Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Person in Glorious Flat in Gurgaon

I've traveled far and wide (far anyways, I’m not sure how you travel wide?!) over the last month and have realised a couple of things - of which most relevant is that when left on my own...I don't really have too many substantial thoughts! So anyways, while shamelessly lifting this title from Borat, I’ve decided to put together whatever I noticed there.

For the sake of background, I went to the states for about a month, covered 3 very different states - the small town, the busy cold big city, and the warm chilled out county near the city (no this is not a tally of my air miles!) and found that each place was different in almost every aspect while at the same time being very similar in some others which I find remarkable considering that that country is so vast!

This was my first trip there and on my own so I really got a feel for the place(s) (by that I mean that instead of touristofying, I took in (while being aware of the villager quotient of it) things like how big a Wal-Mart is! some less village type experiences which were really fulfilling was going to the parks, walking around and riding the subway looking at all the people coming home from work - regarding this last one, by the way, I must say we human beings look incredibly depressed and sullen when sitting quietly in a public place (like a subway)...its just this look which says "leave me alone I’m sooo tired" and everyone has it..even I tried it on for a bit (when I wasn't staring all cross eyed and confused at the route map) ... it just seems to fit the place. While at the same time, you do get little insights into stranger’s lives (in a non voyeuristic way!) and get an amazing cross section of emotions in that 10 minute ride...and for some reason I liked that.

Other than that, I'm sure everyone knows how people in the city are in a rush and people in California are laid back and blah blah blah so I won’t go into the differences. What I will talk about are the similarities. So here goes:

· FLAGS - Ok, national pride is a wonderful thing but I really don't know why there’s an American flag after every 10 houses / buildings / streets! I mean ya ok we get it, love America, its a great country and all that but after some point I couldn’t help seeing one and thinking "oh thanks for reminding me!" aside from that I also thought "someone's making a butt load of money exporting flags!" cos that’s the other ironic thing - that these precious flags are all made overseas by "evil companies that are stealing American jobs" - so much for being the symbol of a mighty nation!

· FLIP SWITCHES - I can't understand why in the year 2007, in a country that's had it all for the last 100 years, that the only type of electrical switches that I saw were FLIP TOGGLE SWITCHES! Come on, are they trying to say that a place that gives you 50 different types of water only felt that one type of switch is good enough?! I find this hard to believe so i’m hoping someone can show me otherwise. As for now, I know what I saw and what I saw (in every house, hotel, shop in every state that I went) were just flip switches!

· TOILET PAPER: This may be slightly unpleasant (not cos i’m gonna get graphic - i’m not so don't worry!) cos of the subject matter, but again I couldn’t help wondering why every toilet ONLY has Toilet Paper for clean up - No automatic spray, faucet or even mug of water. I come from the land of lotas and all but every house here in the city had Toilet paper AND the water stuff. Isn't it just more hygienic? And I can't help but think of just how much paper is consumed every day!

· IGNORANCE and WONDER: I'm sure many of you have experienced this or noticed it on your visit. Excuse the generalisation, but mention that you're from India, and instantly the conversee (the local) is shooting questions at you like no tomorrow! And ofcourse 3 questions in, you realise that it is assumed that you are EVERYTHING that years and years of TV has told them we'd be. I met a lot of people, young and old, respected members of their communities, school kids, my age lot and at some point they all asked or said stuff like:

Ø "How come you speak English so well?" - I decided that instead of telling them about the high percentage of English medium schools (I slipped it in at some point), I would go into how we were under British rule for 200 years and apparently picked up the odd word here or there while we were being lathi charged! I mean only our entire judicial system, railways, postal and all round general administration are thanks to them so why not add language to that too!

Ø “Will you have an arranged marriage?” – My response was “No, it’s an option, but I can pretty much marry whoever I want” – They were quite surprised.

Ø “Do you have Clubs and Bars back home?” – (Basically it was a follow up question to how girls and guys meet in India). Come on! What do I even say to this?! I did say “yes” and gave an expression like “seriously??!” and it worked.

Ø “Do you have Margaritas there?” - Considering this came from a college student, I wasn’t gonna hold it against him but you can imagine the shock.

Ø “Can you have a girlfriend?” – Again, more questions leading up to or following the whole arranged marriage issue.

Ø “What will you eat? It’s all non-vegetarian” – Very popular question and asked out of concern everytime so not soo bad, but basically stemmed on the belief that we are all leaf eating sadhus. Doubts were settled as I put away my second helping of popcorn turkey, ham steaks, and tenderloin!

Ø “You’re from India? Gandhi right?” – Ok not really a question but this came from the very friendly girl at the flight check-in desk who for some reason asked me if I had any rupees on me cos she’d never seen one before. I flipped out a note and she pointed to it and recognized him, which was nice since it caught me unaware. I thought that this friendly chat would get my overweight bags through – It didn’t!

Ø “You have a driver and a servant? God you are spoilt!” – It’s probably not how society was meant to be but good or bad, we do have servants. And the average house hold here does have atleast 3 helpers (counting a sweeper, washer etc.). Ofcourse for them, this translated to a lifestyle enjoyed only by the uber wealthy so I enjoyed telling it to the shocked bar tender.


All said and done, it really is a wonderful country and what I liked most was the level of humanity that you show one another there. You smile at people when walking past them, you always greet someone you’re interacting with – salesman, subway attendant, co-passenger who’s giving you vital info (cos you’ve gone 5 stops down the wrong subway line!), everyone, and basic things like that that we were taught to do when growing up but tuned down for one reason or the other (that’s probably why we Indians are on our best behavior there – greeting, not littering etc., cos the whole atmosphere is conducive to gentle living) ….and I think its things like that that we need to examine in ourselves back home and see just how we can bring in a little more of that into our lives here.

But come on! We have bars here!