There is a neighborhood park a block
away from the hotel we are staying at in Bangalore. In an effort to
get more comfortable in my surroundings, I go on walks there daily.
It's a large gated garden, with nice plantings and you'd be hard
pressed to find trash in the place, which is a rarity in this city.
There are about ten rules ascribed to the park, one of which
includes, “no playing”, “no walking on the lawn”...Okay, it
sounds, harsh, but it's one of the few pristinely beautiful places in
the city, so I'll take the rules. You'll find women power walking in
white tennis shoes and saris, and older folks sitting on benches
chatting it up. The other side of the fence is a cricket field and
several matches take place simultaneously, seemingly all day long.
It's the kind of place where people are so busy socializing they don't feel the same urge to stare at the foreigner as they usually
would.
One afternoon on my way back from the
park I was greeted by a small toddler running in the street. He was
not more than an year and a half old, dressed in a little orange torn
tee shirt, and blue shorts that were barely covering his plump little
body. When I smiled at him, he took off running after me in his bare
feet. A man shouts out, “watch out, he's a fast runner” and
indeed he was. After a minute of walking, I looked back to find him
still running, so I stopped, to direct him back to his guardians.
There was an elderly man dressed in a sort of cloth skirt and a
middle aged man in western clothes who start walking in my direction
to collect the baby. Meanwhile the baby at this point has reached my
legs and starts firmly tugging on my pants, almost climbing my limbs
to be lifted up. For some reason I didn't think twice about scooping
him up...you can't do these kind of things in America, but it India
it seems totally acceptable to pick up a random baby who is chasing
after you. This really pleased him, and when I spoke to him, he
seemed to be utterly transfixed on my face. This was probably the
closest he had been to such a pale creature speaking a strange
language. He started imitating my words, and wobbling his little head
back and forth as he spoke (a very authentic replication of the head
wobble I might say too).
The middle aged man approaches and
starts chatting with me, asking me where I'm from, and then tells me
he is an ethnologist. He proceeds to give me a very confusing and
detailed account of ethnographic “half-castes”. I'm not sure who
he his talking about at this point, possibly referring to the baby
who has down syndrome and who is from a very poor migrant family from
Tamil Nadu. After a few minutes of conversation (and after he has
quoted several random historians and made a few nonsensical remarks)
I realize he himself has some kind of mental disability and our conversation
has no sign of an end. I've grown accustomed to spotting talkers
quite quickly from my years at a food coop and after several minutes
I try to find the best way to interject that I should be leaving. I
go to give the baby back to the elderly man, who appears to be a
grandpa of sorts, and the baby refuses to leave, clinging to my shirt
and shaking his head defiantly.
At this point we've drawn a
small crowd of a few other curious elderly folks who were quite
amused at the sight of a baby attached to a foreigner. They were
crowding around, laughing and making comments in Tamil. We manage to
pry the little baby's fingers loose from my shirt and the middle aged
man remarks to me with a completely serious manner “Oh he does this
with everyone... even with me.... oh no, it is not your Nordic
heritage nor your electric blue eyes.” He had such a straight face
and delivery I couldn't help but laugh. He continued to stand there
expressionless, leaving me a bit confused with how to read his remark
and then he says quite jovially, “give my love and regards to your
husband, and please come and visit if you want I'm at apartment 214”.
A welcoming moment in India....
