From Jitters to Jitterbug

Back to back posts.... I KNOW. From yesterday's rant where I was beginning to feel disillusioned about coming to India in the first place, I really began to think about it. After looking back, I remembered I had this same type of feeling for a small time period even when I was in Europe. The anxiety of living in a different country and adapting to their customs is always somewhat of a daunting task. At first, I was pretty down that I blew a lot of cash on a plane ticket here for a job that, in dollar values, pays me shit. I remembered my meeting with Vinod Ambani, company secretary for Reliance Industries where I had gotten my first summer job, and his words I'll never forget. "You're a kid right now, don't waste your time chasing money on day 1. Pay your dues and money's going to be chasing you." I hope he's right. So money is now a non-issue.

Nonetheless, after going home, I met my aunt who had come to visit and check up on me and my grandpa. She has lived in India her entire life, predominantly in Mumbai, and really made me feel good after I complained about rickshaw drivers trying to rip me off and people constantly trying to exploit me for my American-ness. She, laughing, said, "So what? People do that to me all the time. They try to cheat every person they can identify as rich. You should be proud you don't look like everyone else here." I think from here on out, I'm just going to take every attempt at my fat wallet in India as the other guy's admission of inferiority. And I'm cool with that.

Looking back on my decision to come to India, I sat back and backtracked as to why I came to India in the first place. Sure I wanted some international experience in an emerging nation which is and will continue to be a great business partner with the US, but the real reason I wanted to come to India was to spend time with my grandfather. At the old age of 77, he always made it sound like he's running low on fuel and if I don't come to India now, I might not ever see him again. And I got tricked into coming to Mumbai as a result. The old man still goes for morning walks every day at 6 AM with the other upper crust of Mumbai's retirees, comes back home and barks orders at his servants all day, and still makes it out for dinner and drinks multiple nights a week.

My grandpa is the best inspiration for me to suck up any small problems I have and put them behind me. As a young boy who grew up in a village and was forced to sell the family's ancestral property due to a tenancy act passed many many years ago, he came to Mumbai and brought his 8 other brothers and sisters with him. The regular coming out of the gutter story would apply as he got them all through school and married with decent jobs. Then he focused on making his career, where he ended up as commissioner of customs and central excise, a position with lots of influence. Then came the good life, where he got my parents a Luxury Suite at Taj Hotel for $free.99 because "I was JRD Tata's (the owner) VIP." I don't know how much that would've run someone when my parents got married but today its going to run you about 100,000 rupees ($2Gs) a night.

Today, my grandpa hates it when I ask him about his childhood. But he doesn't hesitate to show me his photographs of him with all his Indian celebrity friends from the 70s and 80s. Retired for the last 19 years, all he ever does now is pay attention to his health and meet his friends. His group of 12 morning walk friends, and now their junior member of the club which would be myself, get together once a week at [insert 5-star restaurant here], where one of them will pick up the whole tab and it'll be harder to get a glass of water than a "peg" of Johnnie Walker with club soda and ice. Then paparazzi come in because a superstar actress, who will remain anonymous here, is coming to eat at the same place. One of my grandpa's friends, speaking to us in English, calls her a "dumb bitch". I hope thats going to be me when I'm 77.

He says his whole life has been based on creating an image and living by it his whole life. He once told me that if our building caught fire and he was in the usual pajamas that he wears at home, he wouldn't leave until he had put on "at least a nice polo and dress pants." Because image is that important.

In response to the last post, sure I started out coming to India expecting all sorts of who knows what. My vision was a lot more like Alice in Wonderland than Mumbai. But when I wake up now, I think I'm going to feel like Derek Zoolander going out to get Orange Mocha Frappucino and Jitterbug's going to be playing in the background. It's all about an image that I can't, and to be honest, don't want to change anymore.