman’s claims that “the world is flat” and all those articles in the economist, businessweek, and the new york times have not gone unnoticed. and, of course, those endless conversations with true and fake indians have also had their marketing effect on me. still, a trip to the balkans, northern africa, or the far east would clearly be my preferred option had i the time and money to go.
until today. not that india has become my top travel destination with certainty, but it is now close in the competition for that hot spot. i am now at stansted airport waiting for my flight to lyon. i just took my first air india flight from new york to london and my indian friends had warned me that it would be a great introduction to “naco” india. that some indian baby would be crying next to me while an old man farted on the other contiguous seat. that the entire plane would smell like cardamom, clove and cumin even before an old air hostess stopped by my seat only to splatter some nasty curry on my tray. on the contrary, i got an emergency exit seat (window, thank you), the two seats next to mine were empty, the reclining degree of the seats was better than in most u.s. airlines i’ve flown, the hostess was super nice, and the food (indeed, curry) was quite decent. i even got a drink before takeoff and tea at least three times later on. the plane was not too crowded and a lot of the people aboard were non-indians.
still, it was the first time i saw that many indians together and several things caught my eye. for instance, the saris and red dots worn by, not only the female passengers, but the hostesses. i don’t even know if these are worn due to comfort, tradition, or some unknown religious meaning. the submissiveness of most indian women was also remarkable. most notable, though, was perhaps the physicial contact amongst men. i am in general very physical with my friends, both male and female, but to me the way one man laid his hand on another’s or how another man, during an entire conversation, talked close to his friend’s ear while hugging him with one hand was invasive and disturbing. the disturbing part is not even the seemingly gay thing but rather the intrusive aspect of it, how they invaded each other’s space and seemed to hold their conversation in such an uncomfortable position. granted, if such closeness is what implicitly reveals trust and intimacy between them, no other non-pda-type position would. on the other hand, it is also interesting that i didn’t see such proximity between two women or between a man and a woman, even married couples.
and none of these or the other things i noticed on the plane were actually new to me. i had heard about them before, i had seen them before, i had even discussed them with my friends before. but only now, when i saw all of them at once, when i was sitting there by myself and did nothing else but see and reflect on these differences, did i realize that i want to discover the subcontinent by myself, that i don’t want to read or hear about what guju food tastes like or about narrow lanes with honking cars that have no side mirrors or about urban street-crossing elephants. i want to see, hear, smell, and taste all these things by myself.
the india trip is being planned for 2007. in the meantime, i will have to make do with perro’s stories of the average indian who owns three cars and doesn’t pray. let’s pray that these stories are gone by next year or, at least, that i’ll be able to contest them with some stories of my own.
so for a while i’ve been surrounded by indians and i’ve talked about visiting india but other places have been in my priority list of travel destinations. yes, it is true that india has been continuously rising in the charts. friedman’s claims that “the world is flat” and all those articles in the economist, businessweek, and the new york times have not gone unnoticed. and, of course, those endless conversations with true and fake indians have also had their marketing effect on me. still, a trip to the balkans, northern africa, or the far east would clearly be my preferred option had i the time and money to go.
until today. not that india has become my top travel destination with certainty, but it is now close in the competition for that hot spot. i am now at stansted airport waiting for my flight to lyon. i just took my first air india flight from new york to london and my indian friends had warned me that it would be a great introduction to “naco” india. that some indian baby would be crying next to me while an old man farted on the other contiguous seat. that the entire plane would smell like cardamom, clove and cumin even before an old air hostess stopped by my seat only to splatter some nasty curry on my tray. on the contrary, i got an emergency exit seat (window, thank you), the two seats next to mine were empty, the reclining degree of the seats was better than in most u.s. airlines i’ve flown, the hostess was super nice, and the food (indeed, curry) was quite decent. i even got a drink before takeoff and tea at least three times later on. the plane was not too crowded and a lot of the people aboard were non-indians.
still, it was the first time i saw that many indians together and several things caught my eye. for instance, the saris and red dots worn by, not only the female passengers, but the hostesses. i don’t even know if these are worn due to comfort, tradition, or some unknown religious meaning. the submissiveness of most indian women was also remarkable. most notable, though, was perhaps the physicial contact amongst men. i am in general very physical with my friends, both male and female, but to me the way one man laid his hand on another’s or how another man, during an entire conversation, talked close to his friend’s ear while hugging him with one hand was invasive and disturbing. the disturbing part is not even the seemingly gay thing but rather the intrusive aspect of it, how they invaded each other’s space and seemed to hold their conversation in such an uncomfortable position. granted, if such closeness is what implicitly reveals trust and intimacy between them, no other non-pda-type position would. on the other hand, it is also interesting that i didn’t see such proximity between two women or between a man and a woman, even married couples.
and none of these or the other things i noticed on the plane were actually new to me. i had heard about them before, i had seen them before, i had even discussed them with my friends before. but only now, when i saw all of them at once, when i was sitting there by myself and did nothing else but see and reflect on these differences, did i realize that i want to discover the subcontinent by myself, that i don’t want to read or hear about what guju food tastes like or about narrow lanes with honking cars that have no side mirrors or about urban street-crossing elephants. i want to see, hear, smell, and taste all these things by myself.
the india trip is being planned for 2007. in the meantime, i will have to make do with perro’s stories of the average indian who owns three cars and doesn’t pray. let’s pray that these stories are gone by next year or, at least, that i’ll be able to contest them with some stories of my own.
posted by adrián at 19:32
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