So in my last entry, I promised to talk about notions of “charm” and “hospitality” in South Asia. I always tend to be wary of those terms, because I don’t know many cultures that wouldn’t describe themselves as hospitable, my own included. It’s like family values – every foreign culture under the sun seems to have them. Except America. But, then again, I think that has a lot more to do with the popularity of America-bashing than anything else.
Yet I digress.
I’ve already written somewhat on how the things people typically find endearing (e.g. aunties relentlessly stuffing your face with [admittedly very tasty] food) aren’t necessarily so for me. I’m a bit of a control freak. Okay okay, I’m a HUGE control freak. So when someone doesn’t stop when I ask politely the first time, I can get…well…pissed off. But hey, that’s just me. I totally recognize that a lot of people, South Asians and outsiders alike, enjoy the mini-drama that we call “eating at your aunty’s.”
But I would agree that South Asia is a charming place in which to spend time. Putting aside the more disturbing issues I’ve written about lately, there are an infinite number of things I associate with the subcontinent that I dearly miss. For example, I miss the way people eat (not to be confused with the aforementioned drama that always surrounds it). As I’ve said many times before, I’m from the South, and my hands are my second favorite utensils after the standard fork and spoon. God bless South Asia for thinking the same. Whereas many foreigners are ambivalent about this particular custom, it took me all of two seconds observing people eating lunch at a Delhi restaurant before I put my hand-sani to good use and dived right in. Some say that food just tastes better when you eat with your hands. I’m not too sure about that, but anything that’s rewarded with a bowl of hot nimboo-pani afterwards is okay by me!
One story on this matter that I would be remiss not to mention occurred not in India but on the sparking blue waters of the Caribbean. I happened to be on winter break, and my family decided a weeklong cruise would be a great idea. And it was, except the entrees at dinner weren’t exactly up to par with my discriminating palate (haaaaa….). Our waiter happened to be from Goa, so I asked if he could just have the chef make me Indian dishes instead. With all the vegetarian Gujjus on board, I’m sure I wasn’t the first person to have made this request. Regardless, he said yes. So the next night, I get a nice steaming plate of daal chaaval put in front of me with some roti. Normally, I think daal is incredibly bland, but I was desperate at this point. So I did the unthinkable. Or the usual. Depends on who you ask. I pulled my sleeves back and dug in! Now, cruise ship restaurants are generally rather nice, and my well-to-do mother was mortified. Mor-ti-fied. She berated me, unsuccessfully, for five minutes straight while everyone else’s conversations came to a grinding halt. However, I found an unlikely source of support in my grandfather, who thought it was hilarious that he had endured growing up on a poor, rural Georgia farm, painstakingly started his own vending company, and then watched that company flourish economically only to have things come full circle with his grandson. I suppose you could say that at least I was choosing to eat with my hands. Our waiter, meanwhile, walked around with a barely disguised smirk for the rest of the night. Maybe he felt vindicated when he put that finger bowl in front of me. Who knows? I just wanted to have some damn good food eaten right!
But enough about eating with your hands, because there’s so much more I could talk about. I could talk about, for instance, how I loved it every time someone in Delhi said “double three” for “3-3” when giving out a telephone number. Or how just about every week brought a new mango variety into season. Or how my ethnicity became this intricate guessing game (Pathan? No. British? Definitely not. Australian? Sorry, mate.). Or, finally, how my ibuprofen and antibiotics were cheaper than the bottled water I carried around. Clearly, this was a region that shared my priorities. Well, maybe.
So, yeah, South Asia is charming. But, unlike for many other people, it was only charming for me when it let its guard down. The planned dinner parties I attended were lovely and hospitable, to be sure, but there was always this tension about them. This tension over whether or not I, the white American guest of honor, would be okay with everything. I have to admit that this really only made me uncomfortable, as did sitting on a couch opposite that of aunties and uncles politely interrogating me about my studies (although I usually brought up the hijras to throw them a curveball – bet they weren’t expecting THAT one!). And I know I’m speaking in complete generalizations here, as there were definitely a few instances where I immediately felt at home upon entering someone else’s house in India. But I still would have preferred to be in some seedy outdoor café, the jalebi-wala outside hustling like a pro, the man next to me yelling “DOUBLE-FIVE, DOUBLE-SEVEN!” into his Tata phone, and the family behind me digging a hole to China in the middle of their daal makhni. It was only then that I forgot about where I came from, why I was there, and when I would leave, and instead finally felt comfortable. And the food poisoning? Eh, that’s a small price to pay. Besides, remember those cheap antibiotics I was telling you about…?
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