I stumbled into an article from 15 years ago that vividly brought our time in India back to mind. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to live there.
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 suddenlyI 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 tightlysometimes 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, howthey 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 ofmy 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
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 suddenlyI 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 tightlysometimes 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, howthey 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 ofmy 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
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