Pay role number or Personality?

A visit to the supermarket. Nothing special. I just went to the usual place and bought usual things. With my basket full of things I waited at the cash counter for my turn. After paying I took my basket to the counter, where they check the billed items with the items in the basket and put your purchase in shopping bags. This is a quite slow process, I feel. Many a times, it had cost me lots of patience to still take the shopping bags from the girl at the counter with a smile. That day, while waiting I used the time to have a closer look at the girl. Young she was, she did her work slowly and concentrated. She was wearing a maroon colour overcoat like all employees. When I had almost turned my attention to something else, I suddenly noticed the badge pinned at the coat. I focused my eyes and read:

May I help You
No. 123

The usual shopping routine was disturbed. How ironic to keep a badge, which on the one hand offered personalized help to the customer, but on the other hand had the help come from a number. Number 123. It sounded more like a tag for a machine, a robot, but not for a human being.
A recent piece of information came back to my mind. Someone had talked to these young girls working at the supermarket. And they had told her, how they were all staying together in a dormitory, had very few leave days, and got a meagre salary for all this hardship.
Such working conditions are not an individual case. When a fire had struck a huge shop in Chennai one night and an employee died in the flames, the newspapers suddenly reported about very similar working conditions to those of the supermarket girls in Kerala.
When I read about it at that time, I was convinced that it was a phenomenon of big cities, never thought of the possibility of similar working conditions in tiny towns in Kerala. But it seems a much more common phenomenon. Ironically, this supermarket even belongs to a chain, whose concept is to offer consumer-friendly prices, below the maximum retail price. But this concept unfortunately does not seem to include an alternative approach to employment conditions.

The girl handed over my shopping bags to me. This time it wasn’t difficult to give her a smile and a thank you, despite her not having been the fastest that day either. I tried to interact with her as a person, and not a mere number.

On the Road with Comrade, UFO and the Holy Family

Comparing the public transport, I must say that especially rural areas definitely have a better connectivity in Kerala than in Germany. It is a quite easy and well organized means of transport to get around various places in Kerala. Of course, the comfort of the travel is debatable: To get a seat you have to be either lucky or traveling at the right time (the noon heat, when no one else is interested to spend time on a bus for example); whether you have to share a small bench with a woman, who is equally round as you, is still a question – in most cases your knees will anyway suffer if your height is more than 1,5 m since the benches are arranged so close to each other in order to save space. If you don’t catch a seat, your height will again decide about your travel comfort, the taller you are the more you will sway around the poles, you are desperately hanging on to, at every turn or pothole.

Anyway, before entering the bus you need to know some basic hints: In Kerala you find the Kerala State Road and Transport Corporation (KSRTC) busses and the busses operated by various private parties. The KSRTC busses are easily recognizable because of their bright red color. Private busses are much more individual and creative in their design. Apart from various color variations, the most striking aspect of them are their names: Very popular are St. Mary, St. George, St. Jude and other saints, or -in one go- the (entire) Holy Family, Fatimah, or Lakshmi as reflections of faith. Lulu’s and A. Brothers’ seem rather reminiscence of ownership. But then you have the truly creative ones: Comrade (any political affinities?), Passenger (thought those were inside?), UFO (any relation to the driving style?), Galaxy (safely to the next town would be enough for me!) – to name just a selected few.

A last one, essential to survive in Kerala busses: Bus travel is a gender sensitive issue. Before entering the bus, one should find out the seating arrangements – are the women (who still get usually less space allotted in busses) seated in the front or back of the bus? Mostly, for KSRTC busses the women’s seats will be in the back, while for private busses they will be in the front. But exceptions from the rule are always possible. Negligence can make the journey either way uncomfortable – women might have to bear the stares and what not all trying to survive in the men’s section, while men have to fear the almost violent action taken by women to secure their space.

I am marrying a family – part II / Ich heirate eine Familie – 2. Teil

Last Sunday a small scene finally convinced me to have a few words on an amusing fact about different cultural concepts:

Scene no. 1 – Years ago, me still an innocent newcomer to India, I tried to engage in small talk with a small girl at a children’s camp. I asked her, how many brothers and sisters she had. She replied promptly: 12! After overcoming my initial shock, I tried to ask, how many of them were boys and how many girls. Then the girl started explaining: Alice Aunty has 2 boys and 1 girl. Beena Aunty has 2 girls. …What an insight to an astonished German student!

Scene no. 2 – Last Sunday I am introduced to a youth member in a church. While we are talking another young man enters into the circle and starts engaging in the conversation. Pradeep just mentions, that it is his brother. For a split second my mind goes off the conversation and on to notice the striking difference in the two people’s appearance. But ok, siblings can look different, can’t they. A minute later, another young man comes and stands on the other side of him, and again, he just says, “This is my other brother.” This time I can’t help it but my mind seriously rebels, since the third one again doesn’t seem to have anything in common with either of the previous 2 people.
Just when I started to try and come to terms with this amazing dissimilarity among siblings, the information became complete: the one was a maternal cousin brother and the other a cousin of the paternal side. Relief for the tortured German soul!

It is quite striking how different cultural concepts are so deeply rooted in a person that even after many years, I was still not prepared that the word ‘brother’ could be used in any other sense than for an own brother, born by the same mother.
On the other hand, I must say that in many cases I also wonder whether the relation between first cousins is always so intense and close as a relation between own siblings. At least in my case, I can say that the relation between me and my cousins comes in no way close to the relation I share with my siblings. Therefore, I still feel a hesitation to extend the use of the word to other than one’s own sisters and brothers.

(Zusammenfassung: Ein junger Mann stellt mir zwei andere junge Männer als seine Brüder vor. Die drei sehen so unterschiedlich aus, dass ich erleichtert bin, als schließlich klar wird, es sind Cousins. Ein junges Mädchen erzählt mir von ihren 12 Geschwistern, die sich schliesslich auch als die Kinder ihrer Tanten entpuppen. Ich bin so daran gewöhnt, dass Bruder und Schwester immer leibliche Geschwister bezeichnet, dass es mir schwerfällt, mich von dieser weitergefassten Verwendung nicht irreführen zu lassen.)

"Lambada" or the sound of going backwards

Friends of ours bought a car, second hand. We were invited to join them for their first ride and we went out together for dinner. After many rides on a scooter through the murderous traffic of Chennai, we all enjoyed the nice and comfortable car ride instead. When we reached the restaurant, we had to reverse the car to park. And there it was: like many cars in India, especially the little older ones (for the new ones you rarely notice it nowadays and you start to think that it’s a gone by fashion of sorts), this one had a tune when putting in the reverse gear. And this was not any tune, not some Bollywood movie song, We wish you a Merry Christmas etc.; this car had the tune of Lambada! The children of our friends said, what a stupid song this was, and which song after all. But for me, Lambada was the ultimate sound of going backwards, rather in a metaphorical sense.

Going back to the year 2000: A student in my early 20s, I decided to spend a year of my studies abroad. Somehow a sudden boldness and sense of adventure took me to India. After arriving here, in the initial stage, things seemed truly strange to me. Even the basic things of life seemed difficult to perform. There were many things happening around me, which were absolutely new to me. I have to admit, a feeling of being lost crept in. One Sunday morning, when I felt so helpless, I hadn’t even managed to go to church somewhere, I suddenly heard a sound. Sitting lonely in my room, I was unexpectedly surrounded by a very familiar tune: the tune of Lambada! This soothing sound of familiarity helped me to develop some courageous and step out of my room. When trying to find out the source of Lambada, it took me a few seconds. I looked around, till I finally understood, that it came from that car which was this moment reversing in front of my residence. I smiled. I had sorted out one more mystery of everyday life in India, and I had found a tune bridging the gap between life at home and life in India.

Going back to the year 1990: We were in our sweet teens, trying hard to grow up or at least appear grown up. Especially during birthday parties we were not satisfied any longer with playing ‘Hide and Seek’ and eating cake, potato chips and chocolates. We wanted to act a bit more sophisticated. Slowly, also an understanding of the difference and yet the attraction between boys and girls entered into our thinking, at a quiet innocent level still, but nevertheless. Working hard on this image change, there came a song to our rescue. Lambada! A hit song by a French music group, that had truly swept the charts and was absolutely popular during those days. The music video featured a popular Brazilian couple dance. Luckily, the parents of one classmate had learned the basics of this quite sensual dance. And one fine birthday party at their house, you could see all of us trying hard to follow the instructions of the mother of our friend. We were really trying hard! The two boys who were also invited to the birthday party were highly sought after dance partners. And we felt like we had grown up quite a bit, just during this one afternoon.

Though it might really be an outdated tune, and our friends’ kids rightly demand another tune if one at all for reversing the car, for me it was heaven to listen once again to this tune which has been part of my life for a long time now.

“Ich heirate eine Familie” - "I am marrying a Family"

In letzter Zeit muss ich immer mal wieder an den Titel dieser Vorabendserie aus meiner Kinderzeit denken. Der Werbegrafiker oder war er Architekt Peter Weck, der sich zu einem Leben mit Thekla Carola Wied und ihren drei Kindern, namentlich im Gedächtnis geblieben ist mir nur Julia Biedermann, entschliesst und wie er mit dem plötzlichen Trubel von drei Kindern umgeht. Ich habe sie geliebt diese Serie, damals, habe keine Folge verpasst.

Ob diese kindliche Vorliebe wohl eine Vorahnung war, eine Andeutung auf das, was mir später im Leben begegnen würde? Man weiss es nicht. Aber ehrlich gesagt kann ich mich an irgendwelche Inhalte nur noch sehr schemenhaft erinnern, obwohl ich, wie gesagt, keine Folge verpasst habe, damals. Nur der Titel, der ist hängen geblieben.

Heute fällt er mir immer dann ein, wenn gerade mal wieder meine Familie „zuschlägt“. Nein, nein, nicht meine deutsche, die beschauliche mit Vater, Mutter und zwei Geschwistern und sehr beschränkten verwandtschaftlichen Verwicklungen. Nein, meine Familie das sind in diesem Fall die beiden Clans (schwiegermütterlicher und schwiegerväterlicher seits), die ich mit meinem Eheversprechen gegenüber meinem Mann sozusagen mit-geheiratet habe. Hätte ich damals schon gewusst, wer alles so an meinem Mann dranhängt, ich hätte zumindest einen ganz schönen Schreck bekommen, glaube ich. Zum Glück gehörte die Einsicht in die weitere Verwandtschaft zu den vielen Dingen, die ich mir für nach der Hochzeit aufgehoben hatte.

Mein Bruder hat die Sachlage gleich von Grund auf durchschaut und sagte mir, er wolle eine Datenbank mit Einträgen über sämtliche Familienmitglieder, damit er sich bei weiteren Besuchen in Indien nicht blamieren würde. Nur wenige indische Verwandte wissen es, aber eine beträchtliche Zahl von ihnen findet sich tatsächlich in einer Datenbank. Allerdings habe ich diese schon nach kurzer Zeit im Kopf weitergeführt, besonders weil die Einordnung vieler Verwandter doch eher in die Kategorie „wir sind irgendwie verwandt, und es reicht, das zu wissen“ fällt.

Die Familien sind jedenfalls weitverzweigt. Wo auch immer man in Indien (oder auf der Welt) hinkommt, ein Verwandter/eine Verwandte ist bestimmt nicht weit. Ich mag dieses Netzwerk. Nicht, dass man sich jedes Wochenende zum Kaffeetrinken trifft, aber man weißvon der Existenz des/der anderen. Besonderes der älteren Generation kommt hierbei eine wichtige Rolle zu, sich gegenseitig anzurufen, zu besuchen und auf dem Laufenden zu halten.

Immens wichtige Gelegenheiten, um sich dem/der anderen wieder ins Gedächtnis zu rufen, sind Hochzeiten. Da auf einer indischen Hochzeit die GESAMMTE Verwandtschaft (und irgenwen vergisst man doch immer) eingeladen wird, hat man gute Chancen mit dieser oder jenem ein bisschen small talk zu halten, sich eventuell (wieder) vorzustellen etc.

Eher an individualistische Lebensgestaltung gewöhnt, mutet es zunächst eventuell ein wenig einengend an, aber bei so einem Verwandtschaftsgeflecht wird einem nie lagnweilig. Es ist mir mittlerweile wichtig geworden, zu wissen was die zahlreichen Cousins und Cousinen so machen, wen man vielleicht mal besuchen oder anrufen sollte, weil er oder sie krank ist. Verwandtschaft kann man sich nicht aussuchen, und von daher sind Zusammentreffen auch immer spannend, da man sich mit einem Haufen ganz verschiedener Leute arrangieren muss und man mit Sicherheit enorm im Bereich sozialer Kompetenzen lernt.

Man darf, glaube ich, nicht den Fehler machen, Verwandte und Freunde/Freundinnen zu verwechseln (die gesellschaftlichen Bindungen sind einfach ganz andere), aber wenn man das beachtet, können einem die „lieben Verwandten“ das Leben ein ganzes Stück reicher machen. Und ganz wie Peter Weck in der Serie habe ich es nicht bereut, eine Familie geheiratet zu haben.

(Synopsis: Based on the title of a popular German tv serial in the 80s „I am marrying a family“, about a man who gets married to a woman with three children in their teens, I am reflecting about the rich family life in an Indian family including the wide-spread net of relatives. This is definitely a stark contrast experience for me to my family life in Germany, mostly centred around my nuclear family. But I recommend this as a very entertaining as well as feeling cared about experience.)

Multi-lingual blogging

Dear readers,
having put some thought in it, how to actually make my blog available for as many people as possible, I decided to try and keep my blog bi-lingual. There are a lot of people who won’t be able to follow a mono-lingual blog, and yet might be interested in my topics. Therefore, I will have selected entries in German.

Hallo,
Nach einigen Überlegungen habe ich mich entschlossen zwischendurch auch Beiträge auf Deutsch einzustellen. Vielleicht macht das mein Blog interessanter für ein breiteres Publikum und leichter zugänglich als ein rein Englisches. Viel Spaß beim Lesen!

To queue or not to queue – or how to queue?

Recently, when someone talked about what aspects a critical view on Indian society would contain, one of my (Indian) relatives instantly said, “Indians don’t know how to queue – go to the post office, go to any place where a queue is supposed to be formed, you will find people pushing, entering from the wrong side, overtaking…all without batting an eyelash”. My relative seemed seriously enraged about this matter.

Used to perfect German queues, one behind the other, a straight line (and if someone tried to break this perfect order, you can be sure the rest of the queue will teach this someone soon, that in a German queue there is no foul play), I have to admit, feelings of disbelief, astonishment, annoyance, slight anger overcome me once in a while, trying to await my turn patiently in a queue but having to realize that no one else seems to be interested in any kind of orderly queuing.

Then, I went to pay our electricity bill a couple of days ago. And there I suddenly seemed to be so close to the dream of a perfect queue: they had installed a token vending machine, a display and speaker system. I was greeted by the sound of a female voice announcing: “Token no. 45, counter no. 2”. I excitedly noticed this innovation, was reminded of municipal offices in Germany, where the same system is used. Instantly, I went to the machine, took my token number. Other people came into the room, some took a token, some came straight to the counters to queue and pay. But they were instantly told to go and collect their token.

An old man also had to go back, collect a token and return to the counters. Meanwhile, the female voice kept on announcing “Token no. 49, counter no. 1”. After a short hesitation, the old man asked another man, showing him his token, which number his was. The other man replied in Malayalam, that his was 52. I had listened to the conversation and started to think.

This seemingly perfect system contained certain difficulties. A system has to be suitable and comprehensible for all possible users. But this system definitely could reach only parts of Kerala society. This system assumed that everyone can read. Though Kerala has a high percentage of literacy, there might be still exceptions. And it assumed that everyone can understand English numbers. Something not necessarily the case with everyone in a state of India where the prevalent language is Malayalam.

So, is it a matter of literacy, of education whether I can stand in a queue? Or is it a matter of little thought on how to implement a system and how to make it accessible for everyone?

My initial enthusiasm about the chance to have a proper queue where I could await my turn tension free, had faded away after having witnessed this incident. I felt somehow that my queue had too high a price…the dignity of each and every member of society regardless of education, income etc.