communications

About a month ago I found myself in the Delhi branch of TGI Friday's. It was early evening and I was sitting at the busy bar drinking a Kingfisher Light beer. I was there because it was the first place I could find with air conditioning, comfortable seating, and alcohol, and I needed respite from the heat.

'You must really love cricket,' said the man sat next to me.

'Sorry?' I replied.

'You must really love cricket,' he repeated, 'I've been watching you. The way you've been looking so hard at the television screen. So... so concentrated.' He pointed at the television behind the bar which was showing one of the latter matches of the cricket world cup. I hadn't noticed it until that point. I'd actually been looking blankly at the drinks cabinet just to the left. My mind had been empty.

'Errr... yes,' I said back waiting to be rumbled, but thankfully he moved on to 'which country?' before my true lack of knowledge was revealed. We got chatting. Rather stocky, and wearing a suit and discreet glasses, his name was Swarup and he came from Kolkata. He said he was a deputy manager in a multi-national company selling mainly beer and cigarettes, and in Delhi for business. I'd only planned on staying for one beer before retiring to my hotel, but I liked him a lot and he seemed very genuine so I ended up staying out late and we both became a little drunk. When the bill came he absolutely insisted on paying, and asked me if I was going to venture towards Kolkata on my trip? If so, he said, it would be his pleasure if I would stay with him and his family. I said that I would be in Kolkata in about a month and that I would love to. I took his email address and said good night.

I was delighted and really looked forward to the idea of this. I liked him and thought meeting up again might help me on my mission to get to know India better. I emailed him the next day to say thank you for his company, and that I would email him again as I approached Kolkata. He replied briefly but affirmatively. A few weeks went by and I emailed him again from Khajuraho, letting him know that I would be in the city in about a week and half and asking, if it was convenient, would he like to meet up again? This time I got no response. I waited a few days - perhaps he was busy? - and still no response. Then I checked my message had been sent. It had. And still no response. I then arrived in Kolkata. No response. Needless to say we didn't end up meeting up and I didn't meet his family. Swarup appears to have bottled out on the idea.

This incident about typifies the extent to which I have been successful in forming relationships with 'real' Indian people over the last ten weeks, and the depth I have got to in my personal relationships. I feel like I have talked to nearly the entire billion person population, every one is so outwardly talkative and friendly, and yet I haven't got anywhere in knowing anyone with any real complexity. I've always been at arms length, and with people for only short periods: an afternoon, an evening, an hour.

Why is this? I've got a few ideas I'm bouncing around...

(1) Part of the trouble is that I move on so quickly. Consequently I'm always with new faces.

(2) Also, nine out of ten of the people who approach me are drawn to me purely because they are con-artists after my money. If you're visiting areas popular with tourists (which I am) con-artists and tourist touts swamp you and your time and this makes it difficult to get to your average Indian. It's a constant pain. Con-artists have to be detected (it gets easy after a while) and weeded out before they can lead you into trouble. They're usually young, overly cocky men, who until you walked along were leaning against a wall watching the street for, well, people like you. You have to use sentences like, 'hello, yes I'm from England actually. Please don't think I'm rude but if you have a shop or want to sell me something I'm not interested and I'm not coming.' This rarely gets rid of them completely and usually leads on to an additional, 'OK, well how about an astrologer then?' or 'I could buy you train tickets?' or 'could I buy you a cup of tea?' An additional, and this time more stern, 'no,' usually finishes it. Basically, my point is, most of the people I meet are people I don't want to meet, and they take up so much of my time they prevent me from meeting more of the people I do want to meet.

(3) On my part, there's also the issue of having to face those same eight bloody questions I get asked again and again (see blog entry 'same old questions' from 24 May) and it becomes inevitable sometimes that I just switch off and can't face it anymore even when nice and well meaning people approach me. I'm always polite but not always fully engaged.

(4) Finally, and, I suppose, quite reasonably, when I do get to meet 'real' Indians they often just want to have a ten minute or hour long chat and prefer to leave it at that. They don't want me snooping into their homes or families or lives etc just because I might find it somehow educational and I can't really blame them. Perhaps this is how Swarup felt ultimately?

Actually, perhaps I'm being a little hard on myself. Even if I haven't formed any lasting friendships I have had some nice extended chats with down to earth, kind, and thoughtful people. And perhaps that is the most I can really expect on a trip of this nature. You might be interested to learn that the most successful interactions I've had have all taken place on either the bus or the train. Never in the actual towns or cities that I've stayed in. This has surprised me and I've thought a lot about why this has been so? I'm still not really sure but I think it is partly because public transport is a zone where the con-artist isn't really present (and so you can't get swamped), there are just 'normal' everyday people going about their business. I also think it's partly because you are also thrown into close quarters with others for hours on end, and there is nothing else to do except eventually strike up a conversation and get to know each other. One or two of these encounters have led on to some light emailing after, mostly notably with Nitesh from Solan and Ida from Pune, both of whom I met in Shimla, but in most cases the contact has started and finished on the bus or train.

I'm going to keep trying, but I must admit that this is one aspect of this journey that hasn't worked out quite as I'd hoped it would, at least so far anyway, and I'm beginning to reassess my idea of myself as some kind of amateur social anthropologist as rather stupidly naive and ill-thought out. Still I'm always learning.