Off the Beaten Path

In the past several years I have met more people from Bangalore than from any other part of India. Could it be because most of the people I meet are IT professionals and Bangalore is the IT capital of India? The first question I ask when I meet someone who hails from Bangalore is “Where in Bangalore is your house?” The responses vary. “Hosur Road,” say some, “Basavangudi” say others. “Indira Nagar” says a third set. However, the response that most thrills me is “Koramangala.” That’s because this is the only part of Bangalore I am familiar with. Actually, let me correct myself. I am only familiar with Koramangala’s 8^th block. Logic tells me that if there is an 8^th block, there must be 7 other blocks before that. Where do these blocks begin? Where do they end? Who decided which was the first block went and which were the following ones? How does a person who is new to the city [and the suburb] figure out all these details?

Whenever I visit Bangalore, I stay with my “langotya” [desi for diaper-days] pal, S. She is my hostess and my guide during the few days I spend in the “garden city.” I bow down to her genius as she sashays confidently [with me riding pillion] through the lanes and bylanes of this fast-growing city in her tiny efficient Scooty. As I see her maneuver through the tricky streets I marvel at her powers of adaptation. How did a girl who grew up in Mumbai learn to get by so well in a new relatively unknown city? She seems to drive using a mental map. I’ve never ever seen her use a real map, however.

I, on the other hand, use maps on a regular basis to get oriented with places I know nothing about. When I moved to the US of A after I got married, this is the first habit I picked up. I figured out quite early on that “road trips” are the done thing here. Every weekend, MOH and I would head out to new and exciting places in a rental car armed with nothing more than a change of clothes and some detailed maps we’d picked up from the local AAA [of the automobile, not the alcohol fame] office. Yes, here in the US, it is easy to figure out how to drive from one place to another. All one has to do is google a particular address, or do a mapblast exercise. All car rental companies have fairly detailed maps available for the first time visitor. The local AAA offices also have detailed “triptechs” that are free for the taking. This is not the case in India.

In all my years of living in Mumbai, I don’t ever recall anyone using any kind of map to drive to any place. In fact, the only maps I ever saw [of Mumbai] were in our Geography textbooks when we were in middle school. This is the case in other states as well. I’ve often wondered how people get around from one place to another. How do auto-rickshaw, taxicab and “tempo” drivers get from point A to point B without getting horribly lost? How do railcar operators [are they known as drivers or motormen?] maneuver from one station to the next with unfailing aptitude?

This brings me to my next point. I know a gazillion engineers, several doctors and a bunch of teachers. I know a few veterinarians and some military officers. I know fashion designers and gemologists. I even know a geologist. Yet, I cannot recall ever meeting a cartographer. Are there cartographers in India? What does one do to become a cartographer? What kind of degrees do these people need in order to enter the field? Are there colleges that train them? How much do they get paid? Drawing up precise maps seems like such an intriguing way to spend one’s life. Do the people who chart out maps ever travel to the places they draw up? I wonder…

In another day and age, I might’ve enjoyed pursuing map-making as a profession. For now, however, I must limit myself to finding out more about these unsung heroes.

Poor Doctors and Dishonest Students

College students are notorious for “bunking lectures," or "cutting class" like my American students are wont to say. This was the case when I was a student in Mumbai. It is also the case now that I am teaching in a college in USA. The following anecdote reveals the ingenious, and often nefarious, ways in which a student’s mind works.
My friend P, is a recent immigrant. This is her first semester as a college lecturer in the US, a fact most of her students are aware of. One of her students had not shown up for classes many days in a row. In the US, teachers can “drop” students from their roster (essentially striking their names off) if they miss a specified number of class meetings. P was all set to drop this particular student when he suddenly showed up in class again.
When asked to explain his long absence, the student replied that he had been very ill. As is the procedure, P demanded proof of illness (a doctor’s certificate) from the student. The student patiently replied that he did not have a doctor’s certificate. He then went on to add that P would find this unacceptable, but she would have to understand that there are “cultural differences between India and the US.” While people in India go to a doctor whenever they fall sick, American citizens simply nurse themselves back to health at home.
If this were indeed true, one wonders how the poor doctors make a living in the US!

P.S. My pal S just told us that her pal M, a doctor's wife, just got back from a trip to India. Among other things, M apparently purchased a diamond necklace worth Rs. 52 lakhs! I can actually buy three flats like the one my parents own for that kind of money. What can I say? I should've married a doctor.

Reading Books Written by Indian English Authors

I just finished reading a brand new book called Madras on Rainy Days. The author, Samina Ali, is the new-kid-on-the-block among other Indo-American authors, and this book marks her entry into the literary circle.
I must say that Ali has a very individualistic style of writing. One of her quirks is that she writes using a lot of fragmented sentences. The beauty of it is that this is not at all jarring. It only adds authenticity to the narrator's monologue. Sadly, however, the book does not live up to its early promise. The plot soon succumbs to the all too familiar "Oh, life in India [especially for a woman] really sucks, and no Indian can ever be really happy because she [or he] is soooo trapped within stupid out-dated traditions."
Every single Indian author in recent times uses this ruse to reel the Western reader in. Their tales are all sagas of unbearable suffering. Their books never end on an "all's well that ends well" note. Seriously, this attitude is beginning to get on my nerves. I don't know if I want to take this India bashing anymore. I know that India has its share of problems, but is life in India so bad?
When I was growing up in India, in what was a typical middle-class Indian home, we did have our share of problems. Everyone around me had problems too. Yet, I did not, ever, see a single clinically depressed person. Somehow, maybe because Indians are such believers in destiny, people seemed to accept their share of trials as inevitable and went on with their lives. They met each day with energy and enthusiasm.
A typical example was my mother's bai [maid-servant]. This woman had a very tough life. Her husband, when he was alive, used to drink everyday and hit her. She took to working as a maid-servant in order to feed her five hungry children and finance her husband's alcoholic binges. Later, she lost her husband, two young sons and one daughter-in-law in quick succession. With the men in the family gone, she had to support her two teenaged daughters and five grandchildren. Surely, misfortunes like these would make even the strongest heart crumble. Yet, this woman went about her daily chores with dignity and good cheer. She was always neatly dressed [despite the occasional tear in her sari] with a big red bindi, oiled hair and colorful glass bangles. She worked hard and eventually married off her daughters to good young men and educated her little grandchilren at the local municipal school. I can cite numerous such examples of courage, tolerance and acceptance.
It is only after migrating to the US that I began noticing sad, disheartened, lonely, depressed people. Despite all the material charms of this place, I cannot think of ONE friend who is totally satisfied with his/her life. There is something lacking somewhere. Going to a counsellor or a therapist is common place nowadays. Taking a sleeping pill in order to get some shut-eye at night is also something many of my friends do. It is simply a part of modern life in a so-called developed nation. Why then, does no one write about how life in the US sucks?
"So Maggi," you might ask, "if you dislike desi authors so much, why do you read their books?" What can I say? When I used to live in India, I didn't bother to read a SINGLE book written by a desi author. No, even as a grad student, I did not read books written by "authors of Indian English." Yet, now that I live in the US, the only books I seem to want to read [other than cheap paperback thrillers] are ones written in English by authors of Indian origin. Amitav Ghosh, Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Shashi Tharoor, Anita Nair, Arundhati Roy...I've read them all...
Maybe my hands automatically reach out and pick books by desi authors because I miss India. I like reading about familiar themes and familiar places. I do like the references [they make] to local Indian customs [a lot of which I can identify with]. I also like the Hinglish dialogues. What I don't like is the sheer melancholia of it all. Why can't writers of the new ilk model their work on old giants [and geniuses] like R.K. and Ruskin Bond? Yes, their writings are melancholic in part too, but there is much humor and wit hidden within the mundane routine lives their protagonists lead. Their musings about life in India are true-to-life without being overly sentimental and melodramatic. Reading about Malgudi, for example, always brings a smile to my face. So, in order to counter the evil effects of Samina's woeful tale, I think I'll spend the next couple of days re-reading Bond's Night Train at Deoli. My sad psyche needs some cheering up.