A brief warning against taking my ramblings too seriously

Shortly before I left the states, Sarah Hoglund asked me to help her a bit with her thesis for her doctorate in British history. She's researching British burial practices, and Kolkata (once considered the 'Second City of the British Empire' by some former magistrate) has an amazing specimen in the Park St. Cemetery. It is now quite unkempt; the paths aren't mowed, nor the tropical trees trimmed, and there are people living in some of the more out-of-the-way monuments. But still, Park St cemetery is an impressive and mythical place that retains nearly all of the absurd, evil pompousness we've come to love in British imperialism. And there is something appropriate about the current state of the Park St. Cemetery. It represents, I think, how the city lives with its British heritage; not in a celebratory nor resentful manner, but with a healthy sense of posterity and pragmatism.

But, unfortunately for Sarah, this post isn't about Park St. (although I should tell her that I'll send her the photos as soon as I figure out how). It is about an interaction I had after I left the gates, where I had to tip both of the doormen who, as far as I could tell, didn't do anything except let alone the cemetery's residents.

I took a cab up to Park St, which is about 3 miles from my neighborhood, but I decided to wander west on foot until I found a place to eat. The sky grew menacingly dark, and all the sidewalk vendors hawking their puffed rice and plastic toys began packing their wares under narrow tarps and awnings. To avoid the oncoming rain, I ducked into a busy kabob-and-curry place and was pointed to a table. A few moments after I ordered, it began to absolutely pour. I watched through the open front as pedestrians head for cover, and rickshaw drivers trudged along through foot-deep puddles.

4 large Bengalis came down the stairs from the place above to go out for a smoke; but, seeing the rain, decided to wait it out, and all sat down at my table. The largest introduced himself as Hassan. The others sat and listened.
Hassan, in thickly accented and very good English (a post is pending about English in Kolkata): Where are you from?
Me: The US.
Him: Where?
Me: Virginia.
Him: Where?
Me: It's outside Washington DC.
Him: I know Virginia, that's why I'm asking.
Me: Oh, I'm from Herndon.
Him: I used to drive a taxi for IBM. I know Herndon.

Hassan, it turned out, first went to the US in 1982, where he flipped burgers (at "King Burger") for 3 bucks an hour. He then spent time driving the limo in DC, Philly, Chicago, and in New Jersey, and as a result knows all those cities better than I. Eventually, he got enough money to start a chain of 99-cent stores. At some point, he won a big lawsuit against Macy's, and had a big enough nest-egg to return to India.

(I don't know what the suit was about, but the only reasonable guess I have is racial discrimination.)

"Also," he said, "I once made $120 on slots with one quarter."
"You're a lucky man," I replied. Chuckling and back slapping from the four men ensued.

Now, he's back in Kolkata, working as an exporter--the same as Mr. Chatterjee, the fellow I live with, and a sign of economic privelege. He had been out to dinner with the other 3 men, who were his importers in Bangladesh. The importers, it turns out, had paid because, ahem, the youngest man "is interested in chickies," as Hassan put it, "to be frank with you. He wants me to find him a girl."

"Well, with your luck, he should do alright," I said. Further gaffawing.

What followed was a fascinating series of observations of America, from the point of view of Hassan, a kind of Bengali de Toqueville.

"Before I went to America, everyone said the American people are so promiscuous. But actually the American people are very cautious people (pronounced here "kyooshus"). You know in America, you can't do anything with out the girl's consent. And you know, the Americans always use a condom because they are so scared of HIV/AIDS."

The fellow to Hassan's left stirred. "You can't do anything without the girl's consent?"

"No, nothing," Hassan insisted. "And you know what else? In America, it is very difficult to find a girl, yes, you know this, yes?" I agreed. The guy next to Hassan pondered these things with eyebrows raised, nodding.

"The American people are a good people, especially New York. You have all kinds of people--Indians, Bangladesh, Italian, Irish." Hassan, it turns out, rather likes the Irish. A few Irish cops in NY used to sit in his store and play lotto and have cold drinks. "You can always tell the Irish people, because they are gentle. They have this look." I, naturally, took the opportunity to disclose my 1/4 Irish heritage.

"You see!" said Hassan. Chucking, laughing. "You know, in American, the people do not discriminate. They like the Indian people. And you know, before I went to America, people told me that the Black people were a bad people. But I found out that the Black people are a good people. The only thing is they have an inferiority complex."

"You think so?" I asked, trying mask my discomfort while withholding my endorsement.

"Yes, you know this, yes?"

"Well, I think there is a lot of discrimination against Black people--it's pretty dangerous to be black in America."

"Yes yes, but you know, the Black people like the Irish people because they are so gentle." His ethnic observations continued--Italian people good; Spanish, nasty. Hassan even spoke a little Spanish, although I mostly couldn't understand him.

"In America, there is a law, that if a customer buys something for 99 cents, and you don't give him a penny, he can sue you." I understand why the custom of exact change might surprise a Bengali; a cab driver later that day insisted that he had no change, so I ended up paying Rs. 500 for a Rs. 60 cab fare. Hassan continued, "The rule is, the customer is always right. They take a bite of the cake and then"--Hassan mimed taking a bite--"They say 'no no, it's not good' and you give them their money back."

"But the American people are a good people, you know--you do what you want, no one will bother you. If you break the law, pfft-you are gone. But if you obey the law you are the best person in the world."

******

It's not that anything Hassan said was completely wrong, although I found some of it pretty offensive. It's just that I would never cast America in the terms he used. I will agree with one of Hassan's remarks: "The American people and the Indian people are really very similar." I suppose this is true. They are both massive, culturally dense, complex, and diverse societies. And in this, they are both countries that frantically resist simplification. But as visitors, Hassan and I both have the same need to categorize and simplify--it is the way human beings navigate social situations, I think.

And furthermore, as my conversation with Hassan demonstrated so literally, learning about India is really learning about myself.

So, heretofore, be wary of any statement that starts "The thing about Kolkata is..."