We Spoilt NRIs

A few days ago I was at an Indian-Pakistani restaurant sipping tea when my thoughts turned to Gothenburg, Sweden. This one month trip in many mundane ways shook me out of our smugness; a vice many of us living in suburbs of city like San Francisco inadvertently develop.

Well, this is not a flashback of some graying memories of yesteryear that come in black and white shades. In fact, it only dates back to January 2011. 
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The only tint that the city of Gothenburg had at that time was white as all you could see was snow-clad mountains and roads.  Having lived most of my life in subtropical New Delhi and now sunny California it was not a very welcoming sight.

I was only few hours old in the city when hunger pangs lead me to a Swedish restuarant. Bereft of the Swedish vocabulry, the menu or 'meny' made little sense to me. I spent the next 15 minutes communicating with our waitress in sign language only to find out that my only option was a veggie salad.  

As I headed out on streets again, I found an Indian restaurant just few blocks away from our hotel.
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It was the first time in all day that I had seen curly black hair and brown skin clad in Indian attire. Suddenly, the joy of seeing a fellow Indian and speaking my own language became exhilarating.

Back in San Francisco, I never seemed to miss anything Indian. Infact, plethora of everything Indian be it restaurants or grocery stores killed the idea of ethnic diversity, and sometimes made me wary of our desi bhais.

Yet, that day I was thrilled to taste some of the most mundane Indian dishes and hear that polite 'namaste,' the Hindi word, which means greetings or hello.  

Learning The American Ways

A cup of coffee with a friend sparked the memories of those first few days in U.S. when even the most mundane tasks seemed like an enigma. Well, that's what happened with this dear friend of mine when he first ordered a coffee after being in U.S. only for couple of days. 

Like most Indians he expected a hot steaming cup of the soothing coffee with milk and sugar. But it turned out that his cup not only missed milk and sugar but coffee itself! While waiting for his cup to be filled he naively created another conundrum when asked the server for a polythene. What  followed was a set of blank and bewildered looks as the server churned his gray matter to find that word in his vocabulary. 

And ah! that big word decoded into simple three letter word 'bag.' All he needed was the white plastic bag sitting on the shelf. As the soft plastic bag made into his hands, he still wondered if the server had forgotten to pour the aromatic beverage into his mug. Hell No! He hadn't forgotten. It was his job. And another perplexed expression with a tinge of exasperation told him that. It was only a matter of few more seconds when our friend learned the art of coffee-making as he observed other customers pour the brewed black drink into  their cups. 

Most of us have had our little experiences with everyday American terms, my being with the forbidden 'tissue' that can end up getting you a toilet paper or bath tissue instead of a simple napkin.


 

Milk Milk Everywhere

Language can often make for you might want to buy or say something and you do exactly the opposite. And that's what happened with us when we set out for our quest of finding milk or mjolk (the word mjolk has two dots on the letter 'o') as it is called in Swedish.

It so happened that after moving into our hotel in Gothenburg I began missing my 'adarak wali chai,' (ginger tea) and decided to put our electric kettle at work. All we needed was ginger, teabags and milk. Well, the first two came with a wink but for the third there were myriad of options in the mejeri or the dairy section. We had lattemjolk, minimjolk, mellanmjolk and filmellan....and the list goes on.

Without giving much thought I picked up filmellan trusting the cow that was smiling on the can. But it turned out I had misjudged the cow because fil is a yogurt like substance. The first sip told me I had raged a havoc in that little black kettle.

"Uff!" I thought, only if I had looked at the Google translator.

Teaching Tales

In my growing up years classrooms or teachers were not my cup of tea. I sat reluctantly scribbling notes and often making cartoons on back of my note book. Ah! yes, the back of the notebook was also for exchanging secret notes with my friends that often read "I am hungry," "Uff! She/ he is so boring," and "I wish the next two classes would get free."

Sometimes our wishes were answered since some generous teachers would decide to take an off. Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't one those students who bunked or missed classes. But I wasn't particularly fond of the world of classroom. And I often thought I will be anything but a teacher.

Yet, very recently I landed up in that role. I volunteered to be a tutor for our local library's literacy program. Last week took my first class with my student who is an Afghan woman. Like many immigrant women from South Asia she came here after getting married five years ago. Being a native Farsi speaker she doesn't know English very well and wants to take the first few steps to get her vocabulary, reading, comprehension and grammar in place.

As I sat with her figuring out a way to help her she thanked me a zillion times. It was great to see her sparkling eyes and huge smile. And for the first time I thought "wow, it's all worth being a teacher."

Besides the Crater Lake

There is something enchanting about the deep blue waters of the Crater Lake that calls Oregon it's home. With the depth of 1,943 it stands majestically amid the cliffs that are almost two thousand feet high. The lake traces its roots back  to the massive eruption of Mount Mazama 7700 years ago that caused the mountain to collapse, and created a steaming caldera. As centuries of rain and snow filled the caldera, Crater Lake was born.

This past weekend we had the opportunity to visit this wonder of nature, which is known to be deepest lake in the United States, and the seventh deepest in the world. At the very first glance I could only mutter “Wow,” and minutes later we were posing besides the cliff overlooking the lake to capture this spectacular view.

Since the sun shone with all its splendor the lake appeared to be covered with sheet of sparkling gems. What made the view more mesmerizing was that the hues of the horizon above and water below seemed to dissolve into each other giving birth to new shades of greens and blues.

After a couple of more clicks here and there the enthralling waters lured us to its shores. And an hour later we were treading the dusty, narrow-winding trails down to the lake. As we sat on the rocks clicking pictures as a souvenir of our strenuous hike, I couldn't help looking enviously at the tourists flocking the boats for a ride through the lake.

To our bad luck they were all sold out. But nonetheless, that just opens up a chance for us to pay another visit to this natural wonder soon.

Food With Love

"Every time I went to a relative's house in India they had so much food and I couldn't say no."


yup...

"It's rude to refuse."

I know.

"But by the end of my India trip my stomach was gone for a toss."

This is a conversation with a friend who just returned from India ten pounds heavier. Well, you see in Indian culture feeding someone is the best expression of love and hospitality. I remember every time my mother hosted a dinner her kitchen smelled of at least five to six dishes along with chapatti, rice and at least two desserts.

While being a good host means insisting a guest to eat at least for couple of times after he has stopped eating, being a good guest means picking up small bite of this or that until every inch of your stomach is full. All of us have been on both ends of the spectrum at some point. And though I hated this food-loading practice when I got married eight months ago I started treading on the same path.

Now it's my turn to be hospitable. And guess what I am pretty good with it!!

A trip to Wagah

Recently as I sipped the steaming tea from the steel glass at a friend's house our chitchat diverted to partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. It traversed through the movies made on the horrifying historical event to personal stories to the troubled Indo-Pak relationship.


While we discussed the relationship between these two estranged siblings that were born out of the same womb, I shared my reminiscences of Wagah border, the international checkpoint in Amritsar, Punjab, a Northern Indian state. I traveled back in time to paint the picture of the flag lowering ceremony at this border which is nothing more than iron gate, one that is identical to entrances of many Indian household.

The ceremony was marked with display of patriotic spirit and din of trumpets. As the sun bid its adieu, a silence pervaded in the arena where the crowd sat glued to see the ceremony that epitomized friendship and veneration. One could see the Indian "Border Security Forces," soldiers dressed in khaki and Pakistani "Rangers," dressed in black march passionately toward the gate and wave their swords to the tunes of music ebbing from the military band. The tapping sounds from their boots were audible even at a distance.

As the gates flung open the flags of both countries were lowered with great respect and honor. The soldiers then retreated to their respective sides and the gates were slammed shut; the sounds of trumpets doused out and the crowd turned its back on each other to walk home.

As we strolled back to our car I was left with a mixed feeling. While I was awe-struck with the spectacular scene it seemed more like a ritual rather than a feeling from heart. I can vividly remember the verbal skirmish the crowd engaged in as they shouted the slogans of Pakistan Zindabad and Hindustan Zindabad. And though people on both sides appeared as each other's reflection (given the fact that people look similar and have a similar culture) they have always remained antipodal to one another.

Though it’s been five years since I visited the mighty border that has witnessed some of the most horrifying and important political developments in the history of these countries I still wonder if the fissures in heart and mind of the people can ever be cemented.