I would consider myself a pretty polite guy. I never talk back at people I have just met, and I always address my elders with a “Sir” or “Mam” (much to the chagrin of my friends who happen to be one or two years my elder). I was even told by an American mom that I was polite, even polite for a Canadian boy, “and Canadian boys are very polite.” I smiled and replied, “Why, thank you, mam! This sure is some good pot pie you’ve prepared…”
My point is, I’m a polite guy. The trouble is, however, that a Canadian standard of etiquette will get you nowhere in a country of 1.1 billion people. The only way to live here in India is to adopt a demeanour that would be considered quite rude by Canadian standards. I like to say, “If you’re not being rude, you’ll never get your food.” Here’s what I mean…
“Getting the job done” is a phrase that I will use in the Indian context, because what is considered rude is culturally defined. For example, if you were driving in Vancouver and saw a man urinating on the sidewalk of Richards St., you’d probably consider him slightly deranged and probably homeless. You’d likely even turn the other way in disgust. Here, that same man could be your neighbour, a gardener, a politician, or even a university professor. No one bats an eye. The same can be said for picking your nose with your index finger two knuckles deep while having a face to face conversation with someone. Or again, adjusting your… underwear. These things are commonplace here in Delhi, and so while we in Canada would consider them rude, here they are just examples of people “getting the job done.”
While I will probably never urinate on a Delhi sidewalk, or pick my nose while discussing fine art at an upscale coffee shop, there are things that I am finding I need to do in order to survive here, and some of those things would be considered rude back home in Canada. Ordering food is probably the biggest one (so far), and so I’ll start with that. If you walk into a restaurant in Delhi and sit down, you will eventually notice one of two things happening. Either the waiter will pounce the second you walk in the door, or you will be completely ignored and will eventually find yourself getting fairly hungry. In most cases (at the restaurants we have been eating at) we are ignored, and our patience has often been stretched while we sit and wait for the waiter to remember about us. “Where is he? Doesn’t he care about us? At least you’d think he’d care about our money… Where is he?” The simple fact is, he’s probably got a hundred other jobs to do and will continue chipping away at those until you beckon him rather sharply. Andrea and I sit and watch Indian people around us yell at the man with a wave, and he responds by coming to their table and taking their orders. We sit and watch this display, and while we know that this is the only way we will get served, we find it hard to do because it is just plain rude. That man probably doesn’t like being yelled at so much, and we can wait a bit longer. Can’t we? No. We can’t. If we want to “get the job done,” we’re going to have to yell at the man.
Another food related quirk is that time towards the end of your meal, when the waiter comes by and asks if you would like a refill of your flat-bread, or if you would like some coffee or tea or desert, (each of which costs extra, you know). “No thank-you,” would be our response in Canada, but here, it is better to just leave it at “No!” and then to ignore the man. I have made this mistake a few times. I will say “no thanks,” and then they will say, “Ok” and bring it anyways. As it turns out, “No thanks” is translated, “Oh! Thanks!!!” While this situation is itself a product of defunct communication and not cultural difference per say, it is still resolved only by a curt “No,” and the carrying on of conversation with whomever it is that I happen to be dining with at the time. This, from my understanding is a totally acceptable thing to do.
Now on to travel. When travelling throughout the city by rickshaw, it is important to remember that, “in order to get the job done, you need to stick to your guns.” If you know the fare of your trip is 40 rupees, and the man is asking 80, (or perhaps like me, you are visibly a foreigner and he’s asking 120), it is commonplace for you to bargain him down to a good price. Foreigners like me may have to end up paying 50 rupees instead of 40, but it should always be within a comfortable range. There are however, times when the man will not budge from his price. At times like these, getting the job done means you need to speak frankly. Myself, I tend to acquire all the “that’s a load of rubbish” phrases I can when I enter a new language setting. This usually catches them off guard and a decent price-quote will follow. When this fails, getting the job means cutting him off mid sentence with a spicy “No way, Jose” and turning to walk down the street. This may even have to turn in to an actual walk-down-the-street deal, where you actually have to walk down the street and if it does, throwing your right hand up over your shoulder should help. Nine times out of ten the bluff is called, and the rickshaw will sneak up beside you with the sound of an “ok-ok, 40 rupees,” and you’re on your way.
The final area I will mention is how to deal with clerks at stores. Firstly, let’s talk about standing in line. Oh wait… there’s no such thing as a line. You know how in Canada when you are a young boy learning how to play soccer, the coach will always tell you to play your position, no matter where the ball is? Well, I’m pretty sure Indian kids are taught to swarm. That’s how they line up in this country, anyways. They swarm. I once tried to order food at the local university, and I had wrestled my way to the counter where I was waiting to pick up my food. People were leaning and pushing and squeezing to get to the counter, and I had finally managed to wrangle out my own little piece of property. I was karate-chopping limbs that came into my area, and I was right ready to pick up my food. However, my food came off the line at the other end of the counter and someone who had been in the line behind me and had ordered the same dish as me, but after me!, and had managed to claim his own bit of land closer to that end of the counter… that yokel snaked my meal before I even had the chance to say, “excuse me sir, but I believe that you happen to be carrying the exact dish that I am waiting for. Perchance could you offer it to me, since I have been waiting for quite a while already…” Yeah, that guy was quick. But seriously, this happened a few more times before I realized that I would have to yell at the man as soon as I saw my dish coming. I tried to yell politely, but it got me nowhere. A little 5-foot-nothing girl walked away from the counter with my meal in her hands and a smile on her face. I was dumbfounded. In the end, to “get the job done,” I had to wait until I saw my food coming around the corner, then shove my way through the crowd of hungry university students holding out my receipt yelling “That’s mine!” before the man behind the counter could announce his find and someone else could steal my food.
Finally, in Canada, when finishing a transaction it is common courtesy to thank the clerk before heading out to the parking lot to try to remember where you parked. In Delhi, however, you may actually be doing more harm than good with your over-abundant displays of civility. The clerk doubtlessly has about a hundred other people to deal with, most of whom are hanging over your shoulder trying to get their item next in line, and so this poor man (or sometimes woman) has to get on to the next person the second that the change is dropped into your sweaty little palm. Stopping to thank this person for allowing him to take your money holds the whole process up, and it does nothing to benefit his or her busy schedule. Besides, you’ll probably get laughed at. I got laughed at. Then again from Andrea who saw the whole ordeal.
So anyways, the moral of the story is this. If you run into me in about 6 months and I am rude to you in some way or another… maybe I butt in line in front of you or perhaps I walk away in the middle of a sentence or completely ignore you, please give me some grace. I’m just trying to “get the job done.”
The Rickshaw Ride
It all ended ok, and we got home safe and sound… but I’m pretty sure we won’t have a lot of rickshaw rides quite as interesting as that one…
We’re not quite sure why the auto-rickshaw drivers passing by our language school so often refuse to pick us up and take us home. Perhaps it is the geographical proximity to one of the main train stations in the area, and the auto-walla thinks he can get more money there… or perhaps it’s something in the neighbourhood that makes them avoid foreigners. We will stand outside the school for up to ten minutes before we can find an auto-walla that agrees to take us back to Sukhdev Vihar, our home. Now this may not sound like a long wait, but when you are used to having between 4 and 13 auto-rickshaws available to you no matter where you are, even when (or perhaps especially when) you do not want them, it seems like a long wait. The bus stop is a mere 3 minute walk away, and despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic adventure that the city’s infamous Blue-Line offers, it has become a failsafe for us coming home from classes. However, we would rather not take the bus because it usually involves waiting 10-30 minutes on the side of the road with men staring at Andrea or urinating right behind us, and then once we’re on it we’re no more than sardines in a tin. Then it stops all the way home (hopefully without hitting someone, as they are wont to do), and our 15 minute commute turns into an hour long marathon.
The odd auto that does stop to offer us a ride usually quotes some outlandishly obscene rate, sometimes up to 150 rupees for our 30 rupee ride. We kindly remind him (in our bestest Hindi) that we can take the bus home for 3 rupees each, (like 7 cents), and start walking away, and every once in a while this lets him know that his bluff has been called, and he responds with the traditional, “ok-ok, 50 rupees…” and we get it down to 40 before getting in and going.
This afternoon though, nobody was taking the bait, and we really wanted to get home. Our fourth or fifth attempt yielded an auto-walla that was at least open to the idea of taking us home; we just had to talk him down from 80 rupees. I responded in Hindi that the meter (every auto-rickshaw has a government issued meter for fair fares, and 90 percent of those meters have somehow stopped working) would show about 30 rupees if used, and he argued by first explaining to us which roads he needed to take to get to our house, and then why the colossal amounts of traffic on those roads warranted such significant inflation. We thanked him for his explanation, but replied by letting him know that we had actually taken the route more than once. I mentioned that even during that hectic day earlier this week where the traffic lights were out at the biggest intersection in the area (the traffic was backed up more than a kilometre in each direction), we had only paid 40 rupees. I offered him 50. He said, no, this was impossible, our house was so far away and he needed to be paid fairly. I pointed out that fair would be to use the meter, and he disagreed. So, we began to walk away, and our bluff worked. “Okok, 50 rupees.” But I guess he still felt the need to legitimate his stance, so upon sitting in the drivers seat in front of us, he turned and carried on explaining why he needed to be paid more, even though he still agreed that he would do it for 50. I finally had to politely ask him to get going, and he complied with a smile and a nod.
Our drive home began as any other ride would, with the exception of an exceptionally weak motor beneath us that seemed to balk beneath its less than sizeable payload. As for the auto-walla, he just kept on talking about all the traffic and people who try to rip us off because they see that we are foreigners. We just nodded and offered up a weak, “Uhm, uh-huh,” because saying, “You’re that guy” didn’t seem like a nice thing to say at the moment, but it was surely in my head.
Besides pulling out right in front of a speeding car and seeming not to notice, he was up to very few antics, and seemed like a nice enough guy, so we engaged in conversation.
“Where are you from?” we asked.
“U.P.” (initials of a neighbouring province). “You from Israel?”
Andrea laughed. I’ve had more than a few people ask me if I am middle-eastern. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afgani, Egyptian, etc.
“No,” I replied with a chuckle. “I am Canadian.”
“Oh, very good!! You are very rich!!!”
“No, I am a poor student.”
“Canada, America. Rich.”
And on the conversation went, until we got to a red light. He continued talking about foreigners and the crooked politicians until a she-man approached from the right side of the vehicle, asking for money. Now, generally, when beggars ask for money they explain with actions or words that they are hungry, and desiring money for food. Not guy-girl. He(?) just shoved hiser hand in front of Andrea’s face and I guess expected us to give. We didn’t. The driver shifted his position so that he was facing the other direction and stopped talking and motioned for us to be silent as well with a comical “don’t talk or acknowledge” shiver of his head. After about a minute of holding his hand there, our sexually confused friend got upset, and with a scowl took a swat at my wife’s face. Andrea pulled back and She-Ra missed and walked away. I couldn’t believe it.
“What did he want?” Andrea asked.
“Money for his family” said the driver. “I like peace. He fight. He very angry that you don’t give. Why fight? I drive careful and people get mad, but I like peace. So I smile and do peace.”
We agreed that this was a good option, and conversation continued while we watched passing cars narrowly miss other passing cars, and people walking down the road with enormous loads balanced perfectly on their heads. Tea stalls and mobile vegetable salesmen mingled with stray dogs and some very incessant crows. But before we could get up a decent amount of speed, we were slowing to wait for the next light, and the next comical happening.
As we slowed to a stop we heard a very excited, “OOOOOOH!!!!” and looked to the right to see street children on the median get up from where they were sitting and chase down our auto until it was completely stopped. On our right was a government jeep not more than 6 inches from us, with their open window right beside us. The two men in the vehicle looked on while the drama began to unfold. Two boys circled around to the left of our vehicle where there was a small opening in the traffic. One boy had a drum hanging around his neck which he beat in what could almost be described as a rhythm, and the younger one, (perhaps 5 years of age) had bright red dots painted on his cheeks and a hat with a ball attached to it by a foot-long piece of twine. He clapped his hands in our direction with an arrogant wag of his head and a smirk that belied his youth, and grabbing the ball he whipped it around his head and proceeded to dance in a circle, all the while keeping the ball in orbit around his tiny cranium with an intriguing bobble. Then he bent over backwards and performed some contortions before moving on to more amusing and yet fairly impressive physical feats. His partner continued to beat his drum and we continued to watch.
Andrea reached in to her wallet and withdrew a few rupees that we could give to them, and upon noticing her movements the younger boy called off the grand finale and approached the side of the vehicle with open hands. He smiled about the rupees, but from his closer vantage point he could see a plastic bag sitting in between Andrea and myself. All it contained were some Christmas decorations we had just purchased, but he pointed to it and got very excited. His partner tugged on his arm and made mention that it was time for them to leave, but the younger refused to move.
“He wants food,” the driver mentioned to us.
“We have no food!” I muttered in the best Hindi I could muster. The older boy upgraded to a more intense version of tugging, and was seemingly trying to convince his young friend that if they stuck around there would be trouble. The auto-walla chuckled lightly to himself, and the government men were by this time quite enjoying the proceedings, both were straining to catch every subtle nuance of emotion in our faces. The young boy refused to move and continued to point very persistently at the bag with a grave look of concern on his face.
“Chocolate!!!!” he blurted out with the most intense look of desire I have ever seen in a 5 year old.
“No chocolate!!” I replied with a smile, trying to keep myself from laughing too hard. The driver and the government men however, were by this time laughing fairly hard. The light turned green and the boys backed away with a dejected look on their faces. We were once again on our way.
“This is Shiva!” Our driver pointed out a picture on his windshield as we started to gain a bit of speed again. “You know Shiva?”
“Yes we’ve heard about him.”
“He my god. He very good. I live by the Ganga, the holy waters. My mom is the cow. I am Hindu. I pray to Shiva. Do you pray?”
“Yes, we pray to—“
“To Christian?”
“To Yeshu,” I replied, citing the Hindi name for Jesus.
“I live by the Ganga. Very famous water. Your God Jesus?”
“Yes”
“Ok, good.”
“Shiva. Peace. My mother is a cow. I drink milk… milk is from the cow… my mother is the cow. I eat only vegetables. Do you eat meat?” Now, we don’t quite know how best to answer this question when we are asked by a Hindu. We assume they all know that we eat meat, but you never quite know how militant people may get bout their religion. For all we know this Hindu hurls sharpened carrots at meat merchants in his spare time. But he seemed legitimately nice and ‘Shiva. Peace.” and all, so we answered him straight up, even when he asked if Canadians eat cow.
“Yes.”
“Cow? Mother Cow?”
“Uhm, yes, but only in Canada, not here”
“Really? Ok, in Canada that is what do, but we do not eat the Cow. It is our mother. It—“
“You can stop here,” I interrupted. We had arrived at our street, and it was time to disembark.
We got out and I whipped out the wallet to pay the man, when all of a sudden he hopped out of the auto and in a second was standing with his smile not more than 8 inches from mine, and he continued our conversation.
“Ok, I like peace, and you good people. Very nice meet you. I am happy to take foreigners for rickshaw… Shiva… Peace… Cow…. Etc.”
And finally we just kinda said goodbye and walked towards our gate in hopes that he would get the hint. He did. A genuinely nice guy… but man, what a crazy ride that was.
We’re not quite sure why the auto-rickshaw drivers passing by our language school so often refuse to pick us up and take us home. Perhaps it is the geographical proximity to one of the main train stations in the area, and the auto-walla thinks he can get more money there… or perhaps it’s something in the neighbourhood that makes them avoid foreigners. We will stand outside the school for up to ten minutes before we can find an auto-walla that agrees to take us back to Sukhdev Vihar, our home. Now this may not sound like a long wait, but when you are used to having between 4 and 13 auto-rickshaws available to you no matter where you are, even when (or perhaps especially when) you do not want them, it seems like a long wait. The bus stop is a mere 3 minute walk away, and despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic adventure that the city’s infamous Blue-Line offers, it has become a failsafe for us coming home from classes. However, we would rather not take the bus because it usually involves waiting 10-30 minutes on the side of the road with men staring at Andrea or urinating right behind us, and then once we’re on it we’re no more than sardines in a tin. Then it stops all the way home (hopefully without hitting someone, as they are wont to do), and our 15 minute commute turns into an hour long marathon.
The odd auto that does stop to offer us a ride usually quotes some outlandishly obscene rate, sometimes up to 150 rupees for our 30 rupee ride. We kindly remind him (in our bestest Hindi) that we can take the bus home for 3 rupees each, (like 7 cents), and start walking away, and every once in a while this lets him know that his bluff has been called, and he responds with the traditional, “ok-ok, 50 rupees…” and we get it down to 40 before getting in and going.
This afternoon though, nobody was taking the bait, and we really wanted to get home. Our fourth or fifth attempt yielded an auto-walla that was at least open to the idea of taking us home; we just had to talk him down from 80 rupees. I responded in Hindi that the meter (every auto-rickshaw has a government issued meter for fair fares, and 90 percent of those meters have somehow stopped working) would show about 30 rupees if used, and he argued by first explaining to us which roads he needed to take to get to our house, and then why the colossal amounts of traffic on those roads warranted such significant inflation. We thanked him for his explanation, but replied by letting him know that we had actually taken the route more than once. I mentioned that even during that hectic day earlier this week where the traffic lights were out at the biggest intersection in the area (the traffic was backed up more than a kilometre in each direction), we had only paid 40 rupees. I offered him 50. He said, no, this was impossible, our house was so far away and he needed to be paid fairly. I pointed out that fair would be to use the meter, and he disagreed. So, we began to walk away, and our bluff worked. “Okok, 50 rupees.” But I guess he still felt the need to legitimate his stance, so upon sitting in the drivers seat in front of us, he turned and carried on explaining why he needed to be paid more, even though he still agreed that he would do it for 50. I finally had to politely ask him to get going, and he complied with a smile and a nod.
Our drive home began as any other ride would, with the exception of an exceptionally weak motor beneath us that seemed to balk beneath its less than sizeable payload. As for the auto-walla, he just kept on talking about all the traffic and people who try to rip us off because they see that we are foreigners. We just nodded and offered up a weak, “Uhm, uh-huh,” because saying, “You’re that guy” didn’t seem like a nice thing to say at the moment, but it was surely in my head.
Besides pulling out right in front of a speeding car and seeming not to notice, he was up to very few antics, and seemed like a nice enough guy, so we engaged in conversation.
“Where are you from?” we asked.
“U.P.” (initials of a neighbouring province). “You from Israel?”
Andrea laughed. I’ve had more than a few people ask me if I am middle-eastern. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Afgani, Egyptian, etc.
“No,” I replied with a chuckle. “I am Canadian.”
“Oh, very good!! You are very rich!!!”
“No, I am a poor student.”
“Canada, America. Rich.”
And on the conversation went, until we got to a red light. He continued talking about foreigners and the crooked politicians until a she-man approached from the right side of the vehicle, asking for money. Now, generally, when beggars ask for money they explain with actions or words that they are hungry, and desiring money for food. Not guy-girl. He(?) just shoved hiser hand in front of Andrea’s face and I guess expected us to give. We didn’t. The driver shifted his position so that he was facing the other direction and stopped talking and motioned for us to be silent as well with a comical “don’t talk or acknowledge” shiver of his head. After about a minute of holding his hand there, our sexually confused friend got upset, and with a scowl took a swat at my wife’s face. Andrea pulled back and She-Ra missed and walked away. I couldn’t believe it.
“What did he want?” Andrea asked.
“Money for his family” said the driver. “I like peace. He fight. He very angry that you don’t give. Why fight? I drive careful and people get mad, but I like peace. So I smile and do peace.”
We agreed that this was a good option, and conversation continued while we watched passing cars narrowly miss other passing cars, and people walking down the road with enormous loads balanced perfectly on their heads. Tea stalls and mobile vegetable salesmen mingled with stray dogs and some very incessant crows. But before we could get up a decent amount of speed, we were slowing to wait for the next light, and the next comical happening.
As we slowed to a stop we heard a very excited, “OOOOOOH!!!!” and looked to the right to see street children on the median get up from where they were sitting and chase down our auto until it was completely stopped. On our right was a government jeep not more than 6 inches from us, with their open window right beside us. The two men in the vehicle looked on while the drama began to unfold. Two boys circled around to the left of our vehicle where there was a small opening in the traffic. One boy had a drum hanging around his neck which he beat in what could almost be described as a rhythm, and the younger one, (perhaps 5 years of age) had bright red dots painted on his cheeks and a hat with a ball attached to it by a foot-long piece of twine. He clapped his hands in our direction with an arrogant wag of his head and a smirk that belied his youth, and grabbing the ball he whipped it around his head and proceeded to dance in a circle, all the while keeping the ball in orbit around his tiny cranium with an intriguing bobble. Then he bent over backwards and performed some contortions before moving on to more amusing and yet fairly impressive physical feats. His partner continued to beat his drum and we continued to watch.
Andrea reached in to her wallet and withdrew a few rupees that we could give to them, and upon noticing her movements the younger boy called off the grand finale and approached the side of the vehicle with open hands. He smiled about the rupees, but from his closer vantage point he could see a plastic bag sitting in between Andrea and myself. All it contained were some Christmas decorations we had just purchased, but he pointed to it and got very excited. His partner tugged on his arm and made mention that it was time for them to leave, but the younger refused to move.
“He wants food,” the driver mentioned to us.
“We have no food!” I muttered in the best Hindi I could muster. The older boy upgraded to a more intense version of tugging, and was seemingly trying to convince his young friend that if they stuck around there would be trouble. The auto-walla chuckled lightly to himself, and the government men were by this time quite enjoying the proceedings, both were straining to catch every subtle nuance of emotion in our faces. The young boy refused to move and continued to point very persistently at the bag with a grave look of concern on his face.
“Chocolate!!!!” he blurted out with the most intense look of desire I have ever seen in a 5 year old.
“No chocolate!!” I replied with a smile, trying to keep myself from laughing too hard. The driver and the government men however, were by this time laughing fairly hard. The light turned green and the boys backed away with a dejected look on their faces. We were once again on our way.
“This is Shiva!” Our driver pointed out a picture on his windshield as we started to gain a bit of speed again. “You know Shiva?”
“Yes we’ve heard about him.”
“He my god. He very good. I live by the Ganga, the holy waters. My mom is the cow. I am Hindu. I pray to Shiva. Do you pray?”
“Yes, we pray to—“
“To Christian?”
“To Yeshu,” I replied, citing the Hindi name for Jesus.
“I live by the Ganga. Very famous water. Your God Jesus?”
“Yes”
“Ok, good.”
“Shiva. Peace. My mother is a cow. I drink milk… milk is from the cow… my mother is the cow. I eat only vegetables. Do you eat meat?” Now, we don’t quite know how best to answer this question when we are asked by a Hindu. We assume they all know that we eat meat, but you never quite know how militant people may get bout their religion. For all we know this Hindu hurls sharpened carrots at meat merchants in his spare time. But he seemed legitimately nice and ‘Shiva. Peace.” and all, so we answered him straight up, even when he asked if Canadians eat cow.
“Yes.”
“Cow? Mother Cow?”
“Uhm, yes, but only in Canada, not here”
“Really? Ok, in Canada that is what do, but we do not eat the Cow. It is our mother. It—“
“You can stop here,” I interrupted. We had arrived at our street, and it was time to disembark.
We got out and I whipped out the wallet to pay the man, when all of a sudden he hopped out of the auto and in a second was standing with his smile not more than 8 inches from mine, and he continued our conversation.
“Ok, I like peace, and you good people. Very nice meet you. I am happy to take foreigners for rickshaw… Shiva… Peace… Cow…. Etc.”
And finally we just kinda said goodbye and walked towards our gate in hopes that he would get the hint. He did. A genuinely nice guy… but man, what a crazy ride that was.
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