Some Random Stories

For awhile now I’ve been wanting to write little anecdotes about funny things that have happened or are reoccurring. This’ll be a random hodge-podge, but it’s a sprinkling of daily life:

The Doctor: As I’ve said before, I live with a three person family—the wife Jayshree works as the branch manager for the bank I work at, the husband is a veterinarian, and the daughter, Shweta is roughly 8 years old and in school. The husband, who presumably has a first name, is referred to by his family as “The Dr.” Apparently, in India, there are two professions that warrant calling you by your qualifications and not your good name: being in the medical field (in which case you’re The Doctor) or being a teacher (The Teacher). So, the Dr. is a very sweet guy who is probably the ideal adoptive father and is always making sure we are comfortable, healthy, and living safely uneventful lives. Every evening at dinner he goes through the same routine. He says “Do you have any problems today? You should have no problems while you are here, and if there is any problem, you call me and if I am within 30 kilometers I will come.” Almost every day, he assures us of this. He also, being a vet and therefore a scientist, likes to keep us abreast of the beneficial elements of our diet. As we eat dinner, he regales me with the nutritional value of our lentils, buffalo milk, papaya, or eggplant. He is so earnest about it, and so predictable in his timing, that increasingly I can hardly suppress laughing every time he starts in.

Animal House: Around Mhaswad, domestic animals run amok. Black bristly hogs are everywhere, and always with their hoards of piglets in tow, rummaging their noses through sewage and squealing the most surprising and blood curdling scream you’ve ever heard when they’re upset by something. I’m sorry to say that mangy dogs are also everywhere, sleeping in such random places that you would swear there are dead dogs lying everywhere when in fact, they’re alive. Unfortunately, I seem to inspire fear in two things here in India: babies and dogs. It seems, without even meaning to, I can cause hysteria in both. The other day, I made what I thought to be a benignly funny face at a baby and it proceeded to explode in screams in front of a whole lot of amused people. I also got stalked by an inexplicably angry, nastily growling dog down the main road of the village even though I did not even look in its direction. I eventually had to walk into a store to escape it, at which point some boys kicked it to get it to leave. Which it fully deserved. There are also donkeys everywhere, falling asleep in the most random of places, standing up of course, and swaying a bit to the rhythms of their dreams. And of course, there are lots of water buffalo and the random Holstein cow. There are also gobs of sheep and goats, which are a little hard to differentiate between because the sheep seem to be perpetually sheered. The goats make this near-human noise, so that Brenna and I are always laughing hysterically as we walk to work because it sounds like there is a crazy bellowing man walking behind us, when really it’s a goat that sounds like a bellowing man.

Speaking of crazy: There is a man here in the village, who can’t be completely off given that his English is very good, who stops what he’s doing whenever he comes upon us and gives us a salute and a “Good Morning!” Every time. (see picture)

Indian Meddling: Unfortunately, the famed Indian Meddling has recently succeeded in driving away the cook that makes me three meals a day. Because the women in our office are so sincerely interested in not minding their own business, they have apparently been giving relentless feedback to Vandana (our cook) about our likes and dislikes. Some of this is warranted, because her food can be overly oily, or unbalanced (we once ate a lunch consisting of tapioca balls cooked 5 different ways), or overcooked (blocks of rice substance more often than grains of rice). However, the food is good enough, often enough, to warrant bearing the inconvenience of the bad days, and by no means did we hope she would be driven off. Unfortunately, yesterday a tearful Vandana came to the office with our lunch tiffin and give a final “screw you baby” speech to our boss, in front of the whole office, and basically quit there and then. It must have been a glorious moment for her, and I wish I had understood what she said. Now, my poor host mother (who actually can probably blame herself because she was a major meddler in this situation) has taken on an extra domestic helper to cook our meals and seems to be perpetually in the kitchen. And nothing I say or do will ever persuade her to let me help.

Another example of Indian meddling is when it comes to shopping. People here always want to know how much you spent on something, and it’s not considered the least bit rude to slip it prominently into a conversation. An example:

“What a nice sari. How much did you pay? That's too much! Where did you go? It is not a beautiful sari, you should not have paid that much. Next time, I will take you.” (which is often not helpful at all)

The White Girls: Lately, the local children have taken to following Brenna and me home from work. They literally gather like a pack of giddy wolves, maybe up to 15 in total, and are hot on our heels the whole 20 minutes to the house. We receive this with varying levels of amusement/tolerance/frustration. In theory, it’s cute. But in reality, it draws huge amounts of attention to us, attention that we’re trying to diminish. It seems hopeless to ever blend in to village society and be an accepted norm. We will always be novel.

Which leads me to my last story. Last night we were invited to attend a drama put on by the Jain community. It took place in a meeting hall, and the men and women sat on different sides of the room on mats on the floor. A man went before the ~100 person audience to pray/give opening remarks, after which he signaled to Brenna and me that we should ascend the stage. We did, and lit ceremonial candles with a very very senior member of the group who probably actually deserved to be up there. Pictures were taken, and then we were allowed to rejoin the crowd. Unfortunately, our ride to town was leaving early and because it’s not safe to walk the country road back home alone, we had to leave to take advantage of the car. Grievously, we unknowingly ducked out an hour too soon because they had planned to present us with coconuts at the end of the drama to thank us for attending. Which of course we could not have known, but nevertheless feel TERRIBLE about.

Alright, there’s my random assortment of stories. More to come!