It’s the Indian Way!

A couple days ago, I got a call from an old pal in India I went to college with. It was great to hear from her, catching up, reminiscing et al, but what made me see red was her request (analyzing the wording closely, some may call it a demand, but then again, she earned that right when we went through five years of college together, some good, some not so good): her sister was visiting the States for a month as part of a work thing and I was expected to visit and engage her over every weekend during her stay.

Let alone the fact that I live about 3 hours by train from the part of Jersey that she intends to visit, I am so content with my little town-city that I haven’t made a trip seeking entertainment or culture in the past three months. It would be too much trouble to make a trip to entertain someone I know by association to someone I probably don’t relate to anymore.

After I hung up the phone, I tried to look at things from her perspective. It's true that I work full time at a far-from-leisurely Cardiology Department and go to school in the evenings for a Masters program. Other than a stress-relieving (and totally mandatory) binge-drinking trip on Friday nights and the occasional movie or dinner on Saturday, I pretty much have very little time to relax. As does almost anyone worth his or her salt in the United States (yet people somehow always manage to say hello or open a door for a stranger, which amazes me). But folks in India wouldn’t necessarily get that.

In a land where one half of the average day is spent hosting unannounced guests and attending to phones that ring constantly and the other half in elaborate meal preparations, 6 hours on a train for four weekends in a row for small-talk is routine.

I love my home country and its ways but those ways don’t work here; in a world where people are too busy chasing dreams, chasing trains seems frivolous, unless you’re getting somewhere on them.

This reminds me of some very amusing situations
I found myself in, with my US-bred, 5-year old niece, when she was observing the ways of Indian life for the first time.

“Why does the phone always ring in India?”
“Why do people keep coming home?”
“Why do we have to keep going from one house to another?”
“Why do we go to so many temples?”
“Why does he bring milk to the house?”
“Why is the plumber sitting and drinking tea?”
“We could just stop at a Burger King, couldn’t we?”

Very profound questions these, and ones that cannot be answered without indulging in some very luxurious Indian living....