And the transformation plays on

September 13, 2010

As I sit in the living room of a good friend of mine here in Kerala state, enjoying the cool of the fan above my head (more about the significance of that fan coming) and listening to the family members chatting away in the next room, I cannot help be reflect a little on what makes life here so appealing to me, despite the challenges of carving out a brief existence in this land that still is foreign to me.  Firstly I feel compelled to note how my life here, in small and large ways, has become more of a home than a professional visit.  This is essential to the transformation that I have faced over the nearly five months of my time, a transformation as surprising as it was unexpected.

In small, I found myself panicking briefly the other day as the car I rode in turned right, and to the right side of the road.  I thought, why is he on the wrong side of the road! And then realized that the right side is the side that would be most normal for me, generally, but I have become not only acclimatized to driving on the left side, but instinctually reactive to it.  There’s a transformation.  It is also the deep-seated knowledge of how people best communicate, when to call people, when to expect them, how to anticipate what the problems might be in a scheduled event…the kind of thinking we do on a daily basis in a place that has become a home.

In large, I take for granted haggling with the auto driver, showing surprise at the cost of things comparative in rupees, not with back home, of juggling travel schedules with workshops that I try to schedule back to back and negotiating pay scales, while writing lesson plans and workshops inbetween the travel, work and the accessional moment for eating.  In other words, I have set up my normal way of being in this place, adjusting to the course of events here, but achieving the kinds of results I do back home. In other words, the kinds of things I do in a place I call home.

Underneath all of this, however, is the constant amazement of how life unfolds on a daily basis, the way people act and interact.  Trying to avoid over-generalizing and creating stereotypes—a unfortunate perpetration assigned to the US by some here— at core the daily pleasantries that are so essential to life here are so amazingly engaging and a wonder.  The sarcasm that often underlies so much of life back home does not exist here in the same way.  The way people so easily inter-relate with each other in what seems like a huge, ongoing conversation amongst a billion plus people, as if it is one huge family or set of friends that step in and out of conversation with the ease of such relationships.

Just the lexicon itself suggest the depths to which hospitality and kindness go, such as people always asking if you have eaten, constantly being offered tea, small plates of biscuits and juice sitting awaiting you when you visit.  I have been given transportation by schools more times than I can count and endlessly welcomed into homes.  But more than that is watching how families so easily adjust their daily life to fit the needs and sudden appearances of neighbors, family and friends, how quickly you can set up meetings with people and how rapidly and sincerely apologetic people are when even the smallest of issues happens.  In the home I am visiting right at this moment, the family has already cleaned out one of their bedrooms for me, rearranged the furniture, dismantled and replaces ceilings fans for my comfort and generally make sure I am fed before they eat themselves.

Now I am not so naïve to believe that there are not balances to these practices, with abuse, prostitution, riots and radical attacks on civilians, however in a land of over a billion people, the extent of that, as far as I can tell, does not exceed that of the US.  In fact, in a general comparison, one thing that has occupied my thoughts recently is how open people are to critical conversations, but how reluctant people are to jump to criticism initially.  And within any criticism is a kind of respect that makes the criticism more supportive and helpful then judgmental.  This particular phenomenon has made me think carefully about what happens back home.  There is an undercurrent of negative judgment in a lot of criticism in our country, from politics to education to the arts, such that it harms the results the criticism might have and makes people much more defensive in conversation.

Which brings me to my most revelatory thought; I have often said that in a country as big as ours, it is easy to be mean and unfriendly because you may never see the person you are mistreating again. Yet, in a country where the population is three times ours, the feeling I have here is that people are friendly precisely for the reason that they may never have the chance to see that person again.  I suppose in some ways that is related to the question I received from one drama club student when I was asked to meet with that club.  “Why,” she asked, “do people in American present only stereotypes of Indians?”

So I am left with the coming personal challenge: How can I carry this attitude with me?  How can I benefit others from this kind of personal approach?  And how can I use it to encourage others do accomplish the same?

As I write, the family here is serving me a small snack, so I put aside my computer to honor their respect.