Indians have scrambled sense of personal space. And I am
happily included in the parade. I have had always liked my brother’s stuff more
than my stuff. Even though they were often identical, I never thought twice
before claiming them. My dad’s t-shirts have always been my favorite wear-at-home
clothes. I have always eaten happily off my aunt’s hand when she used to mix
rice and fish curry together in a big Kansa thali and feed all my cousins
simultaneously from it whenever we were having our mandatory family picnics. And
I have slept with my mom and dad till I was eleven. I have traveled in cramped
trains and buses standing so close to another person that I could count the
open pores on their noses. My best friend and I walked together holding hands
most of the time.
College
hostel was worse. Anyone was allowed anytime (that means literally any damn
time) in anybody else’s room. You could wear/not wear anything and still roam
about freely without the fear of being laughed at. The whole hostel would know
about your latest crush even if the person you are having crush on didn’t. And everybody
was even aware of everybody else’s bathroom schedule!
Yet the same people would leave you alone
when you needed to be. So really I had always thought that the notion of lack
of personal space was a big hoax. And that it really didn’t matter until I found
that there were people who were still nosier and had still more scrambled sense
of personal space.
My first such experience was after we’d
just joined our jobs when Suchi and I were forced to move into a hostel after
we’d exhausted our one week of company provided accommodation.
Suchi and I shared a room and a tiered cot.
We had only one small wardrobe to ourselves that didn’t lock. So we locked our
room when we went to our office. The lady who looked after the hostel might
have tried to tell us that it was against the rules to lock the rooms while
going out but we obviously didn’t understand given the big language problem. But
that anyway couldn’t have been the excuse for what happened next.
One day after returning from office we
found that our lock was broken! And two more cots were cramped in the narrow
space of our room. If that was not enough we soon found that the attached
bathroom was in fact a public bathroom which could be used by the other tenants
as well. And that there was a switch outside our room to put out the light of
our room and that we were not allowed to keep the light on after 11 p.m!
This was my first taste of how little sense
people could have about any individual’s privacy!
Needless to say we moved out to our own
rented place within a month. Finding a decent rented apartment for two girls
(who were also non-South Indians and ate Non-Vegetarian food) was another
struggle but more on that later.
Though there were always people in office who
were more than interested to know how much salary we got or how we two girls
were staying “alone” in an unknown city or whether or not we had boyfriends and
whether or not we were misusing our “independence”.
But as Suchi said, it was more the un-accustomedness
to a self-sufficient Indian woman and less the invasion of privacy.
But then I discovered what it was like to
have the complete absence of any such sense.
A couple of days back I was returning home after
spending most of the day shopping. I had taken a train as that was usually the fastest.
I was past the point of exhaustion and my hands were full of shopping bags. I
got a seat and immediately dozed off only to be woken up by a fat belly
pressing squarely on my drooping head and a firm hand digging on my shoulder. I
jumped and looked up. A saree clad middle aged lady with a huge bare midriff was
standing just inches ahead of me. She smiled broadly at me. I looked around. Though
there was no empty seat, the train was fairly empty. I looked at her again. This
time irritation flooding me.
Her little son or grandson (I didn’t care) who
stood beside her offered an explanation in English (clearly understanding my
inability to understand the native language), “She is very tired. So she is
leaning on you.”
“What’s wrong with the sidewalls?” I couldn’t
help but ask.
“They are hard. You are soft.” Came the
reply.
Perplexed I couldn’t think of any other
thing but to stand up and offer her my seat.
Though she and her little companion seemed
perfectly nonchalant while she heavily sat down on the seat, it took me two
days to finally recover from the incident and assume an amused outlook about
it.
Have you ever experienced such perplexing
incidents?
Love,
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Riot of Random
