Back to Chennai
Trip Start
Feb 07, 2007
1
35
50
Trip End
May 15, 2007
I wanted to wake up and get to Spencer's, a big shopping center in Chennai, so we could get our shopping done in the morning and spend the rest of the afternoon exploring. Well, it didn't quite happen that way. I woke up at 8 instead of 7am so we didn't get the early start we'd planned on, but then again, we weren't surprised. There was no way that Katie, Lauren, Victor and I were all going to be up and ready by 8 or 8:30. We were off the ship by 10 and in a cab by 10:30 to go to Spencer's. Raj from the first day was outside of the security office where everyone but me signed out again. I just didn't trust it again. Of all the SAS kids out front waiting to go into town, they were the only three in there. A little strange, so no thank you. I was getting a feel for India. When you have no idea, it's easy to get intimidated and let them tell you what you should do. I can't blame us. A man with a gun was telling us we had to sign our names in a big book on the first day. Okay. But you watch and you learn, and you find out what's legit and what isn't, and how far you can be pushed and when to push back. That's something I really got the hand of doing, was standing up for myself. I don't always speak up when I can in situations I'm not entirely comfortable in, but you won't survive if you're passive in that country. And it felt good. It felt good to not wonder whether or not I should say what I really feel or express what I really want to do and just say it, or just do it. I've never before told one of my friends with as much conviction that I didn't feel comfortable doing something as I did when I signed my name in that book. I have a tendency to be acquiescent sometimes if I'm unsure of myself, but I have to say I impressed myself this past week. Raj tried to usher us to his rikshaw, but we'd found a cabbie who would take us to Spencer's all in one vehicle for 100 rupees and Raj wanted 100 rupees for two in a rikshaw, so we went with the cab. I felt safest on the roads in a normal car. I didn't miss swerving around the roads in a big huge tour bus, and rikshaws are just scary. We got to Spencer's and he went back on his word, telling us he'd said 200 rupees. I'd played this game already and refused to stand corrected when we all knew he said 100 the first time, so I handed him the Rs 100 bill and walked away. Spencer's is a mall on a city block in Chennai, and you have to get past all the beggars who hang out by the alleyway you have to walk to enter the complex. They know. If you're going to spend money in the mall, you've got money they can try to get you to give them. We saved our sandwiches from lunch to give to them, but that was it. We spent the next couple hours browsing through little shops and a larger store kind of like a miniature Target, looking for clothes and little trinkets and purses before I decided I wanted to look for an international Sim card. I have to say I'm ambivalent about the shopping experience in Spencer's. For one, I hate to admit but I am so excited to get back to a mall in America where you can do your shopping for yourself. In India, you get help whether you want to or not, from the moment you set foot on the premises of the complex to fanning through the racks in the stores. The main part of the mall was in the center and various hallways branched out from there where the store employees would stand outside their doors and solicit you as you passed by. Every. Single. One. "Oh, miss, come look at this. You want wall hanging?" "No miss, you come in here. How about nice pair of shores for you?" "Ma'am, miss, you from student ship? I give you special price on anything you want," all in their Indian accents. Dad, you would have hated it. Hated. They pay too much attention to you, and the kind you don't want. You basically don't get to have an opinion anymore because once you finally go in the store and so much as glance in one direction at a wall hanging, or a blanket, every single one in the store is out on the floor for you. I went into one store just to look at the wall hangings they had, and the salesman ended up with eleven different pieces spread out over the floor, even though I told him I was only had 500 rupees when he wanted 15000 for the piece. His boss told him I needed to try to find a way to pay more, and yet he still brought everything out. As if his showing me would magically make more money appear in my money belt. Which, of course, if I found something I really had to have I might have found that other 100 or two that I'd "stashed away" somewhere. They know they can get you if they try hard enough. But I refused to be had. I really did feel bad about him having to pick up all eleven of those wall hangings, but I stood my ground. I told him I was looking for something that jumped out at me. They were all beautiful and I loved a couple of them, but there wasn't one that just spoke to me, that I had to have, so I thanked them and moved on. So instead, I went next door and bought a pair of shoes. And he saw me, walk by with my bag. I felt bad, because I had lied and he knew it, but at the same time, it's my money. I can do what I want with it. And I'd told him that I didn't see anything I wanted. I didn't tell him I'd go back later on. I said no and moved on. So even though I can stand my ground, I haven't hardened so much that I don't feel bad or guilty. Maybe that will change for me with age. But for now, I'm a young woman trying to make it work for herself. I didn't realize until after the fact how much of an impact my being a woman had on my shopping experience. We went into a store and I bought some gifts for family members, and I asked one of the workers where I could find a store that sold international Sim cards for my cell phone. It was hard to understand him so he had to repeat himself a lot, and plus I was working with technology so I needed to make sure I understood what I was getting myself into if I was going to buy it. I told him I knew there was a place that sold them but if he could just tell me where it was in relation to his store I'd appreciate it. Instead, he went to the store and brought back a packet for me with information about international calling cards. He said it was his friend's store, and I tried to make sense of it, if I could use it with my particular cell phone and did I have to pay for minutes after purchasing the card and all of that. Katie and Lauren had gone off shopping elsewhere, and Victor had stayed because he was talking to one of the other workers about sports, so I was trying to navigate this on my own. And when I was alone, he helped me, making phone calls to his buddy to ask questions for me because he said he didn't want me wasting money on something I couldn't use, but he changed his answer a lot. I finally asked him if I could just speak with the friend so he took me over there. Victor went with me just to make sure everything was okay, but he ended up leaving for a bit and looking around, during which time I got more of the same treatment. They sat me down and tried to explain to me how it worked, and they had a third man making phone calls and making inquiries about my questions. I knew they were talking about me when they switched from English to Hindi, because you usually know, and I also had a pretty good idea when he took a picture of me on his cell phone. The third man got off the phone and promised me I just needed to buy the phone card and it would be $1.50 per minute USD to make calls. That sounded good to me- all my questions were answered and they were answers I liked, and was about to make the purchase but right then Victor came back and all of a sudden, he as on the phone again to clarify just once more. He got off the phone and this time, he told me that I could only receive calls and not make outgoing calls. We'd spent about forty-five minutes going through the process by this point, and I was grateful for the help but also incredibly annoyed because I'd spent so long on this quest for nothing. But then I started thinking about it, that they wouldn't have told me that little detail if Victor hadn't have shown up. It was quite a reality check. I tend to think of myself as capable of anything, that my gender isn't really a hindrance for me but that's because it really wasn't, isn't at home. In other countries, however, it truly is something you have to deal with. They were nice about it, making phone calls and checking for me, but it pissed me off when I realized that they weren't telling me the truth to try to make a sale. I wasn't at all surprised, but I was happy in my thinking that they were going the extra mile to help me out rather than take advantage of me. But then I reminded myself, no one really does that if they don't have to or if they don't expect something out of it. After that hour I was tired and everyone else was starving so we went to the food court to eat. We'd heard there was American food and we were curried out, so off we went. This meal, let me tell you, was worth every second of our time in Spencer's. You really do start to get used to everyone coming up to you and trying to sell you things, so we weren't all that surprised when employees stood outside of their restaurants with menus to show us as we walked by. We would look and politely tell them that we were going to keep looking around before we made a decision about what we wanted. We had Chinese, Indian, burgers, sandwiches, and smoothies to choose from. They all wanted burgers and I was going to get Chinese, so we all found a table and I went to sit down to let them go get their food first before I went, but we were quite wrong in our assumptions of how the food courts work in India. The employees standing outside with the menus? They come to you. Every single one of them. One came up and pled out my chair before presenting me with a menu. I was a little bit confused for a moment because I'd decided I didn't want Indian, but as soon as two and three more men in different uniforms came up to us with their restaurants' menus, shove it in your face and point out suggestions, I started to understand. We had a good nine menus on our table, one from every food joint, and at least as many food servers standing around us. You also learn to just let it go, so while Lauren was feeling overwhelmed I just sat back and laughed. It was absolute chaos around a three-by-three square table. Thirteen people gathered around as everyone looked on at the silly Americans. The Indian woman at the table next to ours had a free show, because we clearly had never eaten a meal like this before and everyone knew it. But I had a ball. We ended up ordering something from pretty much every restaurant. A roll here, a sandwich there, noodles from that place, fries from over there. We had a smorgasbord of food, and in the end six different bills to pay. It was a little slice of insanity, but a complete experience of Indian culture, the slightly too helpful culture. When originally I'd cringed at the thought of spending our last day in a shopping mall, experiencing the system made it completely worth it. We hit up a couple of more stores before we left, where us three girls bought blankets that we'd almost purchased in one of the shops on the first day and were so glad we didn't because we would have paid four times the amount we bought them for. I knew, that first day, that I didn't want to buy them yet because we didn't know what else was out there. Again, we had every single color blanket spread out for us on the floor but they really didn't mind this time since they were for sure making money off of us. We selected our blankets and followed him down to his second store where he could swipe our credit cards, and even though we'd said a thousand times we were done shopping, up until the moment we left the store they were trying to show us things to purchase. I said no at least six times to pashminas, at least four to a scarf, and at least once to five other random souvenirs. They're relentless. Absolutely relentless. But that's because it works. They know we're consumers, so they try to find that second and third thing that catches our eye because it makes them more money. I had my blanket and told him a few times I was all set, but he pointed out a pillowcase and lo, I realized I wanted one so I bought it (not just because I liked it but because I hadn't yet purchased fabric to use for my quilt I'm making out of pieces of fabric from every country I visit). Worn out but pleased with the shopping, Lauren and I wanted to do one final thing while we were in India- go see a Bollywood movie. I'd asked the Student Life desk and they told me of a movie theatre right down the street, and the employee who sold us our blankets told us we could get there for thirty rupees. Well, the rikshaw drivers outside of Spencer's of course asked for 100, but we walked away from a couple before finding someone who would take us for forty. We insisted, we'd heard thirty rupees so we weren't going to pay 100. A man offered fifty and we still refused, asking again for thirty. We settled on forty and got in his rikshaw, nearly followed in by a woman holding a child who had seen me tying my bags together and misinterpreted it as me trying to dig out something for her. She had one foot in the rikshaw, a child in one arm and her free hand going back and forth between her mouth and my personal space. The rikshaw couldn't drive away for about thirty seconds because she refused to move, but she finally did when he just put his foot on the gas and started driving away. This isn't a place where you can answer once and be done with it. We made it to Spencer's and our driver still tried to demand fifty, but I handed him forty and again, walked away, right up the steps to the theatre to buy our tickets for the movie! I was excited just to be going to a movie again, but to a Bollywood movie, in India, was almost too much excitement to handle. Lauren and I didn't care what we saw or even that there weren't movies with subtitles. They offered movies in English, in Hindi, and Tamil, and for the full experience we wanted one in a different language. We chose a chick-flick looking film in Hindi, and got in line to buy our tickets but were cut in front of a couple of times before I forced my way up to the front to make sure that I would be next. Well, it wasn't until after buying the tickets and making our way inside that we realized what the problem was. I was a woman. I wasn't in the right line, the line designated for women only. So of course they could cut me. I shouldn't have been there. I had no right to be there, so they just acted as if I weren't and moved ahead of me. Katie and Victor met up with us and said they'd seen the line right away, so it really was my mistake for not looking around. I hadn't expected it so I didn't even think to look for something like that. I simply got in line. A little reminder, that it's things like that that I have to remember to simply keep both eyes open for. I admit, I let my excitement get the best of me and I just went right on in, without even bothering to look. And no one really outwardly criticized or gave us funny looks, just simply cut me in line, which made sense after we realized our error. We spent the next three hours having a delightful time in the movie. You have assigned seats in Indian theatres, like you're going to a play, and the movies have an intermission. Unlike a play and also unlike movies in America, people in the audience don't have a problem answering their cell phones, having conversations with each other without whispering, standing at the door and yelling at their friends across the way, all while the movie was going on. And no one else in the audience said anything like they do in America. No one told them to quiet down. It's just how the culture works. It isn't a problem to do your own thing and no one considers it an interruption. The movie was in Hindi anyway, called "Namastay! London" so we weren't missing much from the people talking, but I found it interesting. I also loved how Hindi has some English words so random phrases would be spoken in English, but as soon as the characters with British accents would speak English, subtitles in Hindi came up on the screen. And how could I not love the scenes when the actors would burst into song and dance, like a five-minute MTV music video in the middle of the movie to tell more of the story. I can't wait for the movie to come out in the US so I can buy it and watch it in English. It was easy to follow even though it was in another language- she's an Indian girl raised in London and she falls in love with a Brit but her parents want to her marry within her culture so they whisk her away to meet her family in India, where she meets a man and marries him to appease her family; but the marriage isn't recognized when they return to London so she gets engaged to the Brit but realizes she has fallen in love with her Indian husband- but I want to understand all of the jokes said in Hindi. The audience would laugh and cheer at the jokes, and following one scene when the heroine translates into English for her fiancé that her husband is telling her about how wonderful India is and yet Indians refuse to see themselves as better or worse than anyone else, the entire audience erupted in applause. It was one of the most incredible moments, everyone coming together. It was a little bit preachy, but it was uplifting and the audience responded out loud to it, and it was incredible. It was a moment when you realize that the arts really do inspire feelings in people and have the ability to create feelings and change in people. The entire experience of the movie theatre, it was unforgettable. After the movie we got a rikshaw and went to the Taj hotel for one last drink before getting back on the boat. Our driver had wanted to pick us up early and run us by a store so he could get some commission, but we had met up with some other SAS kids at the same bar and didn't end up leaving until forty-five minutes after we'd agreed to. But again, I piped up that we had hired him and he could take us where we wanted to be taken. It was eight o'clock by this point and we had an hour to get back and get our postcards in the outgoing box, so there was no way we were going to make it to the store and back on time. So I suggested we just pay him extra to compensate, because we all had extra rupees we needed to get rid of anyway. The driver seemed satisfied with that, so we enjoyed our final drive in a rikshaw, almost getting hit a couple of times, before getting back on the ship. We had fifteen minutes at this point to get our postcards in, and luckily I'd written them but didn't have some of the addresses so I was frantically calling home to get them while Lauren and Katie ran around looking for phones to call their parents for addresses and the stamps they'd bought but couldn't find, in order to have them in by 9pm. It was hilarious, once we got them in and could think back about how silly we must have looked, running as fast as we could through the hallways and flying up the stairs to get them in on time. But we made it. The rest of the night I spent playing around in my room, getting laundry ready and putting up postcards on my wall. I already missed it and big shock when I say that five days wasn't nearly enough, but hopefully I'll be able to spend seven weeks there in about two years, if I get accepted into the Independent Honors Program. Overall, it was one of my favorite countries because of how much of a culture shock it was, and how much simply being there challenged me in my entirety simply being there. Reflecting back on it a couple days later, it is still so much in the forefront of my mind, shaping thoughts and evoking emotions as it all begins to settle and work itself out in my mind. I loved it. Even the moments I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to go home, I loved it. There's just no telling how much this trip is impacting me. I knew it would but I had and still have no idea just how much it will. It's just amazing! And it's already halfway over...
