HT Home / Blogs Home > Expat On The Edge / Mumbai / I guess I am becoming a bit Indian…

What was interesting about hosting my friend in Mumbai last week, apart from spending some exceptionally enjoyable time with her, was I discovered I’m more Indian than I realise, in some ways, but not yet in all…

Living here I have always considered myself to be British in that I am sensitive to what is different around me. I feel different in a lot of ways to the people around me, as I have come from another culture, society and set of values. So, I was sure I had certainly not ‘become Indian’ (or gone native as  VSOs would describe it. In their case they refer to Brits who travel to far flung places to do voluntary work and then end up hating western culture and customs such as supermarkets, instead adopting local customs, dressing  in local dress, and perhaps dating the local rickshaw driver or mountain tour guide. Mumbai is different as it’s not such an exotic place, so it’s difficult to go native here, but here there is a genre of  “holier-than thou expats’ here, those expats who decry hanging with other expats, claim to only mix with Indians, show off about how they played Holi, eat street food and how “local they are”.) Well, I am different. I am not Indian, nor am I a holier-than-thou expat, not have I gone native. I still buy Heinz Baked beans and Marmite. I still go to five stars and expat parties. I still hate shopping in Linking Road market and prefer the Palladium any day.

But I’m sure many Indians are the same. I also can still connect with Britons that arrive here fresh off the boat from the West. I have not ‘lost my Britishness’ completely. Yet at the same time I can now understand what is happening around me here, what is really going through Indian people’s minds. (This has taken a long time to achieve, I admit.) I now speak quite decent Hindi and know Mumbai pretty well, I’m used to the way of life here, and what a newcomer finds strange, well, I don’t anymore.

So, I do feel as though, I have evolved from that person, who arrived in 2007. However my friend coming here did throw some questions on that…

Following a visit to the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower my friend realised she had left her Dolce and Gabanna sunglasses in the Ladies’ Toilets. We were told to report it to the security manager. “Which restaurants were you dining at?” he asked us in a posh voice. The truth was we hadn’t dined at any – we had merely changed in the Ladies Toilets because we had a dinner party to attend and had spent the day sightseeing. I wonder how many other people do this? We had actually planned to have a drink in the Harbour Bar but ran out of time as the driver had told us  the traffic was building up…”Are you hotel guests?” he asked. My friend went white. She had no idea how to respond.

Unfazed, I intervened and said we had come to look at the Memorial to 26/11 victims (which was true) and then had to use the Ladies Toilets…The glasses were not there.

Next  we headed to Colaba police station since my friend wanted to make an insurance claim. …I knew that a visit to the police, would, if nothing else, add to the rich experience of India, my friend would have…. We walked in and she started explaining what had happened, but the policeman didn’t seem to understand her accent and very vague, polite, ‘beating around the bushes’ style-of-speaking.

I realised she was being too gentle and polite and then translated it all into a direct blunt English sentences. “They have CCTV everywhere in the Taj.. Have you asked to see their CCTV?” he quizzed us. “They don’t have CCTV in the loos,” my friend responded.. “They do, it’s everywhere” the policeman insisted. “Not in the cubicles,” she said. “ “Yes it is in the cubicles” the policeman replied. “Don’t argue with him,” I advised.

Next minute a group of about 40 people, that looked like labourers on a construction site barged in, all shouting and screaming in either Hindi or Marathi. The policeman stopped listening to my friend and listened to them instead. A woman shouted  with a huge group behind  her, then a man on my right shouted, with a huge group behind him. My friend meanwhile was highly perplexed that our little appointment had been broken up randomly by this group of people. I was unfazed. I sat and smiled at the police officers around me…The same thing happens at my doctor. I go in either when he is dealing with another patient and he treats both of us simultaneously or another patient walks in while I am there…it’s normal here. My friend was getting highly worked up at how rude this all was…I meanwhile knew the police had all the power to help us and the key was to act cool. “Why is he investigating the crime? I just want to make an insurance claim” my friend whispered.. “Let him. Do what he says,” I advised. Next minute he was on the phone to the security manager of the Taj. He handed the phone to my friend.

“He has a thick Indian accent,” she said. “So does the policeman. I can’t understand what they are saying…”

“What are you saying?” I said taking the phone, and able to understand both clearly.

“That’s because you have an Indian accent!” she said. Weird. I had thought I had a Home Counties accent, but it occurred to me it could possibly be true. Maybe I had now adopted an Indian accent….after living here two and a half years.

After some time the policeman had lost interest in the CCTV matter and handed my friend a  piece of paper and told her to write.. “Dear Superintendent of Colaba Police…I have forgot my glasses…..blah blah…..went back thrice to look for them.” “Just write ‘thrice’ I said, gently as my friend resisted…

“I looked for the same” he went on. My friend looked confused. She had no idea what ‘the same’ meant…He might as well have been asking her to write in Marathi

“Then end with ‘I request you to help the needful,’” he said. This was the limit. My friend put the pen down, unable to understand what that sentence was meant to mean. “Just write it, ” I whispered. “It’s one of the most powerful sentences in India. It opens doors.” Needless to say she got the lost certificate she needed.

I have debated these terms with colleagues, and they tell me they are an Indian dialect of English, so are as valid as British English. The use of the word ‘thrice’ in the UK is considered archaic. Instead Brits say ‘three times.’ Here ‘thrice’ is the norm. As for the phrase ‘do the needful’, I have no idea of its meaning. ‘Felicitated’ is another word I only came across here in India; same with ‘out of station’; ‘shifted’ ‘ and ‘told that’ and, of course ‘the same’ which means ‘it’. I guess with more Indians than Brits speaking English, who knows, maybe Indian English will one day take over.

Soon enough my friend had been bitten by a mosquito and panicked she would have malaria…even though she was taking the anti malarial tablets..I’m not on them  – not advisable if you live here, as the side effects are dangerous when they are taken over long periods…Yet I have been bitten many times, but it doesn’t faze me.

Likewise she didn’t take ice in any drinks; I did. She wouldn’t drink aquaguard water. I did.

I did pooja in all the temples we visited. My friend seemed a bit bemused by this, as she is Christian… But I like doing pooja. I have developed my own an eclectic religion here…I enjoy experiencing Indian religions, and taking part in chanting sessions at the Hare Krishna Temple. I also still go to a Catholic church.

India has made me assimilate things … perhas you learn to assimilate other ideas and cultures, and kind of merge them with your own. I also now speak bits of Hindi kind of intertwined with English. So, when someone speaks, I nod and say ‘Haa’ and if someone looks worried or confused I say ‘Kya Hua?’ and ‘Achaa’ comes out quite a lot; as does ‘matlab’ and ‘ki’ in the middle of sentences.

There were elements of life here that bemused her, such as the constant honking. I had to explain to her that cars and autos honk, whenever they want to move, or want someone else to, instead of using lights and indicators, and that was just the way it was…She also found the driving of cabs rather erratic, and would cling on for her life, as they drove along, whereas I just calmly sit cool as a cucumber. She found the weather to be baking; for me it was  cool.

But despite me being able to navigate some aspects of Indian society better than my friend, there were areas where she excelled above  me…The food being one! One day I had to work. So, I met her at 5pm and asked her where she had eaten lunch, having recommended she try a nearby five star hotel.

‘Oh there!’ she said as we hurtled past a roadside eatery, literally a shack with a few old square tables and a fan hurtling around the top, in an auto. “You ate at a street stall?”

“Yes, I had a mutton curry,” she said, “And it was delicious…” I have never done that….I’m still British, but I guess, subconsciously some bits of India have been. assimilating with me, and so I’m now becoming a BBDE, British born confused (somewhat) desified expat.

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