The Charms of India

India is a diverse country, with multi lingual people following many different religions, people who come in all shapes and sizes and from all walks of life, and last but certainly not the least, people who are multi talented. For someone who's not acquainted with this place, be it a foreigner or an NRI living abroad, coming back to India is a nightmare. Once here, the ill prepared and those who refuse to 'come down to earth' will learn a lot of lessons. Which is what I did on my return back after a long stint abroad.

The education started right from the moment I landed in Mumbai. In the Hollyood movies I see, the gorgeous heroine calls for a taxi, and then gets into her arguments, or punch dialogues, or her monthly periods with the charming hero and the whole while the taxi patiently waits. Apparently the directors don't research enough. I too hailed a taxi at the airport, put in my bags and hardly turned to say goodbye to my friends. Now the Mumbai police are on the lookout for a black taxi carrying three stolen suitcases. Luckily for me, thanks to the airport authorities who misplaced my fourth bag, which was eventually found abandoned on another flight, I'm not entirely devoid of some clothes to wear for the time being.

Having learned that lesson with taking a taxi, when I had to travel to Chennai, I decided to take the train. Seeing just one person at the ticket counter, I politely stood behind him. I finallly got my ticket a couple of hours later, well past the train departure time. The counter guy looked at me like I was some retard, understood that I was new to the place and explained to me that the queues there don't go in straight lines, they go in clusters. But the good thing was that I didn't miss the train either, apparently it was running late by a day and four hours. These days I take the bus.

And one such day on the bus, I saw this vacant seat next to this pretty lady, and occupied it. I quickly came to know that this lady was well acquainted with my family, which couldn't have been all that decent, based on what she had to say about us. Apparently in Tamil Nadu, the women and men aren't supposed to touch each other. I'm still trying to figure out which of the two is the untouchable. Atleast I was more fortunate than my very 'Americanised' friend. He reportedly went to a wedding and hugged the groom. He proceeded to do the same to the bride, is the last I heard. His funeral was a nice and quiet little affair by the beach.

Anyway, by now I'd decided to drive on my own, just that I still haven't figured out which is the right side of the road - the left or the right. But atleast I've come to believe in miracles, guardian angels and near-death experiences. And did you know that all Indian drivers are professional stuntmen; or that all vehicles in India are manufactured without brakes, the space being taken up to fit in extra noise making devices; or that running a few fellow road users off the road, (and if they don't oblige, running over them) is perfectly acceptable as long as it doesn't slow you down? Well, now I do.

One of the things that hits you the hardest in Chennai is the weather. Most of the time it is stifling hot and very humid. Takes a while getting used to. So I went to the beach to take a dip. I couldn't enter the water, for as soon as I stripped down to my trunks, I was promptly arrested by a couple of cops. Apparently some women belonging to the Southern division of the Adyar division of the Chennai division of the Tamilnadu division of the Hindu division of the Women's Holy Organisation against Revolting Exposures of India (proudly abbreviated to WHOREs of India, I was diffidently told) lodged a complaint. It seems that when they looked long enough at my trunks, it brought to their minds certain improper thoughts. That is how I got to spend a few days in jail.

The policemen were decent folks actually. They taught me seventy five methods to break the human bone. I was the subject though. Then when they realised I didn't have the money to pay them, they moved on to teaching me torture techniques. I learned fifteen of them before I lost consciousness. By the end of it, I was convinced that I was the one who shot JFK. The Chief Cop was to have got a medal.

Unfortunately before that, the poor guy ran his jeep over a stray cow galavanting on the roads. This caused a few riots up north. The Shiv Sena activists blamed the Muslims for the dead cow. They apparently had incriminating evidence of links between the dead cow and Pakistani intelligence. The Lashkar e Toiba blamed the Hindus and the Americans for the incident. They declared that the cow died of an Indo-US missile attack. And the Chief Cop was declared the biggest criminal of the country. We both are hanging this Friday.