note: I take no pride in the content of this entry, it is simply the facts.
I finally signed off on my forms from USAID to get paid for my consultancy. Converted to dollars, the daily rate was pretty weak… weaker than anything I’ve ever seen with my BA and now with my almost MSPH. My boss gave me a pat on the back and told me that with all this money, he will let me buy him lunch. I thought he was patronizing me.
Not ever scared to share the numbers, especially when they are comically low, I told my friend here exactly what I was being paid and how low it was for a graduate student. Oddly enough, his eyes opened really widely and he started running all kinds of numbers in his head. He’s a real estate broker. The field of real estate makes more money than any other fields in Delhi currently. His math was ridiculous.
I’ve come to realize that I am in fact receiving an above-margin salary and one that will go very far if I live in Delhi. After rent, food, even partying, I have left over money. Suddenly, the level of expense of the kids here makes a lot of sense. Your cost of living is so low (or non existent since you likely live with your parents), that most of your salary either goes into savings… or more commonly, into your pocket money. Why wouldn’t you buy a Gucci belt and an Armani jacket? (I kid, but actually Gucci is cheaper in India too!)
My friend went on to explain how much it costs to get an MBA in India, how much an MBA graduate makes, and how little the name of your school and your degrees (unless they are from the top university) matter. It’s kind of frightening. No wonder so many Indians come to the US. Yes our cost of living and taxes take away most of our salary, but at the end of the day, the margin is so high, that you will make more than you ever could in India.
I was incredibly embarrassed to bring my salary up, not knowing it was much higher than most of the kids that live here. I truly had no idea. And, I say this even though all my friends are educated and with years of work experience. My closest guy friends are engineers working in corporate telecom and I have just realized they make a fourth of what I am about to make. And yet, they take me out routinely, pay for my dinners, drive me around, and take me shopping. Money goes far here.
As a global health professional, you’re trained to assume you’re in the lowest of the brackets.
My friend spent most of the day laughing at me, and then planning the trip to Goa that I should take him on.
After this conversation, I decided that in order to truly appreciate this experience, I need to stop thinking in USD.
Sorry for yesterday’s post. I wanted to so badly write about my Lajpat Nagar experience, but I was in-and-out of a medicinal-induced sleep for most of the day.
Dr. U, one of the doctors that runs all of the work that Futures Group does in Uttaranchal (a northern state of India that touches the Himalayas and is known for snowy tourism destinations like Dehradun and Nandital), is one of the friendliest people in my office. He is part of the executive staff of the ITAP project but seems to know just about everyone at Futures. He oftens stops by my desk with loads of mittai for "Miss Lippi" to try. It makes everyone laugh because he is somewhat of a “hero” (he is a body builder that comes to work on a motorcycle and has long hair – no joke) that is always on a strict diet but enjoys making sure the entire office is loaded up on sweets. Dr. U makes a kind effort to speak to me in English but often his words just roll together. His style of speaking is through the side of his mouth and is very muddled. I’ve come to understand that this comes from having a swollen tongue, a symptom of habitually eating Paan, a mouth freshener that consists of chewing tobacco. In that very style of speaking, he invited me and a few other colleagues to his home on Saturday for a home-cooked lunch and to go shopping.
I traveled from my market (Malviya Nagar) to his (Lajpat Nagar). This is really probably about 5 Km apart – but market to market on Saturday is bumper-to-bumper madness, twice over. It is thanks to Delhi traffic and the lack of patience of auto-wallahs that I have such a rich vocabulary in Hindi galis (curses).
I reached his home, which sits next to the famous Gufa Wala Mandir (temple with the cave). This cave temple is only open twice a year – once for Navratri and once for Diwali. However, a larger temple has been built over the top of it and holds aartis and pujas constantly. Dr. U joked that he has paid enough penance for all his sins and more by having to listen to the chanting that comes from this structure starting at 5 am each morning.
I was going to originally live in Lajpat last summer. Now, I am so glad I chose not to. Liveliness at the cost of congestion is not a worthy sacrifice in India. Lajpat Nagar is a sea of small alleyways with stalls of food, stores, loads of people, and a destination for those who wish to see the true local Delhiite. It’s known to most as a crowded residential area that surrounds a massive market in which you can find the best of North-Indian clothing, the best wedding-wear, and amazing street food.
So crowded in fact, that Dr. U leaned over his balcony to show me that he has not moved his car in two years in order to hold his parking spot…
Dr. U house is a breezy railroad style apartment on the 2nd floor (which means 3rd floor in the US by the way) of a tall pink building. As is customary in India, there are no quarters of a home that are “private.” He gave me a pair of slippers and took me right into his master bedroom to meet his family. (If you ever come to India, you will inevitably sit in the master bedroom with an entire family to talk. I think this tradition comes from that room being the one room with the AC, generally.)
Knowing Dr. U, I was not so surprised to meet an extremely beautiful woman named Geetali and an even more beautiful 4 year old child named Madijah, shortened to Jiya. Seriously. I am not one to throw around the word beautiful. Dr. U's family is from Assam. They are the first Assamise people I have met, I think. His wife looks like a mix of Indian and oriental features; obviously the best of both. Their beautiful child could be the poster child for every kid clothing company in the world. Jiya was very apprehensive of me and incredibly shy. However, when her parents left us alone to fix up lunch, she turned to me and started chatting with me in a mix of Assamise and Hindi.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Lippi. Who are you?”
“I’m Jiya. I’m four.”
Jiya and I quickly became friends. Her English was equal to my Hindi, and somehow that worked for us. She ran her house and knew her looks could get her just about anything from her parents. If Dr. U ever tried to talk to me while we played, she would scream at the top her lungs until he left the room. Charming. Testing how fun I would be, she brought over a Badminton set and a balloon (we were not allowed to use the shutter) and asked me to play with her. God! The last thing I wanted to do was exercise. Immediately, Dr. U said "she knows you like to sit around." Not wanting to disappoint my pretty new friend or her on looking parents, I obliged.
Soon enough, she had me running around the entire house to catch the balloon. She would copy everything I said. I unfortunately said “Out” once and the rest of the game consisted of her screaming “OUT! OUT! OUT!” at me.
Geetali made an amazing meal of fried balls of potato and cheese, chole paneer, unda subji, mixed veg subji, dahi vada, roti, chaval, and chocolate cake. It was amazing that she cooked so much considering that she is a neurological development counselor for underprivileged children and teaches classes from her home. In that sense, both Dr. U and his wife work in the development sector. Dr. U is a third generation doctor who decided to go into public health instead of clinical practice. He struggles to explain this to Indians. They were surprised to learn that public health is as misunderstood in the US as it is here in India.
Despite Jiya’s assertiveness and princess attitude (which I have no problem with, might I add), she was an incredibly defeated eater. I think her mother’s profession has something to do with this. In fact, she took medications just as calmly. She has a congenital kidney complication for which her parents have started a homeopathic course of medications for. I found that interesting considering Dr. U is not a homeopathic doctor.
Simultaneously, Jiya cooked me lunch with her play kitchen. She invited her two imaginary daughters, and her husband, who forces her to go to weddings of family she does not know. (What?!?) She made each of us eat six chapatis. After real lunch and imaginary lunch, it was time for Jiya to nap. I am not so sure what it was that made her so fond of me, but my best guess is that she thought she was smarter than me. She refused to sleep if I left to go shopping, so to help Dr. U and Geetali, I pretended to sleep with her. They gave me a pillow, a blanket, and a stuffed animal, and we all waited for Jiya to fall asleep next to me. Before she completely knocked off, she grabbed my hand and said “Don’t leave Lippi didi.”
Dr. U then took me to the market to meet with our other colleague and his cabin-buddy: Dr. N (cabins are what Indians call a closed office vs. a cubicle). Dr. N is also a doctor that has chosen to work in public health. She runs all of the programs in the state of Jharkhand. She is in her late 20s and has also been an incredibly kind caretaker to me. She is the boss that calls me baccha. Dr. U and Dr. N, while being good friends, bicker constantly. On that day in particular, the bickering was over what clothes I should wear and whether or not I should eat street food. In hindsight, while they both may be doctors, Dr. U believes in the Indian "chalta, chalta" attitude of whatever happens, happens. My stomach and I agree that we will follow the advice of Dr. N from now on.
The three of us covered all of Dr. U's wife’s favorite shops. I was treated like a doll and asked to try out everything they picked out in each shop. They would not even let me carry my bags. I think I bought at least one thing at every shop we went to. Towards the end, they made me try on the most outlandish and brightest of colors due to their insistence that I “have fair skin and therefore I can.” Stupidly feeling special, I complied. It wasn’t until I tried on a bright yellow number and saw the two of them laughing that I realized I was being played for their entertainment.
I shared a cab home with Dr. N who immediately asked me, as though it was bothering her for some time: "Why did your parents let you come back here? They must think you have someone here." "
I said: "Actually yes. That's the first thing my mother asked me. I don't have a guy here, but I do have an affection for this country and this work. I convinced my parents that I needed more time abroad and they gave it to me."
"Do you have any pressure to get married?”
“Yes, of course.”
She leaned back and sighed, as though she was relieved by my answer.
I asked her “Why? Are you getting pressure too?”
She then went on to say that it’s getting pretty bad. Her cousin recently married someone from the lowest caste of India out of love and created a huge scandal in her family. She is next and her parents are fixing her up with a bunch of guys. She really wants to get married.
It’s odd how my social friends and my work friends are from opposite sides of the spectrum in this regard. My social friends take life casually, date around, have relationships for years and years without any sign of marriage. My work friends are desperately looking, hoping something will work itself out soon. People seem to gauge their own situations by using mine a point of reference. Yes, I am single. Yes I wish I wasn’t. Yes I am allowed to date. Yes my parents are looking. Yes I would like to get married in my late 20s. My responses either freak them out or reassure them. I think I reassured Dr. N.
***
It’s Monday, and I'm wearing the very simple patiala pant and kurti set I bought. I definitely look like I came right out of Lajpat Nagar (I should add LN is known to produce unsophisticated, rough-around-the-edge girls with a habit of using colloquial Hindi). Needless to say, I look very "Delhi" today.
As God would have it, my friends could not pick me up today so I took the metro. Again, I did this in full out Indian gear while everyone else in my cart was in black slacks and unnecessary winter wear. I got a lot of funny looks. More comically, I then had to take a cycle-rikshaw from the metro to my office building. Please try to visualize me in Indian clothes, on a man-drawn rik, in the middle of traffic, while BBMing on my Blackberry.
This being the first time I’ve worn Indian clothes since returning to India – I tried to hold out for as long as possible because my office was shocked that I did it so much last time – everyone in the office noticed.
Shonali (Colleague): “New pinch?”
Me: “Yea.”
Shonali: “Do you even know what that means…?”
Me: “No...” (Caught…as usual)
Shonali: “If you wear new clothes in India, people come and pinch you. So we call it a new pinch.”
Me: “Then yes. New pinch.” :)
