In the course of my packing I came across the journal I kept through my holiday in the US. The last entry is a list of observations written on the flight back. For some reason I've never put it on the blog and I will proceed to do so now.
Things I learnt (it says),
1. "The American people" considered as a single entity has an IQ that is rather low. This is not their fault – all official communication goes to painful lengths to talk to the lowest common denominator. Everyone else has no choice but to follow.
2. This entity is also surprisingly prudish and chary of having a good time. Nor does it laugh at a joke unless it comes labelled as such.
3. The security measures at the airports are by and large all activity and no action. I went through "special screening" three times in one day with a rather large lighter left in my bag by accident and nobody found it even after an elaborate search involving tipping the contents on to the counter.
4. In Orange County, people clap when Matt Damon acts the hero (as Jason Bourne, in this case) in much the same way that Rajnikanth is greeted with cheers and whistles in Chennai.
5. People were better dressed and worse behaved in LAX than all the airports I went through.
6. In Philly, they don't go to the beach, they go "down the shore".
7. Here, "think of Europe" is not useful in describing Indian diversity because many say European the same way the ignorant say Indian.
8. They don't know English. They can't speak it. They can't understand it. Only a few can read or write it. The only way to survive is to treat "American" as a different language and, as in any foreign country, learn to communicate in it.
9. They can't make dessert. Even their own apple pie is ruined with whipped cream or caramel (pronounced "carmel").
10. They also can't make cheese, bread or chocolate. Basically, their collective taste buds have long been deep fried out of commission.
11. Farmers' markets, fair trade shops and organic stores are very big among the socially, politically, environmentally aware. But coming from an amoral industry and a cynical race, I am deeply suspicious of anything that's on such a large scale.
12. Everything, but everything, is hard sold. You are hustled aggressively, constantly by billboards, leaflets, license plates, museums, park notices, everybody – in the same spirit as taxi drivers and souq merchants in the picturesque countries.
13. They don't do customer service. In any form, ever.
14. The relentless cheeriness of strangers seems empty and annoying but actually they genuinely believe they're a friendly race.
15. They should get out more.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Closure
I have six days left here and I feel weird. I'm excited about going, sad about leaving, and also able, suddenly, to admit I'm moving on finally from something more important than Dubai.
On my first holiday here I had decided – just like with Bombay – that this is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here. A few years later, I came here anyway, unquestioningly, for someone else. Carole King said: I want a house with a window sill but if you want to live in New York city, I will... where you lead I will follow. It's the stupidest sentiment you've ever heard, but that's something you have to learn through trial and error.
The last piece of that life broke when I was moving, even in the act of handing it over to a friend. When I get on the plane, I will be lighter by even more. A five-year recovery from a four-year relationship is too long by any standards. But it's done.
On my first holiday here I had decided – just like with Bombay – that this is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here. A few years later, I came here anyway, unquestioningly, for someone else. Carole King said: I want a house with a window sill but if you want to live in New York city, I will... where you lead I will follow. It's the stupidest sentiment you've ever heard, but that's something you have to learn through trial and error.
The last piece of that life broke when I was moving, even in the act of handing it over to a friend. When I get on the plane, I will be lighter by even more. A five-year recovery from a four-year relationship is too long by any standards. But it's done.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Old fogies and other myths
This is a discussion on a friend's blog, that I'm extending to mine.
The mother of this blogger has a plan. A self-sufficient community for like-minded elderly people. She's going to build one-bedroom cottages on her property in Kerala and these will be "bought" by the person/people living there until their death, after which it will revert to the Trust and be available for a new occupant. There will be a library, a restaurant, household help, transport, guest rooms, others of the same mind since there is to be a careful screening process. It sounds great. It is a great idea, but considering the profile of the target audience I wonder a bit.
For thinking, doing, healthy people, wouldn't a closed-in community like this be claustrophobic? I've noticed that the elderly members of my family never feel so elderly as when they are closeted for too long with people who think of themselves as old. At other times they have to be reminded at four in the morning that they haven't been twenty-five for many years now, so put the party hat down.
My parents, for example, enjoy having neighbours of different persuasions, interacting with all kinds of people. The same goes for friends' parents, my aunts and uncles. They don't consider themselves too old to contribute to society, and they're not. (The blogger's mother with her business idea is also a shining example of this.) They have active social calendars with friends who are years younger. They have a wide range of interests. In short, they like being in the thick of it. Sixty is the new forty and all that.
I have conversations, share pleasures with my older family members, not just duty chats. And when I review the very long list of them – well, while I can see them enjoying the idea of a community like this, I can't see them living there successfully. On the other hand, what do I know? I'm thirty-five, I have some way to go yet. Perhaps all these people I've listed feel differently.
Me, I would say use the money to buy the yacht and let the fogies live in a cupboard under the stairs*.
*They'll probably have noisy parties there but if you're nice to them and bring a bottle, maybe they'll let you in.
The mother of this blogger has a plan. A self-sufficient community for like-minded elderly people. She's going to build one-bedroom cottages on her property in Kerala and these will be "bought" by the person/people living there until their death, after which it will revert to the Trust and be available for a new occupant. There will be a library, a restaurant, household help, transport, guest rooms, others of the same mind since there is to be a careful screening process. It sounds great. It is a great idea, but considering the profile of the target audience I wonder a bit.
For thinking, doing, healthy people, wouldn't a closed-in community like this be claustrophobic? I've noticed that the elderly members of my family never feel so elderly as when they are closeted for too long with people who think of themselves as old. At other times they have to be reminded at four in the morning that they haven't been twenty-five for many years now, so put the party hat down.
My parents, for example, enjoy having neighbours of different persuasions, interacting with all kinds of people. The same goes for friends' parents, my aunts and uncles. They don't consider themselves too old to contribute to society, and they're not. (The blogger's mother with her business idea is also a shining example of this.) They have active social calendars with friends who are years younger. They have a wide range of interests. In short, they like being in the thick of it. Sixty is the new forty and all that.
I have conversations, share pleasures with my older family members, not just duty chats. And when I review the very long list of them – well, while I can see them enjoying the idea of a community like this, I can't see them living there successfully. On the other hand, what do I know? I'm thirty-five, I have some way to go yet. Perhaps all these people I've listed feel differently.
Me, I would say use the money to buy the yacht and let the fogies live in a cupboard under the stairs*.
*They'll probably have noisy parties there but if you're nice to them and bring a bottle, maybe they'll let you in.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Some cameras are more truthful than others
My friend took up serious photography last year and discovered a gift for it. Last week she cajoled me into making a spectacle of myself on the beach and produced the best photographs I have ever seen of me. (She gets extra points for achieving it with a supremely self-conscious subject hissing "people are looking at us" the whole time.)
Her talent lies in portraits so, for the first time, I was looking at me. Not whether the clothes are hanging right, the number of chins, halved or the bad bits, hidden. Just me. Even as I was raving about the photography and mailing albums saying "look at me", I was registering one simple truth: it is no longer the face of a girl. It was not a shock, merely a realisaton.
Searching Facebook today for some friends I'd lost touch with, I found others bearing the same surname and a distinct resemblance. I was looking at their teenaged children. The kids we played with and made guilty promises to as we dolled up to go out without them have girlfriend and boyfriend problems and are going clubbing themselves. Which makes me... well, as I said, some of the years are showing. But judging by the photos, they've not done a bad job so far, which is really all I ask.
Her talent lies in portraits so, for the first time, I was looking at me. Not whether the clothes are hanging right, the number of chins, halved or the bad bits, hidden. Just me. Even as I was raving about the photography and mailing albums saying "look at me", I was registering one simple truth: it is no longer the face of a girl. It was not a shock, merely a realisaton.
Searching Facebook today for some friends I'd lost touch with, I found others bearing the same surname and a distinct resemblance. I was looking at their teenaged children. The kids we played with and made guilty promises to as we dolled up to go out without them have girlfriend and boyfriend problems and are going clubbing themselves. Which makes me... well, as I said, some of the years are showing. But judging by the photos, they've not done a bad job so far, which is really all I ask.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Excuse for an apology
Having lived my entire life as an introvert in extrovert clothing, all my observation of human interaction is through jaundiced eyes.
When I was younger I’d assumed it would get better when I was older. Actually I assumed I would get better – thus not only accepting that the fault was mine, but that it was a fault. Now that I am older, unrelenting social requirements still leave me raw and ragged, but I don’t worry that I feel this way. It's not a disease.
But social gatherings, especially of close friends or family, are complex systems whose equilibrium is based on a finely drawn pattern of behaviour. The males of the species may retreat into strong-silentness without (much) comment or interruption, but the females seem to be expected to be gregarious at all times, especially by, to and with other females.
Most of all, people, for reasons I do not even have guesses for, take introversion personally. When you want to be on your own, they either want to know what's wrong or they look reproachful or worst of all, embarrassed, like they’ve just been made to look stupid. So the solitude becomes impossible to insist on, unless I want to be left with guilt I didn't deserve and fury at this.
I had started to feel in recent years that maybe I’d changed. But it turns out I had just found a way around it – my cigarette break had created, unrecognised by me, an escape route. It was a perfectly legitimate reason to go off on my own and stare into space.
Now that that excuse is gone, my nerves fray and fray and fray, all my resources pulled into just holding it together. I become a rubber band, one of those cheap ones that don’t stretch very far and break easily.
When I was younger I’d assumed it would get better when I was older. Actually I assumed I would get better – thus not only accepting that the fault was mine, but that it was a fault. Now that I am older, unrelenting social requirements still leave me raw and ragged, but I don’t worry that I feel this way. It's not a disease.
But social gatherings, especially of close friends or family, are complex systems whose equilibrium is based on a finely drawn pattern of behaviour. The males of the species may retreat into strong-silentness without (much) comment or interruption, but the females seem to be expected to be gregarious at all times, especially by, to and with other females.
Most of all, people, for reasons I do not even have guesses for, take introversion personally. When you want to be on your own, they either want to know what's wrong or they look reproachful or worst of all, embarrassed, like they’ve just been made to look stupid. So the solitude becomes impossible to insist on, unless I want to be left with guilt I didn't deserve and fury at this.
I had started to feel in recent years that maybe I’d changed. But it turns out I had just found a way around it – my cigarette break had created, unrecognised by me, an escape route. It was a perfectly legitimate reason to go off on my own and stare into space.
Now that that excuse is gone, my nerves fray and fray and fray, all my resources pulled into just holding it together. I become a rubber band, one of those cheap ones that don’t stretch very far and break easily.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
A writer's life
Some days words don't come easy. Other days they don't come at all. Now and then I feel – as everyone does occasionally – that I'd like to go back and try the road not taken. Then again, I feel like that's the road I'm on. Sometimes the noise is comforting, sometimes oppressive, sometimes sinister. Silence does that too. Rules are hard to follow. Fear follows hard on hope. Faith is the hardest thing to do. Some days it's half-full. On others, half-empty. Sometimes the glass is just not visible.
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