India Online Journal, November 2001
Author: Jennifer Kumar
All photos and text on this and subsequent pages are property of Jennifer Kumar (unless otherwise quoted). If you would like to link to my site or borrow or use images from my pages, please contact me. More about me here. Thank you.
Day 2
One of Frank's Photos.
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Today I woke up at the correct time, 6am! For many, waking up past 7:30 or 8 am is considered late. The first thing one must do after waking up in a Hindu (Indian) home is to brush your teeth. Families won't allow you to eat or drink or in some cases even talk if you don't brush as soon as waking. After brushing, it is customary to have morning beverage, hot tea, hot coffee, or hot boost. The photo to the left demonstrates how people cool tea by pouring it between vessels. This is done rather than blowing on it or waiting for it to cool.
Most enjoy a short morning walk as the day time climate is stifiling, come back drink a hot drink, take a bath, and then eat some tiffen (breakfast) before going to work. The day proceeds by eating lunch at 1pm, and if it is a lazy day, many will go for a nap after lunch, and then have tea at 4. Dinner will usually be eaten around 8 or 9 pm. My Indian family and I ate a bit later, at 9:30pm. In their (Hindu South Indian) tradition, it is not good to eat at dusk or dawn. It is those times that GOD enters your house, so it is not pleasing to the GOD if you eat at this time. Usually in India (Chennai) dawn and dusk are same time throughout the year, being 5:30- 6am and 6pm-6:45pm.
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Well, there are three brothers living in the house, so I waited for them to take a bath then I also did. Though it is more common for people to have western style bathrooms with western toilet and shower (not necessarily a bathtub), my Indian family did not have western bathing facilities. Though, there was a separate room with a western toilet, we preferred the Indian toilet. The Indian toilet was in the same room as the bathing area, where we would take a bath by collecting water in buckets and using mugs to dump the water on ourselves. Though they have a geyser (hot water heater) we can take hot water bath, but it is so hot, I usually like to take cold water with just a little hot mixed. But, November is rainy season, so it is cooler (90 degrees Fahrenheit).
It is only after taking bath that one can pray to GOD and eat breakfast. The word most Indians use for eating a small amounts is tiffen. Tiffen is not a type of or a name of a type of food, it is just another name for 'small meal.' Hence, breakfast is called TIFFEN and is always hot food. Having tiffens for Breakfast is a relatively new thing in India. As one interesting person put it to me "If you break the word Breakfast into "break and fast", you could interpret the word breakfast to mean breaking the fast from the previous night." Most families do eat breakfast, because of modern lifestyles, but those who are more traditional (especially Brahmins) eat a brunch only at 11am. When I stay at my friend's homes who eat in this fashion, I get SO hungry in the morning. But in this house, we eat tiffen for breakfast. Today we had idli (small rice pancakes) and sambar (vegetable stew). Though this may not seem like a small amount of food (ie. tiffen), it is a considerable smaller amount of food as compared to a three course lunch or dinner, typical in Chennai. Actually the food has a different translation then what it really is, but that is the English version.
At 9am I went to my college to inquire about my hall ticket. A hall ticket is a piece of paper you must show with college ID at time of entering the test hall. The ticket has your name, class year and date on it. Without this paper one can not write any exam.
The photo to the right is of Tibetian merchants selling woolen scarves and hats on the street side near to Tambaram Municipality.
I went to my department and saw my teachers. They had a meeting, so I couldn't stay for long. I bought some gifts from US for them to use, like stencils, markers, and other things. Though these things are freely available in India, I wanted to bring these as a token.
As I walked through the college tree- lined dirt roads, I saw more teachers. As I met each person, I was greeted with the phrase, "You put up weight." (i.e. You have gained weight.) Among the people I knew In India if you haven't seen them for some time, the first they say to you is, "How is your family?", and the second thing they comment on is your health as they see it with their eyes. In fact, under most circumstances, this comment is meant to be a compliment, equating more weight with good health. But I was upset because since I left India last, I have not gained weight and I had exercised our home gym (in U.S.). Oh well. They mean it only to be nice, since last time I was here I was sick many times and too skinny. The only other thing I felt bad about was that I couldn't remember names of many people that had only met me infrequently while living in Chennai. But in India all remember foreigner's names, but it is hard to remember hundreds of Indian's names!
After leaving the college, I went back to the other side of town. I am staying in a place called Tambaram. There are two sides, East and West, divided by a railway track. East side is where the college is, and West side is where I am staying. West Tambaram is famous because besides having the railway station, it also has the bus terminus. When people from outside Chennai want to travel to Chennai, they must come to this terminus. All busses and trains stop here. Tambaram is considered a 'village' by some since it is far from the city, but people usually say this to joke about Tambaram. It is far from a village, everything is available here, from saris, dhotis, sweets, medicines, TVs, computers, and all types of shops from electricals, xeroxing, hotels (restaurants), taxi rentals, cable providers, net cafes, and larger department stores selling food, beauty supplies, detergents, and recently pedigree brand dog food! In a country where people are too poor to eat, they sell DOG food now! The commercial came on the TV just today, even one came for dog dandruff shampoo. These items will cost more than US $5 each. Only the rich and trendy can get these items.
The other thing West Tambaram is famous for is the fruit and vegetable market. It is open daily. It is comparable to the farmers market in U.S., where you can bargain. It extends over 5 or 6 streets. You can purchase all kinds of fruits, vegetables and other provisions for extremely low prices. Once I got 10 GOYA fruits for Rs 10 (about 25 cents) and 10 sapotta fruits (comparable to Kiwi) for Rs. 10. You can get all fruits and vegetables here. Ones not available are lettuce, celery, etc. (In India people do not eat raw vegetables.) Rare or foreign fruits are available in big grocery shops in the city. There they sell fruits with the stickers on them, I even saw apples from Australia there! They cost Rs 20 for one, about 50 cents, which is considered expensive. The special fruits are sappotta, coconut water (best for heat), custard apple, and a few others I can't remember now. Vegetables are drumstick and others I can't remember now. Besides vegetables and fruits, street vendors of all types sell a variety of things from firecrackers during Diwali to fried snacks and costume jewelry, and even undergarments!
The image to the right is funny ad that demonstrates how prevalent the Internet is in India. This ad was cut from the Hindu Newspaper.
When I reached West Tambaram, I went to net cafe. The shop I chose charged Rs 25 (about 60 cents) per hour. They have special rates for nighttime and early morning hours. This place is very big and new (only 1 1/2 years old). It has about 50 cubicle terminals. So there is privacy. It has a/c (air conditioner) and white tiled floors. You can browse any sites as long as you want. They give you a ticket when you sit down saying the time on it. I like this shop best cause they have a big digital clock on the wall, so even if the computer time is wrong, I can see that clock from sitting anywhere in the room. Sometimes if you go even one minute over they will charge for next hour. I know that rupees doesn't amount to much in dollars, but it is the principal of it. One time last year I came to this shop and the server was down and at that time they only just opened so they did not know me. They were still going to charge though I did not browse a thing in 10 minutes. I had told them I am not paying and they bargained with me, but finally they said I did not have to pay.
When we returned, Amma told me about her friend's family. Aunty* has three children. One is a son (Suresh), 35, and two daughters, 37 (Uma)and 28 (Aditi). None were married at this time. In addition, in India, daughters must marry before sons, no matter the age, then sons in decreasing age. In any case, due to the unmarriageable status of the eldest daughter they met many problems in finding a suitable match for Aditi. They are a caste also which comes from another state, and that caste and language group is not common here in Chennai. If they even marry out of language, but especially caste, other family members won't allow the girl back in their house for functions. This is the problem of some traditional people in India and one of many reasons people shudder when a family member wants to marry out of caste. But this is slowly changing.
Anyhow the boy Aunty found for Aditi is a doctor.His name is Shankar. He is of same the caste, but a different mother tongue. (In India there is a concept called 'mother tongue'. This refers to the origins and original language of the family. For example for Tamilians who have always been in Tamil Nadu, Tamil is their mother tongue. If a Tamilian moves to Delhi, he may know Hindi, but his mother tongue is still Tamil.) But they say he is very good, nice and handsome and from a good family. However, now, Shankar's family started asking for dowry. Dowry is the price a boy (boy's family) asks for a girl's hand in marriage. The biggest worry is the manadapam (marriage hall), as they were demanding the most costly one in Chennai, and for 3 full days (now most weddings finish in 2 days, evening before and day of). This was coming to 1 Lakh (about US $2,000) which is a lot of money considering you can get a decent mandapam for about Rs 8,000 (US 180) for same time period. This is the rest of their demands:
Mandapam: 1,00,000 (1 lakh)
Clothing: 50,000 (this is best suiting from best tailor)
Photos and Video: 25,000
Catering: 50,000 (two meals and snacks throughout)
Flowers/decorations: 10,000 (all flowers in Indian Marriages are fresh.)
MISC: 10,000 (cars, invitations, etc)
5 sovereigns GOLD: 25,000 (all real gold)
total: 2,70,000 (about US 5,700)
This is a LOT of money in India, in general. So her mother was going to the boy's house today itself to make a 'deal with the mother'.
The photo to the right is an entrance to a marriage hall (kalayanam mandapam) when decorated for a marriage. All the decoration on the arch saying "Gautam weds Mythili" is made fully with fresh flowers.
Tonight from 6-8pm, while I was catching up on sleep from jet lag, Amma had gone shopping for Diwali clothes.
*All names have been changed.
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