Aah - Toe! The Sequel

In the continuing trend of sequels, in all spheres of cinema, I too shall create a sequel.

This one's a personal experience.

So I'm waiting for a bus back from my guitar class, to get home. These buses aren't very frequent. One every fifteen minutes, or something, and it takes near an hour, sometimes an hour and a quarter, to get home by bus at that time of day.

So I'm waiting for over a half hour, and I decided to spend some money, and grab an auto home, or I might as well be getting home the next morning. Standing on the side of the road, at rush hour isn't a very enjoyable experience, but necessity is the father of all... necessity. Hence I was standing on the side of a road during rush hour. After getting yelled at, spat on, and plain ridiculed for how far away my house was, one kind soul offered to take me home.

Hurdle number one successfully cleared.

Now came the haggling over price.

(Note - Conversation has been translated into english, and has been embellished somewhat)

"How much do you want to take me home?"

"150"

"150? My dear man, you're out of your mind. I'll give you a hundred."

"A hundred? You poor misguided soul. Have you seen the traffic? You'll be lucky if you get home alive. 150"

"No. I've only got a 120. I'll give you a hundred and ten."

"You're going home, so you can go in and get some cash. 150."

After another five minutes of inventing excuses and reasons to not pay a 150, I ended up agreeing to give him a 140. Damn.

Anyway. 

So this isn't just one guy in the auto. Its two. Tag-team auto driving, like I've never seen before.

So I get into the auto, and no sooner are we (not so) up up and away, when we encounter the mother of all traffic jams. So one of the team gets out, and goes to find the source of the jam. He figures it isn't going to end any time soon, so asks his team-mate to take a u-turn, and get the heck out of there. But we're next to the median (made from those ridiculous metal stand things), but our ingenious auto man just moves the median out of the way to facilitate our u-turn.

We're then stuck in traffic going the other way. He doesn't like the way things are going. He wants more business.

Hence a couple of minutes later, I find myself seated next to this old couple, going elsewhere, which is apparently on the way home. Wonderful. 

Luckily I've got my iPod, so I don't have to make conversation.

Apparently not. I turn to be faced by two pairs of moving mouths, apparently directed at me, because the movement of the mouths is followed by expectant looks.

After some ridiculously painful small talk, we finally get to wherever they're going (in an auto I hired in the first place) get wished luck for the rest of my life, and we continue our journey.

When we get home (after a whole load of the scariest driving I've ever seen) the guy has the cheek to ask me for another ten bucks.

"Ten more? Why?"

"We took a detour."

They took a detour. For which they were paid a handsome sum of fifty rupees.

But let's forget that. 

Somehow I am to blame for him asking those nice people to get into the auto, and them taking a small detour to their house. 

Really, where do these people get it from?

Firengis.

So I've come to realise, there are actually two kinds of foreigners.

Foreigners who are Indian, and ones who aren't.

Okay, seriously. 

Two kinds of foreigners. 

One's who are interviewed by the media, and ones that aren't.

Right about now, you're probably going "But surely that's just chance? How can you classify them this way, when it isn't upto the foreigners in the first place?"

Well... there's a reason they're interviewed by the media. 

They like India.

Or they have some nice things to say about India.

Or they pretend to have nice things to say about India, and actually just want to see their names in print (Even if it is in India).

Now the one's that are interviewed by the media, just have nice things to say about us. 

"Oh, your culture is just so rich!"

"I really wish more people would appreciate your music"

"The art is very vibrant in this city, and country, as a whole"

"India is in touch with its culture, even in this day and age. Wonderful."

"I love being here... the locals are just so helpful."

And while interviewing all these people, we believe that we're interviewing a foriegn person in our country, and what they think is representative of their country, and hence we are highly thought of all over the world. Now, while this isn't wrong, it doesn't conform to being right, either.

We're being hypocrites.

If we do interview the ones that don't like India, we'd learn a lot of ourselves, and what we do wrong. 

The knee-jerk reaction to the above statement would be to say :

"Look, its our nation. We can do as we please. They visit us, they'd better learn about us."

While this is mostly okay, i.e. if you're a guest at someone's place, try not to offend them, its also not done to treat the guest like your dog's dog, if you're the host. 

So.

In the same vein, it isn't really done to inflict all our Indian-ness on some poor soul, who has come here completely not expecting in the least to be assaulted. In more than one sense.

No, it's only after we listen to the ones that don't like India, that we can do something collectively to be a little more receptive to foreigners. (Unless they're morons, and complain about the food being too spicy. Grow a stomach, pansy).

Why would we want to be more receptive to those people, who are completely against every ideal we hold dear in our motherland?

Simply because they aren't against every ideal that we hold dear in our motherland. 

And they often learn, and study our culture far better than we can. 

They document it better, anyway.

This is a good thing.

So ending the hypocrisy would be a good idea.

Loquacious

"But in a culture like ours, language is exclusive, not inclusive. Those on easy terms with words are distrusted. I was always encouraged to believe that cleverness and elegance with word obscured and twisted decent truth." 

- Stephen Fry

Reading his autobiography, this statement strikes me as ridiculously true. In all the fables I've ever read, all the children's stories, the villian (if possible) is potrayed as a glib, smooth talking wolf-like person. Someone who could run circles 'round your head with stories, and convince you to do something not conducive to your self. 

Ridiculous.

People have been telling me this since I was ye big, telling me that a person who talks to much shouldn't be trusted. Although talking too much isn't a yardstick, its talking to well that makes people get their guard up. 

Now in college, I had this problem. I didn't finish some work, and it was overdue by a couple of four weeks... and I explained to them, at the end of the four weeks why it was so late. To my credit, it was 90% truth, and 10% exaggaration, to warrant the four weeks. They had issues believing me, because I spoke so well. 

This often happens. I've got a large vocabulary. Larger than a lot of people, at any rate. Most people have a great grip on the language, but they don't really go beyond that. I take a certain amount of delight in words, hence the reasonable size of my vocabulary. At this point, I must hasten to add that by no means is my English fantastic. It has been brought to my notice that my grammar isn't great, and that my pronunciation could be topped by a chimpanzee with a slur. 

Now when I speak, I generally use a lot of words which I like. Words which aren't usually heard in everyday conversation, and hence by training, my teachers are prone to not believe me. 

Thinking about it, it seems like this is probably because glib people are generally smarter than non-glib people. People don't like smarter people, because smarter people make them feel dumb, hence glib people are looked upon as perpetually trying to put one over the other guy.

In defence of other word-y people, I just have to say this : We might be smarter than you, we might not. But we only occasionally try to put one over you guys, and even then (speaking for myself, now) its only just for fun.

Don't hate on us.