Written as a part of the group Global Expats
I don’t know how to convey just how weird is the sense of alienation that came with landing unprepared in the megopolis, an American moron who didn’t know enough of any of the local languages to be able to even read signage. When we arranged our flat, we didn’t know about the water arrangement that the city had made for our neighborhood, Irla. (The L in Irla is a retroflexed sound, one of several South Asian Ls that I really don’t do very well. I often confused the rickshawwallas.)
We couldn’t figure out the water issue; we simply usually didn’t seem to have running water.
And we had a camping stove that came with the flat. Its burners wouldn’t light up, so we inspected it a bit, followed its fuel line to the cupboard space beneath to find an empty propane tank. We didn’t know where to get those refilled or replaced, either.
I have no idea what we might have done if the neighbor next door hadn’t turned out to be a kindly young mother who was curious about us and spoke heavily accented, but quite good English. She knocked on our back door, which opened into the building’s shared hallway, to introduce herself. We asked about the water situation, explaining that it seemed to be out of service most of the time. This, she explained, was because Irla is scheduled to receive water service for three hours a day, from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm.
“You need to be home to fill your tank,” she advised us.
“Tank?” I asked.
“Yes. Um – may I come in?”
We nodded and, when she didn’t seem to understand, did our best South Asian head wag, which looks a bit like we’re shaking our heads No to Westerners. She said of our landlord, “I think Mabel had this installed in the bathroom.”
But we hadn’t noticed any sort of tank in the bathroom. She walked in and looked up; over our heads was mounted a large, plastic tank.
Feeling a bit silly now for managing to miss a 75-gallon tank looming over our heads in the room, we asked about how we might get out propane tank refilled. “Oh, you do not have an extra?” she asked.
Not as far as we knew. Asking us to wait a moment, she retreated into her flat, emerging after a moment with an apparently heavy propane tank. “This is our extra. The gas man comes tomorrow. I can arrange deliveries for you.”
We thanked her quite thoroughly and hooked up the tank. One of our two burners worked; for the duration, that was going to have to do. We were renters, so we weren’t going to run out and buy a replacement stove.
Then the pipes banged to life. I checked my watch. It was shortly after 4:00. We scrambled to crank on the shower and scrub away the dust and grit of the Bombay streets. I boiled rice on our one burner and set it aside while my wife showered, then she cobbled together a mixed vegetable curry as I showered.
A hot meal! I felt as though we’d banged on rocks and accidentally discovered fire.
A bit before 7:00, the sound of water rushing through pipes quieted. Within an hour, our tank was empty. I sheepishly knocked on our kindly neighbor’s door to ask why the water hadn’t filled our tank.
“Oh,” she said, “I forget that you are not used to this system. Let me show you how to close the valve.”
It turned out that our tank had filled, then drained back into the water system.
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It took some trial-and-error tinkering to figure our water heater. It was a wall-mounted geyser system, and we’d never seen one before. A friend of our doing his research in Chennai had e-mailed us with the warning that his geyser had exploded in a hail of sparks when he’d tried to use it. A cool shower hadn’t mattered the night before, but first thing in the morning, no matter what anyone enthusiastically gushes about it, a cold shower is not refreshing. It is cold.
The prospect of a cold shower was a potent motivator for figuring out how the thing worked.
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Thanksgiving in Bombay was odd, because, of course, why would anyone in India celebrate the U.S. holiday? The day came and we greeted it with a splurged nice dinner at the Juhu Beach Marriott, a four-star hotel in the next neighborhood over. The Juhu Marriott was palatial, and it became an oasis to us on those days when the noise and the air quality and the human pressure were simply something we needed a break from. We often frequented a small bar in the hotel with a stunning view out over the Arabian Sea. A wonderful place for a cold drink, and travelers can trust the ice. And the bar manager regarded us as regulars, and always made time to pause for a friendly, neighborly chat. The rickshaw ride from our flat to the Juhu Marriott cost us around 19 rupees.
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I think that experiencing being in the minority is something that everyone should experience. Everyone. It’ll gust aside any assumption of one occupying some foretold societal pedestal like so much spiderweb. I’m not beginning to compare my experience living in Bombay for a year with the experience of, say, being African-American in America; racism works much the same way in India as it does here, favoring paler complexions to the point of supporting a market for skin-lightening treatments.
When I’m in India, I am typically called two things by locals who don’t know my name: Goura, which translates roughly to “white guy”; and Boss. Boss is a bit grating to me; it’s a holdover from British colonial rule, when white men really were the “bosses.” I did not and do not want anything to do with that. But as I wrote earlier, resisting India is pointless; India doesn’t care what you think of its habits and ways, and you certainly aren’t going to alter them. And if the local merchants are going to call me white guy or boss, who am I to be offended?
The common greeting begins with Haan – “Yes” and an honorific – Ji.
Translated in the local polyglot, this often came out as “Yes, Boss!,” along with a beckoning sweep of the right hand over whatever wonders he was selling.
Earlier installments:
Masala Dreamin’ I: An American Becomes an Expat in Bombay http://dailykos.com/...
Masala Dreamin’ II: Desi Prices http://dailykos.com/...
Up Next: Masala Dreamin IV.