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Nshima & Curry

Melvin's  Blog

Nshima & Curry

CATCH A BUS IN INDIA AND DON'T LET GO

What's it like to live in a country of more than one
billion, a country that's one-third the size of Canada, yet
has thirty times the population? It's not that bad, really,
even if you happen to be the last person on the bus. At
least you can stretch your legs, enjoy the view and convince
yourself that getting on the bus is much better than getting
in the bus.

As I visit my native India, I find myself marveling at how
people deal with the immense population, which grows by a
staggering 15 million a year, so many that if rabbits had a
lobbying group, we'd all be using the phrase "breeding like
Indians."

Nowhere is the population more pronounced than in public
transportation. Buses are often crammed with people, beyond
their capacity, with some passengers getting seats and many
others pressed together in the aisle, close enough to know
what each other had for lunch.

A few passengers travel on the outside, grabbing onto
whatever they can, the frame of the door perhaps. These are
the people who know what it means to "catch the bus."

When the bus is packed, getting on and off is a major
challenge, but so is getting in and out. One method is to
drop to your hands and knees and crawl between people's
legs, though this doesn't work so well, I've found, when
women are wearing saris. Another method is to try to empty
the bus, perhaps by pointing to the street and yelling, "Oh
my gosh! Salman Khan!" The popular actor can empty just
about anything: buses, trains, kegs of beer.

What he doesn't empty, though, are movie theaters. Indians
are crazy about two things: movies and cricket. (Hence the
popularity of the Oscar-nominated "Lagaan," a movie about
cricket.) When half the population wants to watch the latest
blockbuster, the chances of getting tickets on the day of a
screening are similar to the chances of running into Paris
Hilton in a public library. Even if a few tickets are
available, you'll have to stand in a long line -- and that's
to bribe the theater owner.

But Indians are used to waiting in line. At the last general
election, people stood in line all day to exercise their
right to kick the bums out.

When you visit a doctor's office, the clerk may be poor at
grammar, but he's not incorrect when he asks, "Are you
patient?" My wife and I took our daughters to a pediatrician
for a vaccination and, despite having an appointment, had to
sit in the waiting room until the next day! Yes, we got
there at 9:45 p.m. and didn't see the doctor until after
midnight. Everyone else in the packed waiting room didn't
seem to mind, perhaps because the doctor, in his infinite
wisdom, was showing them a movie.

Indians encounter crowds almost everywhere: in the
courthouse, at the market, even in their own bedrooms. When
you're living with your extended family in a two-room
dwelling, you have little privacy. But who cares about
privacy when there are bigger issues to deal with, such as
grandpa's snoring? Or grandma's habit of cutting in line
everywhere, especially at the bathroom.

That reminds me of the bikini-clad tourist who posted a sign
at the beach that said, "Please form a line here," with a
hundred Indian men standing in front of it. "What's she
giving away?" someone asked one of the men. "She's not
giving away anything," he replied. "She just wants us to
stare at her in an orderly manner."

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