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Bombay, India
18° 58' N 72° 49' E
Apr 16, 2006 13:50
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Other entries in Mumbai

I work hard for the money

Text written in: English

some interesting things have happened since my last post but i also forgot to include some other things. or maybe it was just so long already that i thought i might lose some of you.

i neglected to talk about the train ride from Calcutta to Bombay. i mentioned it was 34 hours but it wasnt that bad because we had two night segments so we were probably only awake for 16 of those 34 hours. in our 6 person berth, we had a rotating bunch of people. only one man rode the whole way with us but everyone else was only on for parts of the trip at a time. the one man was very nice and eager to talk to us about many things, but his favorite topic was politics (which we soon discovered was every Indians favorite topic). i dont need to get into all of his points but they were varied and interesting. one thing he couldnt get away from was his hatred of Pakistan and his disbelief in the US's policy to financially support them. it seemed to be a pretty standard "we've been warring with this other neighbor nation for so long, im not going to accept any other idea than the idea that they are subhuman and the reason for all our strife". sounded familiar. but he was nice and helped us learn a lot about india from an Indians perspective. other berth passengers included a smelly fat man, a creepy hair-dyed guy, and a family with two kids whose youngest was scared of davids hair and refused to sit next to him. also the food on the train was surprisingly good. there were the expected vendors cruising the aisles but around mealtime, the train staff would appear with various dishes which were all about a dollar and all pretty good. it was not a bad trip.

the next thing i forgot to mention was in relation to Dadee (the young Indian boy from the street that Max brought to get ice cream and a soda with us) in the restaurant the other day. when max brought him in, i didnt talk about the restaurants reaction to his presence. they thought he was pestering customers, was too young, or simply wasnt suitable for their establishment. and they demonstrated this by telling the security guard to remove him forcefully. just after max and Dadee had sat down, the guard came from behind me and violently grabbed Dadee by the arm and yanked him out of his chair. we all reacted by jumping up ourselves and objecting. we told the guard that he was our friend, was our guest, and was with us. dont throw him out. then the waiters suddenly were scarce and wouldnt take our order. one actually came over and started yelling at him in Hindi without talking to us. we had to fight him off as well. finally, max had to go to the manager to tell them that Dadee was our guest and not to harass him. they finally accepted it and served him an ice cream float. but my food that i ordered didnt come until after we got the bill. it was cold. its definitely a culture with a history of severe caste differences still in place. was interesting to see.

ok, now onto the new stuff. there isnt too much to report except for one crazy day. mostly we've been eating well and hanging out with Max's ex-pat friends here in Bombay. there are something like 20 people from the states that all are connected one way or another. max fit in somehow and we being his friends, are now "in" as well. good times.

yesterday was a bit crazy. david and i thought we were leaving on an overnight train to Rajistan and Max was going to meet up with us via plane. so Saturday was filled with errands and also a little bit of adventure. while we were eating at the Gringo Cafe (aka leopolds in Colaba), a fat, sweaty man came into the restaurant wiping his forehead and walked directly up to our table. "excuse me, but are any of you American?" we told him we were and he proceeded to go into a schpeal about how he was working with a recording studio and he needed americans to come in to read scripts for an educational tape used for training Indians to speak Americanized English. we got his information but were somewhat dubious of his legitimacy. while max had obligations for the day that he could not get out of, david and i had to get the train tickets but agreed that one of us should go to see what an experience this would prove to be. fatty generously offered to take care of the train tickets so i shouldered the responsibility of working on my world "vacation". that morning, while david and max left to attend to their errands, i met up with this man, Sandhir, at a train station. david had suggested taking a knife but i declined. he was waiting for me when i got there then we went to the ticket booth where he bought me a round trip ticket. he kept saying that he wanted to make sure i was comfortable and that he wouldnt give me too many instructions because that would confuse someone like me. we rode the city train, packed tight with only Indians (i got many a lengthy stare to which i could only smile and stare right back) out into the suburbs for about 45 minutes. the whole time we were riding we were talking about how the area we were staying (colaba) was filled with pimps, middlemen (i wasnt sure what that meant, if someone does, please explain), and very bad people. he told me that many people come down impersonating movie industry people looking for foreingers adn then take advantage of them or rob them in some way. he assured me he was not one of those people and insisted that he was a professional. i still had my doubts. after we exited the train, we took an auto (basically a tuk-tuk) into the small but bustling part of the city suburbs (this wasnt like any american suburbs with prepackaged houses and 7-11s on every corner). it was packed with people and cars and it was slow moving. we eventually got to our destination and walked up some flights of stairs. once we got inside the "studio" i knew that he was legit and i was in for a crazy day.

it could have been Los Angeles. the office had hard wood floors, a recording studio equipped with state of the art microphones, recording equipment, computer software, and even industry lackies that would bring the workers fresh tea, water, or go out to the streets to fetch chocolates. i met with the audio engineer named brandon who looked like my friend Rajeev. he was young, eratic, and a lot of fun to talk to. i found out that he at one time was also a backpacker. additionally, he had worked with a band while they were employed as entertainment for the US army in the first Iraq war. so he has been all over the world as well, which is very uncommon for Indians. he also mentioned that he loves to smoke weed and that in fact, he was high right now. in his words, "come on, you think i could do this job sober?" this was all within the first 5 minutes of meeting him. we waited around for a while because two girls we were going to work with were late, much to the chagrin of my solicitor Sandhir. he thought this was very unprofessional. they did eventually show up and were also young but very businesslike. they had the scripts i was going to be reading and were very specific with how they wanted them read. i was going to be reading lines for an education language tape intended for use in an english training school for Indians. they would use these to perfect their american english. so i went into the sound booth and got into character. the stuff i was reading was pretty boring but was still fun to do. if you've ever listened to tapes for language classes, youll recognize what i was doing. basically, in many scripts, i was the narrator for a selected lesson. an example of a reading, "LC BRM Listening Comprehension 1. Speaking/Writing/Listening. narrator: Listen to the following passage between a professor and a student. (later...) What can you infer from the exchange?....From the lecture, using your own ideas and examples to support them, what does "coming in handy" mean?" etc. i also played student roles, professor roles, and businessmen roles. i didnt have any singing parts. just like in the movies, we often "took 5" and they did feed me lunch during which i sat and listened to them speak in Hindi (which im sure was all about me). the people were all friendly and very fun to work with. Brandon was joking all the time so i naturally was joking back and they girls who at first were a bit stiff, warmed up once i was able to toss in a few patented and hilarious Noahesque jokes. and Sandhir waited in the outer office for me to make sure i was comfortable. at the end of the day, i took home 4500 rupees (about 110 dollars) for 5 hours of work including a half hour lunch break. not a bad days work.

we left and Sandhir escorted me back to the train station just as one last way of making sure i was comfortable. on the way, when we were stopped at an intersection, a beggar child, probably about 9, came up to the side of the auto and started grabbing at my arm and pointing to his mouth. he was carrying a younger child on his left arm. he obviously wanted money, was probably starving, and i had just come from an unexpected job and in 5 hours made more than many Indians make in a week. surely i could afford to give this child some money. but before i could react, Sandhir was practically fighting with this boy and yelling at him in Hindi. he was scolding him for his behavior and telling to bugger off. he also was telling me not to even look at him and not to move. the entire time the boy was continuing to tug at my shirt, grab my arm and hand and point to his mouth. at one point with Sandhir continuing to yell and the beggar persisting with his grabbing, the younger child on the arm started to giggle and laugh. to this the beggar child responded by slapping him. when the light turned green, Sandhir closed with a sharp point of his finger and some more words in Hindi. the boy swiped at his finger and spat some words in response. the rest of the car ride was silent.

when i got back to the hotel room, i found david freshly showered and ready to comlain about his day. he had made several trips to and from different train station because there had been one problem or another. when he finally had all his ducks in a row, the tickets were sold out. so he had had a rough day. but to ease the pain, i gave him a cut of the loot since he had given me the chance to do the work. shortly, max joined us from his day of activity and was equally frustrated. the main thing he had been doing that day was entertaining Dadee and some of his friends. he met them alone and apparently, they were much different and demanding than they had been previously. all they wanted was for max to buy them clothes and take them to restaurants where they knew they would not be allowed to go. they led him around for over 2 hours taking him from place to place without being served. part of this was the restaurant and their descrimination against the poor children but some of it was also the kids for being demanding and expecting max and his money to oblige. but at one restaurant, they physically stopped the kids from entering the restaurant and max had to speak to a manager to let them in. while he was doing this, the owner came up and forcefully knocked Dadee out of the doorway and into the street. max whirled around and started berating the man for his behavior to which the man told max he was in the wrong for even associating with these kids, they use drugs, are theives, and a terrible aspect of society. max was undeterred and continued his verbal assault and eventually got the man to apologize but he still refused to serve them. max then decided that he had to call his female friend in to act as a buffer to help with the situation (apparently in previous experiences, having a girl there really changed the dynamic and prevented the violence from happening so quickly). sheroni showed up and they took them to McDonalds for whatever the kids wanted. the only seats availible were in the stuffy, un-airconditioned section near the toilets. once seated, max brought out the paper and colored pencils he had purchased for the childrens entertainment but they didnt seem interested in using them. they continued to ask max, sheroni, and david had showed up as well, for them to buy clothes and other items. and then, while sitting in the already painful conditions of the room, two older men, one apparently about 45 and the other clost to 70, went out of their way to come into the side room and make fun of the kids, telling them they were worthless and dispicable. sheroni was not one to tolerate this so she got up and yelled back at the men calling them ugly names (which in India, coming from a woman, is a big insult). they slinked away but were still in the restaurant and snickered everytime any of the party went out to get something. when the meal was over and they left McDonalds, the kids scattered as if their lives depended on it. max said less than half of them even said thank you. at this point he was very frustrated and angry with many things. he felt used and lied to, but also felt bad for these kids who had to deal with this daily prejudice against them. but after talking with the people who have lived here for a while, he learned that these kids survive on the streets, and have no desire to move beyond them. they are used to the almost daily rotation of new foreigners and seem to have no problem procuring money and meals (whenever a meal was bought for them, they rarely ate all of it and never seemed starved for it). we concluded that they must be content to live like this or else they would find a way out of their situation. they're clearnly not hungry, clearnly not desperately poor, and clearly content to take advantage of the generosity of strangers. max finished the day upset and angry but eventually concluded that this is just a part of life in India, as well as the most of the world, and that he need not be upset or angry, because he has no power to change it.

so their days were pretty bad, but mine was great. im really glad that after being cheated so many times already on this trip, i was able to maintain some trust of strangers and had one of the wildest experiences of the trip.