09.20.07 These folk are SO polite.

I think I’m a little overwhelmed.

I mean, not overwhelmed like the Vicereine Montbatten who, upon reaching New Dehli, locked herself in the bathroom and consumed a whole roast chicken which was meant for the dog. (No one has explained why they were roasting an entire chicken for the dog)

But there’s so much coming in, and there’s so much I want to tell all you gentle readers ab out this place, but the impressions come so fast, and what I want to say keeps changing. So I’m always in edit mode.

I’m sure everyone will agree that my being in edit mode is a good thing. Don hasn't come to India, and with any luck he won't. The daily yoga is not stretching, but patience, breathing and restraint.

But it makes it hard to write my impressions. For example, I’ve been trying to write about the ‘Indian Head Weave’, but everytime I start out it comes out myopic, chauvinistic and ethnocentric.

I'm afraid though that I'm not going to get anywhere else if i don't get this out. So please forgive a Swamp Yankee or a NYC Concrete head who is fortunate enough to find himself in palatial paradise, and is trying hard not to get mustard on his bowtie (or egg on his face).


The Indian Head Weave:

When in conversation with people, especially someone treated with deference, an Indian will cock his/her head to the side and then switch to the other side, and then switch back and forth with increasing rapidity. Sometimes there’s a little dip to the weave, and sometimes there’s a little lift. It seems as if the amount of weave is relative to the individual and their relationship to the person speaking. While it's analogous to an American nodding in agreement, it's completely different.

The first time it happens the first tilt comes along and you think they’re pulling a Nipper on you. You may remember Nipper. He was the RCA dog looking down the gramophone in ‘His Master’s Voice”. The head tilts and you think that they’re thinking ‘you want me to do WHAT? You're crazy!’

…but then the weave comes, and the cultural reference becomes the tough urban African American gal saying ‘Oh honey, no you don’t!’

,,,and then they smile and say ‘OK’ and there’s that incredible vertigo of culture shock as you have to scramble to put 40 odd years of definitions of the world back together in a different order, all the while trying to appear as if reprogramming your circuitry was as easy as chewing gum.

Actually they don’t say ‘OK’. They say ‘tikka’ and ‘Haji’ or just ‘haj’ (Jane Fisch Rufe is probably going to send a vicious note about my spelling). Anyway all three of those mean OK. Though ‘Haji’ is more like ‘yes sir’.

That’s something else they say here. ‘Sir’. Good morning sir, would you like coffee sir, I have a question sir. So I’ve started doing it back. The young Turner pups tell me that I get it because I’m an old man. The young Turner pups are going to get it if they keep up that nonsense. Yessir!

The pups, who are returning natives, are just jealous because people fall all over themselves to be nice to me. I don’t know if it’s just the white skin, I think the bowties help.

But it’s been pointed out to me that doors get held for me, I get salutes, the deferential bows are lower for me than for them, and my presence makes it really easy to get a table at lunch.

It’s more than a little embarrassing. Leaving the hotel every morning is like running a gauntlet of smiles - such a trial my life is.

Sharmeen was right! But best of all, absolutely, without question, are the Tea Boys.

Arthur would have loved them. He said: “Waiters are wonderful. You ask them for things and they bring them” . You know Arthur: Dudley Moore: “When you get caught between the Moon and New York City…”. Oh never mind.

But the Tea Boys are great. I call the pantry extension and ask them to bring something: coffee, tea, water, to my cabin (er-office) and they do! Not only that, they knock and they say thank you. THEY say thank you. And then they do the head weave. We even have them at the job site!

I do tip them every now and then. I tip the drivers and I tip the waiters.
No wonder they like me.

Today at lunch I was astounded at what we left for a tip. The check for a 3 course meal was 400+ rupees (about $10) for 5 of us. We each threw in $100 and I figured that was that, but the guys waited for change and tried to distribute it.

I think we ended up leaving him like R15, around 30 cents.
As we walked back to the office I was remembering my waitering days and how cheap I thought the South Asians were. Now I know why. It's just what they do.

Something like 50% of the population make $400/R15,000 a year. I'm probably upsetting the social order and fomenting revolution.

I left R100 ($2.50) for the housekeeper this morning. I usually do. It was still there this evening. I hadn’t written Housekeeping on it, and they were probably to polite to presume it was for them!