Ban the Little Finger

          “I’m antibans,” I said to Shri Husband.

          He stared at me for a couple of seconds and asked in a staccato tone: “What. Is. Antibans?”

          “Anti-bans,” I said, correcting him slowly, clearly, adding: “Means I don’t like people banning books, films, like that.”

          “Why?” he asked. That’s his most often used word, by the way, along with ‘How’. Whenever someone asks him a question, he asks a counter question with either Why or How or both. If someone tells him, for example ‘the milk is boiling over’ or ‘switch off the fan’ or ‘the car battery is dead’, immediately his lips spout the word “Why?” or “How?” It’s an affliction. There must be a medical term for it.

          Anyway, I told him why I was anti-bans: “We can’t ban the Press, freedom of speech, beef, sleeveless blouses. It’s wrong. We’re a free country. This is the 21rst century.”

          First interruption from Shri Husband: “You mean we ‘shouldn’t’ ban those things. There’s a vast difference between ‘can’t’ and ‘shouldn’t’.”

          Lecture-baazi shuru, I told myself.

          Aloud I said, “Yes-yes-yes”, glad that he’d understood.

          “But what’s wrong with bans?” His second affliction is that he must start counter everything I say with a ‘but’, argue for the sake of arguing.

I stayed quiet.

          He took my silence as encouragement and continued with the lecture: “Banning is good. We should ban bottled drinking water, for example. No-one seems to mind lack of potable water. Hotels that advertise holidays in the lap of nature don’t mind increasing plastic litter by the truckloads. I read several letters to the editor protesting lack of traffic signals at busy junctions, about taxi fares, about how our culture is dying out, but not one insists that every restaurant should provide filtered, safe-to-drink water.”

          He inhaled and I squeezed in a couple of words: “Tell me, why should the government ban cigarettes? or liquor? or gambling? We are adults, we know what’s bad for us, let us decide.”

          Shri Husband’s hates someone disrupting his interruption. He raised his voice a couple of decibels higher: “What I say is, if you want to ban something, ban the root, the cause, the root-cause. If you want to ban cigarettes or gutka, ban or at least strictly monitor the cultivation of tobacco. Now, liquor…” a momentary silence, then- “why would anyone want to ban liquor? (True Goan, my man, muah!) As for gambling, there are other, more reliable options to earn money.”

          I nodded in happy agreement. We were taking a late-night walk on the new pavement along Chogm road whilst during this dialogue, watching a busload of tourists buying cashews, flapping towels to dry them out, letting children gambol dangerously close to the traffic, munching snacks they’d carried along from home, chucking fruit-juice tetra-packs wherever they could, chatting loudly, clicking photographs on their cameras, wiping chins, picking noses, unpacking zip-bursting overnight bags, wiping footwear at the edge of the road, familiar, lovable sight. As we neared, a woman raised one hand, curled up the fingers towards the palm, leaving the little ‘pinky’ finger up. ‘Susu’, she silently worded what she wanted/intended to do. Worried that passers-by might halt and watch, she gathered her kinswomen to trudge along with her to the shrubs that would camouflage her whilst she voided her bladder in peace and privacy. Between the fence of a building in progress and the shadow of a lamp-post, safe from the blinding headlights of the speeding traffic and unafraid of scorpions and snakes, she had chosen a perfect site. She emerged smiling.

          That was the signal for everyone to follow suit. Multiple hands were raised, flagged by the upright ‘pinky’ indicating the need to answer Nature’s Call.

          I clucked disgustedly.

           Shri Husband shushed me. “Tourists are our bread and butter,” he said in a low tone. “We have to provide clean and convenient eateries and toilets all over the state. At least in the tourist-infested areas.”

          “Infested!” I whispered back, giggling. “Sounds like an invasion of worms.”

          “Wrong word,” he agreed, “Let’s call them areas rich in tourist-dependent incomes, shall we?”

          We walked on. We agreed (either it’s the age or the weather, we seem to be agreeing on many topics these days) that unless there are enough loos, garbage bins, drinking water taps and parking spaces for buses, tourists are going to have a difficult time and we villagers will continue to crib.

          “Trouble is,” Shri Husband said, “Country-wide, we tend to concentrate on trivia like naming roads and banning foods and women from wearing trousers.”

          The stench of excreta reached my nostrils. I said, “We must ban people from using open areas as toilets.”

          “The government could,” he said reasonably enough, “but it would be hard to enforce unless loos are provided.”

          I turned around to see what was happening.  Fed and relieved, the passengers were climbing into the bus, some laggards still advertising their ‘need’ with the raised ‘pinky’.

          Ok, I agreed, we can’t ban anyone from fertilizing the soil, but we have to discipline them somehow. Maybe we could ban them from raising the little finger skywards?

          Shri Husband shrugged. Couldn’t make out whether that was in agreement or annoyance.

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Lead Kindly Guide

               My sixteenth birthday. I stood before the Taj Mahal with my mama-mami, under a wintry full moon. The nasal tone and terrible angrezee of the local guide who had probably inherited his English-language ishkool-teacher’s ethnic accent eclipsed all visuals. The rates for ‘English-guides’ was higher (four decades ago, unofficially) than for the Hindi ones. My memory might have been limited to how the British “ishtole our Indian jewel-ishtones like ameralds, diaaminds, rubiezh, vaghera’’ but… when he realized he wouldn’t be paid less for speaking in the Hindi he was more comfortable with, he gave us a superior commentary.

               Mumbai, at the start of this century: our Marathi-speaking guide seemed to know the answer to every question we asked. Savarkar lived in that building, this market was named after Kirtikar, the bust at the crossroad was poet Gadkari’s, this road was named after NM Gokhale and that after NM Joshi, and why.  Then he took us up to the terrace of a building, promising to show us something wonderful. We had a 360 degree view of Maximum City. “How little I know of the city of my birth,” I said. Our guide pointed towards the snaking traffic below and led our eyes along an arterial road to what he proudly declared was ‘sampoorna, Ward H’. This made sense when we discovered that he had a regular job in the Municipality and guiding was his side-business.

               Warsaw, Poland. Our guide was a cousin’s husband who, as we drove past some clickable landmarks, told us the names of the branches of the bank he worked for. Let me hastily add, guiding wasn’t his side-business, he was doing us a favour.

               Poland again, down the salt-mines in Crackow. Couldn’t make out the guide’s gender by attire, demeanour or voice. Guessed it was feminine. Clipped sentences, staccato lecture, crew cut, military bearing. We daren’t breathe lest the moisture from our breaths dissolve the sodium-chloride walls. Or earn her displeasure. Maybe Eastern Europe rose from World War ruins thanks to matrons like these. Duty was duty. No moment wasted, no small talk. Questions were entertained,  time-permitting, if relevant. Each fact delivered precisely. No smiles, no gestures. At the end of the trip, tips permitted.

               In Dubai, our host worked for a ‘facilities’ company. He requested his housekeeping supervisor to show us around a gigantic and famous mosque. We came away knowing how much shampoo, water and man-hours were required to clean the huge carpet and glittering chandelier. How many bulbs went phut per week. How, after every Friday’s namaaz, the carpet moved a couple of inches because of the hundreds of knees and heads moving in unidirectional solidarity and had to be dusted and adjusted by a professional tugging team at the end of the day.

               Across the oceans, in the land of dreams and dollars, relatives and classmates showed us tall buildings, large staircases, wide roads, enormous parking-lots and shopping-malls. Over pancakes and roasts, our NRI host-guides moaned to us Indians from India about cravings for dried bombil/baangdey, coloured glass-bangles, roasted groundnuts and Old Monk. All available, but tasted different in the air-conditioned indoors and the crisp dry outdoor-barbeques of America. (One needs stuffy one-window kitchens with LPG fuel and the salty sultriness of the west coast for that taste.) Stars and Stripes fluttered outside every house. Proclaiming loyalty? I asked. Was it compulsory? “Not at all,” was the hurried reply. Too hurried, I thought. Was it a social expectation? If someone didn’t flutter a flag would there be unspoken neighbourly dissent?  In the land of the free, I hesitated to delve. American history, barely out of living memory, was presented with a sense of wonder. Our guides bubbled nostalgically over India’s millennia-old heritage: ‘India is so varied, fabulous, talented…’ followed by ‘… dirty, backward, corrupt’. (May things be a-changing now. Amen.)

               Recently, Turkish guides, graduates of a three-year University course in tourism, informed us about Turkish history, economics, religion, cuisine, architecture and why their spouses had divorced them. Ever curious/sympathetic about family matters, our Indian bunch dug leftover liras from our wallets to cheer him/her up.        

               At the Tower of London the guides were retired soldiers, making themselves and Britain targets of their jokes. “What,” I asked one, recognizing a gallantry award pinned to his chest, “Did you get this medal for?” With nil expression and unwavering tone he replied, “For eating salad at dinner, five weeks in a row.” Unforgettable.

Humour matters as much as facts and figures.

              

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Goan Guests and Some Things in the Market (Calling People Over For Dinner)

(3 Mar ’13).

            Those from the past, friends and family, who are visiting Goa think that if they’ve come here, they must have a Goanese (yike, that word again) meal. They’re not sure what that means, but they’ve read on the net that prawns balchao, sorpotel, pork vindaloo and fried kalamari are a must. There must be salty breeze to breathe and feni to drink alongside. Unlike in Goa Portuguesa, Mumbai, few restaurants here have floppy-stomached men wearing long-chuddies, flowery shirts and frayed straw-hats plucking on out of tune guitars, singing jaded numbers.

            Friends from Jodhpur who came visiting were surprised that we weren’t interested in living anywhere near the beach. Our little patch of jungle, away from traffic jams and foreign accents, was where Goa really lived, I told them, and we were happy there.

“You always were weird,” their eyes seemed to say. Ignoramus zindabad, I figured, and kept the tongue under tight control. I die to give lectures about the Real Goa whenever I host some people.

            Coming to the other half of today’s topic. I always buy a new indigenously-made (food) product to encourage entrepreneurship. I want to believe that India can grow strawberries and make strawberry jams as good as the ones available in the best stores abroad.  I enjoy the Amul cheeses and gift them proudly to family and friends from across the oceans. What a pity they’ve stopped making that wonderfully versatile and tasty cheese-powder. Trouble is, many of the packaged products are of poor quality. I have no idea whom the manufacturers are trying to fool. I bought a packet of Limbu Pani Masaledar made and marketed by Mumbai’s Neel Beverages Pvt Ltc, which the packet claims is “India’s first in the Premix manufacturing category, an ISO 22000-2005 Certified Co.” I wonder whether the certifiers tasted the product. Or whether they did a survey of the customers. I’m sure they’ve perfectly followed the management procedures and documented every move without error. And the powder that is the outcome of that system tasted … I won’t tell you like what.

In contrast, another new product, called ‘nature-cola health drinks’ which sounded like something made at the back of a garage, manufactured by Team24 Beverages right here in Goa, is something I’d happily serve my guests. (I or my family, descendants, neighbours, etc don’t get a paisa in kind, favour or cash from any manufacturer, factory owner, shop-owner dealer or their relatives. That’s to set the record straight that whatever I’m writing here is objective and impartial.)

The famous paos and pois that we Goans love to feed visitors as ‘our’ bread isn’t always tasty. We may herald the arrival of the poder on his cycle, alerted by his honking outside our gate and rush to buy this ‘really goan’ thing. The experience can be disappointing; few bakeries have maintained their quality.

The balchao and recheado masalas, as well as the chutneys and powders that are sold as ‘home-made’: do the makers actually use them in their own homes? At Sangolda, on CHOGM road, there’s a table where some hard-working women sell ladoos, chaklyo, and other snacks. They sell and make a profit, I’m sure. The buyers are drivers and low-end tourists who aren’t likely to come back ever. I don’t think they’re trying to make a name so that people return just to eat the stuff again. No pride in the product, no name to be gained, no reputation at stake. But surely those who put labels to their product, who have invested in factories, machinery and manpower need to rethink quality? Sometimes I feel allowing the FDI into the country might be a good idea just so we get a feel of competition and improve our products. The debate of how it will affect the poor is a different story.

Coming back to the visitors: most tourists go home happy with the food eaten in the restaurants. But the take-away gifts, other than cashews and daarue, are lousy: the less said about the soaps-on-strings the better. 

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Off Season Guests

(5 May ’08)

            By April, in hotels, the last of the charters and the first of the Indian guests mingle. British laundryman meets Indian rice dealer.

            In the swimming pool, early in the morning, the gorah is pretending to be a maharajah, soaking in luxury, after a cuppa, building up an appetite for that scrumptious ‘breakky’ buffet, readying himself to beat the heat of the afternoon. Beside him, at the tiled edge of the water, squats our pot-bellied brownie from UP or Rajasthan or Tamil Nadu, toothbrush in hand, ready to gargle, ogling at the white skin.

            The next you know, the foreigner is up in the lobby, without the towel, calling up Guest Relations, his charter rep, his travel agent, the Press, to complain bitterly about his fellow hotel occupant. This East meets West doesn’t seem to work smoothly, at least when off-season meets dollar-payer.

            Whilst the gent from Lent enjoys his balcao-with-a-view, his Jabalpuri neighbour, who is given a suppliers’-entrance-facing room, ruins it perfectly. He urinates on the very beach that Marketing has ‘sold’ as a tropical paradise. No shyness there!! However, we’re prudes when it comes to wearing swimming trunks; indeed, men jump into sophisticated pools in their pyjamas and rubber slippers; their wives follow, fully clad in petticoats, ‘nighties’, wearing bangles and with oiled hair. Yup, I’ve seen it all. Of course, most of the time, the wives aren’t there, for these are ‘conferences’, an all-male affair. These males, over a hundred of them at times, are received with the ridiculous aarti-tikka that makes the customer-service girl’s hand ache. Unlike the Finns and Germans who get hysterically excited over the stringy garlands, the dark-skin is more interested in the freebies like soaps and shampoos. Maybe napkins and candle-holders. Or even curtains. Actually, at the end of the stay, it isn’t worth maroing the curtains because they’ve been used for wiping oily hands after daroo and pakodas. Goa means daroo and girls from Baina. The homework is well done, they know exactly what’s available where. If they haven’t done it, no problem, there’s always a staff who will ‘oblige’ for a price.

            When I worked in a five star deluxe resort, I hated Indian guests. I wasn’t surprised when an ex-colleague remarked to me that she still does. We didn’t usually get the up-market Amitabh Bacchan kinds. They came during the season or went to very exclusive places which no ordinary mortal could afford. For the rock-bottom prices the normal Indian paid, they suffered: the hotel used to get renovated/painted through the afternoons.  Most of the restaurants were shut, half the staff was laid off, and even the weather was cruel. Either they suffered the sultry heat of summer, or the unrelenting downpours of the monsoons. Sightseeing was restricted: of course, our conferences’ idea of sightseeing was taking an unabashed look at the female of the Caucasian species. No churches, thank you, nor temples nor bitches…excuse, beaches.

            There were some men, though, who actually struck up conversations with the foreigners. (Indian women don’t talk, apparently.) The topic was unvaryingly about income. ‘How-much-you-earn’ vs ‘what-you-do’. The brighter sparks ask “Why you came to India?”

            The times they are a-changing. A colleague from my present office in Mumbai said she was going to Goa for a weekend to read a book. She wasn’t interested in sight-seeing, partying, swimming. It mattered not to her whether she was by the sea or in an ex-mine. She wanted greenery and silence. She wanted solitude. She wanted to get a clean room, food on time in that room, and little else. She was going alone. No housework, no phone-calls, no tv, just to read and sleep. The little slaves that did the tasks invisibly were what she wanted to pay for. She could have done that in a Mumbai hotel, but that would have been expensive. So Goa really is turning into a getaway for a different kind of tourist.  Not five-stars, but the lesser hotels need to look at this kind of guest during the off-season, and keep them safe from the rice-and-hosiery dealer type of conferences.

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