The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
Space Defense
"Don't touch me like that!" I said sharply, shoving a probably 15-year-old boy's red-shirted shoulder.
He looked at me with such a shocked expression that I had to remind myself of where his hand had just been while he stood behind me in line.
"The last person, who tried that got his arm broken, just fyi, Sweatpea!" growled Pat.
It's true that once, I knocked a drunk man to the ground for copping a feel as he walked by me.
He whimpered, "You broke my arm!" He couldn't get up. His friend stood there, gaping. I walked away.
That time was 16 years ago on a Saturday night, on Sheridan Road, when I lived in Chicago. This time, Pat and I were heading into one of the seven most peaceful place on earth...aside from our eruption; all of us were on line to enter the Bahai Lotus Temple in Delhi. (There are six other such temples worldwide.)
The boy was with his friend and they got ahead of us and one mimicked me to the rest, "Don't touch me!" and all of them laughed heartily. Then the boy and one of his friends held hands as they ascended the steps.
Everyone reading this entry who's not Indian needs to suspend his or her frame of reference. Here, male, teenaged friends often hold hands and it is a purely platonic gesture.
Seeing that he had a friend with whom he had a capacity for tenderness moved me. The imitation a moment prior inflamed me and then the hand-holding disarmed me.
Shoe Shame
We had checked our shoes in a nylon-burlap bag and Pat dumped out the two pairs for us afterwards. On the bench, where people were putting their shoes back on, I saw a mountain of shoes next to ours -- large sizes down to tiny ones -- all of which had spilled out of a bag like ours. The smallest pair, multi-colored sandals, made me sad for a sec. I envied their full bag compared to Pat's and mine. which yielded just two, adult pairs.
Hidden Diplomacy
Walking back to meet the driver, a group of junior high school girls passed us, saying hello eagerly. Pat didn't notice at first. I just said hello cheerfully in return and had to acknowledge to myself that our sunglasses did nothing to hide our skin-tone.
"Why are they saying hello to us?" Pat asked.
"Because we're not Indian, which makes us celebrities."
On the way back to the hotel, we drove by gorgeous embassies. "All of them are on foreign soil," Pat reminded me, "Isn't that neat?"
We saw Mauitius', Palestine's, Qatar's, Pakistan's, Canada's, Sudan's, Italy's...the United States'. Seeing our flag, flying in India excited my patriotism.
"Can you find this address?" I asked the driver, pointing to #13 on the map in our Lonely Planet guide book, which didn't included the number of the street at which it stood -- the Israeli Embassy.
On the road, leaving the Delhi airport, we did see Hebrew printed in cautionary, red font on the back of a car, "Shmor merchako,"/"Keep [your] distance." Unwittingly, our driver heeded the command and we never caught up to the car to see who was inside, unfortunately.
A conference of mostly non-Indian McKinsey people was also meeting at our hotel and all of them wore exquisite, Indian silk outfits to dinner. How much more beautiful a world we'd live in if every one of us wore Indian fashions all the time.
Showing posts with label Lotus Temple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lotus Temple. Show all posts
Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Would I Agree to Another Assignment?
The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
More of a Home- than a World-citizen
A European colleague phoned me today to discuss my perspective on what it's like to be on assignment in India, as she's trying to come on assignment here herself.
"How well were you accepted?" she asked, and "Would you do it again?"
"In my experience, most Indians I've met are not so much interested in learning about my culture from me, but they're very interested in my interest in their culture....We were invited to a Ganesh festival event, for example, and were asked to bring a dish to share. 'It's right around the time of the Jewish New Year,' we responded, and, 'We can bring apples and honey, which is our tradition, to promote a sweet new year.'
"Would you bring soda? We actually need some soda," said the person who invited us, with zero response to our mention of the apples-and-honey tradition.
"By contrast, when I ask questions about Indian history, religion, art, literature, and culture at large, everyone lights up and I learn a wonderful amount," I told my colleague.
"That actually makes sense, since don't most people prefer to talk about themselves? Still, it's a good tip -- not to assume an interest in a cultural exchange."
At dinner tonight, Pat suggested another reason: "Sarah, they see it right and left -- American culture -- all over TV, everywhere. Why would they want to know more?"
It doesn't matter. I'd rather it were this way than the other way around, i.e., that they share their culture with me freely, rather than being coy or secretive about it and only asking me to teach them about mine. After all, I am the one who came here. Since I'm lucky enough to share one language in common with many Indians, why not learn as much as I can and not mope about the initial lack of mutual intellectual curiosity.
With anyone with whom I'm having any sort of deep conversation, actually, I volunteer parallels between our cultures that strike me (see Deck the Cars...), as I'm a common-ground hunter by nature.
"Would you do it again?" she asked.
"Oh, well, that's a long answer. First, I need to explain that I didn't ask to come on this assignment; my VP recommended it to me as a great learning opportunity and offered either China or India. I picked India because of the special warmth of the participants in the management development program I facilitated here two years ago, plus I loved the food."
"I don't think I'm the world-citizen that you are [this colleague and I met seven years ago, when both of us worked at 590 Madison Ave. in New York City]. I'm less resilient. I get very homesick. It has been really hard at times.
"My mom will be 82 next month, God willing, and this weekend, I'm missing her receiving a lifetime achievement award from a Jewish women's organization with which she has worked for most of her life [Hadassah].
"*And* the work is more exciting than almost any I've ever done, and I will miss it, I know, upon my return. Everything's blooming here. It's marvelous work-wise."
At dinner, Pat said, "Well, we'd certainly do it differently next time -- like we'd know that the huge security deposit for our sublet was just business as usual, and how the Internet service provider plan worked, and the cell phone application process, and we'd pack better....I don't think I'm ready to go again for at least a year....And we couldn't expect Jeffrey, and Sam and Margaret [our neighbors] to do what they did for us this time [watching the house and keeping our mail]....A former boss who's on assignment in Shanghai for the next two years took me to dinner last week and said, "What you should do is come to China next."
"Oy!" said my mom when I told her, and then reassured her that I'm committed to completing my Masters and have already maxed out the allowance on the non-residency part. My mom was so brave and encouraging about this assignment. I think my mom misses me even more than she thought she would. I miss her as much as I knew I would, and the rest of my family, too.
The Full Moon's Coming
I really ought to have packed for our Taj Mahal trip, which begins at 5:15 am, already, and ought to have been in bed hours ago. Shoulda-woulda-coulda. I'm so wired and tired all at once.
Pat's all packed and snug in bed. I hate the thought of being more than arm's length from a blogging vehicle for the next four days. I am hoping and expecting that the hotels where we stay have web access, so that I don't have to be blogless.
A mentor of mine at work commented that blogging can't qualify as full relaxation, as it's still a form of work. Obviously, he's not a writer at heart...and then again, maybe it'll refresh my self-expression to have a hiatus. Pat needs to upload her photos and videos to her own machine, and so she really will be offline till our return, as she won't bring her laptop with her, which I agree makes sense.
During this vacation, I dream of reading in a bathtub, swimming, eating new foods in new places, seeing extraordinary sights, including the Bahai Lotus Temple in Delhi on Thursday, prior to going to Agra by train the next day, and of happy adventures I can't even anticipate....
For someone who talks about not really being able to relate to others' religions as comfortably as my own, this will be the third Bahai temple I've visited -- one in Haifa, Israel; one in Wilmette, Illinois; and tomorrow, one in Delhi.
Considering the number of Indians I've met who haven't wanted to trade notes initially on similarities and differences of our cultures, I thought about people I know who are less intellectually curious about other cultures and religions than I am, and so who gain zero cultural enrichment in that way. They don't try to share their culture with others, and they don't seek to learn about anyone else's. Maybe that's human nature...and where I go, too, during primitive, visceral moments.
Please, God, let there be nothing visceral about my behavior during this vacation.
More of a Home- than a World-citizen
A European colleague phoned me today to discuss my perspective on what it's like to be on assignment in India, as she's trying to come on assignment here herself.
"How well were you accepted?" she asked, and "Would you do it again?"
"In my experience, most Indians I've met are not so much interested in learning about my culture from me, but they're very interested in my interest in their culture....We were invited to a Ganesh festival event, for example, and were asked to bring a dish to share. 'It's right around the time of the Jewish New Year,' we responded, and, 'We can bring apples and honey, which is our tradition, to promote a sweet new year.'
"Would you bring soda? We actually need some soda," said the person who invited us, with zero response to our mention of the apples-and-honey tradition.
"By contrast, when I ask questions about Indian history, religion, art, literature, and culture at large, everyone lights up and I learn a wonderful amount," I told my colleague.
"That actually makes sense, since don't most people prefer to talk about themselves? Still, it's a good tip -- not to assume an interest in a cultural exchange."
At dinner tonight, Pat suggested another reason: "Sarah, they see it right and left -- American culture -- all over TV, everywhere. Why would they want to know more?"
It doesn't matter. I'd rather it were this way than the other way around, i.e., that they share their culture with me freely, rather than being coy or secretive about it and only asking me to teach them about mine. After all, I am the one who came here. Since I'm lucky enough to share one language in common with many Indians, why not learn as much as I can and not mope about the initial lack of mutual intellectual curiosity.
With anyone with whom I'm having any sort of deep conversation, actually, I volunteer parallels between our cultures that strike me (see Deck the Cars...), as I'm a common-ground hunter by nature.
"Would you do it again?" she asked.
"Oh, well, that's a long answer. First, I need to explain that I didn't ask to come on this assignment; my VP recommended it to me as a great learning opportunity and offered either China or India. I picked India because of the special warmth of the participants in the management development program I facilitated here two years ago, plus I loved the food."
"I don't think I'm the world-citizen that you are [this colleague and I met seven years ago, when both of us worked at 590 Madison Ave. in New York City]. I'm less resilient. I get very homesick. It has been really hard at times.
"My mom will be 82 next month, God willing, and this weekend, I'm missing her receiving a lifetime achievement award from a Jewish women's organization with which she has worked for most of her life [Hadassah].
"*And* the work is more exciting than almost any I've ever done, and I will miss it, I know, upon my return. Everything's blooming here. It's marvelous work-wise."
At dinner, Pat said, "Well, we'd certainly do it differently next time -- like we'd know that the huge security deposit for our sublet was just business as usual, and how the Internet service provider plan worked, and the cell phone application process, and we'd pack better....I don't think I'm ready to go again for at least a year....And we couldn't expect Jeffrey, and Sam and Margaret [our neighbors] to do what they did for us this time [watching the house and keeping our mail]....A former boss who's on assignment in Shanghai for the next two years took me to dinner last week and said, "What you should do is come to China next."
"Oy!" said my mom when I told her, and then reassured her that I'm committed to completing my Masters and have already maxed out the allowance on the non-residency part. My mom was so brave and encouraging about this assignment. I think my mom misses me even more than she thought she would. I miss her as much as I knew I would, and the rest of my family, too.
The Full Moon's Coming
I really ought to have packed for our Taj Mahal trip, which begins at 5:15 am, already, and ought to have been in bed hours ago. Shoulda-woulda-coulda. I'm so wired and tired all at once.
Pat's all packed and snug in bed. I hate the thought of being more than arm's length from a blogging vehicle for the next four days. I am hoping and expecting that the hotels where we stay have web access, so that I don't have to be blogless.
A mentor of mine at work commented that blogging can't qualify as full relaxation, as it's still a form of work. Obviously, he's not a writer at heart...and then again, maybe it'll refresh my self-expression to have a hiatus. Pat needs to upload her photos and videos to her own machine, and so she really will be offline till our return, as she won't bring her laptop with her, which I agree makes sense.
During this vacation, I dream of reading in a bathtub, swimming, eating new foods in new places, seeing extraordinary sights, including the Bahai Lotus Temple in Delhi on Thursday, prior to going to Agra by train the next day, and of happy adventures I can't even anticipate....
For someone who talks about not really being able to relate to others' religions as comfortably as my own, this will be the third Bahai temple I've visited -- one in Haifa, Israel; one in Wilmette, Illinois; and tomorrow, one in Delhi.
Considering the number of Indians I've met who haven't wanted to trade notes initially on similarities and differences of our cultures, I thought about people I know who are less intellectually curious about other cultures and religions than I am, and so who gain zero cultural enrichment in that way. They don't try to share their culture with others, and they don't seek to learn about anyone else's. Maybe that's human nature...and where I go, too, during primitive, visceral moments.
Please, God, let there be nothing visceral about my behavior during this vacation.
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