You’d think English would be a universal language here, since all children have to learn it in school. The thing is, not all children get to go to school. About 40% of India’s population can’t read or write, which does much towards limiting their horizons.
Uncertain English fluency on their part, and utter Hindi incompetence on mine, combine to make every shopping adventure into a circus. I try to buy a simple bag of pancake batter, at K-Mart, and, before long, have three assistants, the door-man, and a customer on her innocent way out, all “helping.” Meantime, I’m doing my much under-rated re-enactment of “coriander sauce” – but to no avail. A man in a long kurta and matching cap weighs in, with his two rupees’ worth. He has a beard but no moustache, a disconcerting combo which I don’t understand but overlook, because his English is good. I have barely concluded my well-oiled explanation, when the shop-manager virtually arm-wrestles him out of the way, so I sigh, and start again. I give him my word-perfect pancake tale, and he nods, knowingly. He goes back to the forgotten batter-seller, his version in Hindi being for some reason three times longer than the original. As he’s talking, he’s energetically heaving his way through the available selection of bagged dosa batter, before turning to me with a shrug. He tells me what I already know, in my heart: there’s no coriander sauce in there. I shrug back, Hindily. No sale, today. We part with smiles.
Labour’s without doubt India’s biggest resource, a glance at the building site or shopping mall will show you. Workmen load gravel and small stones into baskets, little larger than those I use to take bread to the table at home. They heft them onto their heads, then carry them to scatter onto hardcore, the forecourt of yet another new high-rise building. At least six labourers, plus their wives, all in flip-flops, not a hard-hat between them, in this back-breaking, soul-withering work. The next morning, the pile is gone.
We want to buy a kettle, standing – not unreasonably – in front of the kettle section of the small electrical goods aisle in Spencer’s (no relation to Marks &, I suspect). The orange-shirted assistants materialise out of the bare ether, flanking us in a neat pincer movement. “We’re looking for a kettle,” we say, not shy of stating the obvious. “Kettle!” they murmur, and summon reinforcements. Soon, we get the “kettle” mantra going, gathering adherents in a retail frenzy, until, finally, the boys resort to their secret weapon, Ramesh from vacuum-cleaners. He, with his superior communication skills, deserts his post to come to our aid, swiftly apprising himself of the situation. He turns to us, with a flourish, indicating the shelf in front of us. “Is kettle!” So glad to have sorted that one out, then. What can we do, in the face of such comprehensive salemanship? We buy a kettle.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Repair and Restoration
Little voices in my head say, “Lovely drying weather. Let’s wash all the curtains!” There’s no shortage of sunshine, but, up here on Floor 33, an outside clothes-line isn’t an option I’m prepared to consider, not without Suresh to do his heart-stopping trapeze number. (See view from apartment window: now do you believe me?)
So this is the system: Mr Francis says, “Any cloths, Madame?” and I hand over the laundry, coyly looking the other way. (Not underwear – I think you have to be married to a person for 28 years before they’re allowed to wash your underwear. I sneakily wash it myself - then, in the absence of radiators to deck with socks and boxers, drape the window-sills instead. In case you were wondering. And, frankly, even if you weren’t.)
Mr Francis washes our “cloths,” in my own washing-machine, here in the apartment. Whites and coloureds, pêle-mêle, together, but it doesn’t matter, because the water’s cold. Then he takes the sodden pile somewhere mysterious to be dried. I hope he has a machine for this, or at least an outside line, I can’t bear the thought of his house being festooned in our washing. It’s bad enough, if it’s your own...
Then – and this is the magic bit – he takes them to be ironed. A pile of clean shirts, each meticulously folded round a piece of newspaper, arrive in a crisp parcel, tied with thin string. It’s like having a new shirt, every day – except it’s better, only the front rectangle of new-out-of-the-pack shirts is creasefree, whereas these are perfect from collar to cuff. What can you say, for 10 rupees a pop? I struggle with my conscience for about four seconds, then decide the ironing-man is better at it than I am, and if I were to make a stand against slave labour, there’d be less lentils in the pot on his table tonight, so I give in. I undo the parcel, and wind up the string to keep. Citizen of Mumbai for less than three weeks, I’m becoming very Indian in my recycling ways.
There’s a problem under the sink, the kitchen’s awash. Suresh’s trousers are wet to the knee. Mr Francis summons the experts, then leaves. When the electrician and his side-kick arrive, it turns out the only English word they know is “electrician,” so an elaborate ballet ensues, culminating in their disappearing to buy a spare part. I feel very at home with this scenario, and settle down for a three-hour wait. Then the plumber arrives, but he also only knows one word of English. His, unsurprisingly, is “plumber.” After much smiling and pointing at watches, he goes away again, too. Within half an hour, Mr Francis brings him back. He sorts out the drain problem, and charges me 100 rupees (an iniquitous £1.20). It takes him longer to write out the receipt, than it does for him to unblock the drain. I’m just thanking him effusively, seeing him to the door (I’m not sure you’re supposed to offer cups of tea to plumbers in India, must check it in my Service Etiquette Manual), when the electrical men reappear. They show me the part – they have bought two to be on the safe side – so I try to exude admiration. It looks like a screwdriver stuck in a plug, as far as I can see, I’m none the wiser, but I nod. They fit it. We all nod, then say, “Thermostat,” in turn, like singing in a round. I pay them their fourpence and they go too.
An exhausting morning, one way and another. But at least, we have hot water again.
So this is the system: Mr Francis says, “Any cloths, Madame?” and I hand over the laundry, coyly looking the other way. (Not underwear – I think you have to be married to a person for 28 years before they’re allowed to wash your underwear. I sneakily wash it myself - then, in the absence of radiators to deck with socks and boxers, drape the window-sills instead. In case you were wondering. And, frankly, even if you weren’t.)
Mr Francis washes our “cloths,” in my own washing-machine, here in the apartment. Whites and coloureds, pêle-mêle, together, but it doesn’t matter, because the water’s cold. Then he takes the sodden pile somewhere mysterious to be dried. I hope he has a machine for this, or at least an outside line, I can’t bear the thought of his house being festooned in our washing. It’s bad enough, if it’s your own...
Then – and this is the magic bit – he takes them to be ironed. A pile of clean shirts, each meticulously folded round a piece of newspaper, arrive in a crisp parcel, tied with thin string. It’s like having a new shirt, every day – except it’s better, only the front rectangle of new-out-of-the-pack shirts is creasefree, whereas these are perfect from collar to cuff. What can you say, for 10 rupees a pop? I struggle with my conscience for about four seconds, then decide the ironing-man is better at it than I am, and if I were to make a stand against slave labour, there’d be less lentils in the pot on his table tonight, so I give in. I undo the parcel, and wind up the string to keep. Citizen of Mumbai for less than three weeks, I’m becoming very Indian in my recycling ways.
There’s a problem under the sink, the kitchen’s awash. Suresh’s trousers are wet to the knee. Mr Francis summons the experts, then leaves. When the electrician and his side-kick arrive, it turns out the only English word they know is “electrician,” so an elaborate ballet ensues, culminating in their disappearing to buy a spare part. I feel very at home with this scenario, and settle down for a three-hour wait. Then the plumber arrives, but he also only knows one word of English. His, unsurprisingly, is “plumber.” After much smiling and pointing at watches, he goes away again, too. Within half an hour, Mr Francis brings him back. He sorts out the drain problem, and charges me 100 rupees (an iniquitous £1.20). It takes him longer to write out the receipt, than it does for him to unblock the drain. I’m just thanking him effusively, seeing him to the door (I’m not sure you’re supposed to offer cups of tea to plumbers in India, must check it in my Service Etiquette Manual), when the electrical men reappear. They show me the part – they have bought two to be on the safe side – so I try to exude admiration. It looks like a screwdriver stuck in a plug, as far as I can see, I’m none the wiser, but I nod. They fit it. We all nod, then say, “Thermostat,” in turn, like singing in a round. I pay them their fourpence and they go too.
An exhausting morning, one way and another. But at least, we have hot water again.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Posh Nosh in Mumbai
I’ve never been more aware of being left-handed, than I am here. One time, when I was a Girl Guide, selling raffle tickets at the Old Folks’ Hotpot Supper, some old bat said to me, “Don’t they smack you for that, at school?” – but this was inspired by random geriatric malice, not centuries of religious tradition. Next to us, a woman sits, eating with the bunched fingers of her right hand, while her left hand droops inert in her lap. If I had to eat with my right hand, I think, what kind of a vaudeville performance what that be? I’d feel – what’s the word? – gauche.
The inscrutable waiter, in his extravagantly swagged culottes, sets before us a selection of dips with a basket of crisps and poppadums. I home in on what I think is a crisp, cunningly shaped like a chilli. By the time I discover it’s a for-real chilli, cunningly deep-fried to a crisp, it’s too late; my teeth have melted. Who’d do that to a visiting ingénue? I imagine they have a scoreboard, on the back of the kitchen door. High-fives all round, to the lads in skirts. Meanwhile, my taste-buds are quietly doing double-somersaults with a back flip, not remotely assuaged by the fourteen litres of water the waiter assiduously pours. I just know he’s laughing, behind his lack of scrut. Anyway, I don’t need water, I need yogurt. Since I don’t have the Hindi, or indeed, the breath, to make this need plain, I carry on attractively spluttering and barking, until there’s not one single person in the restaurant, who isn’t looking at me. It’s difficult to appear gracious, when your eyeballs are on fire, and your tongue won’t fit back into your own mouth. Stylish. It puts being left-handed into perspective, though.
You have to try rumali roti, not because it’s delicious, although it is. It means “handkerchief bread” and that’s exactly what it looks like, piled onto your side-plate like a crumpled napkin. How dainty is that? I do realise that I perhaps shouldn’t mention “dainty” in view of the foregoing, but still...
We eat off banana leaves. I try to look as if we eat off banana leaves every day at our house, but small whoops of joy keep percolating out of control. I remember when black pepper seemed the height of culinary savoir-faire, and wish my Mum could see me now. I recall that I’ve already shot myself in the foot, as far as any pretence to gastronomic sophistication is concerned, here at Le Sheraton, but in my own defence, I manage not to eat the banana leaf. I know that this is largely because it’s a foot across, and I’m armed only with chopsticks. I also accept that, were it a starter on a doily of banana leaf, and they gave me a knife, I’d have a go, probably.
When the lemon consommé arrives, I remember to rinse my fingertips in it, rather than eat it, so we end the evening on a positive note, after all. The waiter’s smiling, but I can’t work out if it’s bonhomie or sympathy, so I resolve not to come back here for a couple of decades, or until my next incarnation, whichever is the later.
The inscrutable waiter, in his extravagantly swagged culottes, sets before us a selection of dips with a basket of crisps and poppadums. I home in on what I think is a crisp, cunningly shaped like a chilli. By the time I discover it’s a for-real chilli, cunningly deep-fried to a crisp, it’s too late; my teeth have melted. Who’d do that to a visiting ingénue? I imagine they have a scoreboard, on the back of the kitchen door. High-fives all round, to the lads in skirts. Meanwhile, my taste-buds are quietly doing double-somersaults with a back flip, not remotely assuaged by the fourteen litres of water the waiter assiduously pours. I just know he’s laughing, behind his lack of scrut. Anyway, I don’t need water, I need yogurt. Since I don’t have the Hindi, or indeed, the breath, to make this need plain, I carry on attractively spluttering and barking, until there’s not one single person in the restaurant, who isn’t looking at me. It’s difficult to appear gracious, when your eyeballs are on fire, and your tongue won’t fit back into your own mouth. Stylish. It puts being left-handed into perspective, though.
You have to try rumali roti, not because it’s delicious, although it is. It means “handkerchief bread” and that’s exactly what it looks like, piled onto your side-plate like a crumpled napkin. How dainty is that? I do realise that I perhaps shouldn’t mention “dainty” in view of the foregoing, but still...
We eat off banana leaves. I try to look as if we eat off banana leaves every day at our house, but small whoops of joy keep percolating out of control. I remember when black pepper seemed the height of culinary savoir-faire, and wish my Mum could see me now. I recall that I’ve already shot myself in the foot, as far as any pretence to gastronomic sophistication is concerned, here at Le Sheraton, but in my own defence, I manage not to eat the banana leaf. I know that this is largely because it’s a foot across, and I’m armed only with chopsticks. I also accept that, were it a starter on a doily of banana leaf, and they gave me a knife, I’d have a go, probably.
When the lemon consommé arrives, I remember to rinse my fingertips in it, rather than eat it, so we end the evening on a positive note, after all. The waiter’s smiling, but I can’t work out if it’s bonhomie or sympathy, so I resolve not to come back here for a couple of decades, or until my next incarnation, whichever is the later.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Traffic Karm-ing
I sit in the car, in seven lanes of stationary traffic. Our reservation at the restaurant is already forty minutes out of date. Monu’s singing under his breath, his face smooth. Every couple of minutes, we hiccup forward half the length of a tuk-tuk. Cars edge across sideways, changing lanes, jockeying for position with a chirpy admonitory beep. At home, windows would be opaque with frustration by now, cumulative rush-hour irritation accounting for at least a couple of degrees of global warming. Here, it couldn’t be more different.
All the faces I see – immobilised drivers, passengers who should already be somewhere else, side-stepping pedestrians – are wiped clean of emotion. They wait, not resigned, just passive.
Mother-child, husband-wife, colleague-colleague, friend-neighbour – the whole gamut of possible human interaction is here, most of it right in front of us on the pavement. But not anger. And, because I don’t miss it, it’s a couple of days before I notice.
Karma’s a word regrettably abused in the mouth of the West, with our Pic’n’Mix take on world culture. Anyone who talks about the colour of your aura, or tells you how to Feng Shui your fish-tank, will probably have a brief fandango with karma, before long, if they haven’t already. But the passivity all around us is definitely philosophical.
Karma is rooted in philosophy and religion, and has been fundamental to Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years. It’s the doctrine of causality. It’s not judgemental, but deals pragmatically with what is. Each person, therefore, is responsible for his or her own life. (As someone who devoted whole slices of her university life to putting Free Will through its paces, I don’t know how I can have read Siddhartha, and not noticed this. I was too busy flirting with existentialism, I think, batting my eyelids at Sartre and his chums...)
Karma’s like banking, you can only get out what you put in: beneficial effects can only result from past beneficial acts. (I used to tell my exam classes exactly this, relative to hard work and revision, but it applies equally well to the whole rich pageant of life.) It therefore follows that only evil can come from evil deeds. Work it out: we’re responsible for making our own hell, as well as heaven. In this philosophy, free will still exists, even though it seems you spend your days mechanically living out the price of what you did yesterday. Your active choice involves tomorrow.
The tricky thing I didn’t consider, in my undergraduate musings, was accumulation. All our thoughts and deeds have repercussions, but the tally doesn’t die with you. Reincarnation is central to Hinduism, so past lives also have to be taken into consideration. This explains, incidentally, how bad things can happen to seemingly good people. We can’t always attribute causality, because our knowledge of past lives is necessarily limited. It also clarifies how the Baddy sometimes appears to get away with his evil deeds – the fact is, he doesn’t, ultimately. And, taking the longer view, it explains the inequality of birth. Karma means inequality is not down to chance.
This One-Size-Fits-All philosophy explains both tsunamis and traffic jams. I look again at the peaceful faces in the idling cars on all sides, and it comes to me that nothing I can do will alter the outcome. Dinner or no dinner. So what? I feel strangely calm - or is it karmic? - and decide that this is something, along with the saffron spikes and embroidered slippers, that I definitely want to take home with me.
All the faces I see – immobilised drivers, passengers who should already be somewhere else, side-stepping pedestrians – are wiped clean of emotion. They wait, not resigned, just passive.
Mother-child, husband-wife, colleague-colleague, friend-neighbour – the whole gamut of possible human interaction is here, most of it right in front of us on the pavement. But not anger. And, because I don’t miss it, it’s a couple of days before I notice.
Karma’s a word regrettably abused in the mouth of the West, with our Pic’n’Mix take on world culture. Anyone who talks about the colour of your aura, or tells you how to Feng Shui your fish-tank, will probably have a brief fandango with karma, before long, if they haven’t already. But the passivity all around us is definitely philosophical.
Karma is rooted in philosophy and religion, and has been fundamental to Hinduism and Buddhism for thousands of years. It’s the doctrine of causality. It’s not judgemental, but deals pragmatically with what is. Each person, therefore, is responsible for his or her own life. (As someone who devoted whole slices of her university life to putting Free Will through its paces, I don’t know how I can have read Siddhartha, and not noticed this. I was too busy flirting with existentialism, I think, batting my eyelids at Sartre and his chums...)
Karma’s like banking, you can only get out what you put in: beneficial effects can only result from past beneficial acts. (I used to tell my exam classes exactly this, relative to hard work and revision, but it applies equally well to the whole rich pageant of life.) It therefore follows that only evil can come from evil deeds. Work it out: we’re responsible for making our own hell, as well as heaven. In this philosophy, free will still exists, even though it seems you spend your days mechanically living out the price of what you did yesterday. Your active choice involves tomorrow.
The tricky thing I didn’t consider, in my undergraduate musings, was accumulation. All our thoughts and deeds have repercussions, but the tally doesn’t die with you. Reincarnation is central to Hinduism, so past lives also have to be taken into consideration. This explains, incidentally, how bad things can happen to seemingly good people. We can’t always attribute causality, because our knowledge of past lives is necessarily limited. It also clarifies how the Baddy sometimes appears to get away with his evil deeds – the fact is, he doesn’t, ultimately. And, taking the longer view, it explains the inequality of birth. Karma means inequality is not down to chance.
This One-Size-Fits-All philosophy explains both tsunamis and traffic jams. I look again at the peaceful faces in the idling cars on all sides, and it comes to me that nothing I can do will alter the outcome. Dinner or no dinner. So what? I feel strangely calm - or is it karmic? - and decide that this is something, along with the saffron spikes and embroidered slippers, that I definitely want to take home with me.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
What’s got a bottom at the top?
In his bathroom, I see, Mr Roland keeps Harpic Fresh and Easy-Off Bang by the shower. He must get very dirty at the office. Our conjugal electric toothbrush is also lurking there, I discover, so the nice grey one Jet Airline kindly supplied, to match my free pyjamas, can go into hibernation. Piqued, I instigate a forensic sweep, which reveals that he’s shamelessly annexed my emergency shampoo, too. I can’t help but feel that Perfect Curls is hopelessly aspirational in his case, but I’m on shaky ground for criticism. I’m the adman’s dream, happy to gobble my way through forty-six packets of Hall’s Soothers, in the fond belief that some strange man’s going to come and kiss my neck. No luck so far. So, I’m putting all my trust in Fa, the Indian deodorant I buy at D-Mart, which promises you it will “lead you into a new exciting world and spread a sense of paradise.” I’m aware that it’s a big ask for a small pink aerosol, but I spray in hope.
Advertising here often plays on the borrowed sophistication of the English language. We find chocolate chip cookies, called “Hide and Seek” – obviously the economy version - and condoms branded “Good Knight” – this could be a typo, of course, therefore unwittingly witty, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is jolly kind of me, because I’m actually scrutinising a pack in my hand, before I realise that “safe moments together” doesn’t refer to family holidays, as per picture on pack, so that I’m not in fact holding a disposable camera, as I imagined. Don’t run away with the idea that shopping‘s easy, in a foreign field...
We smile at the tiny savoury snacks, labelled “cheeslings,” and laugh at the range of biscuits with “Eet Sum Mor” emblazoned across each packet, like D H Lawrence doing his Nottinghamshire accent. As for the brand of sauces and spices known as “Git’s” – it’s just a Chris Tarrant moment, waiting to happen.
“Enjoy a High Quality Holistic Coffee Experience!” invites the poster on the wall at Coffee World, in the Shopper’s Stop mall. I’m just pondering what this might include, when my coffee arrives. I’ve had latte perhaps twice, in all my long-legged life. Inexplicably, we land in Mumbai, on a determined quest for authenticity, and this least Indian of drinks becomes something of a craving. Sadly I’m left-handed, so I turn the cup round to drink, and the heart, lovingly piped in the frothing milk on the top, becomes a little bottom. Still cute, though.
“Something missing in your coffee?” asks another poster. (Not in mine, for sure!) - “If it’s a smile,” it goes on, “your coffee is free!” Very kind, but a safe bet. A fortnight since our arrival, and I’ve yet to see a single angry person. Or, not even angry, just mildly vexed. At home, three minutes in Sainsbury’s car-park, or two in the average British classroom, and the air would be crackling with invective. (Which came first, Ms Catherine Are-You-Calling-My-Dad-A-Pikey Tate, or the British Schoolgirl, standard specimen?) Or maybe I’m just spreading a sense of paradise wherever I go, thanks to Fa?
Advertising here often plays on the borrowed sophistication of the English language. We find chocolate chip cookies, called “Hide and Seek” – obviously the economy version - and condoms branded “Good Knight” – this could be a typo, of course, therefore unwittingly witty, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is jolly kind of me, because I’m actually scrutinising a pack in my hand, before I realise that “safe moments together” doesn’t refer to family holidays, as per picture on pack, so that I’m not in fact holding a disposable camera, as I imagined. Don’t run away with the idea that shopping‘s easy, in a foreign field...
We smile at the tiny savoury snacks, labelled “cheeslings,” and laugh at the range of biscuits with “Eet Sum Mor” emblazoned across each packet, like D H Lawrence doing his Nottinghamshire accent. As for the brand of sauces and spices known as “Git’s” – it’s just a Chris Tarrant moment, waiting to happen.
“Enjoy a High Quality Holistic Coffee Experience!” invites the poster on the wall at Coffee World, in the Shopper’s Stop mall. I’m just pondering what this might include, when my coffee arrives. I’ve had latte perhaps twice, in all my long-legged life. Inexplicably, we land in Mumbai, on a determined quest for authenticity, and this least Indian of drinks becomes something of a craving. Sadly I’m left-handed, so I turn the cup round to drink, and the heart, lovingly piped in the frothing milk on the top, becomes a little bottom. Still cute, though.
“Something missing in your coffee?” asks another poster. (Not in mine, for sure!) - “If it’s a smile,” it goes on, “your coffee is free!” Very kind, but a safe bet. A fortnight since our arrival, and I’ve yet to see a single angry person. Or, not even angry, just mildly vexed. At home, three minutes in Sainsbury’s car-park, or two in the average British classroom, and the air would be crackling with invective. (Which came first, Ms Catherine Are-You-Calling-My-Dad-A-Pikey Tate, or the British Schoolgirl, standard specimen?) Or maybe I’m just spreading a sense of paradise wherever I go, thanks to Fa?
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Mourning into Morning
Driving out in the evening, we pass a lumber-yard. At least, I assume, glimpsing the stacks of wood, that it’s a timber merchant’s. But no, it’s a Hindu crematorium. Then, I notice the ranks of chairs facing the pyre, and am perversely chilled. Yet, the more I find out about the way Hindus deal with death, the more I admire it.
A Hindu funeral generally takes place within a day of death. Makes sense, in a hot country. Hindus believe in reincarnation, but the soul can’t enter a new body until the old body’s completely gone. Cremation’s the kind way to go, therefore, if you’re looking out for your loved one on their way to Nirvana. By some anomaly, babies and unmarried people can be buried. These days, cremation often takes place in a furnace, familiar practice in the UK. Here in India, burning a body on a wooden pyre is still commonplace. At first, I think it’s barbaric, macabre even. Again, I’m driven to conclude in its essential rightness. We have anodised and sanitised death so much, it’s little wonder it takes months, years, even, to recover from a loss. This much more intimate, brutal contact with death means you have to deal with it NOW. Once you’ve sat watching flames consume a coffin, with the heat on your own living face, there’s no way you can kid yourself that it’s not happened.
The Zoroastrians, or Parsi, on the other hand, hold fire to be sacred, so it can’t be used to cremate the dead, nor can the earth be polluted by contact. Their primary concern is that the dead should not injure the living by contamination. These people expose their naked dead on Towers of Silence, to be consumed by vultures. Now, though, the vulture population of Mumbai has been decimated by infection, so a system which has been in place for centuries is under threat.
Here, white is the colour of mourning. The deceased is dressed in white, as are the principal mourners. If a woman dies before her husband, however, she wears red bridal clothes in her coffin. Western weddings must seem inappropriately lugubrious and ill-omened, to Hindu eyes.
The rituals around death are well-defined in Hindu culture. Everybody knows where you are and what you’re doing. On the way back from the funeral, the whole family have to bathe and change their clothes completely before entering the house again, which is itself purified by the priest. Then begins a twelve-day period of mourning, samskara, when the family keep to the house, because they’re considered impure. On the thirteenth day, there is a final ceremony, kriya, before the family resume their normal lives. You concentrate for that intense period of bereavement, then life beckons.
In my experience, bereavement means being catatonic for six months, with people crossing the road to avoid speaking to you. The Hindu way is so much more healthy, because it allows death a place. You bite on the sore tooth of loss, until the pain is its own anaesthetic. And then life says, “Enough!”
A Hindu funeral generally takes place within a day of death. Makes sense, in a hot country. Hindus believe in reincarnation, but the soul can’t enter a new body until the old body’s completely gone. Cremation’s the kind way to go, therefore, if you’re looking out for your loved one on their way to Nirvana. By some anomaly, babies and unmarried people can be buried. These days, cremation often takes place in a furnace, familiar practice in the UK. Here in India, burning a body on a wooden pyre is still commonplace. At first, I think it’s barbaric, macabre even. Again, I’m driven to conclude in its essential rightness. We have anodised and sanitised death so much, it’s little wonder it takes months, years, even, to recover from a loss. This much more intimate, brutal contact with death means you have to deal with it NOW. Once you’ve sat watching flames consume a coffin, with the heat on your own living face, there’s no way you can kid yourself that it’s not happened.
The Zoroastrians, or Parsi, on the other hand, hold fire to be sacred, so it can’t be used to cremate the dead, nor can the earth be polluted by contact. Their primary concern is that the dead should not injure the living by contamination. These people expose their naked dead on Towers of Silence, to be consumed by vultures. Now, though, the vulture population of Mumbai has been decimated by infection, so a system which has been in place for centuries is under threat.
Here, white is the colour of mourning. The deceased is dressed in white, as are the principal mourners. If a woman dies before her husband, however, she wears red bridal clothes in her coffin. Western weddings must seem inappropriately lugubrious and ill-omened, to Hindu eyes.
The rituals around death are well-defined in Hindu culture. Everybody knows where you are and what you’re doing. On the way back from the funeral, the whole family have to bathe and change their clothes completely before entering the house again, which is itself purified by the priest. Then begins a twelve-day period of mourning, samskara, when the family keep to the house, because they’re considered impure. On the thirteenth day, there is a final ceremony, kriya, before the family resume their normal lives. You concentrate for that intense period of bereavement, then life beckons.
In my experience, bereavement means being catatonic for six months, with people crossing the road to avoid speaking to you. The Hindu way is so much more healthy, because it allows death a place. You bite on the sore tooth of loss, until the pain is its own anaesthetic. And then life says, “Enough!”
Friday, February 1, 2008
Easy Hindi for the Tourist
Easy Hindi for the Tourist – as well as being a paradox – is a priceless volume costing 100 rupees, which claims to be in its thirteenth reprint. There must be decades between reprints, is all I’m saying.
No less a person than Nehru is responsible for the uplifting introduction. I don’t think he was thinking of prefacing a pocket phrase-book when he said it, he was probably addressing the UN, but it’s highly apposite, and I fully intend poaching it, if ever I write a dictionary. He concludes, “There is nothing that the world needs today more than mutual understanding.” See, I said it was uplifting. It needs to be, if you’re proposing to tackle the arcane delights of Hindustani.
The book’s without doubt a bargain. As well as all the words, you get free advice on what you can bring into the country, so’s you don’t fall foul of the customs wallahs. It’s called, somewhat obtusely, “What You Can Bring.” You’ll want to keep the whole book under your pillow, for this page alone. Permitted in your packing, then: “...one portable wireless receiving set, one portable record player with ten records... one canoe provided it is not longer than five and a half metres... one pair skis and two tennis racquets...” What kind of holiday do they think you’re hoping to have? In these uncertain days, though, you’ll be glad to know some weapons are NOT permitted, for example, “.410 muskets; pistols or revolvers above .32 bore...”( And they the gall to have a problem with my tweezers, at Heathrow...) Doesn’t mention anti-tank rifles or intercontinental ballistic missiles, though, that’s a bit of a loop-hole.
Every page positively crackles with more gems, than there are currants in a Christmas cake. For instance, a few telling questions, to help you interview a prospective employee: “Are you clean in person? Do you bathe daily?” No equal ops policy in place here, yet, it would seem. Should you need to repress the insubordinate, try this: “Fetch my stick!” I only ever say this to my dog, and he shrugs his canine shoulders as if to say, “Fetch it yourself...” I’ll give it a go with the Hindi, though...
The best section has to be Hunting and Sports. I’m definitely going to learn, “I’m going to bag a jungle-cock.” How useful will that be? Admittedly, I don’t particularly know what it means in English, but it’s sure to guarantee social advancement, at Ambassador’s receptions, and the like. Although, when was the last time anyone said, “I want to get a tiger,” and survived to tell the tale and sit on the rug? Apart from another tiger, obviously.
My favourite sequence has to be read as one side of a dialogue:
.....“Can we touch this?”
......“Is he angry?"
......“Now we must go!”
Small wonder it’s “a must for every tourist” – only a fool would take on the sub-continent without knowing how to say, “Send the bearer to my room!” I don’t begrudge a single rupee, and shall treasure it always. Meanwhile, should you need the Hindi for “sealing-wax” or “typewriter-ribbon” in a hurry, I’m your woman. Don’t bother with the cable office, like it says in the book, just text, and I’ll text you right back.
No less a person than Nehru is responsible for the uplifting introduction. I don’t think he was thinking of prefacing a pocket phrase-book when he said it, he was probably addressing the UN, but it’s highly apposite, and I fully intend poaching it, if ever I write a dictionary. He concludes, “There is nothing that the world needs today more than mutual understanding.” See, I said it was uplifting. It needs to be, if you’re proposing to tackle the arcane delights of Hindustani.
The book’s without doubt a bargain. As well as all the words, you get free advice on what you can bring into the country, so’s you don’t fall foul of the customs wallahs. It’s called, somewhat obtusely, “What You Can Bring.” You’ll want to keep the whole book under your pillow, for this page alone. Permitted in your packing, then: “...one portable wireless receiving set, one portable record player with ten records... one canoe provided it is not longer than five and a half metres... one pair skis and two tennis racquets...” What kind of holiday do they think you’re hoping to have? In these uncertain days, though, you’ll be glad to know some weapons are NOT permitted, for example, “.410 muskets; pistols or revolvers above .32 bore...”( And they the gall to have a problem with my tweezers, at Heathrow...) Doesn’t mention anti-tank rifles or intercontinental ballistic missiles, though, that’s a bit of a loop-hole.
Every page positively crackles with more gems, than there are currants in a Christmas cake. For instance, a few telling questions, to help you interview a prospective employee: “Are you clean in person? Do you bathe daily?” No equal ops policy in place here, yet, it would seem. Should you need to repress the insubordinate, try this: “Fetch my stick!” I only ever say this to my dog, and he shrugs his canine shoulders as if to say, “Fetch it yourself...” I’ll give it a go with the Hindi, though...
The best section has to be Hunting and Sports. I’m definitely going to learn, “I’m going to bag a jungle-cock.” How useful will that be? Admittedly, I don’t particularly know what it means in English, but it’s sure to guarantee social advancement, at Ambassador’s receptions, and the like. Although, when was the last time anyone said, “I want to get a tiger,” and survived to tell the tale and sit on the rug? Apart from another tiger, obviously.
My favourite sequence has to be read as one side of a dialogue:
.....“Can we touch this?”
......“Is he angry?"
......“Now we must go!”
Small wonder it’s “a must for every tourist” – only a fool would take on the sub-continent without knowing how to say, “Send the bearer to my room!” I don’t begrudge a single rupee, and shall treasure it always. Meanwhile, should you need the Hindi for “sealing-wax” or “typewriter-ribbon” in a hurry, I’m your woman. Don’t bother with the cable office, like it says in the book, just text, and I’ll text you right back.
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