Mad for Mumbai
Living in India is like having an intense but insane affair, writes expat
Catherine Taylor ...
TONIGHT, as I waved my high heel in the face of a bewildered taxi driver, I
thought suddenly: I am absolutely nuts in India. It's a thought I have
often. Someone or something is always going nuts, and quite often it's me.
I was trying to get a taxi driver to take me home, a mere 500 metres away,
but it was pouring with rain and my shoes were oh-so-high, and it was late.
He, of course, was having none of it; no amount of shoe-waving and
sad-facing from a wild-haired firangi was changing his mind, when suddenly I
remembered the magic trick - pay more than you should. "Arre, bhai sahab, 50
rupees to Altamount Road? Please?" And off we went.
I have lived in Mumbai for almost three years. It was my choice to come - I
wanted offshore experience in my media career and India was the only country
looking to hire - and I wanted a change. I needed something new, exciting,
thrilling, terrifying. And India gave that to me in spades. In fact, she
turned it all the way up to 11. And then she turned it up a little more.
To outsiders, living in India has a particular kind of glamour attached to
it, a special sparkle that sees people crowding around me at parties.
"You live in India? My God, really? I could never do that. What's it like?"
The closest I have come to answering that question is that it's like being
in a very intense, extremely dysfunctional relationship. India and I fight,
we scream, we argue, we don't speak for days on end, but really, deep down,
we love each other. She's a strange beast, this India. She hugs me, so
tightly sometimes that I can't breathe, then she turns and punches me hard
in the face, leaving me stunned. Then she hugs me again, and suddenly I know
everything will be all right.
She wonders why I don't just "know" how things are done, why I argue with
her about everything, why I judge, why I rail at injustice and then do
nothing about it. She wonders how old I am, how much I earn, why I'm not
married. (The poor census man looked at me, stunned, then asked in a
faltering voice, "But madam, if you're not married then… who is the head of
your household?").
I wonder how she can stand by when small children are begging on corners,
how she can let people foul up the streets so much that they are impossible
to walk along, how she can allow such corruption, such injustice, such A LOT
OF HONKING.
But she has taught me things. She has taught me to be brave, bold,
independent, sometimes even fierce and terrifying. She has taught me to walk
in another man's chappals, and ask questions a different way when at first
the answer is no. She has taught me to accept the things I cannot change.
She has taught me that there are always, always, two sides to every
argument. And she was kind enough to let me come and stay.
She didn't make it easy though (but then, why should she?). The Foreigner
Regional Registration Office, banks, mobile phone companies and rental
agencies are drowning under piles of carbon paper, photocopies of passports
(I always carry a minimum of three) and the soggy tissues of foreigners who
fall to pieces in the face of maddening bureaucracy. What costs you 50
rupees one day might be 500 rupees the next, and nobody will tell you why.
What you didn't need to bring yesterday, you suddenly need to bring today. Your
signature doesn't look like your signature. And no, we can't help you. Come
back tomorrow and see.
It's not easy being here, although I am spoiled by a maid who cooks for me,
and a delivery service from everywhere that ensures I rarely have to wave my
shoes at taxi drivers. I buy cheap flowers, trawl for gorgeous antiques, buy
incredibly cheap books; I have long, boozy brunches in five-star hotels for
the price of a nice bottle of wine at home, I have a very nice roof over my
head … on the face of it, it would seem I have little to complain about.
But then, I am stared at constantly, I have been spat on, sexually harassed,
had my (covered) breasts videotaped as I walked through a market, had my
drink spiked, been followed countless times. I have wept more here than I
have ever in my life, out of frustration, anger, loneliness, the sheer
hugeness of being here.
But the longer I stay, the more I seem to relax, let go, let it be.
But I do often wonder why I'm here, especially when I'm tired, teary and
homesick, my phone has been disconnected for the 19th time despite promises
it would never happen again, when it's raining and no taxis will take me
home. But then a willing ride always comes along, and we'll turn a corner
and be suddenly in the midst of some banging, crashing mad festival full of
colour, where everyone is dancing behind a slow-moving truck, and I won't
have a clue what's going on but a mum holding a child will dance up to my
window and point and smile and laugh, and I breathe out and think, really,
my God, this is fantastic. This is India! I live in India! She hugs me, she
punches me, and she hugs me again.
Yet I know won't ever belong here, not properly. I know this when I listen
to girls discussing what colour blouses they should wear to their weddings -
she's Gujarati, he's from the south, she's wearing a Keralan sari. I know
when my friends give me house-hunting advice: "Look at the names of the
people who already live there, then you'll know what kind of building it
is." (Trouble is, I don't know my Kapoors from my Kapurs, my Sippys from my
Sindhis, my Khans from my Jains). I know this when my lovely fruit man (who
also delivers) begs me to taste a strawberry he is holding in his grubby
hands and I have to say no, I can't eat it, I'll die… I know I will never
belong because, as stupid as it sounds, being truly, properly Indian is in
your DNA.
I marvel at how incredibly well educated so many of them are, how they can
all speak at least three languages and think it's no big deal, how they fit
1000 people into a train carriage meant for 300 and all stand together quite
peacefully, how they know the songs from every Hindi film ever made, how
they welcome anyone and everyone (even wild-haired, complaining firangis)
into their homes for food, and chai, and more food.
I've seen terrible things - someone fall under a train, children with
sliced-off ears, old, old men sitting in the rain nursing half-limbs while
they beg, children covered in flies sleeping on the pavement, beggars with
no legs weaving themselves through traffic on trolleys, men in lunghis
working with their hands in tiny corridors with no fans in sky-high
temperatures. I've read heartbreaking things, of gang rapes, corruption,
environmental abuse. I've smelled smells that have stripped the inside of my
nostrils, stepped over open sewers in markets, watched a goat being bled to
death.
I've done things of which I am ashamed, things I never thought I would do. I
have slapped a starving child away, I have turned my head in annoyance when
beggars have tapped repeatedly on my taxi window, I have yelled at grown men
in the face. I have been pinched and pinched back, with force. I have
slapped, I have hit, I have pushed. I have screamed in anger. I have, at
times, not recognised myself.
I've yelled at a man for kicking a dog, and yelled at a woman who pushed
into a line ahead of me when I wasn't at all in a hurry. When a teenage
beggar stood at the window of my taxi, saying "F… you madam" over and over,
I told him to go f… himself and gave him the finger; once on the train I let
a kid keep 100 rupees as change. I am kind and I am cold-hearted, I am fair
and I am mean, I am delightful and I am downright rude. I am all of these at
once and I distress myself wildly over it, but somehow, India accepts me.
She has no time for navel-gazing foreigners; she just shoved everyone along
a bit and made room for me.
She has no time to dwell on my shortcomings, she just keeps moving along.
And then, and then. I've been to temples where I've sung along with old
women who had no teeth, I've held countless smiling ink-marked babies for
photos, I've had unknown aunties in saris smile and cup my face with their
soft, wrinkled hands, I've made street vendors laugh when I've choked on
their spicy food, I've danced through the streets at Ganpati, fervently sung
the national anthem (phonetically) in cinemas, had designers make me
dresses, I've met with CEOs and heads of companies just because I asked if I
could. She hugs, she punches, she hugs again.
In short, I have been among the luckiest of the lucky. She keeps me on my
toes, Ms India, and I have been blessed that she let me stay for a while.
She wanted me to succeed here and she gave me grand opportunities and
endless second chances. She willed me forward like a stern parent. She
welcomed me. And when I leave, because I know I will one day, I will weep,
because I will miss her terribly. And because I know she won't even notice
that I am gone.
Living in India is like having an intense but insane affair, writes expat
Catherine Taylor ...
TONIGHT, as I waved my high heel in the face of a bewildered taxi driver, I
thought suddenly: I am absolutely nuts in India. It's a thought I have
often. Someone or something is always going nuts, and quite often it's me.
I was trying to get a taxi driver to take me home, a mere 500 metres away,
but it was pouring with rain and my shoes were oh-so-high, and it was late.
He, of course, was having none of it; no amount of shoe-waving and
sad-facing from a wild-haired firangi was changing his mind, when suddenly I
remembered the magic trick - pay more than you should. "Arre, bhai sahab, 50
rupees to Altamount Road? Please?" And off we went.
I have lived in Mumbai for almost three years. It was my choice to come - I
wanted offshore experience in my media career and India was the only country
looking to hire - and I wanted a change. I needed something new, exciting,
thrilling, terrifying. And India gave that to me in spades. In fact, she
turned it all the way up to 11. And then she turned it up a little more.
To outsiders, living in India has a particular kind of glamour attached to
it, a special sparkle that sees people crowding around me at parties.
"You live in India? My God, really? I could never do that. What's it like?"
The closest I have come to answering that question is that it's like being
in a very intense, extremely dysfunctional relationship. India and I fight,
we scream, we argue, we don't speak for days on end, but really, deep down,
we love each other. She's a strange beast, this India. She hugs me, so
tightly sometimes that I can't breathe, then she turns and punches me hard
in the face, leaving me stunned. Then she hugs me again, and suddenly I know
everything will be all right.
She wonders why I don't just "know" how things are done, why I argue with
her about everything, why I judge, why I rail at injustice and then do
nothing about it. She wonders how old I am, how much I earn, why I'm not
married. (The poor census man looked at me, stunned, then asked in a
faltering voice, "But madam, if you're not married then… who is the head of
your household?").
I wonder how she can stand by when small children are begging on corners,
how she can let people foul up the streets so much that they are impossible
to walk along, how she can allow such corruption, such injustice, such A LOT
OF HONKING.
But she has taught me things. She has taught me to be brave, bold,
independent, sometimes even fierce and terrifying. She has taught me to walk
in another man's chappals, and ask questions a different way when at first
the answer is no. She has taught me to accept the things I cannot change.
She has taught me that there are always, always, two sides to every
argument. And she was kind enough to let me come and stay.
She didn't make it easy though (but then, why should she?). The Foreigner
Regional Registration Office, banks, mobile phone companies and rental
agencies are drowning under piles of carbon paper, photocopies of passports
(I always carry a minimum of three) and the soggy tissues of foreigners who
fall to pieces in the face of maddening bureaucracy. What costs you 50
rupees one day might be 500 rupees the next, and nobody will tell you why.
What you didn't need to bring yesterday, you suddenly need to bring today. Your
signature doesn't look like your signature. And no, we can't help you. Come
back tomorrow and see.
It's not easy being here, although I am spoiled by a maid who cooks for me,
and a delivery service from everywhere that ensures I rarely have to wave my
shoes at taxi drivers. I buy cheap flowers, trawl for gorgeous antiques, buy
incredibly cheap books; I have long, boozy brunches in five-star hotels for
the price of a nice bottle of wine at home, I have a very nice roof over my
head … on the face of it, it would seem I have little to complain about.
But then, I am stared at constantly, I have been spat on, sexually harassed,
had my (covered) breasts videotaped as I walked through a market, had my
drink spiked, been followed countless times. I have wept more here than I
have ever in my life, out of frustration, anger, loneliness, the sheer
hugeness of being here.
But the longer I stay, the more I seem to relax, let go, let it be.
But I do often wonder why I'm here, especially when I'm tired, teary and
homesick, my phone has been disconnected for the 19th time despite promises
it would never happen again, when it's raining and no taxis will take me
home. But then a willing ride always comes along, and we'll turn a corner
and be suddenly in the midst of some banging, crashing mad festival full of
colour, where everyone is dancing behind a slow-moving truck, and I won't
have a clue what's going on but a mum holding a child will dance up to my
window and point and smile and laugh, and I breathe out and think, really,
my God, this is fantastic. This is India! I live in India! She hugs me, she
punches me, and she hugs me again.
Yet I know won't ever belong here, not properly. I know this when I listen
to girls discussing what colour blouses they should wear to their weddings -
she's Gujarati, he's from the south, she's wearing a Keralan sari. I know
when my friends give me house-hunting advice: "Look at the names of the
people who already live there, then you'll know what kind of building it
is." (Trouble is, I don't know my Kapoors from my Kapurs, my Sippys from my
Sindhis, my Khans from my Jains). I know this when my lovely fruit man (who
also delivers) begs me to taste a strawberry he is holding in his grubby
hands and I have to say no, I can't eat it, I'll die… I know I will never
belong because, as stupid as it sounds, being truly, properly Indian is in
your DNA.
I marvel at how incredibly well educated so many of them are, how they can
all speak at least three languages and think it's no big deal, how they fit
1000 people into a train carriage meant for 300 and all stand together quite
peacefully, how they know the songs from every Hindi film ever made, how
they welcome anyone and everyone (even wild-haired, complaining firangis)
into their homes for food, and chai, and more food.
I've seen terrible things - someone fall under a train, children with
sliced-off ears, old, old men sitting in the rain nursing half-limbs while
they beg, children covered in flies sleeping on the pavement, beggars with
no legs weaving themselves through traffic on trolleys, men in lunghis
working with their hands in tiny corridors with no fans in sky-high
temperatures. I've read heartbreaking things, of gang rapes, corruption,
environmental abuse. I've smelled smells that have stripped the inside of my
nostrils, stepped over open sewers in markets, watched a goat being bled to
death.
I've done things of which I am ashamed, things I never thought I would do. I
have slapped a starving child away, I have turned my head in annoyance when
beggars have tapped repeatedly on my taxi window, I have yelled at grown men
in the face. I have been pinched and pinched back, with force. I have
slapped, I have hit, I have pushed. I have screamed in anger. I have, at
times, not recognised myself.
I've yelled at a man for kicking a dog, and yelled at a woman who pushed
into a line ahead of me when I wasn't at all in a hurry. When a teenage
beggar stood at the window of my taxi, saying "F… you madam" over and over,
I told him to go f… himself and gave him the finger; once on the train I let
a kid keep 100 rupees as change. I am kind and I am cold-hearted, I am fair
and I am mean, I am delightful and I am downright rude. I am all of these at
once and I distress myself wildly over it, but somehow, India accepts me.
She has no time for navel-gazing foreigners; she just shoved everyone along
a bit and made room for me.
She has no time to dwell on my shortcomings, she just keeps moving along.
And then, and then. I've been to temples where I've sung along with old
women who had no teeth, I've held countless smiling ink-marked babies for
photos, I've had unknown aunties in saris smile and cup my face with their
soft, wrinkled hands, I've made street vendors laugh when I've choked on
their spicy food, I've danced through the streets at Ganpati, fervently sung
the national anthem (phonetically) in cinemas, had designers make me
dresses, I've met with CEOs and heads of companies just because I asked if I
could. She hugs, she punches, she hugs again.
In short, I have been among the luckiest of the lucky. She keeps me on my
toes, Ms India, and I have been blessed that she let me stay for a while.
She wanted me to succeed here and she gave me grand opportunities and
endless second chances. She willed me forward like a stern parent. She
welcomed me. And when I leave, because I know I will one day, I will weep,
because I will miss her terribly. And because I know she won't even notice
that I am gone.
That is one of the best descriptions I have ever read! Amazing!
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