The Stupid Tax

Sarah calls it the "stupid tax."

(As I have said often to her and others, I won the roomate lottery. She is this young, brilliant, social activist who has lived in India for a year and a half and speaks Hindi. She has worked with people, like me, who come to a developing country, and have high expectations for achieving great things. She watches them, with quiet reserve, I might add,  repeatedly go through the same learning curve each time as they adapt, or don't adapt to the Indian culture.)

The stupid tax is the extra time and money you will often pay for learning things the hard way. For instance, an auto rickshaw should cost 50 -150 rupees ($1-$3) to go most places in town. The stupid tax is when you pay 200 rupees because you don't know from experience to bargain with the driver.

Yesterday, Alan and I paid the stupid tax for two hours as we searched for moving companies, whose names we had found on the Internet, who we intelligently thought should be able to sell us file-size moving boxes to begin the process of sorting and filing documents we have uncovered in Nek Chand's office.

Really? We really thought we would look up a name and address on the Internet and find a company that sells boxes, like we would do in a western country. Then we would hire an auto rickshaw for an hour and a half to go see them, get the boxes and other supplies and come back.

We went to the first address....no store. We call them. "Oh no mom, we are in Delhi, not Chandigarh. We use the address of our friend."

Store #2." Oh no mom, we do not sell boxes without packing and moving things by our men."

Store #3 - This number is no longer in service.

Ok, so who sells boxes? We drive to sector 17 (already one hour into this fiasco) to a stationery store we know, where Alan got bubble wrap two days ago.

Do you sell boxes? No mom, we sell packing tape. bubble wrap and file folders from the 1950s, but no boxes. But we do have some used boxes in the back that we will sell you if you want. So we go in the back of the store and find boxes that contained reams of white computer printer paper with tops.

"OK, we will take 20 boxes."

"Oh no mom, we cannot sell you 20 boxes. We can sell you two  boxes."

"But we need 20."

All ten guys give a bobble head at the same time (where they shake their heads from side to side and you have no idea what it means since we nod our heads up and down.) Mr. Singh, the owner (who always sits behind the counter with the money) says, "You will come tomorrow for more."

At this point, it is two hours into this project, so we take the two boxes and go. Along the way to the auto rickshaw, I see some empty boxes sitting in front of a retailer, which I steal and run for the taxi. Alan hobble behind me and we pay the stupid tax again!

More later on the unbelievable things we have found....
j

Turn Off The Drill or We are Leaving!

(L-R) top row - Shifa, Jody, Alan, Sarah, Adam
bottom row - Sue, me, Anita (Notice it is March and there are still  holiday  decorations

Last night we all got together at Lyons, our default, Indian restaurant in Sector 17 to have our final group dinner before we starting peeling off and going our separate ways today. Anita is the first to leave, then a larger group on Saturday, and then the rest next week some time.

From our perspective, since we have not seen otherwise, Lyons is considered a "nice" restaurant. It is located in their "premier" brand section of a strip shopping center that is their "Rodeo Drive." It was probably built in the 80s and has an all-white interior with marble floors, a white and chrome railing leading to the upstairs fancy bar, and  back lit marble panels on the floor and walls to give it an expensive kinda sheen.

(L-R) Sue, Adam, Shifa, Alan, Anita, Jody, Sarah-

It serves fancy Indian food at affordable prices ( $6-8) an entree, and ,lots of waiters who bobble their heads and pretend to understand you even though they are really clueless regarding speaking English. Let's be clear, it is really our responsibility to learn Hindi, but still, if you are going to appeal to tourists, shouldn't you have at least one person who understands English? But in all fairness, it is mostly a restaurant that appeals to business men who have expense accounts and upscale professional class families who are there for special occasions.

So we sit down and as we are served drinks, we hear what sounds like the loud whirring of a mixer, but it is unusually loud. We ask what it is and they mention lime soda drinks so we just let it go, assuming it is the mixer. But after a few minutes, the sound becomes more intrusive and we realize that it is a power drill and that they are doing construction in the bar upstairs.

It is so typical India to have this kind of collision of cultural expectations. We are sitting down for what we think is going to be a nice, quiet dinner, and they are probably ecstatic that the construction guy finally showed up to fix the problem upstairs. If it is anything like we have experienced, it can take days to complete a one-hour appointment.

Anyway, we ask that they please stop the drilling during dinner so we can hear ourselves think, much less talk, and they say, "yes mom, we are so sorry, just a few minutes."

The drilling continues. I tell the waiter we will leave in one minute if the drilling is not stopped.

"Oh no mom, we will stop the drilling."

Drilling stops, we are served first course.

Drilling starts again....our table is vibrating it is so loud.

I go over to the manager and tell him if they don't stop the drilling, then this party of eight is going to leave their meals on the table and we are not going to pay for what we have ordered, and the owner will be very unhappy with the bill.  I point to the door and let my fingers do the walking as we say in America, when we want to show someone we are planning to walk!

Dinner is served.
Drilling stops...........
Sheesh...
Dinner over
There are lots of things I will miss about India.
Drilling over dinner is not one of them.

Henna Hoodlums

Henna Hoodlums come to the Rock Park and hustle Sue

Henna  is a plant derivative that when combined with an acidic
mix, stains the skin.
It is applied on hands and feet and considered
a skin adornment for brides and women.

Sue with her completed design

Jody with her  design

Sarah is not impressed

I'm feeling touristy....

Living The Dream

Alan Cesarano, European filmaker, and I review plans we found in Nek Chand's office

Alan and I take a break for the camera

It is hard to believe we only have four more days to finish our work here at the garden. Everyone is working hard on their mosaics or on their individual projects. For me, I have been asked to help photograph and archive the items in Nek Chand's office so that there is an official record of them digitally. 

Secretly, I think the mosaic team is happy, since my mosaic work was not really up to snuff against the pros we have finishing the columns.

One side of Nek Chand's office!

Nek Chand's office is piled thigh-high with newspaper clippings, gifts of artwork, dusty awards, presentation photographs and more. So there is a great need to document them before they disappear in an avalanche of piles. 

Lokrum, Nek Chand's gatekeeper, unties bundles of
newspaper clippings for us to review

For me it is a dream come true. Ever since I learned of visionary folk art environments like this one, I have wanted to participate in some way to help preserve them for future generations. Unfortunately, even in good economic times, preservation is expensive and often left to private foundations or individuals who happen to stumble across this small genre of outsiders to the art world who are often ridiculed by the less informed.

Even here in Chandigarh, and throughout India, this site is viewed more as a Sunday stroll through the park with the family than it is a serious public art installation. Visitors constantly mark or scrape their names into the rocks and climb over the sculptures for better photo opportunities.

So we began in earnest by going through hundreds of clippings to determine which ones are worth digitally preserving. After that, we began taking Nek Chand's office section by section to photograph every award, document, clipping, gift, photograph or painting, most which have not seen the light of day for years.

(L-R) Lokrum re-ties bundles after we review them.

Of course the task is not made easier because of the language barrier and lack of resources. We have constructed a make-shift studio for shooting, and we have to move it every couple of hours with the sun! We also had to convince our helpers not to use newsprint (which is extremely acidic) as a wrapper for the items we photograph. Finally, when we compared it to the caustic cement used for the mosaics, they got the message.

Thankfully, our helpers from Nek Chand are wonderfully cooperative and remind us how revered and respected he is within the broader community. For me, it is a dream come true, and a major item on my bucket list crossed off with joy, satisfaction and more meaning than I ever thought possible. Tomorrow, I will try and post pictures of the mosaic team and their column work and our afternoon henna party with the henna hoodlums who tried to take us for a ride!

Going Rogue For One Night

My bedroom last night

I admit it fully. I've gone rogue in Chandigarh. Our water heater blew out yesterday and I couldn't hack it anymore. I checked myself into what Sarah, my roomie, calls a "culture shock hotel." It means when you finally get to the point when the way of life overwhelms you, then you look for something that reminds you of home to seek a little comfort and security. Call me a wus, a weany or a wimp...I don't care.

One night of luxury brought me back to my senses and restored my sense of balance about the whole situation. I had a fabulous massage by a vertically challenged Thai masseuse who walked over my back for 30 minutes; a proper ceasar salad with real shaved Parmesan cheese and bread croutons and a long hot shower where I didn't have to stand in a bucket to wash my feet! This morning, I got up leisurely, had a free hotel breakfast with some strange looking fruits and I was a new woman!

Tonight we are all going out to dinner to a British restaurant (not crazy about Brit food either) but since there are four Brits/Scots to our two Americans and since it is near a dancing place Sarah knows about, then that is the plan.

Tomorrow it is back to work on our columns. Everyone is now in the groove of the park, and we are already talking about how much we will miss living in this paradise....HA..For me, I'll take the J.W Marriott!