In my previous post, I talked about Tamil Nadu and Indian culture. I realized afterwards that I had written mainly negative things. Just like the news tends to focus only on the bad things that happen in the world, I told you only about the downsides of this extremely traditional state. I will try to rectify that in this post.
More than once, in my previous stories, I have written lyrically about the traditional dresses, means of transportation, etc. It is, indeed, very romantic and picturesque to see women in sari, men on bullock carts, and people working in the fields, like they have been doing for centuries. This, however, is but appearance; it has no intrinsic value. Much more essential, with this the old tradition come values that we, in our culture, are slowly forgetting. I don’t want to sound like Sarah Palin, but it’s true that in our society, less and less attention is given to family. Not so in Tamil Nadu. Family is everything; as a man, you will live with your parents, together with your wife and kids, earning money for all of them if you have to, and you will take care for them until they die. A similar thing happens with friendship. In our culture, it’s all about being ‘cool’, and not showing too much affection. Call your friends every day, and you will look like kind of a stalker. In India – because this holds, I think, for the whole country – friendship is much more intense. Sometimes foreigners mistakenly think a lot of Indian boys are gay; holding hands or putting their arms around each other’s shoulders is common for guys here. From the couple of Indian friends I made, I receive messages like “good night”, or “have a good day”, or sometimes poems about friendship which, to me, are very corny and ‘un-cool’ – but in the end, they are just being very nice. One last example I would like to give is the children. The two weeks I taught English weren’t the easiest, but I must say, that was in spite of the children’s character. They listened when I talked, were respectful, always called me ‘sir’, and cooperated well (that is, when they understood what I was saying). They don’t seem to have that arrogance that our kids, spoilt by TV and Internet, get more and more nowadays.
To sum up, most people here are extremely sweet. In Tamil Nadu, a lot of people don’t really know how to behave with foreign people. They stare, giggle, and ask you the same annoying questions every time. But when you need some help, the can be the nicest people you’ll ever meet. In general, I shouldn’t forget to mention that if a considerable part of the people I meet here in India either act strange or try to sell me something, to trick me or to rip me off, many are the ones that help me out in difficult situations. I am often completely helpless, especially when I’m trying to find the way, or looking for a bus or for the right platform in a railway stations. Dozens of people help me throughout my journey, most of them in the kindest way, in spite of the language problems. And oftentimes, in the stress and the chaos of the moment, I probably don’t even thank them in a decent way. So here, once and for all, I say: thank you to all those nice people who help me, because I would be lost without them.
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