Friday, 21 June 2013

The good, the bad and the ugly

Lacking any interesting personal anecdotes to write about, I'm wondering what you'd like to read about today.  My date had to cancel last minute last night because of a family emergency, so I went to bed early to recover from my late night on Thursday.  I doubt that you all want to read about the work-related stuff I'm dealing with, so what does that leave us with?  Seemingly random observations!.    As the post title indicates, some of them are good, some are bad, and some are just plain ugly...

The Good:
  • Wedding jewelry - there are advertisements all around Mumbai for various wedding jewellers.  Wedding jewelry in the Indian sense of the term was a foreign concept to me before coming here, with parents saving up for years to buy enough bling for their daughters to wear on their wedding day.  Wedding jewelry will be passed down from mother to daughter, or melted down and refashioned according to the daughter's taste.  The jewelry all seems to be very gold-heavy.  In fact, Ami's cousin's baby daughter already has 20something grams of gold accumulated from various gifts, which will be eventually used for her wedding jewelry.  Lesson learned: in case of any doubt on what the right gift may be for an Indian woman, gold coins will always go over well.
  • Precious and semi-precious stones - I've noticed that men here wear more jewelry on average than what I'm used to seeing in the states.  Some of it is decorative, of course.  But it turns out that some is also tied in with the Indian astrology I mentioned in an earlier post.  If you are worried about some part of your life, then an astrologer can recommend a type of stone that you can wear that will cause things to improve.  Apparently which type of stone is dependent on your particular problems and your kundli (birth chart).  One guy asked me recently why I wear a blue topaz ring on my right hand.  I'm pretty sure he was expecting an answer along the lines of "so that I can get married in the next year" but my response instead was a sheepish "because it's pretty?"
  • Weddings here are huge affairs.  One of my goals actually is to go to an Indian wedding (although I suspect I would be the most conspicuous wedding crasher ever here).  It's not uncommon for there to be 500 people at a wedding here.  I was asking Ami how people possibly handle the logistics of such a large event, and she responded with an interesting factoid: Indian weddings aren't sit down, plated dinners.  Instead they're almost always buffet-style affairs, with no assigned seating.  The venue/caterers will charge by the number of dirty plates, which must take a lot of the stress of collecting RSVP's out of the process. 
  • There is a subset of food delivery services here in India where the delivery person will pick up home-cooked food from your house (or your mother's house, aunt's house, whatever) and deliver it to anywhere in the city for mere pennies.  This allows people to have freshly made, hot and ready to go food from home at the office.  A lot of people use it to get food from their mothers delivered. They may be married and living separately from their mom, but their mom will still cook them lunch every day and send it out for delivery to their office.  How sweet is that?
The Bad:
  • I find it weird that all of the deodorant options available here are aerosol.  Karen tells me it's the same in the UK.  Let's be honest - I guess it's good that people here are buying deodorant in any form (yes, I'm saying that some people smell bad here).
  • A common phrase that I encounter - particularly via emails - here is the use of the term "the same."  People will say something to the effect of "I have couriered over hard copies of this document for your review and signature.  Please review and remit the same."  In this case, "the same" refers to the documents.  They seem to use this phrase quite a bit - is it British in origins?  I suppose it makes sense, but it seems like an awkward way to phrase things.
  • Bribery is one of the costs of doing business here.  Most people seem to accept it as a fact of life, which confuses me.  Plus my presence as a white person seems to invite bribery even in cases where it doesn't warrant it.  As an example, last week I was going out to dinner with Mr. Bollywood Heartthrob.  We pull into a parking spot on the street outside the restaurant, and he's not sure if it's actually legal to park there.  He spots a policeman walking by and asks if it's ok to park here.  The policeman starts to respond to his question, then spots me in the passenger seat.  I didn't get the details of the conversation, since it happened in Hindi, but I definitely caught the words "American" and "Worli."  Why on earth is this policeman asking questions about me?  Anyway, Mr. Bollywood Heartthrob ends up giving the guy about 50 rupees, and says "ok, parking's all taken care of."  Huh? 
The Ugly:
  • I've seen more rat tails here than I'd ever hoped to see in my life.  No, I'm not talking about our fourth flatmate but about men's hairstyles.  I'm pretty sure the rat tail hasn't ever been in style, and it never should be.
  • One charming component of taking taxis here in Mumbai is the interior decor of each vehicle.  The cabs here are black and yellow on the outside - black on the bottom with yellow roofs (for the most part - unless it's an air conditioned cab, in which case the coloring might be different).  On the inside, however, it seems that every driver is allowed to take creative license in decorating his cab.  Most will have some kind of religious icon on the dashboard - most frequently Ganesh, I've noticed.  Some people will string fluorescent party lights on the inside of the cab, which they will turn on at night (woop woop).  The most common form of personalization is the upholstery, however.  Each cab has its own patterned fabric - sometimes plastic, sometimes a heavy textile - that upholsters the entire interior of the car.  I'm not just talking about the seats here - the ceilings, the doors, and even the dashboard are upholstered.  I'm not sure exactly how to describe it - shabby chic?  Kitschy? You really have to ride in one of these to appreciate the ambiance.

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