Share the Happiness!
20 years ago today was a special day in our family – my brother Evan was born. Between my traveling and his busy schedule at SFU, we hadn’t talked in a long time, so I figured that a birthday was the perfect time to try to get a hold of him. I also had just found out that my phone company had dropped its international phone rates 53% as of April 1 (no joke, they don’t do April Fools here), so calling people back home has suddenly become much more viable (though still not cheap). However, with Evan living in Vancouver (GMT-7:00) and myself being here in India (GMT+5:30), a whopping 12.5 hours of time change made it a little hard to find a time to call. Thankfully, Evan’s not known for going to bed early, so I figured that my best chance to catch him would be for me to call over my lunch break. However, work was pretty slow and dull today (doing data entry of poorly completed and therefore confusing household surveys we did in our villages), so by 1:00PM I was ready for a break (lunch doesn’t usually happen until at least 1:30 if not 2:00 here) so I told Supna I needed a break to go call my brother as it was his birthday.
I walked out onto the front step of the office, pressed a couple buttons on my cell phone and suddenly was listening to the SFU Residence Automated phone system, almost exactly half way around the world. Technology is pretty amazing, our world is so small these days. However, Evan wasn’t in his room (likely still out working or having fun with his friends – midnight is still very early for university students), and unlike here in India (and Canada for that matter), I’m the only person in my family with a cell phone, so I had to settle for leaving a happy birthday message on his answering machine (something that I realized Indians don’t have/use).
I went back to work (not having gotten the break I wanted), but lunch time came soon enough so we all packed up to head back to the guesthouse. While waiting for Supna, everyone else was hanging out in the office entry room just chatting. I was tired and hot and so not completely following the (Hindi) conversations, but at one point I tuned in to hear Hiralal questioning Sunil about when his younger brothers’ birthday. Hiralal seemed to think that it was today, but Sunil was quite confused and told him that wasn’t true. After some back and forth, I realized that Hiralal must have gotten confused and so I told him (and everyone else assembled there) that it was in fact my brothers’ birthday. They all laughed at the miscommunication and passed on congratulations to Evan. Then Hiralal asked me about the birthday party… I was confused for a second, and then replied that since Evan was back in Vancouver, the party was there. They all laughed again, but then Hiralal asked, “but what about our party?” and everyone became quiet and looked at me curiously.
Apparently (as everyone made it clear to me), in Indian culture, when anything good happens to anyone in your family, you’re supposed to “share the happiness” and buy treats for everyone you know. I had been exposed to it before – Bendari had bought us all sweets in Mayali for his wedding anniversary, and just that morning someone had come through the office with sweets for everyone because someone from the office had just had a baby girl (I didn’t pay attention to exactly what the reason was, I just took a ladu) – but I thought it only applied to yourself and didn’t realize that it extended to your entire family. In a way in makes sense, Indians almost never eat sweets without some occasion, but if you’re supposed to give treats to all your friends and co-workers every time it’s your second cousin’s wife’s birthday (this is Indian families we’re talking about), there is usually enough “occasions” to keep everyone’s sweet tooth satisfied.
However, while I could understand the logic of the whole system, it still didn’t seem to make sense to me, and served as a good reminder that although I have adapted to India in most ways, I’m not an Indian. Where I come from, if it’s your brother’s birthday, everyone you know will ask you to pass on Happy Birthday wishes for them, and in some cases might even ask you to pass on on a small gift. For us, the person whose birthday it is is the one who gets the presents, but here it’s everyone else who gets a treat. For this reason, the thought of going out and buying everyone a treat for my brother’s birthday just didn’t seem right, so I didn’t run off to the sweet shop as soon as I was asked.
However, it wasn’t just cultural differences that kept me back, it was the way everyone was asking. Back home, you would never dream of asking someone else to go out and buy you a treat, even asking someone to share something they’ve already bought is tough enough. Furthermore, it was the way that everyone was asking that put me off – it was a cross between a spoiled child whining for a treat and your boss giving you a subtle suggestion that you know is really an order, neither of which I like. I’ve always had trouble with subtly, I hate it and try to avoid it whenever possible. If you can’t say something directly, you shouldn’t be saying it at all is my philosophy. Finally, I wasn’t entirely sure whether they were being serious saying I should buy them all a treat – I don’t know Indian culture well enough, and so the whole combination of factors meant that I didn’t know what to do, and so ended up side-stepping questions and just ignoring comments about the whole affair.
Unfortunately, no one gave up, and so throughout the entire afternoon, I kept getting regular reminders from people that they still hadn’t received their treat yet. I kept on ignoring it, trying to find a time/place where I could discretely ask Sunil and/or Supna what really was going on, and what I should do about it, as they were the only ones I trusted to give an honest answer. The fact that they had kept completely silent on the whole issue was one of the big reasons that I continued to hold out…
By 5:30 I still hadn’t decided what to do, and still hadn’t had a chance to ask my trusted advisors. With quitting time fast approaching, the comments and “friendly visits” started increasing dramatically in frequency. I heard it all, every possible angle, but the more they pleaded, the less I wanted to actually get them anything. The worst came when Basil pointed out that Rs. 100 is only about $3, asking why I couldn’t afford to spend such a tiny sum to make my colleagues happy. After living in India for over 6 months, Rs. 100 is Rs. 100 to me, and I am as stingy as any Indian – always waiting for my Rs. 1 change on my Rs. 5 vickram fare every time I go downtown, and bargaining Rs. 5 off a Rs. 15 item at a shop. Anytime I hear people converting prices into dollars, it makes me feel like they see me not as a person, but as a walking money tree ripe for picking. Yes I do have a lot of money by Indian standards, and yes I can easily blow Rs. 100 on something I want without pausing, but to me, money still has value, and I refuse to buy things just because I can. There’s too much worthless, pointless junk in this world, and I will not encourage it. For all these reasons, hearing prices in dollars is a huge insult to me, and once I heard that about the treats, I made up my mind – there would be no candy for the spoiled whining babies. I didn’t tell them this though (it would have just increased their determination), and so continued evading/ignoring their pleads. To leave the office at the end of the day, I had to run the gauntlet past everyone, and they had all gathered in the entrance way almost as if they were waiting for me. I only managed to make it out by saying that I’d try to bring something the next day.
One the way back to the guesthouse, I finally had a chance to talk with Sunil and Supna. They asked what I’d thought of the whole situation, and seemed somewhat surprised (but a little impressed) that I’d held out all day. They explained that while it certainly would be appropriate for me to give treats to friends/colleagues on an occasion such as a brother’s birthday, it is on the fringes of Indian culture and most people wouldn’t think twice if you didn’t give anything. They said that what I had witnessed was part of the PSI culture – everyone always wants treats, and they take advantage of any possible excuse to try and get junior employees to appease their sweet tooth whenever it strikes. Most people give in quite quickly when senior staff start asking for things – keeping the upper echelon happy certainly is a big thing here (at least if you want to go anywhere in your career), but I’ve never really bothered about that, and here I enjoy a special status as a foreigner, so there aren’t the same pressures/consequences for me. Indians still have some inferiority complex about white skin, even 50 years after the British left.
Needless to say, I didn’t bring anything the next day, and though I got a couple comments about this, the second try was much weaker and they quickly gave up. I think they had decided that I wasn’t going to give in to peer-pressure, and so it wasn’t worth the effort. As for me, I’d decided that I had no problem buying sweets for all, but it would only happen when I wanted to give them, or maybe if they asked politely. So to finish this off, Happy Birthday Evan, here’s a digital kilo of ladu for you, and one for all my other friends out there who have given me so much and asked for little in return. Best wishes to all!
This is the online home of one Shane Warner, my place to attempt to tell some of my stories, as well as just spout off whatever comes to mind.
