Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Ice, called water

Sudeshna Banerjee on the wonders and dangers of learning to live the American way
A Calcuttan without guidance can cut an uneasy figure in America. First, she would lose her voice. Then, if she were non-Christian and a believer, she would be in peril of losing her faith at the meal table. Then of course would be the myriad stumbling blocks that the ways of a developed country can pose to one from a land of have-some-but-not-much.
Even after so much globalisation and familiarity, there is a lot that I faced, fought and gaped at during a two-month trip to dollardom. The journey was occasioned by my selection in a Rotary Foundation-sponsored cultural exchange programme between our local Rotary district 3291 and its counterpart on the Mississippi banks, district 6800.
Before leaving, we were put through numerous orientation sessions. But nobody told us about the piles of ice they put in their water. The first meal I had ordered was a soup at Thank God It’s Friday, a fine establishment that operated on the ground floor of the Memphis hotel we were put up in. The soup was scalding. So I asked for water. They gave me a huge glass of ice. “Excuse me,” I beckoned the big African-American hostess with her hair tied up in minuscule knots and partially dyed golden. “Can I have some water, please?” “That’s waatr on your taible, honey,” she pointed at the ice tub. “I mean, some water without ice?” Seconds of stunned incomprehension followed. “You waant your waatr without ayice?” She was looking at a specimen from Mars and I was ready to dig a hole deep enough to take me back home.
After a week or so, I got the hang of it. They pay for their drink, get a huge glass, walk up to the drinks fountain, press the switch that cascades ice cubes into the glass up to its neck, then the leftover they’d fill with Sprite or Dr Pepper or Coke (I forget the other options). I would go look for a mini glass for the dips so that I could have my lemonade neat and in a size I could stomach.
Wings of wisdom
But at the meal table, life was about tough choices as I was off what Americans call meat — beef and pork. Once having exhausted all chicken options on the menu, I sought help from the hostess. She suggested Buffalo Wings. “Buffalo meat?” I cringed. “Nah, it’s chicken.” I wasn’t sure. “She could be right. Buffaloes don’t have wings, chickens do,” a member of my team wondered. “But why should they call buffalo chicken?” I was adamant. It ended in me opting for just a broccoli cheese soup. It’s a different matter that later when I’d travel to Niagara Falls, I would pass through a town called Buffalo. The city, I gathered, claimed credit for the dish, hence the name for what is actually an American institution.
The most interesting part of the programme allowed us to stay with American families. Which meant learning how to switch from Indian standard time to clock time, rinsing our dishes and putting them in the dish-washer and learning how to say “yall”. That is Southern for “you all”. Despite severe attempts, I failed to pick up the drawl.
At Tupelo, our first stop was the house where Elvis Presley was born. The second stop was a nature park where the billed attraction was buffaloes. On a $10 ticket each, we were put in a bus that took us to an open-air enclosure around which fodder was placed. And soon the beasts gathered around us in hordes. “Wow, dad, isn’t he huge?” an American boy gushed to his father. Do Calcutta kids say that when buffaloes amble about on Chitpur-Burrabazar streets?
The park also had an old Royal Bengal Tiger. He was royalty as tiger is the mascot for the local basketball team, Memphis Tigers. Eyebrows were raised when I pointed out that the beast came from our land. Most of what they use is Made in China, so the Made in Bengal tag must have sounded very foreign.
First World opulence and opportunities also left us awe-struck. In a school that we visited in Amory, a little town of 7,000 (it would qualify as a village had it not had such superb facilities), a reading class was in progress. Kids were reading not from textbooks but from computers. The teacher explained that they were reading a news report. What popped our eyes was that the software was such that the student could adjust the language level on the basis of his comprehension ability. Even then if he got stuck at a word, the software explained the meaning at a mouse click. And all our student life, we had to lug that big fat dictionary to the table!
Sound of silence
At night, a round metallic device at the bedside caught our eye. “Is it a clock? Is it a mosquito repellent?” we wondered, till our hostess, hearing our debate, enlightened us with a smile: “No, it’s a noise-maker.”
Well, in the Mississippi, things are so quiet at night, some people find it difficult to sleep. So they spend dollars on this device which produces a droning sound to break the monotony of silence! “Will someone give us a silence-maker, please, to take home?” the Calcuttan in me groaned.
Minus the ice in the water, life is good over there. The next time I edit a burglary report for my paper, I’ll remember how my hostess in Amory Robin Christensen left the house key taped to the front door when she had to leave and I was to return early. I had even bargained for a handsome property on sale in recession-hit Memphis. “Did you say, $5,000? That’s not bad!” my eyes had lit up. “Err, $50,000,” my informer repeated. The extra zero made sure I flew back to Calcutta, double-quick.
P.S: After reading a report on the Bengal elections in The New York Times, one of my American hosts, freshly enthused about all things Bengal, has written asking if I am related to Mamata Banerjee since our surnames match. I have yet to send a reply.

No comments:

Post a Comment