The Blah Blahs and the Yada Yadas

I couldn’t believe it. It simply refused to register… The lobby was air conditioned. And I don’t mean they had slots on the walls for ACs. They had actual air conditioners. Working ones. The lobby was clean, the lines orderly, and even the glass planes looked like they got washed regularly.

I do realize that these are not the kind of facilities that I should get overwhelmed by in an airport terminal, especially an international one, but I have to assert that my arrival at the Abidjan International Airport, Ivory Coast made me heave a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t be surprised if heaves of relief are a common import from people who drop into Abidjan after a week’s stay in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, considering that the flight I came in was chock full of people who had spent some time in Nigeria, I was surprised nobody jumped to the floor and started kissing the carpet. Personally, I was saving all my carpet smooches for when I got back home.

Well, maybe I’m being too harsh on Nigeria. Maybe it isn’t that bad, and I just happened to experience it on an off week. Maybe it really is a beautiful, hospitable land of diverse opportunities. But I’ll never know, because the only way I’m going back there would be if someone clubbed me over the head and shoved me into the cargo deck.

For now, I was content saying a silent prayer of thanks that I didn’t have to worry about rusty luggage trolleys or corrupt customs officials… but mostly, the fact that I probably didn’t have to worry about getting mugged outside the airport gate. I was visibly happy. I was so happy that even the sound of gibberish from all around me didn’t dampen my spirits; so happy that I was prepared to live life on the edge this time… maybe open my wallet in public to buy something to eat; so happy that… hmm… gibberish?? Now why would I hear gibberish at the airport?

I shook my head and  started paying attention.  I still heard it. It wasn’t ordinary gibberish, though. It was gibberish with a determined pattern; an eccentric rhythm. No, no. It wasn’t quite gibberish. For a mind as keen and sharp as mine, it took  only a matter of minutes - 5, maybe 10 at the most - before I realized that the people around me were actually speaking French.

Of course! French! I was told about this. Ivory Coast used to be a French Colony till the early 60s, and the official language happened to be French, not gibberish. I remembered now. I was told about this before I had been shipped out to Africa, but it had slipped my mind. As I waited in line at immigration, I could hear the rapid chatter and murmurs from all around… all in French; Ads in the lobby - classy boards that were promoting items from cellphones to what appeared to be insurance… it was either insurance or teeth whiteners - all in French; Security guards cracking jokes and laughing at some anecdote… told in French. I felt obligated to start off my stay with a French sentence. Luckily, I happened to know one. Trouble was… it was the only one I knew…

I was once part of an elite group of bored MBA students who gathered up for a crash course on the French language. During the first 45 minutes of class, the teacher essentially taught the invaluable starter phrase “Je m’appelle Hamish“, which means “I am called Hamish”, which is apparently how veteran Frenchmen choose to introduce themselves… if, of course, their name happens to be Hamish. After this first session, the course had to be canceled, due to NO fault of my own, I might add. So it was that I had this one sentence arsenal in my French vocabulary.

At the immigration counter, I was in line with my passport and arrival card in hand, mechanically moving forward even as I was trying to remember what the protocol was; how the officer behind the glass cage starts the conversation. Hopefully, she’d start by asking for my name. The perfect cue for me to respond - “Je m’appelle Hamish”. Yep.“Je m’appelle Hamish”. That’s what I’d say… But then what??

Uh, oh… Did I really think this through? A little knowledge can be an awkward thing. If I start off with my tiny little arsenal, it’s very likely that she would try to conduct the rest of the interview in French… and I really can’t see that ending well. Maybe… if I quickly laughed and said that’s the only French I knew… Maybe if I distracted her with a shiny object… Or… I knew this one magic trick that could do the trick… if only I could get hold of a hanky…

I was still pondering about my approach when I suddenly found myself at the counter, handing over my passport and arrival card, still as mechanical as ever… and the lady at the counter just stamped the passport and directing me out. No conversation. I felt shortchanged. When do I get to use my “Je m’appelle Hamish”? When do I get MY say? I learned that sentence five years ago, and I still haven’t used it once! At least, not in context.

Suddenly, a happy thought struck me. I was to be picked up at the airport. By someone called Felix, an authentic Ivory Coast citizen. That’s where I can use my line. And it would be informal too, so I can be more free about it. So who cares about the stuck up lady in the glass counter? I can use up my French arsenal on Felix. It would have been so much easier if I knew him by sight, though…

I walked around the airport lobby… looking at whole lot of people waiting with placards with names on it. No. None with my name on it. Funny. Felix was supposed to be waiting for me by the time I landed… I didn’t have his phone number, or the details of my stay, or even a proper understanding of where I was supposed to go to… He should have been there an hour ago, actually, considering that my flight was delayed by an hour… Uh oh.. The flight was actually an hour late. What if Felix had come on time, waited, and left? He wouldn’t do that, now would he? Would he? I started to panic… If Felix didn’t turn up, what are my options? I had no local currency, didn’t know if they accepted credit cards at the booths here… If he didn’t…

“Excuse me… Are you Hamish Joy, from India?”

“Yes! Yes. YES. Goddammit, I’m Hamish Joy.”

Not a dignified introduction, you see. I blew it. The “Je m’appelle Hamish” line is limited in its utility. It is first and foremost an introductory tool. You have to use it as an intro. And my intro was done - Goddammit, I’m Hamish Joy. Not the same suave smoothness I was hoping for. Now, if I had to use my one sentence arsenal, I would have to talk to someone else. But somehow, the allure was lost. From now on, if I feel a need to speak French, I’ll just grab a French fry… maybe some french toast. I am done. Je suis fait.

Namaste, somebody said. It was followed almost immediately by another cry of namaste. Pretty soon, I had a cackle of namastes from both sides. I looked up from my seat. I was getting some shut-eye in the backseat, being driven to my work in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the popular Hindi word wasn’t something I had expected to hear on the way. Namaste, for those of you who don’t know, is a Hindi greeting welcoming someone into a new place or a new day.

As I raised my head, I saw the faces attached to the greetings. Street hawkers on both sides of the jeep, apparently happy at having spotted an Indian in their midst. They had their arms outstretched… some were waving at me, some were pointing, and some were showing me their wares; cheap pirated movie disks and strange kitchen utensils.

I’ve seen foreigners in India hounded like this by the street hawker equivalents there, chanting whatever foreign phrase they may have picked up over the years. But I never expected to be part of such a debacle. The driver was oblivious to this rather curious attention I seemed to have drawn, steering me to suspect that it wasn’t curious after all, and pretty soon, the namaste crowd was left behind and I reaffirmed my commitment to catching my 20 winks. At least 12, I determined.

It wasn’t the last namaste I heard during my stay in Nigeria. Before long, I’d begin to dread hearing the word.

Chances are that they picked up the word from some cheesy Bollywood movie that did its round in Nigeria. Whether they looked up the actual meaning of the word, I cannot say. But in Nigeria, they seemed to use it in a slightly modified context. By the occasions and manner in which they used the word, the word seemed to mean - “Hey, you, Indian. Yes, you. Give me money.” This explained the outstretched hands that weren’t selling stuff.

The namastes were relentless, but while it was irritating at times, it soon merged into the background. And it wasn’t an entirely novel sight, considering I was able to relate the scene to the way Americans and Italians may be mobbed in an Indian slum area. But that changed when the namastes extended to beyond the street hawkers. Random people of all age groups and varied professions started uttering the word as if it was a magic word; the ‘open sesame’ that would get my wallet wide open for them to dive in. Security guards, hotel staff, bar patrons… all with their arm outstretched, yelling ‘namaste’ like a battle cry; they weren’t begging. Oh, no. There was no pleading in their attitude. Instead, their faces contorted to give the unambiguous message - “Dammit, man. I learned this word. This word from YOUR country. Yours, not mine. Now if you’ll kindly fetch the money you owe me, I’ll be on my way. I don’t have all day” . At the airport, some of the ground crew were a bit more sophisticated. Their greeting went “Namaste. Do you have anything for your friend, sir?”

After a while, I got frustrated and started playing dumb. It wasn’t too hard, what with all the difference in accent.

They’d say “namaste”, and I’d greet them with a big warm smile, saying “Hey, and a hearty namaste to you too…” and then I’d take the outstretched hand and shake it vigorously. And then I’d move on. Of course, this wouldn’t deter them. They’d come after me saying “Ahem… I said… namaste”, and I’d look back at them, throw in another smile and shake, and act like I just met them. Sometimes, I’d just correct them “No, no, no. It’s pronounced namaaasthai.” Similarly, with folks who would ask me “Do you have something for your friend, sir?”, I’d say “No, thank you. My friends are not coming.”

-”No. no. I’m saying… perhaps you have something you’d like to give to your friend.”

-”As a matter of fact, I do. I just sent him a pair of trousers and a Green Day CD by courier. Now how did you know that? Uncanny.”

-”Ahem… I meant… do you have something to give your friend here… HERE”

-”Actually, it’s the other way round. My friends here have something to give me. They promised to give me a box of chocolates, and now I can’t find them at all…”

And so on. But none of this was helping the frustration of going through this charade everywhere I went… I was glad when I finally reached the airport, waiting in line at the luggage check-in counter, vowing that as far as possible, I’d never set foot here again. Even as I opened up my bag to the airport customs, in my mind, I was singing Pink Floyd’s ‘A Great Day for Freedom’. I was approaching the chorus, when my daytime reverie was sharply broken by the dreaded phrase…

-”Namaste”

-”Eh??”

-”I said… namaste…”

It was the head customs official. He had a grin on his face as he was looking through my passport. And he was waiting for a response. I was thinking “Come on… This is a senior customs official at an international airport. He’s probably just greeting me.”

“Oh. Hi. Namaste to you too, sir.”, I said, smiling.

“No, no. I mean… namaste” - He hid his fingers behind my passport so that only I could see his right thumb grinding against his index and middle fingers - the subtle international money gesture for money. I was stuck. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t play my dumb act, cos this guy had the power to seize my luggage, deny my flight, and throw me in jail for some trumped up charge, at which point, I expect, namastes would be the least of my worries.

This wasn’t a request. It was a demand; a clear bribe that was required. And my dilemma was in figuring out WHAT I should give. I was still not clear on the local currency exchange rates. Exactly how many Nigerian Nairas were required for such a situation? I had no idea. I had to think about this. I remembered quickly the deplorable state my hotel was in. I figured if a moderately high class hotel in this vicinity would be that bad, exactly how much worse can their jails be? Within a matter of seconds, I forked over all the Nigerian Nairas I had with me at the time. I was graced with the grin once again before I was sent to board the plane.

The flight wasn’t particularly comfortable. But the whole namaste business had me pretty shook up, and I wasn’t thinking about much else. It would be quite a while before I could even accept an Indian good natured namaste. And I knew… by the end of the flight, as we disembarked, if the pilot and the air hostesses started throwing namastes my way, I’d roll up a newspaper and smack them on the head with it.

The English language in Nigeria has a life of its own. Especially when spoken to an outsider. I’ve heard them speak to each other, and it doesn’t have the same awkward twists and turns they employ when they speak to me. The difference, I noticed, is the way they pace the words. The accent is always thick, but when they speak to each other, the words flow smooth and free, like a seasoned driver going on a smooth highway. On the other hand, when they speak to an outsider - or maybe it’s just me - they suddenly become daredevils, twisting and turning, brakes screeching as they halt between words, going slow for a minute, and racing the next.

When they understand that you’re having trouble following them, they start talking slow; the first few words are spit out word by word, and suddenly, towards the end, the words are bunched together as if they have a specific quota of time to fill. Short words like ‘and’ and ”you’ are stretched out like a cheap rubber band.

For example, the sentence “Would you like to have some more sugar for your coffee?”, when directed at me, would get translated to, roughly, “Would… y-o-u… like.. to.. have. somemore sugarforyourcoffee?”.

And it’s even worse on the phone. Which is why room service is not an easy call. I had just placed an order for fried rice; it was an experiment, of course. I am an adventurous maverick when it comes to food; I can whip up a fried chicken from the table as easily as Indiana Jones can whip on to a jungle branch. But I had already discovered that the definition of food is surprisingly subjective. I had tried the Chicken Caesar Salad the night before. And what I received was a bowlful of half baked chicken pieces tossed along with lettuce and tomatoes. Caesar would have cringed at the unfamiliar dish, but I had it anyway. I was wondering what their version of ‘fried rice’ would look like. Just before they hung up, I decided I could do with some juice as well…

“And I’d also like some juice, please.”

“Juice?”

“Yes, juice.”

I was quite confident that the technology of juicing fruits… or at least of opening packaged fruit drinks would be available even in Nigeria. However, as I spoke into the phone, I could detect some sense of confusion. The person on the line went off for a while, talking to someone else on the other end… maybe the chef. There were some muffled discussions going on in the background. Maybe my accent threw them off, maybe they call juices something else - like fruit water. I didn’t know, but I decided to wait.

“Do you want juice, sir?”

Well, if she didn’t just read my mind…

“Yes, I would like some juice.”

“Which juice you want, sir?”

“What do you have?”

(silence)

“Which juice you want, sir?”

(sigh) “Ok. I’ll err… I’ll have mango juice.”

Here, we had a much longer silence. I suppose this is the part where she went to check whether they had mango juice.

“Sorry, sir. We don’t have mango juice.”

“Ok, so what juices do you have?”

“Hmm… orange, lemon, grapefruit, tangerine, and lime…”

That sounded like a rather odd list, but then again, I reminded myself this was a different country; that I had no idea which were the popular fruits around these parts.

“Ok, I’ll have orange juice then”

“Ok”

And that was that. Actually, it went off much smoother than I expected. Which is why I shouldn’t have been surprised when the lady at the telephone appeared at my door about 15 minutes later, saying

“Sir, I am sorry, but we don’t have juice”

“Eh? I spoke with you on the phone. You said…”

“No, sir. No pineapple juice.”

“Pinea..?? I’m sorry. I never ordered for pineapple juice.”

“No, sir. No pineapple juice”, she said apologetically. I could see that she was sincere in her apology, but that didn’t help me any.

“Listen to me. I don’t WANT pineapple juice”

“No juice. Ok, sir”, she said and started to leave.

I was about to stop her; to try to tell her that I DID want juice; that any juice would do. But then I caught myself. No juice was worth the hassle. Not by a long shot. And as I was resigning myself to my juiceless fate, I saw that the lady had paused. Apparently, she had a stroke of brilliance, cos she turned around and said…

“Sir. No pineapple juice. But we have orange juice. You want orange juice?”

I’m pretty sure my eyes were wide and my mouth agape. But I managed to regain composure before I spoke

“Yes, YES, YES! Orange juice. I would like some orange juice. Give me orange juice. Orange juice is fine. Orange juice is great.”

Ok, fine. So I didn’t exactly regain composure, but let me point out that I could have continued with “For the love of God, give me some orange juice”, and maybe “My kingdom for some orange juice” but I didn’t. I didn’t, because she already probably thought I had an unhealthy addiction to oranges, and adding more drama would possibly have given rise to her asking questions, and by this time, I had already decided that the best course of action would be to minimize conversation. So I sealed my lips shut, praying that she would have gotten the gist of what I said, mainly - “Yes, I want orange juice”.

With that, the lady walked away, probably thinking that I must come from a country where oranges are REALLY rare.

It took another 15 minutes before I got my drink. It was a long cylindrical tetra-pack which I

immediately attacked. I was halfway through my first glass before I read the label. It took me another five seconds before I realized… this wasn’t orange juice after all!

It was a brand called ‘5 Alive’, a popular brand, where each variety/ variant is a combination of five fruit juices. The variant I got was ‘The Original Citrus’ version, and the fruits in it were… orange, lemon, grapefruit, tangerine and lime.

Orange, lemon, grapefruit, tangerine and lime!!! I took in another gulp as my mind took me on a behind-the-scenes look in the kitchen. When I was asking for the juices available, the lady was actually reading the constituent fruits in this pack of juice. This pack of juice, which had orange in it. It had orange. And lime. And grapefruit and so forth… But no mango. And definitely no pineapple.

It was a simple order. Juice. Plain and simple, it had seemed to me. Not the kind you would have expected to create so much complications. I was beginning to wonder what would have happened if I had asked for something more foodlike, like… fried rice! I HAD asked for fried rice! I started to wonder what strange behind-the-scenes bloopers were happening at that very moment. I took a big long swig at the ‘orange’ juice, wishing I had something to spike it with.

Some of the so called ‘motivational phrases’ don’t address the full picture. When going gets tough, sure, the tough gets going, but what about the rest of us? It’s not good tidings for the rest of us, but nobody talks about that, do they? We’re people too, you know. And while the tough gets going without so much as a blink, it’s people like us who are trampled on, punched in the stomach, kicked in the pants and shipped off to Africa.

It’s been slightly over a month now since I’ve been told to report to Africa on a project. [...] Continue Reading…

My dad tried very hard to develop my interest in newspapers. It wasn’t easy. I always liked to read, but that interest never graduated to the daily print. Politics confused me back when I didn’t understand it, disgusted me when I finally was able to figure it out, sports never held any interest, celebrity gossip felt unnecessary, and when you cut down all of these elements, newspapers were nothing more than coarse wrapping paper, except less reliable.

And when interest finally dawned, it was restricted to the comics section. For years, I’d marvel at Calvin, chuckle at Garfield, empathized with [...] Continue Reading…

It was while I was somewhere between the grocery and junk food section in the supermarket, musing over random imponderables, when it came to my attention that despite being the most influential blogger within a radius of 10-20 meters, I’ve never raised a finger for improving the legal framework of our country. (Most friends tell me that the finger I raised at the meanie traffic cop doesn’t count)

After careful consideration, I move for capital punishment. And not just for the seriously violent criminals, but others as well… In particular, I want to pass a resolution that promotes medieval torture [...] Continue Reading…

No, it’s not really fair of me to tag it like that, but that’s the way I’ve always seen it. An unbridled, rampant, commercialized mass lunacy; an obsession spreading like butter on a skillet in hell. And I’m not talking about sudoku here.

Putting on my philosopher’s hat for a bit, I have to ask - When a craze spreads across a large enough number of people, is it still a craze? Or has that craze gotten promoted to ‘normal’? And does that further mean that the person who does not have that craze in then no longer ‘normal’, and [...] Continue Reading…

Writing can be quite unpredictable. When I start to write something, for example, I’m not always sure of how it might turn out to be. Sometimes, I’ll start on an idea that I believe might be a serious no-nonsense critique of  mismanaged traffic system in Bangalore city, and halfway through the article, I’ll find out I just wrote about why pillion riders should learn to double check their low rider jeans before they bend forward on their bikes. (Twice in a lifetime is more than what I should be subjected to these ‘half-moons’, really. So back off, destiny; I’m [...] Continue Reading…

Ever since mythical aviation enthusiast Icarus glued on feathers and jumped off a cliff, man has been trying to answer the quintessential question of ages - Is man meant to fly? And if he is, who should keep track of the frequent flyer miles? It has been one of the most common dreams through the history of man, resulting in an abundance of crimson stains underneath popular cliffs.

We have come a long way from Icarus’ wax wings. Today, if we have to travel from, say, UK to Bangalore, we can - thanks to the magical wonders of modern technology - [...] Continue Reading…

Hullo, wotcha, and an ay-up to everyone. No, I don’t really know what they mean, but from ye olde English writings, I understand the words were hot stuff yonder in London. And it felt mot juste to start off this account that way. Mot juste, FYI, was one of the phrases frequently peppering Wodehouse novels. It was all right for Wode, but why, or wherefore (to use one of Shakespeare’s gimmicks) am I resurrecting these old phrases in this paragraph? I don’t really know, but for some reason, these words always pop up when the mind wanders to London. [...] Continue Reading…