More Indian Odds than Ends

Thank you, guys. I am buying those screens and pronto.

No, Nick, no gas stove or anything because my little flat doesn't have a kitchen. It's not even supposed to be a flat. It's an office. Though I suppose I could get a table top burner...just don't need one for anything other than coffee. Maybe I'm just happy bitching about it. Dunno.

I'd thought nothing of it; I've gotten to know a handful of autowalas parked near my flat pretty well. Sometimes I have the 30 roops for the fare and sometimes I don't. They know I'll pay them back -- and that I'm paying them too much to begin with! A young Muslim autowala with a long, straight beard and a really kind, crooked-toothed smile is my favorite. I've treated him pretty well because he doesn't have a full-time gig. He just takes over the tuk-tuk when the other guy is gone or sick.

Anyway, I was bitching to Abdul the autowala the other day how I had no damn money in my account, how the accountant at my office was taking forever paying me, etc. I asked him if he'd lend me a couple hundred rupees till pay day and he lent it to me. I asked him several times if he was POSITIVE he could afford to lend it to me. He said it was no problem, showed me he had some more money in his wallet, so I didn't feel weird about it. That was a few days ago. This morning he dropped me off in front of the office and I gave him the two hundred and demanded he take an extra 50 in juice.

When Abdul pulled away, I noticed several coworkers watching the exchange. Prasat asked me why I gave him so much money and I explained. He seemed utterly shocked that I'd done this, that I'd borrowed money from my autowala. The story got around my office fast, but I had to keep correcting people, saying that HE lent ME the money and I was just paying him back. For some reason, folks just couldn't believe this had happened, as if I was saying I'd been to the moon and back. Apparently, you're either not supposed to borrow money from people in India or no one ever lends money, because people keep telling the story to each other, then staring at me in wonder.

What's the deal? I make a 'fox paws?'

I guess it is a bit unusual. The other way around would be more normal, in that the rich office guy, especially foreign, would be expected to be richer than the poor auto guy.

But hey, surely your colleagues have got over being shocked by you by now?


... Although, come to think of it, we haven't!

Well, I've been hoping that you're right, that that's all it is. I've been a bit worried there's some faux pax involved. If it's just what you're saying, Nick, then I'm all meh! about it.

that's one less "rich foreigner" myth busted!

Now that people know you're spendthrift, you can't borrow money from your co-workers and they from you.

Good work.

And soon the neighbourhood will take pity on you and offer to do things for you for free where before you overpaid.

Nice reverse psychology, chief.

Well done!

Lets see how long the affection lasts now!

God, I wish that were the situation. I'm so unbelievably stupid with money that you would probably explode watching me go about my day. Got a raise recently , so I get paid enough -- at least by Indian standards. I have virtually no bills; even my food is paid for. Yet I blow rps. 45k a month on Red Bull, cigarettes, and whatever other garbage I can find...and all in the first couple weeks after pay day. Then I'm broke again. Sadly, this was the case when I was making 3, 4, sometimes 5 thousand bucks a month back in the States, too. I literally hate money. Maybe that's why I try to get rid of it so quickly.

unbelievable! Just when I was removing you from the mental stereotype of an average American going by your antics and preferences, you jump right back in. Burning cash.

hoddoyoudoit?

Got me. I grew up poor as shit, yet I have no respect for money. I'm not playing the angel here, but I'm also a sucker for giving it away. Drove my coworkers mad when I spent my salary on fireworks for the local ragamuffins on Diwali.

I will always be broke; it's just in my nature, I guess. It may be a stupid thing, but I can't help but think the opposite is much MUCH more ridiculous. Especially in India, there seem to be all these guys who do nothing, spend nothing, saving up for some marriage in the distant future where they'll continue to spend nothing and do nothing, pinching their rupees like lifeblood. I just can't imagine such a Scotched life. (Yes, I just made a derogatory remark about the Scots. My apologies to the skirted men in the room.)

I suppose there's a happy medium between cheap and too indulgent, but I'll be damned if I can find it.

Hi billyshake,

This would be considered very, very strange by Indian standards - you borrowing money from him.

There is a 'system' where you have accounts with shopkeepers and grocers, and you don't pay until the end of the month. Same with some Pan-wallahs, once you establish your credibility, you could probably slide for a couple of weeks.

Personal loans - well, they are personal and just depends on the relationship. Generally speaking, taking a loan from someone less well-off than yourself would be strange in any country, no?

But, thanks for sharing! I'm sure you will continue to have adventures that will be very interesting to IM members.

Don't stop! (Like you needed that encouragement )

for some reason you reminded me of Ken Kesey's "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" Randle Patrick McMurphy.

And for the life of me I can't think whether that's a compliment or something darker.

If it offends, I'm sorry.

I so get this, and it continues to confound my contemporaries, colleagues, and a core group of friends with whom I entered the legal profession through a highly coveted "springboard." They don't understand why I'm simply not motivated to make more money! Or why I choose to live in a studio apartment and don't covet a larger space. Larger? Why? By my calculations, I can only be in one room at a time anyway. And just how much stuff does one really need? I've always liked the goal of winnowing one's possessions down to no more than 20 boxes, which could be pretty generous, I guess, depending on their size. I did this once, just three years ago, and would like to do it again.

I'm less confounded by the savers, though, than I am the acquisitors (acquireres?). My anti-consumerism has gotten so acute that I've developed an irrational hostility towards...shopping bags. You know the kind, like the Saks Fifth Avenue bag with a drawing of a woman gazing into a store window display and the marketing slogan "I want it." When I see one, I feel...revulsion. And a little sad. (Equally irrational is my discomfort--no, embarrassment--over the word "merchandise". ) And what of so-called status-symbol logos? Why? Really. Why? And if it's a knock off, could there be anything more pathetic? Like Billy, no angel stuff here, I just really don't get it. And I'm glad I don't. (Of course, unlike Billy, I live in a proper apartment, however small, as opposed to in an office. Call me a material girl.)

In the end, Billy, if you're happy with your Red Bull and fireworks for the kids (and the new meaning you've given to "home office"), why characterize it as being "stupid" about money? Sounds pretty smart to me.

20 boxes, Tacita!? Sheesh. I haven't had 20 boxes since I was married...at that time, I had 20 boxes of JUST SNOWGLOBES. Jeezus, I hated them snowglobes.

I have one suitcase and a small backpack. Everything fits with room to spare. If I need something, I can usually pull it out of my ass, so to speak. I once "came to" on a boat belonging to a Vietnamese floating village. I had my arm around a Kiwi woman whom I didn't remember meeting the evening before. We were somewhere near Kratie where the world's only freshwater dolphins poke there alien, almost people-faced, heads out of the water to eyeball lost Westerners and say, "Man, you two are far too high to be in this neck of the Mekong." I agreed with that dolphin. We didn't have any money. For three days, it went like this, and it was very exciting. We were welcomed to dinner served by people who couldn't afford much, but the Mekong is plentiful and there was river fish and prawn-like things to spare. We talked our way onto a bus in Stung Treng to head south to Phnom Penh; on the way, we were given free waters when we explained our situation; one kid gave us two large rice balls with stinky fish paste on the inside. It was a hoot.

I never did do a summer of train hopping, but always wanted to. It would be hard, but there's something romantic about it nonetheless. The way the economy is going, maybe I'll change my name to Boxcar Billy and hit the rails.

None taken, amigo. As long as no Indians smother me in the night, I'll be fine...though, it seems the chances are slightly higher now that I live in India, huh?

I want to live in a huge house.

My dream is to be able to come across a corridor, even a whole floor, no, a whole wing and think, "I haven't been there for a long time". I'd like a house big enough to get lost in.

I'd like it to be filled with stuff.

I'd like it to be filled with mostly old stuff, some of which should be valuable, much of which can just be miscellaneous. However, there should also be an excess of very-up-to-date gadgetry (not to mention an entire engineering workshop). The kitchen, in particular, would not be excessively flash, but would contain every useful gadget that ever graced an Indian or European kitchen shop. Except for all that garlic-gadget rubbish; apart from the simple squeezer, every gadget associated with garlic is ridiculous and useless.

It is particularly necessary that kitchen drawers should contain some things that one picks up and wonders what they are, what they do, or what they might once have been part of.

...And that there is a mouldy carrot at the back of the fridge, but that is universal, from a bedsit to a palace, every fridge has a mouldy carrot. That's just the law, isn't it?

and why do they look like cat poo when they go mouldy?


I dont like gadgets or strive for material stuff but like enough money to pay my bills ontime and the odd treat (and a holiday in India) We are often asked why we live where we do and dont get something better usually by his Mother!
("Oh its so awful where you live" but its not actually)
we bought a ex-council house 20 years ago to do up and sell....its on the edge of...wait for it a council estate! so we get hardly any snooty visitors and its great..
I would love a huge old house like Nick said and a fast car and the body of a fit blonde (and the fella to match!) but would I be as happy as I am???? hmmmmm.

If you live there do you have to take anti malairia pills all the time and if not what do you do if you get malaria?