Travel talk

I will be travelling all of this week. Going back to India for a while.
Oh dial up internet, here I come :-)

KBCI Kerala-Born Confused Individual

My non Indian friends may get confused with the place names, languages and Indian culture-specific references. So read at your own risk :-)

Some of you may have heard about ABCDs, American-Born Confused Desis.
I am a Keralite by birth, though I have never felt like a true Malayalee. Maybe it is because I have lived there only for less than a fifth of my life. I have lived in Kerala, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Chennai, Bangalore and New Jersey. Somewhat in that order.

I love Kerala, the smells, the sights and the people. I love our sing song Malayalam language, the rich religious atmosphere, the gorgeous backwaters and the food, oh the food. But I do not like living in Kerala. It is too stifling. How can I live in a place where people go to sleep at 8 pm? How could I live in a place where TV soaps are the primary source of entertainment? How can I live in a place where all women should be inside their house by 6pm or they are automatically considered *loose*? And the hartals? Let us not forget the hartals; Keralites automatically work less than their fellow Indians because they get atleast three days off every month thanks to politicians. There is a lot of political unrest in Kerala and political activist is always getting insulted or killed. Now how do they protest this? Is it by writing in memorium letters in the national papers like we expect a fully literate state to do? No, we declare ourselves a holiday. We stay home from schools and work and vehicles are not allowed on roads. Every state level hartal apparently costs Kerala 4000 crore each time, which is money we do not have. Sorry for going off on a tangent but ask any Keralite about hartals and that is what she would say.

Anyways, getting back to the places I have lived. The next place is Dubai, in the UAE. Most people know Dubai as just a popular shopping destination. I spent the majority of my life there so I obviously I have a different prespective on it. When I first came to Dubai, I remember seeing a lot of tired brown faces-most of them poor Indians and Bangladeshis. It used to be called 'The Gulf' by the poor Malayalees back home, it was a place where they could maybe make some money to send back home to their family. An opportunity for a better life. But by the time I left Dubai, it had changed too much, it was too garish, too money oriented. It was developing like a country on steroids, too fast and probably unhealthy.

The next spot is Abu Dhabi, also in the UAE. My stay in Abu Dhabi was very brief. I think of Abu Dhabi as Dubai's plain big sister. Dubai gets all the attention even though Abu Dhabi is actually the elder sister(leader of the Emirates) and she does feel a little neglected.

Then back to India for a while. I moved to Chennai in search of a job. I hated living in Chennai. I do not know Tamil, so that makes automatically makes me half a person there. And temperatures of 110 °F without air conditioning? No thank you.


After that, a good long stay in Bangalore. I was very comfortable in Bangalore. You can be yourself in Bangalore. I had my first taste of independent life in Bangalore, the place has done more for my development as a person than any other place. On the other hand, Bangalore does has terrible traffic problems and terrible crime rates. And there is no way I could afford to buy a home in Bangalore at the real estate rates there. So I have no plans of settling down there either.

Then I moved to the United States. Or specifically New Jersey. New Jersey has been nice to me but has a way of making me feel out of place. I do not think I will feel comfortable enough to settle down here. It is a great place but it does not feel like home.

So there! Are there similar people out there who do not really know what to call themselves. What are your experiences?

I shopped victoriously

As a Dave Ramsey fan, I wanted to expand my library of DR stuff. But the Dave Ramsey CDs and books from Dave's site are prohibitively expensive. So I thought I would check out ebay for these items. I looked at many bids, patiently ( rather unusual for me!).
Most of the bids ended approx $45, which I just wasn't willing to pay. Fortunately for me, after a lot of waiting and watching and bidding, I was able to get the book and audio library for just $15 + $5shipping. Yup. I'm feeling rather good about myself today.

My new best friend

Hi everyone, let me introduce you to my new best friend. Her name is Vicodine. She's so important to me that sometimes I've felt that I couldn't live without her.

Heh.

No, I'm not a druggie, just a poor woman recovering from two VERY painful rootcanal procedures. For the most part, I have healthy teeth, teeth that have never required any dentistry for 26years. But the last one year has seen me extracting two impacted wisdom teeth, treating a dry socket and getting two root canals. And where does all this take place? Is it in India where I have my own dear dentist cousin who would do all this for free? Or is it in the US where dentistry is most expensive? Its so freaking expensive!! Thank God for company provided dental insurance; but the copay is still a bitch. I don't know which is more painful - the dentist drilling my head or watching my husband paying the copay. :-)

Don't underestimate my capability to withstand pain, I've had my both knee caps dislocated 5 times, 2 ankle fractures, 1 wrist fracture. And more minor accidents than I can even remember. The most pain I've ever endured has got to be when I dislocated my knee cap and then walked 2 miles home because the bloody auto guy decided to quote more seeing my limp. This was Kormangala, Bangalore where it's generally accepted that auto drivers are Satan's children. No really!

Yippeeee!!!

Last Sunday evening, I was checking if any of the bloggers in my blogroll had posted anything over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had won the giveaway at Chief Family Officer. This is the first time I'm winning anything with just dumb luck so this is a new feeling for me. :-)

D and I are trying to get on the Dave Ramsey bandwagon and we could do with more personal finance books. So here's a big THANK YOU to Cathy and her great blog.

Btw, I know that Dave appears on Faux Business channel but what do you know; I am apparently fiscally conservative. Surprise, surprise!

Garage sales are soooooo coool!

We were looking to furnish our house but didn't want to spend a lot of money because we are not planning on settling in this country. The other day we went to a garage sale & drove away with a used Dining table & 4 chairs for $30. We were able to bring it home in 10mins in the car itself. I'm sure the set would have cost atleast $100 had we got it through Craigslist.
Some other good finds were a knife set that costs $125 on Amazon for $5 and it still looks new. And the best yet(for me), 4 books for $1!!!

Sometimes, life is just so hard. I never expected it to be this way.
Of course, my problems are probably frivolous compared to the really unfortunate people in this world. I mean, I'm young, healthy, educated & living in one of the most developed countries in the world. All members of my family are fairly healthy and we all can afford houses, cars, laptops... But my problems are my problems & they affect me nonetheless.

Less than perfect

It’s a bright and sunny Sunday afternoon. There’s nothing good on TV, I’m not in the mood for a book so feminine logic dictates that I go shopping. I decide to go to Forum; I’ve not been there in a while. I like the place because I feel comfortable even when I’m shopping alone. Most places in my locality are still not very single-woman friendly.

I decide to start at the Westside store, the displays look good. But just as I step in, the detector goes off. Confused, I wait for someone to come and do something. A couple of store-employees casually look in my direction but don’t react. So I assume the detector is malfunctioning and walk in. The store is quite crowded which isn’t surprising for a Sunday. I look at some scented candles and potpourri but nothing really catches my fancy. I start walking out of the store without purchasing anything.

As expected, the detector rings again. This time, the store manager comes running. She quickly reaches where I’m standing and stops me from going any further by holding on to my bag. To avoid making a scene, I allow her to take it from me. She opens the bag and starts inspecting its contents. I look around but none of the employees come forward.

Looks like my defense is up to me,

“The same thing happened” I start stupidly. Collecting my thoughts, I try again “I mean, when I entered...”

“Just a minute, madam”, she snaps

Oh well, at least she still calls me madam.

She takes out things from the handbag and places them on the table beside the entrance. My face wash, hair-band, compact, credit card slips, company id & tag, tissue paper, comb, lipstick and purse out in the open. Not nice. I’ve always thought of myself as reasonably confident but I feel my cheeks burning. I feel humiliated, violated and angry.

Needless to say, she doesn’t find anything that belongs to the store. Undaunted, she calls her colleague and states

“I looked everywhere, but can’t find it”

That’s because there is nothing to find. She doesn’t say “I looked everywhere, but there is nothing here”. This lady seems sure that I’ve flicked something. Maybe she hasn’t heard that all are innocent till proved guilty.

“Did you look in all the compartments?” her friend asks

“Yeah, I did” she replies

She starts feeling the lining of the bag.

I suddenly realize what happened.

“I think the purse set off the alarm….” I say

Before I can complete the sentence, she takes my purse from the table. It’s obviously not new enough to be the store’s property. She puts it through the detector. And it goes off again. I had bought the purse from LandMark 9 months back but some-how the magnetic strip embedded in the purse got activated again. My friends who are regular LandMark customers always complain that LandMark doesn’t deactivate the magnetic strip properly. I must remember to speak to LandMark about this.

She puts the bag minus the purse through the machine and it’s silent.

“Did the detector go off when you entered?”

NOW she asks me.

“Yes it did” I reply “That’s what I have been trying to tell you”

“Oh! Ok then. Sorry for the inconvenience”

And she stuffs my things into the bag. She didn’t look apologetic, just a tad irritated. I’m willing to bet that she recites the ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ litany at least 10 times a day. She would have to, being as bad at her job as she is.

Some shoppers look at me with curious eyes and smug expressions. Wonder if they know what really happened. Some others look sympathetic. Others couldn’t care less. I take my bag and start walking out of the store. My eyes are getting wet with tears. I was raised by middle-class parents who have firm views on stealing. Even the implication that I shop-lifted is quite upsetting.

I should probably tell you how I looked that day. I had on shabby jeans and an old top. I had worn no makeup and had a non-branded handbag in hand; my looks are purely south-Indian. I don’t have model looks; nor am I even remotely fashionable. Being 10kgs over my ideal weight probably doesn’t help my image either.

Is there a connection between how I looked that day and the incident? Before you decide, read on.

On the Oprah show aired last Sunday (I think episodes are aired here 2 months after it’s shown in US), Oprah discussed what happened to her at the Hermès boutique in Paris.

An employee of the Hermès store turned away Oprah stating that the shop was in the process of being shut down. But Oprah thinks that it had to do with the fact that she looked like a poor black woman on that day having had no entourage or make-up. For more details, you can go to (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/21/entertainment/main871083.shtml)

Here’s what Oprah said about the incident

"Everybody who's ever been snubbed because you were not chic enough or the right class or the right color or whatever — I don't know what it was — you know that that is very humiliating and that is exactly what happened to me."

Now, I know I am not Oprah and people can give me lots of flak for drawing a parallel between the two incidents. But isn’t that the moral here? Shouldn’t someone who is less than glamorous looking get the same kind of treatment as her beautiful, rich and sophisticated sister? I can understand if the distinction is made on the ramp or a beauty pageant but in a FREAKING CLOTHING STORE?

I would be lying if I said that this incident hasn’t affected me. I’ve realized that I am not as secure as I thought I was. I avoid Westside like the plague, but that really isn’t a loss because I’ve never really liked their stuff. And I get slightly anxious whenever I walk through the detector at any store. And that’s not easy when you are addicted to shopping.

Now the question(s) is;

Would the store manager have treated me differently had I looked prettier, richer and more elegantly dressed?

Did she know that I was an easy target looking at my simple pony-tail & Bata shoes?

Would she have given me a benefit of a doubt had she seen designer brands on my person?

And, would the employee at Hermès have admitted a celebrity like Barbara Streisand or Jennifer Aniston in the same situation?

Wasn’t Oprah turned away because they didn’t recognize her and thought she couldn’t afford Hermès’ in any case?

The answer unfortunately is a resounding YES.