Chennai, Popularity, and Balls of Goof

The days are going by so fast here. I can’t believe it’s already Thursday! Yesterday (Wednesday) I couldn’t remember what day it was. I thought it was Wednesday, but I was desperately hoping it wasn’t. So, I was thinking, “could it be Tuesday? Oh my gosh! That would be I have an entire extra day than I would have if it were Wednesday!” I’m here until Monday and I arrived last Thursday, so it’s about a 10 day trip. Our days are so packed, and we’re having such a blast, I’m just trying to fit in as much as possible into everyday. We’re all in a constant state of exhaustion, but it’s like we’re having a week of celebrations, so we’re resisting spending a day doing nothing.

And we’re super popular. Everyone invites us out, everyone talks to us. Admittedly, Indian girls don’t seem to like us much. We’re an entirely different creature from most Indian girls, I think. I would love to make friends with more Indian girls – they just don’t seem to be particularly interested, or perhaps they are more cautious about us. Indian guys, on the other hand, invite us everywhere. And they are such gentlemen. They make sure we always have a ride, so they either send a taxi or pick us up themselves. They treat us to lunch or dinner. They show us around. And they are extremely patient with us and our crazy antics. I tend to be more reserved in that sense, keeping my silliness somewhat in check, but Prtha and Kumari are completely, outrageously, and unapologetically silly.

In some ways, these young, modern Indians don’t quite know what to make of us, but they have no end of entertainment, and usually they are really good sports. And I think they find it fascinating how comfortable we are with India and Indian culture. We know the movies, the songs, the clothes, the religion etc, etc, etc (many times more than they do themselves) and it’s something we’ve been exposed to our entire lives, so it’s natural for us, which is fairly rare for Westerners – at least to the same degree that we are.

In addition, Kumari speaks Tamil quite well. I’m also remembering a lot from my courses years ago in Tamil, it’s exciting how much I’m remembering. Kumari especially, and myself to some extent, speak Tamil regularly. I also read Tamil script – the one thing I haven’t forgotten at all from my Tamil courses. And people love it when we speak Tamil. Even if it’s an extremely simple sentence, or a few words here and there – it just makes people’s day. All in all, it’s admittedly fun when people are so shocked by our familiarity with India and Indian culture.

I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to describe what I mean when I say that Prtha and Kumari are silly. I almost feel like you’d have to know them: their tone of voice, their mannerisms, their facial expressions, their brilliant comedic timing, in order to really get it. Kumari is an absolute master at imitating Tamil English – she has absorbed the intonations and sentence structure. And she’ll just pop out with it at any given moment, particularly at restaurants and in stores. It totally confuses people, so they play it safe and respond to her seriously. Sometimes I can’t help but feel like they know she is pulling their leg and I feel a little bad for them. Somehow she usually just charms them to no end and receives the outrageous requests that she makes. For example, she just so innocently and assuredly requests free things, or as she sometimes calls them this week, Christmas specials. And they will be all up in a flurry, asking the manager, running here and there. And then they come back and, so politely it breaks my heart, they say to her something like: “I’m sorry madam, we do not have any free items. All these people here, we would have to give, madam. We cannot do this.” And she won’t give up: “Please, sir. Just this once, we can have special? I really, really want the fudge brownie. It’s Christmas time, sir. Sir? Please, sir, please!”

Or, Prtha, for example. The other day we were waiting for a table at this vegetarian Italian restaurant called “Little Italy.” This adorable little 9 year old Tamil girl was hanging out in the lobby because she was tired of sitting with her family at the dinner table. She spoke great English and she found us quite interesting. I can’t remember the details of everything we were talking about, but I was telling her that I have a 10 year old sister, and she was comparing notes between herself and what I told her about my sister. Anyway, Prtha joins in, and as is the case with both Prtha and Kumari, at a certain point in most of these conversations I feel obliged to explain to the recipient of their silliness that they are in fact simply being silly – because, really, sometimes people genuinely can’t tell. So I say to the little girl about Prtha, “Oh, she’s just being a goof ball, don’t listen to her.” And Prtha looks at the little girl and asks in her heavy valley girl accent that she uses 24/7 here in India  (yep, most people cannot understand for the life of them what she is saying, her accent’s that strong), anyway, Prtha says, “You know what a goofball is right?” And the little girl looks up at here bemusedly and sort of nods her head, and Prtha says irreverently, valley girl accent and all, nodding her head affirmatively, face all innocence and sincerity, “It’s a ball of goof!” It was so absurd, I couldn’t stop laughing. Even when I walked to the bathroom I was suffering from unexpected fits of stifled giggles.

Yesterday a friend of ours took us out to the mall. I don’t think he realized what he was in for when he invited us. We all had a really good time, but he definitely underestimated our shopping stamina. After lunch, we stayed at the store, Fabindia, for an hour or something. I actually had to leave at a certain point because I was laughing inconsolably at Prtha and Kumari. It was the type of uncontrollable laugh when you are witnessing something so outrageous, so bold, so shocking that you are simultaneously horrified and entertained. I feel this especially so because a lot of the innuendos, mannerisms, and sarcasm that the girls dish out to people is just so completely lost on the recipients of their antics.

For example, we were all looking at the clothes in Fabindia, and Kumari folds one up and places it back in the stack, thoughtfully saying, “I am an excellent folder, I fold clothes really well. I should work here.” And she looks over at the closest guy, her unfortunate… or fortunate… victim of attention and says in her most innocent and sincere way, “Are you hiring by any chance sir? I would make a lovely assistant. Look how nicely I fold the clothes, I think I’d bring a lot to the table as an employee here.” And the man is just baffled, he’s stupefied, because part of him knows she is goofing off, but the other part of him has to treat her as if she isn’t because she’s a customer and for all he knows, she could absolutely be serious. The thing is, she doesn’t stop at that. She draws out a conversation like this forever – it’s like I’m in a continuous, traveling, unscripted, SNL scene. Kumari is the Borat of Tamil Nadu.

            Later, as we were leaving the mall, we walked by children’s Christmas rides – the kind you have to put the coins in to make work. Of course, we didn’t actually want to ride them, we are way to large for those tiny rides, but we did want to take a picture on one of them. So our friend was taking pictures of us and out comes this lady from nowhere, madly scurrying towards us. As she hurriedly approaches, she is making that noise people make to scare off cats and is waving her hands at us in a shooing gesture. “No, not for you. Go. Go, get off there!” Props to her. She is one of the few people who isn’t going to take any of anyone’s shenanigans, particularly not ours. We did get some pictures, though, so one's included here.

I'm still figuring out how picture posting works. Today it's posting within the paragraphs, which I'm happy about, because before it would only upload at the end. But I am having a hard time pulling it to the section I want it to be in...