The United Services Club

Dear dedicated reader,

I won’t say too much about my trip to Mumbai: it was a good time, a chance to eat pizza, drink diet coke and sit in cafes, allaying my homesickness among other things. One day I decadently sat in a Barista (Indian Starbucks) almost the whole day reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini, enjoying my ability to be in public space without having to constantly entertain and acknowledge, sinking into delicious, bourgeois anonymity. Suffice it to say I found Mumbai lovely, though after a weekend of playing the part of the hardy white backpacker, I was hungering to get back to the familiarity of Kadod.

One incident, however, does deserve special mention. While in Mumbai, I had the pleasure of seeing my friend Anamika whom I studied with at Delhi University. Despite not having seen each other since I left India and the woes of cross continentally keeping in touch, we easily fell into our old friendship, which was a relief to me. She told us she wanted to do something special for our last night in Bombay, and it was for this reason that on Saturday night we found ourselves standing outside the gates of the United Services Club.

The United Services Club is an exclusive club only for members of the Indian armed forces at the southern most tip of Colaba, the neighborhood we were staying in while we were in Mumbai. Its facilities include an 18 hole golf course, two club areas and a lovely patio where Anamika was hoping we could enjoy the setting sun while sipping cocktails. “It’s my cousin,” she explained, “who has the membership. He was in the armed forces. We’ll be his guests.”

I suppose I should have known that there would be some trouble as her cousin, pulling up with his car and his driver outside the gates of the establishment, abruptly said, “Get in the car!” on seeing us. We obeyed and as we got in the car, the guard, who had been eyeing us suspiciously the entirety of our time waiting at the gate, turned on his flashlight and pointed it deliberately into our eyes through the car window.

“Who are they?” He asked the cousin gruffly, indicating us with a shake of his high beam flashlight.

“My guests, friends,” the cousin said, telling his driver to get going. The driver pulled off, leaving the guard unsatisfied with this explanation, but what could he do?

Anamika, I think as shaken as we were, uneasily began the introductions.

“Cousin, this is Catharine,” she began, “we studied together at DU…”

“Where are you here from?” He asked me pointedly.

“Well, I’m living in Gujarat,” I said, “but we’re from the US.”

“Ah, so, you can speak Gujarati then,” he said.

“Not exactly—“ I started.

“Well, foreigners aren’t allowed in this club, so you’ll just have tell everyone you are Gujarati, okay?” He said.

I looked at Anamika. Her face told me that she had obviously not known this obscure club rule.

“Where are you living there?” He asked us in the same pointed manner.

“In a village sort of near Surat,” I explained. “We’re teachers.”

“I see. Well –“ he paused, “Don’t tell anyone that either. Say you teach in a private school in Surat or something.”

I nodded, confused. What could I talk about at this place?

After a drive through the darkened golf course, we arrived at the grounds of the clubhouse. The driver parked the car and we nervously got out of the back and followed the cousin towards the lodge. The breeze coming off the ocean swept over me and I could see the lights from distant ships off the coast. It had become fully dark by this time and the stars were coming out. The lights of the cabana style clubhouse shone in a constant, welcoming way. It was, just as Anamika had described it, obviously a lovely place to have a cocktail. It remained to be seen whether we actually would or not.

As we walked past the two lazy looking uniformed guards at the gate of the clubhouse, they started to say something to the cousin in Hindi.

“Don’t bother them,” he replied, also in Hindi, “they’re Gujarati. They’re my guests.”

The guards made a blatant scoffing sound, followed by a disbelieving chortle.

“Ask them!” The cousin said defensively in Hindi. “They speak Gujarati! Ask them!” Before they could, however, we had moved on in towards the clubhouse.

The atmosphere inside was like something out of an old movie. We approached a table where Anamika’s aunt and a friendly couple were sitting. “Come, sit!” Anamika’s aunt cried as we approached.

“Have something, na?” The aunt said to us. We’d barely sat down. “What will you have?”

“I think water will—“ I started.

“Nonsense!” She replied. “Have a rum and coke.”

“I’m really fine—“

“Have a rum and coke! It’s really the best drink. You should have one. Also, our time here is limited, so it’s best not to fool around with water,” she said insistently.

“I guess I’ll have a rum and coke,” I reluctantly agreed.

“Oh good, my nephew will get the drinks,” she said, nudging him. “He’s the member here.” He gave us a begrudging smile and went off to get the drinks.

“Can we walk around and I’ll show them the place?” Anamika asked her aunt.

“Er, I think not,” her aunt said, looking fretfully around. “Best that they just stay here.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cousin approached by a formal looking man in a suit, who I had to assume was the manager. I saw them exchanging words, every once in awhile glancing meaningfully in our direction. I tried fruitlessly to make some awkward conversation, but the tension in the air was palpable. A few moments later, he was back at the table.

“Anamika, I have to speak to you,” he said frostily. He took her aside and they exchanged some words while Melissa and I exchanged an awkward glance. Causing this level of trouble had not been our intention.

Anamika approached the table and sat back down. “I, uh, think we’re going to have to leave,” she said awkwardly. I could see plainly that she felt terrible and embarrassed. I for one could not have found the situation funnier.

It turns out, I discovered from Anamika’s aunt as we got up to leave, that because the club is associated with defense forces, it is Indians only, no exceptions. “If we let in one nationality, that would be mean we’d have to let in every nationality,” she explained, “including Pakistanis.”

“I completely understand,” I told her as we were escorted out by one of the staff.

After we passed the gates, I finally let out the laugh I’d been holding in all the time. “I mean, after all,” I told Anamika, who was looking really dejected by this time, “What could be funnier, more ironic and more just than two white people getting kicked out of an exclusive club in India?”

Best,
Cat

You Are Looking So...

Dear dedicated reader,

And then, of course, there are the days when it is not me making the mistakes.

“Do you want to weigh yourself?” The principal asked me recently.

The question was put to me as I sat in the living room of his family’s house, watching a commercial for Chik Chik hair shampoo in the interval of the Hindi TV serial which Melissa and I have become absolutely addicted to called “Balika Vadhu”.

I couldn’t have heard that right. “Sorry, what did you say?” I asked him politely, turning away from the TV as the pale-skinned actress’ hair bounced in silky, shiny playfulness, enticing young women everywhere to buy Chik Chik.

“I was asking, do you want to weigh yourself?” He repeated, his kind smile lighting up his whole face as it usually does.

“Weigh myself,” I repeated, trying to maintain a dead pan.

“Yes, we have just gotten a scale.”

“And you are looking so thin now,” Sejalben piped in, looking up from the test papers she was grading.

“Well, uh, thank you,” I said, embarrassed. “But I think I’ll be all right. Also, won’t it be in kilograms?”

“Yes, but that is no problem,” the principal said with a wave of his hand. “Yashpalbhai (Sejal’s husband) will convert it to pounds for you.”

I looked over at Yashpalbhai, who was sitting on the couch, and he nodded agreeably.

“You can do it now, if you’d like,” the principal continued. “We have the scale right here.” He indicated a corner of the room.

“Uh…” What to say? “I think I’m all right. I mean, uh” Stall, stall! “The commercial break is almost over…”

“No, you are fine, go ahead,” he urged.

“Well, I… what if I don’t want you to know the number?” I said slyly, smiling.

Everyone laughed.

“As you wish,” he replied with the same kind smile.

Phew.

However, lest my head get too big, Manishbhai, the fruit-seller in the village who is studying English so he can go with his 3 year old son to Australia, stopped us in the bazaar yesterday (not an unusual occurrence, he pounces on us every time he sees us).

“Madam,” he said, waving us over to his and his mother’s fruit stall with a smile, “I am feeling so happy to see you today.”

I returned the smile, warily. “Thank you. How are you?”

“Madam, today I am feeling so happy because I am meeting you,” he said exuberantly.

“Uh, that is great,” I said, shooting Melissa a look. We were just turning to go when he started to stutter.

“I think, Madam,” he began, “that when you are coming here… when you are coming here, you were looking… (he struggles for a word) so ….thin. And now you are looking so (He moves his hands apart in a growing gesture, still struggling) ….fat. You are looking really beautiful madam.”

There was a long pause where he looked pleased with himself for getting the whole sentence out.

“I… uh, I honestly don’t know what to say to that,” I said truthfully. Then, Uh, “I’d better be going.”

“Have a nice day, Madam!” He called after us cheerfully.

I’m still not sure I have the hang of Indian compliments.

Best,
Cat


P.S. I'll be in Mumbai from tomorrow morning till Sunday, September 28th, so check back then!

Observations on Homesickness

Dear dedicated reader,

The pace of life here in all its agreeable slowness gives much time for personal reflection, and as I sat thoughtfully peeling a tamarind in the kitchen today, looking out through the open doors at the back of the house into the garden full of blooming, red flowers, I felt a pang of sad dislocation.

On most days, the uprooting of myself from the US and my subsequent replanting here feels painless, and indeed even wonderful as I soak in the familiar newness of it all. But, I would not be human if there were not those few days, like today, where I experience the growing pains of putting down new roots in foreign soil, real pangs of sadness.

Homesickness, in all its clichéd predictability, is all too real and it is a side of my experience that I am reluctant to show because, while misery may love company, company does not love misery. And though, honestly, I experience no misery here, I do sometimes feel the longing to be at home.

It is a longing that functions on many levels: First, there is always the question of the material things that one does without: the foods one especially misses (Sweet corn! Soy milk! Dark chocolate! Peaches!), comfy mattresses and pillows, jam that doesn’t taste like chemicals and an internet connection that moves faster than paint dries. While these things form the crust of my homesickness, they are easily cracked and their absence only symptomatic of a deeper feeling.

Underneath, there is that soft, tender question of personal habits: where one finds peace, be it in the confines of a bustling coffee shop or on a blanket in a public park, taking exercise through a jog down a public sidewalk or a long bike ride on a city street. There is knowing what constitutes ‘good value’ and ‘good quality’, and knowing instinctively where to find these things. There is a latent preference for browsing in a stationary shop in delightful, unhassled anonymity.

But even underneath this, there is something more. Merely the symptoms, these daily changes in custom which I have mentioned are still only superficial and on most days easily accommodated. Harder to swallow is the rocky, well packed foundation upon which all of this rests and which on such days my newly formed roots stretch boldly to touch: that elusive feeling of difference, of scrutiny, of self-consciousness.

The heart of the matter, it is characterized by a constant decision making: today will I go with the tide, or will I fight it? On almost every occasion, I choose the former; however, it is always a choice. There is always the possibility of falling into my own internal grooves, my own culturally embedded way of acting, and because of this is it impossible to remain neutral, to live life in an uncomplicated, unintentional kind of way.

I often feel like a child, having to be explicitly taught social cues, learning only through misstep subtle cultural signals and messages. Most days, I don’t mind: learning these things through mistakes is often a good source of stories and laughs and there has certainly been no shortage since I came to Kadod. But there is also the reality of how others perceive these missteps, and occasionally it is not always funny.

A small, but meaningful example: a week or so ago I was sitting in the computer lab, reading as I sometimes do, and the principal came in. I didn’t notice right away, but as he did, the staff stood up, despite their being no students in the room. He began to talk to one of the teachers about some small issue that he had, and as he did he glanced my direction. When I realized what I had done, I stood up, uncomfortably, knowing that I was late on the draw. He left, and I sat back down to read, but found I could not focus on my book. After a moment I asked the one of the other teachers in halting Hindi, “When sir comes in the room, we are supposed to stand?”

She looked at me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world: “Of course, we must show him respect,” she replied.

I nodded. What must he think? I have so much respect for him and his family, and yet this feeling doesn’t translate without these small culturally appropriate indications. While I generally have no problem ‘acting American’ as that is what I am, I like to do so with cognizance of the implications of how I act, why I do what I do and how it is different.

Obviously, no damage was done in this case, but it is a small indication of how I must always be self-aware, always ready to be instructed culturally and never truly, comfortably, unintentionally at ease with those that I know.

And that knowledge can sometimes, on those select days, be a very little bit lonely.

Best,
Cat

Giddy Up

Dear dedicated reader,

Today, I literally rode off into the sunset.

Of course, before doing this, I had to ride through all of Kadod, passing the public bus stand, the bustling vegetable bazaar and most of the back roads where my students live and were blithely playing outside. I made quite a spectacle, being led along at a snail’s pace on a beautiful looking white and brown horse bedecked with tassels and colorful saddle while I held onto its mane for dear life, screaming slightly every time it made an untoward move.

Did I mention this was my first time ever riding a horse?

All the while, I was listening to the agreeable man who had invited me on this expedition talk about his devotion to Islam and the number of people that he has converted to said religion back in London, where he lives permanently and owns a news shop. Unable to get off the horse, or to get him to stop leading it forward or to do anything at all except try and keep my balance atop its back, I merely listened politely and responded with an interested, “Really? That many people??” every so often.

To explain fully, I must rewind to about a week ago when some 7^th standard girls came by the guesthouse in their uniforms to deliver, most unexpectedly, some delicious English chocolates to the American teachers. When we asked them why they were giving them to us (they had never spoken to us previously), they explained that their uncle had just come from London and he wanted to meet us and could they please come back to see us at 6 o’clock that evening?

I agreed and at six o’clock found myself sitting on my front porch steps, surrounded by three twelve year old girls.

“Teacher,” they asked me in Hindi, “Do you wear clothes like these,” they indicated my salwar kameez, “in the US?”

“No,” I replied honestly, “I don’t.” I explained that I usually wear pants and shirts.

“And capris? And skirts?” They asked me curiously. I nodded. They switched backed to Gujarati and chattered away at a pace that I couldn’t follow.

Suddenly, they turned back to me, “And you wear lipstick and make up?” They asked me.

“Sometimes,” I said truthfully. “Not all the time.”

“And you dance?” They asked me.

“Badly,” I admitted.

“Teacher, will you dance now?” They asked eagerly.

“You first!” I smiled.

They looked at me seriously. “We can’t dance right now,” they explained, “because of Ramzan.”

I reined in my smile. “I see,” I said.

They switched topics. “Teacher, can you come to visit our house on Sunday? Our uncle wants to meet you!” House visits being a particular pleasure of ours on the weekend, we agreed and settled on a time.

Sunday rolled in lazily with an uncharacteristic heat after a spell of unrelenting rain which flooded our house and curled the pages of all our carefully kept books. We were working idly on the porch when the girls arrived to escort us to their house.

The mysterious uncle from London turned out to be a thin looking Indian man of medium height and graying hair with an open, accented way of speaking English that made me feel immediately at ease. He explained that he was from Kadod originally and came here every Ramzan to give money to the poor and spend the holiday with his family. His wife, whom he called up so that we could hear her delightfully English accent, was still in London with his three sons, the youngest of which we learned is “unmarried and looking.”

“So,” he said, “if you are interested,” he brandished a picture at us, “you just say the word.” We laughed politely, unsure if he was kidding.

After the passing of the awkward silences that characterize these visits, he asked us if we’d like to see the stables. As this is a particularly heavily populated neighborhood of Kadod, I agreed, unsure of where exactly the stables would be located. It turned out that they were the first floor of the house itself, the living quarters being located only on the second floor. We made our way inside, our eyes adjusting to the dark interior.

Following a trail of stray hay and horse manure, we were led to the back of this garage like structure where we found a beautiful brown and white Arabic horse, peacefully grazing on some feed and looking content. As we vocally admired its shiny coat and impressive build, the Uncle told us in that Indian way that cannot be refused, “You must ride him!”

At first, my knee-jerk reaction was to refuse, as I am accustomed to doing to all unorthodox invitations here.

“But I will walk the horse right around the block, no problem,” he insisted.

My click-whirr refusal jammed and suddenly I thought: why not? He clearly knows what he’s doing and this horse looks friendly enough…

“Sure, okay…” I found myself saying, even as Melissa was giving a polite “No thank you.” She heard my words jar with hers and she looked at me with surprise. I shrugged, just as surprised at myself.

“Great!” He had the men working in the stable saddle up the horse and lead it outside. Getting it over to a small wall which I could stand on top of to hook my foot into the stirrup and then hoist my leg over was a small and lengthy production, by the end of which had gathered a fair-sized crowd of people standing on their porches, idly watching my progress.

Once on, I grasped at the reigns for balance, realizing that I was, in fact, much higher off the ground than I had anticipated previously. The Uncle put the reins firmly in my hands and then took the other end up near the horses mouth in his. As the horse began to move, I screamed slightly and hunched over, grabbing at the saddle.

“Don’t be afraid!” He chastised. “Relax. Sit up straight. Keep your balance.”

He began to lead the horse around the square, and slowly I began to relax a little, but not enough to let go of the saddle.

He began to lead it up the road, away from the house and the enclosed square.

“Uh…” I began to say, realizing we were heading towards the main market area.

“Not to worry!” He replied. “Just relax!”

I suddenly realized that, unable to get down or steer the horse myself, I was completely at his mercy.

We began to make our way out into the main bazaar, and I could see people sitting on their porches, spotting me, and yelling to the rest of the house to come out and gawk. Word travels fast and by the time I reached the main road, there were large clumps of people in front of every house, eyeing me as I went by, some openly laughing, some just staring. I looked down at them, looking petrified as the horse moved ever forward, helplessly watching as the Uncle led me out towards the bus stand where the busy rush hour buses were packed full of onlookers.

The Uncle seemed to have no qualms about taking up the whole of the street by leading my down the middle, despite the fact that we were now on a main thoroughfare and honking, angry traffic was now accumulating behind us. I looked back at some of the honking cars and tried to convey my apologies through my sympathetic look, to show that really I was as unable as they were to do anything about the situation. Forgiveness was not forthcoming in their looks, voices or gestures, which quickly moved from peeved to full out annoyance.

All the while, the Uncle was making small talk about light, breezy topics such as his faith in Islam, the power of Islam to change people and many, many English that he has successfully converted to Islam, most coincidentally through marriage into Muslim families. As a captive audience, I kept up a steady stream of short replies all while trying to keep my balance and hide my terror from the now many onlookers and band of small children following us and shouting “Teacher!” and “Horse!”

By the end, I had gotten the hang of using the reins and was able to steer the horse on my own, though this fact did little to allay my general terror. When we finally arrived back his house, I dismounted with relief and thanked him profusely for going to all the trouble.

“What? No trouble!” He said adamantly. “Now you must come back four or five times between now and when I leave so that you will learn properly. You will have it in no time at all!”

I nodded in as non-committal a manner as I could muster and tried not to think too hard about the questions I’d be getting from the students in school on Monday.

Best,
Cat

Breaking the Fast

Dear dedicated reader,

The other day, my cell phone rang. This is not unusual, as its electronic tones can be heard many times a day, usually with some kind of call based marketing which is very popular here (since incoming calls are free).

However, this call was not one of the many singing advertisements which plague my ear drums on a daily basis; it was Daybal. She did not identify herself, but I knew from the accent and breadth of English vocabulary that it must be her. She sounded frantic.

“Can you tell me what this message means?” She asked me. “I got this text message and I don’t know what it means.”

“Sure, go ahead and read it to me,” I said.

“Reply via same, centre enabled thelesimia…spleen…” She read, spelling out each word carefully and saying “dot” for each period. “What does enabled mean?” she asked me.

“Uh, it means made to be able to do…but my question is: what is thelesimia?” I asked her to spell it again. I was still completely confused. “Listen,” I said, “why don’t I just come over and look at it?”

“You’d do that for me?” She said, incredulously.

“Are you kidding?” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

Ten minutes later, I was sitting on the floor of her house, puzzling over the mysterious message. “I don’t think this is an English word,” I told her.

‘Do you think it’s African then?” She asked me.

I held back a laugh. “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. She nodded distractedly. She was cooking up a storm and plopped a steaming plate of fried something or other down in front of me on the floor. I looked at her.

“I can’t eat this,” I told her.

“EAT IT!” She said, hitting me on the shoulder.

I shook my head. “I can’t,” I replied. “It’s Ramzan and I know you are fasting. I can’t sit here and eat in front of you.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Eat it! We are breaking the fast soon anyway.” After all, it was starting to get dark. I hesitantly picked up a pakora and put its oily crust in my mouth. She smiled encouragingly and turned back to her pot. “Stay,” she asked me as she stirred vigorously, turning pakoras over and over in the bubbling kadai. “My husband will take you home after we break the fast.”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to impose,”

“Stay! Don’t be silly, you!” She said, turning and shaking her metal stirrer at me, drops of oil flying.

I agreed and she handed me a large tarp to spread out on the stone floor of their main room. As she began to unload her steaming, oil-soaked pakoras into a dish, her husband came in. We exchanged a smiled greeting and his two daughters who were with him, Mizba and Asba, came over to greet my excitedly. Unlike usual, their heads and upper bodies were completely covered by large cloth headcoverings, covering their hair completely with only their adorable faces sticking out

They gathered around the tarp, along with Daybal’s sister in laws who had just arrived and greeted me by slapping me heartily on the back. I have this longstanding joke with them about how big my wrists are (too big for tiny Indian bangles) and so they grabbed me by my wrist and motioned for me to sit with them. As I did, Daybal’s small three year old son appeared from behind the back of his father. I put out my hand for a high five. To my surprise, he pinched me and ran away. Everyone laughed, except me, who looked at this small, mischevious devil hiding in the body of a cute baby boy with hidden ire. In response, he threw his topi (hat) at me so that it hit me hard in the chest.

“How…cute…” was all I could muster as they continued to laugh.

In the meantime, Daybal had spread all the dishes out on the floor in the center of the ring of the hungry: while Mizba and Asba were not keeping the fast, no one else had eaten or had anything to drink all day, as they would do for all of September because of Ramzan. They passed out glasses of rose milk and plates of dates, pear, custard and pakoras.

I waited for them to dig in.

When they didn’t, I looked around and realized that they were praying as they waited for something. Just then, I felt Daybal’s elbow in my side.

“Cover your head!” She told me matter of factly.

Embarrassed that I might have offended them, I wrapped my dupatta (scarf) around my head in the way that all the other women had. Daybal eyed me for a moment and then clicked her tongue in surprised approval.

“It suits you,” she said.

At that moment, what they were waiting for came. The call to prayer floated in the window as the light of dusk died from the sky and the setting sun gave way to night. For those who hadn’t eaten all day, they ate delicately, slowly, savouring the meal that they had waited twelve hours for. No one spoke. All that could be heard was teeth colliding in chewing and swallowing and tearing of pakoras and the slippery china grass (custard) dancing on everyone’s tongues.

I sat, nibbling on a pakora, feeling strange that I could not share in that feeling of breaking the fast.

Best,
Cat

Ganapati bappa moriya!

Dear dedicated reader,

“Ganapati bappa moriya,” a mischevious Hitesh chanted under his breath as I passed his bench in my 9D class today. I stopped, turned to face him, intending to discipline him for joking around. Instead, as his twinkling eyes met mine with an elfish smile, I couldn’t help myself. My frown became a chuckle.

I mentioned that the Festival of Ganesh has been going on for the past ten days in our small hamlet of Kadod. Each night, Melissa and I have ventured out to see the ganapatis, snuggled away in their havens of glitter and flashing lights, prasad (food offerings) at their feet. We’ve snacked on ladoos (the favorite Indian sweet of Ganesh) and joined in the clapping at the nightly puja and arti. None of this, however, prepared me for what I saw yesterday.

The feeling I have today is one that every college student knows: that feeling of “What exactly happened last night?” and the waves of embarrassment that come when you run into someone who you saw in a previously compromising position: your eyes slide away and you pretend to look at the ground as you hurry past, knowing that you both remember that the other was there. Conjure up that feeling from your past, dear reader. Now, imagine this happening with every person you see.

The scope, I had known: I had been told by the students that there would be dancing as they took the ganapatis down to the river on the last day of the festival, that people would throw rang (colored powder) and generally fun would be had. All this I knew. What I had not been told was the scale: there were 25 ganapatis in Kadod alone, and 25 more in the surrounding countryside. Each neighborhood had it’s own belovedly decorated statue and was bringing it to the river in style.

‘Style’ in this circumstance means atop a large flatbed truck bedecked in enormous human sized palm leaves, surrounded by children handing out vats of sweets to passerby and followed by a huge procession of young men banging drums and wildly dancing to Hindi film tunes belted out by speakers the size of a small child traveling on the bed of the truck. The sight of one is enough to impress: the sight of fifty, one after another, was unlike anything I have ever experienced. For a party in a state that has banned alcohol, it was wilder than I could have ever anticipated.

Add to the image a misty, pink colored coating on everything as the rain beats down from the sky atop the parade. Twenty pound sacks of rang were carried for the occasion and handfuls were thrown festively and arbitrarily in the air create a pink haze and mixed with the light rain to create pink puddles running through the muddy streets.

Perhaps the image in your head now looks something like this.

Melissa and I were lucky enough to snag seats at the local phone shop where we go to make international phone calls. The family who owns this place invited us to join them as they saw us meandering about and it was from here that we saw the procession of town familiar faces parade by in pink. Some groups had had special Ganesh T-shirts ordered for the occasion, emblazoned proudly in orange or black. All sported headbands with the same slogan: Ganapati Bappa Moriya! It is the same words which were chanted by every group who came by while they stamped and waved their arms and danced wildly.

“It’s like a regular parade without any rules!” Melissa observed as we watched another firework explode in the middle of the street amid the crowd with no previous warning. As foreign teachers, we made easy targets. Every time a procession passed, our students would run up, prasad in hand, offering it to us. To refuse prasad would be unacceptable since it was the food offered to Ganesh, so we’d obligingly put out our hands, only to be covered in rang (the colored powder) by the hidden hand of our mischevious students! Soon my brown hair had acquired a pale pink color and the small granules of ground powder covered almost every part of my clothes and body. They pulled us out into the street to dance garba (the Gujarat traditional dance) with them, laughing as I stumbled through the steps, my inept feet treading on those of the woman next to me.

The earlier floats were tamer: a few dancing boys, a few drums, mostly older women walking along behind the trucks singing. It was the later floats that were riotous and rowdy, each one trying out do the one in front and behind. And like so many unregulated functions, it eventually turned ugly.

“Fight! Fight!” One of my students ran up to where we were standing by the tailor’s shop. “They are fighting, madam!”

“What?” I craned my next to look down the street where the procession had been held up for a few minutes. It was the first lull in about two hours, so I had assumed that things were winding down. I was wrong.

At that moment, the procession started up again, and I could see the discord in the approaching group written on their angry faces. They were shouting, and some men were holding others back as the ones entrapped struggled to break free and use their fists to say what their mouths were already busy communicating. As they got closer, I gasped. At first it looked like a trick of the light, but I realized that one man’s face was completely covered in thick, red blood. I turned away.

The men moved on as the sole Kadod policeman came and began to threaten to break up the fight with his stick. As the men ran off further down the road towards the river, the policemen was surrounded by revelers, unaware that anything was wrong, who danced to pulsating disco music being belted from one of the nearby flatbed trucks. He swatted at them playfully with his stick and they laughingly dispersed, changing the prevailing mood to a lighter one.

It was perhaps because of this that Melissa and I decided that it was time to head down to the river, away from the general craziness and towards the peace that we knew would come with people saying goodbye to their ganapatis going their final resting place beneath the waters of the Tapi river. We thanked the tailor and the phone booth family for their hospitality and set off down the road, weaving between flatbeds and dancers with the ease of well seasoned crowd navigators.

We were not prepared, however, for what met us at the fork in the road where the Kadod main square opens up towards the school. Hundreds of young men had crowded in, all straining to see what was happening up a small side street. We also stopped, blocked by the massive wall of bodies.

At that exact moment, something must have happened, because I watched as hundreds of straining faces looking away from me suddenly turned and looked straight into my eyes. Their bodies followed and they began to run frantically towards me, dispersed by some unseen force up the road. At that moment, I froze. I knew I had to get out of the way or I would be trampled, but my body wouldn’t move. Suddenly, I felt a hand pushing me towards a wall on the side of the road.

“Madam, go!” The boy shouted. He was one of the 12^th standard boys who stays in the Hostel. All the secondary hostel boys had been allowed out for the festival. I pressed myself up against the wall and my breathing returned, glad for the intervention and was jostled by the elbows of the runners, who had been dispersed by police farther up the side road. Apparently, police had arrived from Bardoli to direct the increasingly unruly crowd control.

The boy, named Bhavin, took Melissa and my hands and waded into the rushing crowd, shouting in Gujarati, “Get out of the way!” He pulled us along as people yelled and pushed and finally we came out on the other side of the marketplace, near the river.

“Thank you,” I said, as he embarrassedly let go of my hand.

“No problem, madam,” Bhavin replied, looking at the ground. He looked up, “Do you want to see those ganapatis in the river?”

We nodded and he led us through the accumulated street vendors, selling hot roasted corn and pani puri down towards the bank of the river. We had to duck around the flatbeds from which they were unloading the beloved statues and anywhere between six and twenty men could be seen hoisting them up in time to carry them down the slope to the river bank.

As we drew closer, I saw a rickety hand made raft waiting and watched curiously as they loaded an 8 foot statue on with ten or fifteen people to accompany it. The raft was tied to a tow rope, and they were pulling themselves out to the middle of the river and back again to drop the statue into the water.

After a few moments of watching, Bhavin turned to me, “Ma’am, do you want to go on the raft?”

“Uh, what?” I said.

A few other students who had spotted me and come over to watch with me chimed in. “Yes, ma’am, go on the raft!” They said encouragingly. I eyed the structure, sagging under the weight of the giant statue and too many accompany people. I looked over the loose ended ropes which had been used to lash it together and the cracking planks that indicated its architect’s temporary structural vision.

The pressure became greater as more people joined in. “Go on the raft madam! Go on the raft! Ganapati Bappa Moriya! You know how to swim, right?”

While I would love to say that in the name of adventure (and subsequent blogging), I went on that raft and will forever preserve the memory of playing a key role in such an incredible festival, I firmly declined in favor of preserving my life.

Which means that I am here today, to field such embarrassing questions from my students, “Madam, you dance?”, “Madam, you play rang?” and random cries of “Ganapati Bappa Moriya!” as I walk by.

Best,
Cat

D.G. Patel turns 90

Dear dedicated reader,

Saturday, D.G. Patel celebrated his 90th year on this earth. What does D.G. stand for, you ask? I have no idea. This lack of knowledge, however, did not disqualify me from being invited to give a speech at his surprise birthday party.

All I know is that Saturday morning at exactly 10:45 am, a school peon appeared at the door of my classroom, interrupting my teaching, insisting that I accompany him to the temple.
“But – I’m teaching a class…” I protested. In vain. I was whisked out and barely allowed to even stop at the house to drop my books before being marched down to the temple hall. The next thing I know, I’m standing in front of a crowd of 100 men wishing a man I’ve never seen before many happy returns of the day.

The story, of course, does not begin here. It all really began when Mizba and Asba, Daybal’s two adorable daughters, came by our house on Friday as they often do.

“Come,” Mizba told me in Hindi, “Some people are doing some thing at the temple. Want to see?”
Since Melissa and I had nothing better to do, we went. On the short walk to the temple, we acquired the usual entourage of five to nine year olds who hang out in that general area and love to pester us with persistent lines of questioning that include only: What is your name? How are you? and my favorite, phrased as a question: Bye Bye?

The metal shutter that usually closes off the hall where we took our yoga class from the rest of the temple complex was open and as we approached, we could see that there were a number of people inside working on the hall. Watching the preparation for the festivities was all well and good until –

“Come in! Come in!” Sureshbhai, also known as the “President” appeared at our side. “We are preparing for a birthday celebration. D.G. Patel – he will be 90 years old.”

We nodded enthusiastically, as was expected of us, despite not knowing who D.G. Patel is or what his role is in the town.

The English medium school principal was also there and on seeing us, joined the conversation. “Tomorrow!” He exclaimed. “You must come tomorrow and celebrate the birthday with us. At 11:00 am. Okay?”

We nodded and politely accepted the invitation. As we walked away, I turned to Melissa. “Pity invitation?” She nodded and we both laughed.

It was because of this that I found myself being dragged away from my class at 10:40 am. I barely had time to stop in the house and put down my chalk and eraser before being chastised for not going straight to the hall.

When we arrived, the first thing I noticed was the rows upon rows of middle aged Indian men lounging in plastic chairs facing the front of the room that had been impeccably decorated with streamers, balloons, and flowers for the occasion. A large painted banner proclaiming in neat block-letter English “D.G. Patel Turns 90!” had been hung across the front of the hall. Underneath it, a small, unassuming white haired man with a cane and spectacles was sitting.

Melissa and I had stopped at the threshold of the hall. As far as I could see, there were only men here, milling about, talking on their cell phones, slowly drifting to sleep in their chairs, waiting for the event to start. Suddenly, a familiar figure in a green salwar kameez appeared and grabbed my arm.

“Where the hell have you been?” Asked Daybal. She is the only Indian in Kadod who has a competent enough command of the English language to use such expressions with confidence.

I laughed. “We thought we were supposed to be here at 11!” I protested as she led us over to the miniscule women’s section, where four or five other women, some in saris, some in nice salwar kameez were seated. I began to feel as though I had underdressed for the occasion. But then I realized I was sitting in a hall full of men in jeans and business casual. I felt better.

Sureshbhai, clearly flustered, came over to greet us distractedly. “Okay, so, you will say a few words for his birthday?” He asked me.

“A few words?” I repeated quizzically.

“Yes,” he said. “You will address everyone, just give a small speech, one to two minutes.”

My first staff meeting flashed before my eyes. “Uh, yes?” It hadn’t been a question, so I suppose my begrudging agreement was not necessary and anyhow he had already moved on to put out the next fire.

I sat in my seat, turning over in my mind, what would I say? I wouldn’t be able to pick D.G. Patel out of a line up and I was supposed to speak at his birthday party?

I turned to Daybal. “So, who is this D.G. Patel?”

“Oh!” She said, “He’s so rich! His whole family is in USA. He’s got two cars, two houses, two wives…you know.” I couldn’t tell if she was kidding.

At this point, the proceedings started. A spotlight was lit from the back of the hall and Sureshbhai, being videoed by a wedding video crew hired especially for the occasion, began to deliver a speech. Whatever he was saying must have been funny as people were laughing.

After a few moments, he indicated that Melissa and I should stand and come to the microphone. There were an awkward few seconds where I thought about not complying, but the sweet smile on the face of the old man sitting behind the world’s largest birthday cake made me reconsider. Putting one foot in front of the other, I made my way to the mic.

I looked out over the sea of men with cell phones attached to their belts. Already two had gone off just during Sureshbhai’s speech. I took a deep breath and squinted out at the audience, blinded by the spotlight and the light from the wedding video crew, who had just shoved the lens in my face to capture my every unplanned word.

“I guess we’d just like to say Happy Birthday to Mr. Patel and wish him many happy returns of the day on behalf of the Nanubhai Education Foundation,” I said slowly in English.

I could have said “Long live DG Patel, his two houses, two cars and two wives!” for all the audience could understand my English. Everyone clapped and I was given a rose to take to the old man, who smiled happily and confusedly as I presented it to him. The camera crew captured the whole moment in stills and on celluloid.

I feel certain that D.G. Patel will cherish it for many more years to come.

Best,
Cat

Election Fervor

Dear dedicated reader,

I receive only small glimpses here of the election fervor that I hear is going on at home. These highlights come from 10 second spots on the Gujarati news which I occasionally see at the principal’s house, short articles in the English language newspaper that I infrequently get to read, or from the online version of The Economist.

Honestly, I prefer it this way: having made up my mind whom I will vote for, I’m uninterested in the particulars of who said what or the ups and downs of the various campaigns. All I can do is hope that the candidate I favor will make America see in them the things that I do. And, of course, send in my absentee ballot.

Being in India four years ago for the lead up to the last presidential election had a distinctly different feel. The politically charged atmosphere of India’s capital was a more fertile breeding ground for conversations with my Indian friends about American politics (or any politics, for that matter). The Democratic Convention was hotly debated over our cups of cold coffee – this year, I didn’t even know the Democratic Convention was going on until one night when we were sitting at the principal’s house watching the news with his family.

He turned to me. “Catharine, why is Obama so famous?” He asked me slowly.

As we watched a short clip of Obama on the screen, dubbed over in Gujarati, I tried to think.

“Well, he’s a different kind of candidate than we’ve had before. He’s the first African American candidate we’ve had for president.”

The principal nodded. “And what will he do about America in the world?”

“Hopefully make it better.” It was all I could think to say.

Recently, my grandfather sent me a copy of Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope. Previously, I hadn’t really known much about his policy stances: I had just cobbled together what I thought he believed based on second hand hear-say and audio clips from Meet the Press. I read it hungrily, thinking of all the policy issues about which I care deeply and had simply left behind at home 3 months ago; however, the experience of reading it against the backdrop of my surroundings here was a strange one. He writes with so much faith in the American way of living, the ideals of American culture, and while I know that he grew up in Indonesia, his devotion to my motherland made me feel a little unpatriotic. Why am I here when there are so many problems in my own country?

And yet, that thought itself irks me. I’ve been accused of training my students for jobs in call centers: Is it true? Is helping students here realize their dreams to become air hostesses or electrical engineers (both jobs that require you to speak English) bad because India’s job market competes with that of the US? I ask to myself. Should my ambition to help be limited by the borders of my own country?

My reverie was interrupted as one of the computer teachers, Nitinbhai, caught my attention and pointed to my book. The only place with air conditioning in the school, I sometimes venture into the computer lab during the school day to read between classes.

He asked me, “Obama?”

I nodded.

He clicked his tongue in approval. “Barack Obama – my idol,” he struggled to get out in English.

Surprised, I asked him why.

He looked stymied for a minute as he thought of what he wanted to say. Dhirinbhai, one of the other computer teachers who speaks English quite fluently encouraged him to say what he wanted in Gujarati. After a short exchange, Dhirin relayed Nitin’s thoughts.

“He wants to say that he holds him up as an idol because he has struggled and overcome his struggles in the US and now he is running for President.”

Nitin chipped in. “He is a good man,” he said in Hindi.

It looks like Obama is leading the Kadod polls.

Best,
Cat

Mr. Tailor

Dear dedicated reader,

Although our lives here are indubitably based almost entirely around the school, its students and its staff, there is a two hour period in each day between the end of class and our 8 o’clock curfew that we are allowed outside of the school grounds and during this time there are a few village characters that play a role in our lives here.

One such character is Mr. Tailor. Whether or not this is his actual name, we don’t know; however, it was as such that he introduced himself and this is the name by which we call him. Whether or not it’s coincidence that his profession happens to be the same as his name, I also don’t know: what I do know is that he makes the best clothes of any tailor I’ve ever met.

His unmatched skill was proven yet again when I went by recently to pick up some sari blouses that I had asked him to make. The designs were elegant, the stitching flawless, and all for the low, low price of rs. 170 (approximately four US dollars). However, like everything here, our relationship with Mr. Tailor goes far beyond the simple “measurements taken – clothes made – bill paid” interaction.

“I am the best tailor, right?” He asked us as I looked over the blouses.

“You are the perfect tailor,” Melissa enthusiastically responded. “The best tailor!”

“Do you have internet?” He asked suddenly.

“Uh, yes?” I replied, a little wary of where this new subject could possibly be going.

“I also have internet – we have one modem that you put in your computer like pen drive and it is 250 kilobytes per second!” He has particularly exclamatory way of talking.

“That’s great,” I replied with an indulgent smile. I have become accustomed to random topic shifts, especially when I am speaking with someone in English here. I know well enough that when speaking in a language you struggle with, you grasp at whatever you can think of. However, I had misjudged the situation: this topic actually had a point.

“Do you want to borrow that pen drive?” He asked us.

“But… we have internet,” I explained.

“Yes, but this will be so much faster!” He exclaimed, bringing his hand down in an large agreeing thump on his sewing machine.

He explained the terms of our borrowing the modem: he didn’t need this modem at night (what he’s doing with it during the day while he tailors I don’t know) and the first two months of use are free – “So,” he said, “You can take this modem then from that Friday evening and return it that Monday morning before 7 am.”

“You mean, Sunday night?” I said.

“No, Monday morning is fine,” he said, as I inwardly cringed at the thought of being presentable enough at that hour to traipse through the village to return the modem.

We agreed, and he gave us the modem to take home that night, calling after us that we should not bring it back past 7 am sharp!

Like so many gifts and favors here, this one turned out to be more of a burden than a favor. We could not get the modem to work in our computer and we still had to bring it back at that unspeakably early hour. We sighed and resigned ourselves to our 30 kbps connection.

Later that night, Melissa’s cell phone rang. It was just after eight thirty. We looked at each other: who could be calling?

She picked up the phone. “Hello?” I heard her say. Thinking it was her mother, I went back to reading my book. As I tried to reabsorb myself within “The Audacity of Hope”, I heard her say: “But, uh, how did you get this number?” I looked at her over the top of my book.

“Who is it?” I mouthed.

She cupped her hand over the talk piece. “It’s the tailor!” She said in an amused whisper.

I almost laughed out loud. She scolded me to restrain myself.

After a little more confused chatting, the conversation ended. “How did he get your phone number?” I asked incredulously.

She sighed. “The phone guy gave it to him.”

The man who sold Melissa her cell phone and to whose phone booth we nightly make the trek to make international phone calls was directly across from Mr. Tailor’s shop. Their families are great friends and whether we are at the phone booth or at the tailor’s shop, the other man is always there.

“And he’s coming over right now.” She continued.

“Uh, what?!” I jumped up, pajama clad.

“Well, I told him that the modem wasn’t working in the computer so he said that he’d come over with his brother and fix it. Now.”

I rushed into the other room to change out of my pajamas. I had just enough time to throw on a kurta and some pants before we heard a knocking on the door.

The tailor and his brother entered. We offered them water in the style of Indian hospitality; they declined. Instead, they immediately set to work on the computer. They had brought along with them some lacking serial number or other.

Quickly following their sitting down in the chair at the computer, there was another knock at the door. The principal peaked his head through the crack of the door left ajar.

“What is going on here?” He asked in that innocuously concerned way that he has perfected.

“Oh sir,” I said, jumping a little. “They are just…” How did I even begin to explain why they were here. I mean, we didn’t invite them…

Luckily, Mr. Tailor jumped in. “We are here installing this pen drive,” he explained in Gujarati. He continued along at a quick pace that I couldn’t follow, but whatever he said must have been to the principal’s satisfaction because he nodded and let them carry on their work, under his hawk-eyed supervision.

After they got the pen drive up and working, the principal gave a waggle of approval and left. We thanked the tailor and his brother. “Don’t forget – “ he began.

“I promise we’ll bring it back by 7 am,” I assured him.

“And Saturday, you must come to my house for Ganesh Chaturthi!” He exclaimed. Ganesh Chaturthi is the proper name of the Ganesh Festival that is currently going on. “Our garampatti is the best!” We assured him we would.

Like I said, so much more than just a tailor.

Best,
Cat

P.S. When Melissa did take the pen drive back, just before 7 am, Mr. Tailor was not, in fact, at his shop.

Battling the Heat

Dear dedicated reader,

The air hangs like a thick, wet blanket over everything here. The last few days have been so hot and humid, even the most hardy locals are complaining loudly as the sweat drips in salty droplets down their faces. It’s too hot to eat, to sleep, to teach, and so it’s lucky that today is a school holiday.

Despite the heat induced malaise, I watched yesterday evening as families banded together on the main street, combining what collective energy remains to decorate the town for the ten day Festival of Ganesh-ji, the god with the head of an elephant. As we walked to the phone booth yesterday, Melissa and I stopped on the narrow street to watch as strings of lights and paper flags were thrown back and forth between men leaning precariously out of second story windows.

“Teacher, would you like to see the garumpati?” I looked down as I felt a tug on my kurta. The small children whose high pitched voices follow us with cries of “Teacher! Oh, Teacher!” everywhere we walk had crowded around Melissa and I, boxing us in and insisting that we go into one of the houses to see the garumpati, whatever that may be.

As a roll of heat thunder resounded in the sky, we dutifully followed, swept into the house by small hands and feet. The light was switched on and I gasped a little as the light revealed a neon blue, pink, yellow and seven foot statue of Ganesh. I turned to one of the older girls.

“Did you make this?” I asked her wonderingly.

“All of us, we put these jewels,” she explained, gesturing towards the statue. “The paint was there. This is our garampati,” which I deduced means statue made for this purpose. She continued, “Tomorrow we will put it outside and then in ten days, we will carry to the river and…” she struggled for the words she wanted in English, “put it there?”

“You’ll dump it in the river?” I paraphrased.
“Ah yes,” she said, with an agreeable head waggle, “like this.”

I looked at the statue admiringly. “So, tomorrow, when there is no school, it is so people can come look at the garampati?”

“Yes,” she said with excitement, her eyes flashing, “and ma’am, you must come!” I agreed with a smile.

All over town, hutches for the garampatis have been erected, both large and small. Temporary structures, they are made of large pieces of wood with tin roofs, humble looking on the outside, but inside lined with fabulously patterned cloth, palm leaves, and have lanterns hung from the ceiling. As we exited the house, I watched as a small boy, no more than four feet tall, struggled to lift a giant palm leaf twice his size upright and lean it against the outer wall of the hutch. Another man immediately grabbed it and latched it into place.

In the morning, I was roused from my sleep by the sound of music issuing from beyond the enclosure of the school gates. True to our word, we dressed quickly and walked down to the temple next to the school. The garampati had been placed spectacularly in the center of the extravagantly lined hutch and surrounded by smaller statues of Ganesh, all bejeweled and painted colors of bright orange, pink, blue and yellow. Music issued from an unassuming mobile phone which had been hooked up to a blaring speaker system which pointed out over the main square of the town.

The puja was just beginning and we were pushed into the crowd standing at the opening to the hutch.

“Aisai!” (Like this!) One of the little boys in a red shirt shouted to me, clapping his hands wildly in time to the song that everyone around us was singing with fervour, clapping all the while and stamping their feet. I joined in and around me the clapping seemed to get more vigorous every time hands made contact in time to the music.

The clapping stopped and some chanting began. The person leading would shout and everyone around seemed to know exactly what to shout back. Melissa and I simply watched as they lit some small offerings in a large tray. This tray was then brought around to everyone standing at the edge of the enclosure. I eyed it as it traveled closer to me, trying to memorize the gesture that everyone seemed to make over it as they waved their hands and touched their hearts and then their heads. The fear of offending is always imminent. When it finally came to me, I hesitated, looked around for outside confirmation that they did, indeed, want me to participate, and then half-heartedly waved my hand over the flames and then brought them up towards my head. I breathed a sigh of relief as my gesture inspired approving nods from those around me. Disaster averted once again.

Or perhaps it only seemed that way. I felt a hand on my arm and I looked up into the face of the man who delivers our boxes of (bourgeois) bottled water on a tri-weekly basis.

“Paise?” He asked me. (Money?)

“Uh, sorry?” I replied, confused, hoping he’d let go of my arm.

He did, but only to brandish a pink pad with a form in Gujarati in my face. “Paise!” he insisted once again.

I was still confused. “I don’t understand,” I said in Hindi.

He started to explain something in rapid Gujarati.

“I don’t speak Gujarati,” I said lamely.

Someone came over and took his hand, saying something to him in Gujarati. He retorted something quickly back and they looked at me. The impression I got was that I was supposed to give money, but instead this person was saying I shouldn’t have to. I decided that if the students can pretend they don’t understand my English when an assignment is due, it’s my right to do the same.

“I don’t understand,” I repeated again as they continued to look at me expectantly. The person arguing with water-man explained that he should leave us alone and he turned and left in a huff.

Living in India Rule #1: Don’t piss off the guy who brings you water.

Of course, I had little time to contemplate the potential ramifications of my actions in that moment, as just then Melissa and I were led by the arm and positioned in front of the statue of Ganesh-ji, suddenly blinded by people taking flash photos using their nifty hand-held camera phones. A perspiring diva, I tried unsuccessfully to hide the sweat stains on my kurta with my dupatta (scarf). Aishwarya Rai, I am not.

Best,
Cat

Spoken English

Dear dedicated reader,

As the school year starts up in the US, I continue to trudge through the utterly dull and lifeless Gujarat state English curriculum with my school-day classes here in Kadod. This most recent episode will highlight a typical teaching interaction:

Me: Okay students, today we will be doing dialogue writing. I will write a dialogue on the board, and you will copy it into your essay notebooks. Understand?

Students: Yes, ma’am.

[Some students still look confused. Tabussum tells them in Gujarati to take out their essay notebooks.]

[Students take out their essay notebooks. One student raises his hand and I call on him.]

Student: Teacher, can I copy this essay in a black pen?

Me: It makes no difference to me. Copy it in whatever color you like.

Tabussum: [interjects] No! You must copy it in a blue pen!

Student: Yes ma’am. [searches to find a blue pen in his backpack].

Fin.

Truly inspiring, is it not?

Meanwhile, the other aspect of the Foundation’s work here in Kadod, before and after school Spoken English classes, have easily become the highlight of my day. With a small class size, (mostly) cooperative, motivated students and license to do whatever fun, interactive activities I want, how could they not be?

The focus of Spoken English class is, unsurprisingly, on goading the students into actually speaking this language that they pretend to learn during the school day. While some of the 9th grade and 11th grade sections have quite strong reading, comprehension and writing skills, the ability to actually communicate in this language is still very low for almost all the students across the board.

Melissa and I have decided that the best way to learn to speak is to practice practical situational English and gain confidence in the sentence patterns that you actually use on a daily basis to get things done. Luckily, no one is more familiar with what basic sentence patterns these are than Melissa and I who have to struggle through using them in Hindi on a daily basis ourselves.

Our inaugural unit has been on travel, a theme that is easy for the students to get excited about. However, I found myself working in some unexpected (but somehow, typically Indian) vocabulary into our most recent lesson on purchasing a railway ticket.

The object of the lesson was for students to feel confident in how to buy a railway ticket, including asking how long the journey would take (a surprisingly idiomatic English expression), how much the tickets would cost and how many tickets they would need. The students were to write a dialogue about buying a railway ticket and then perform it for the class. The following two dramas resulted:

Group 1:

Ticket Seller: How can I help you?
Traveler: I would like to go to Jaipur
Ticket Seller: How many tickets do you need?
Traveler: I need 5 tickets.
Ticket Seller: That will be Rupees 5000.
Traveler: 5000! The posted price is only Rupees 2500! That 2500 will go in your pocket! I will report you to the Indian Railway Authority.
Ticket Seller: Oh no Sir! Please do not! I will…

The student speaking broke off at this point and looked at me. “How do you say “nikalna dena” in English, teacher?” He asked.

“To be fired,” I replied with a smile. He continued.

Ticket seller: I will be fired! I will give you the tickets for Rupees 2000.
Traveler: Okay, I will not tell. Give me the tickets.
Ticket seller: Don’t tell! Oh thank you sir.

Fin.

This was an excellent dialogue; however, even more funny to me was the one that followed it:

Group 2:

Ticket Seller: How can I help you?
Traveler: I would like to go to Delhi.
Ticket Seller: I have no tickets to Delhi. There is a waiting list.
Traveler: Oh please sir! I must go to Delhi! I will give you Rupees 3000 for one ticket!
Ticket Seller: Oh! Blackmail!

I broke in at this point, my vocabulary correction radar on high. “Actually, I think the word you want is bribe,” I suggested. I wrote the word on the board.

“Bribe, ma’am?”

“Uh, yes, when you want someone to do something for you so you offer them a lot of money – this is a bribe.”

He nodded and continued.

Ticket seller: Oh! A bribe! All right, I will sell you this ticket.
Traveler: Oh thank you!

Fin.

Afterwards, I kicked myself. How could I have forgotten these culturally appropriate ways of solving problems when I made up my vocabulary list? It must have just slipped my mind…

Best,
Cat