Monday, August 29, 2005
Absence of Wobble
I've been really disappointed by myself in Bangalore: I haven't been seeing many things, ate something bad and was sick for a while, blah. I did various things for the NGO here. I read "Blink." How do you say, I had a malaise, I felt malaise? What does one do with malaise? I was malaised. I considered Bangalore the city that marked my vacation being over, and that was part of it--anxiety over saying goodbye to my vacation.
It was interesting to do that in a place that feels, as someone on indiamike.com put it and despite the pub and dance scene, "all about work": the appearance of diligent working around the clock, booksellers on the street selling books on how to get ahead, my roommate reading a book by Norman Vincent Peale on that little something extra that makes you a "winner". But I had some expectations about Bangalore's fun communal feeling that were going unfounded: my NGO consists of one smart, sincere man without a hosting gene and I was meeting just no one, which really feels shameful in India where so many people are open to engaging you and showing you hospitality.
And, although I was still in INDIA so what am I complaining about my vacation was OVER. And I had to move three times, first from a sketchy place to a nice place and then from a nice place to an affordable one--the last one is what they call a "paying guest" accommodation, a PG, where people set aside a room in their homes or perhaps a whole dormitory, offer a cot, food and good drinking water, if you're really lucky a curfew (mine's 10pm) and you typically pay by the month. (The city's curfew, recently imposed, on dance clubs and bars is 11:30pm, which the city claims is due to the expense of providing safety after hours, but some think has more to do with politics and 'family values'. In any case it was so weird to have the overhead lights turn on--signalling the end--in a bar last night with the whole bar full and happening.)
Anyway, yesterday I found and moved to the PG and was extremely happy as the feeling of loneliness instantly converted: the family's great, the children adorable, the son running the guesthouse (Ram) took his friend Malu and me and a newly married couple to a beautiful, slick and sleek bar, called "Thirteenth Floor" because it's on the 13th...it's one of the few high buildings in that area, so it overlooks Bangalore in a breathtaking way. We had a cheery time and, because alcohol is not really encouraged in most of India--so that even in Bangalore there are many many who adhere to the tradition of avoiding it--I had the extremely funny sensation of being in-the-know about alcohol and drinking and wine.
Anyway, but the very funniest thing is that I was asking them about the head nod that moves side to side. (I've heard Westerners refer to this as a wobble and it's not quite that plus that sounds disrespectful, but I'm sure you've all seen how different it is from our head movements.) In Kashmir I had once asked two young men about it; they said they nod "yes" and "no" like we do and they didn't know what I was talking about with the head nod: "Maybe the person had something wrong with their neck."
But a couple of Kashmiris knew what I was referring to.
Anyway many Westerners find it ambiguous--generally it seems to me to mean yes or okay, but every so often maybe or no. Maybe we exaggerate its ambiguity because if we did it in the west it wouldn't mean yes, so we're just confused when we see it; I don't know. An American travelling through Rishikesh with his girlfriend said that when he didn't want to answer his girlfriend's questions he'd do the headnod.
In Bangalore it seems to always mean a variation of yes, and they use it extremely often--to emphasize a point, to show that they're following what the other person is saying, etc. So I asked Ram to clarify that it did always seem to mean "yes" here, and he had no idea what movement I was talking about. Maybe I wasn't doing a good impression, but he kept blushing when I did it and said, "Does it look cute, or bad?"
So we asked the beautiful 24-year-old engineer Malu, and she said, oh, you do that when you're listening to music. When Ram was confused that was an isolated incident, but when Malu also didn't know the movement I screamed with shock (which was okay because the bar was really loud). So we asked newly married and apparently older but maybe it's the moustache Sanjay who hadn't overheard, the bar being so loud, and he said oh yes, you do that when you're listening to music.
It's actually pretty cute how respectfully they were answering my question, as if we in the West may not nod our head from side to side when listening to music. Still I was and continue to be so confused; it was like when William Shatner in an episode of the Twilight Zone saw a creature on the wing of an airplane and no one believed him. But I was happy that they were all so nice and I like the camaraderie of my little guesthouse; on the other hand, I believe I will be relocating to another country shortly. Love, Gabi
It was interesting to do that in a place that feels, as someone on indiamike.com put it and despite the pub and dance scene, "all about work": the appearance of diligent working around the clock, booksellers on the street selling books on how to get ahead, my roommate reading a book by Norman Vincent Peale on that little something extra that makes you a "winner". But I had some expectations about Bangalore's fun communal feeling that were going unfounded: my NGO consists of one smart, sincere man without a hosting gene and I was meeting just no one, which really feels shameful in India where so many people are open to engaging you and showing you hospitality.
And, although I was still in INDIA so what am I complaining about my vacation was OVER. And I had to move three times, first from a sketchy place to a nice place and then from a nice place to an affordable one--the last one is what they call a "paying guest" accommodation, a PG, where people set aside a room in their homes or perhaps a whole dormitory, offer a cot, food and good drinking water, if you're really lucky a curfew (mine's 10pm) and you typically pay by the month. (The city's curfew, recently imposed, on dance clubs and bars is 11:30pm, which the city claims is due to the expense of providing safety after hours, but some think has more to do with politics and 'family values'. In any case it was so weird to have the overhead lights turn on--signalling the end--in a bar last night with the whole bar full and happening.)
Anyway, yesterday I found and moved to the PG and was extremely happy as the feeling of loneliness instantly converted: the family's great, the children adorable, the son running the guesthouse (Ram) took his friend Malu and me and a newly married couple to a beautiful, slick and sleek bar, called "Thirteenth Floor" because it's on the 13th...it's one of the few high buildings in that area, so it overlooks Bangalore in a breathtaking way. We had a cheery time and, because alcohol is not really encouraged in most of India--so that even in Bangalore there are many many who adhere to the tradition of avoiding it--I had the extremely funny sensation of being in-the-know about alcohol and drinking and wine.
Anyway, but the very funniest thing is that I was asking them about the head nod that moves side to side. (I've heard Westerners refer to this as a wobble and it's not quite that plus that sounds disrespectful, but I'm sure you've all seen how different it is from our head movements.) In Kashmir I had once asked two young men about it; they said they nod "yes" and "no" like we do and they didn't know what I was talking about with the head nod: "Maybe the person had something wrong with their neck."
But a couple of Kashmiris knew what I was referring to.
Anyway many Westerners find it ambiguous--generally it seems to me to mean yes or okay, but every so often maybe or no. Maybe we exaggerate its ambiguity because if we did it in the west it wouldn't mean yes, so we're just confused when we see it; I don't know. An American travelling through Rishikesh with his girlfriend said that when he didn't want to answer his girlfriend's questions he'd do the headnod.
In Bangalore it seems to always mean a variation of yes, and they use it extremely often--to emphasize a point, to show that they're following what the other person is saying, etc. So I asked Ram to clarify that it did always seem to mean "yes" here, and he had no idea what movement I was talking about. Maybe I wasn't doing a good impression, but he kept blushing when I did it and said, "Does it look cute, or bad?"
So we asked the beautiful 24-year-old engineer Malu, and she said, oh, you do that when you're listening to music. When Ram was confused that was an isolated incident, but when Malu also didn't know the movement I screamed with shock (which was okay because the bar was really loud). So we asked newly married and apparently older but maybe it's the moustache Sanjay who hadn't overheard, the bar being so loud, and he said oh yes, you do that when you're listening to music.
It's actually pretty cute how respectfully they were answering my question, as if we in the West may not nod our head from side to side when listening to music. Still I was and continue to be so confused; it was like when William Shatner in an episode of the Twilight Zone saw a creature on the wing of an airplane and no one believed him. But I was happy that they were all so nice and I like the camaraderie of my little guesthouse; on the other hand, I believe I will be relocating to another country shortly. Love, Gabi
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Yes, please post a little itinerary. Are you registering with the consulates? (Just a typical dad question.) I wonder what kind of wobbling, nodding, or winking and nodding goes on in the Andaman Islands. Can't wait for more news.
Love,
Da'
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Love,
Da'
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