Open Wide – Travels in India and Pakistan #8: India\’s National Pastime – India

India’s National Pastime
Staying with my friend, A., in a small city in southern India, I finally got a real peek into the private lives of Indian families. Private, however, they are not.

India’s national pastime is not, contrary to the opinion of A.’s father, eating; nor is it, as most people believe, watching cricket. India’s national pastime is not even the chewing and spitting of pan. India’s national pastime is gossip.

Constantly asked my name, country, occupation and marital status has become routine for me, as I move from hotel to storefront, to restaurants and cultural sights. Asked by passers-by and children, hotel staff and train conductors, I am used to the looks of surprise I get when I reveal I am travelling alone as a woman, unmarried. “Why are you not married?” I usually laugh and explain that in Canada and the States we do things a little differently. Many are surprised I don’t live with my family. My friend A.’s family was equally surprised, and they spoke loudly in Malayalam about how they would never let their daughter travel that far away. News of my presence reached friends all over the city.

Getting away from the crowded family home, sitting on the back of A.’s Bajaj motorcycle (India’s national two-wheeler) with the warm air blowing through my light salwar kameez, I could not hide the fact I am a foreigner. In Malayalam, the language of Kerala, I am a
Malam (an altered version of Madam) or, woman foreigner. In a somewhat different situation, A. has been home in India from Canada for 10 days, returning from his first year of PhD research. Away from home for about 10 years, having studied in Chennai, Delhi and Barcelona, A. has been exposed Western culture. This has caused him some problems that result in the same kind of disapproving gossip.

As we rounded the bend of a road that led to his city’s playing field (abandoned and overgrown), A. told me that he recognized several people as we drove by. In India it’s rude not to acknowledge people you know, but A. has grown a beard since last in India and he looked away as we passed the familiar faces. “I don’t want to talk to them. They’ll ask why I’m not married.” A.’s family is a prominent one in the community, his father is a priest of a popular Syrian Christian church. Faced with the question of why he is not married, A. won’t go to church anymore, since they would talk at church about his bachelor status. He even confessed to being glad his grandparents are dead, as they would only guilt trip him about getting married before they die.

Relieved to have his beard to hide him, we continued through the city, giving me a taste of a tour and reacquainting A. with the changes in his hometown. Beetling down a main street, whispers of malam! malam! followed us like trails of smoke, and A. told me how if people knew it was him on the motorbike with this foreign girl, tongues would wag faster than a summer fan in Rajasthan. A. informed me that in school, boys and girls could only talk to each other in the safety of groups, where one group would pretend the other wasn’t there, and speak loudly, betraying their intentions. If a couple was formed, the pair would go an hour or two away on a bus to meet in another city. Inevitably, with the closeness of the social system here, someone would see them in the far-off city and report it back home.

The pressure to get married is intense, and even more difficult if marriages have to be arranged or are based on caste. Desirable attributes are somewhat strange for foreigners learning about matches; ads in the local papers proclaim that girls are fair, ie: whiter rather than darker, and their caste status is specifically mentioned. Here, whiter is better. There are creams sold for “fairness” for women. The ultimate for Indian men is to have the exotic white woman as a girlfriend. The perception is that we are loose. Many believe that just talking to white women will inspire the women to give them the keys to their bedrooms.

Later on, as we paddled and pushed through the lush Keralan backwaters with a bamboo stick in an old wooden boat, A. revealed to me one more trouble. He fell in love with a high caste Brahmin girl from Calcutta doing her PhD at York University in Toronto and they want to get married. A.’s family doesn’t want it, being Syrian Christians and her family, high caste Brahmin Hindu says absolutely not. The clash of cultures is even more difficult as it slices through the generations in homes.

A. didn’t tell me what he thinks will happen. He remained quiet for the rest of the boat ride. We were not alone in the boat – three other men were there with us, and luckily, they didn’t speak English. But if they had, no doubt they would have reported our conversation to friends, the story finding its way back to the source. The silence of the boat and the lapping waters was a welcome repose for me from the everyday chattering of the streets. But I’m the lucky one. I don’t understand the nasty comments people may be throwing my way as I navigate Indian streets. I’ve become immune to the chattering, the regular hisses and clicks and even the “accidental” bumps into my chest that I receive as I go by. I know that when I return home, I’ll be back in my small, impersonal world. But not my friend A.. He is home, and he has only his beard to hide behind.