Caste – noun – prohibitions prevent people from marrying outside their caste: class, social class, order, social order, social division, grade, grading, group, grouping, station, stratum, echelon, rank, level, degree, set; place, standing, position, status; Hinduism varna; archaic estate, sphere.
The coffee tastes metallic this morn. Has to do with my upset stomach–I think. Finally got a bit of the bug the other day. Better half already got it during our second or third week here. Now it’s my turn. It’s not so bad since our new house has plenty of toilets to run to. Two on each floor, in fact. One thing you can’t say about India is that the houses here are small. Well, corporate paid houses aren’t small. In fact, ours is huge. Four thousand plus square meters on four floors. It has a three car garage, maid’s quarters and, the stairwell has been built so that if someone wants to–I guess an eventual buyer of this place–an elevator can be installed. For two people and a killer pug that will protect us from Bengal tigers, this one hell of a flat.
I know I’m not supposed to drink coffee while having stomach and digestive issues. It’s just, I can’t help it. I mean, I’m a tea drinker through and through. I’m an earl grey man. But get this. I’m in India. India is a place of tea drinkers, is it not? Yet I only have one or two brands of earl grey to choose from. Can you believe that? I mean, as bad as British colonialism was/is, something brought this country out of the prehistoric–or at least tried to. For some strange reason, for which clarification eludes me, I can only buy one or two cheap brands of earl grey here. And they both suck! And, btw, I hate Twinnings brand tea. Oh well. Things learned in India: there is no choice in India other than bland, no depth, reconstituted bergamot… No wonder I can drink coffee again.
Coffee. I was trying to worst-write about coffee–or India?
I can do two things here that I couldn’t do in Germany.
- Grow fingernails
- Drink (more) coffee
I kind of gave up coffee about two years ago. It was giving me stomach aches. Or was life giving me stomach aches? Nomatter. The problem with being able to drink coffee here is that there’s no place to get decent Italian roasted coffee beans. But I guess we knew that before we came. Yes, we knew that. We have a six month supply of highly flammable, extremely potent, lusciously delicious Italian roasted expresso beans and we brought with us a really cool Jura to make Euro lattes, cappuccinos, duo espressi. Only six months?
Have I mentioned that India is a mess? And what a mess! Between its stench and the dust filled air one is forced to breath, there is a vast amount of humanity crossing unplanned streets and convoluted wiring–and everyone is in haze of unglory. Wires. Wires span the short horizons as much as the greenery here. What is it with third world places and their street wiring? On the other hand, this place has the best internet I’ve ever experienced. Which means… Wires replace green–and I hate green. And wires mean less human contact. That’s a good thing when living as a westerner in India.
Worst-Speaking of greenery. There is, literally, more people in this city than there is grass. But what of the trees? Bangelore is supposed to be “the garden city”. Not sure where they got that from. While walking Beckett (the killer pug) on filth-streets, some of the people that mumble Indian-English tell me that there used to be more trees in Bangelore.
But the trees have all been cut down, they say.
But this is progress, I say back to them in perfectly articulated English.
It is mind boggling to try and understand Indians speaking English in India. I don’t recall this being an issue meeting Indians in Europe or the US. They all spoke perfect English. In India something changes with them, I guess. Perhaps it’s because here, in their land, they can resort to other ways of speaking English. The Indian way. And so. They mumble as though marbles are jammed between their cheeks and gums and they’re trying to blow bubbles. Their inability to speak English–even though it’s pretty much a standard language here–not unlike rice–requires a great deal of effort to comprehend. More effort, in fact, than I’m willing to give (them). Instead, my contribution to learning Indian culture after three months consists of being able to nod/jiggle my head in affirmation. But I can’t even do that very much since it makes me horribly dizzy.
And by-the-by, one more thing about India. In the short period of time that I’ve been here, I feel even more sorry for the poor of this world then ever before. When I say poor I don’t mean poor-poor. India has a working class poor like no other. And just like the West, the majority of working poor stiffs think they are part of an economy. As shocking as India is with its inability to build and maintain a functioning infrastructure (i.e. wires and greenery don’t mix), its societal poverty problems pale in comparison to the character of the people that are obviously blinded by false-pride, false-nationalism and, more importantly, a false sense of achievement. If the West is being devastated by austerity and propping up the rich, it is only a hop-skip-jump away from the same level of devastation India has achieved.
Which brings me to a bit of worst generalising. For those who don’t wish to continue with Tommi’s negativity, aka worst-writing, I can sum it up in two words that you can read and then click to go somewhere else in the Internetwebs: India sucks!
Don’t forget, dear worst-reader, I’m used to cultural arrogance on a grand scale having lived for so long in the Germania-Clan of #Eurowasteland. Yet India’s collective state of mind (state of arrogance) is beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I never expected this. Whether it’s our landlord or some of the corporate executives that we have to deal with or those I meet on the street who obviously speak bad English with a purpose, I never expected this level of empty arrogance. Obviously India has learned well from the empire-state-of-mind that reared it. This vast land made up of government and military with a small portion of economics is nothing more than a freakshow version of most western economies, especially #eurowasteland. Add to that the Indian lust for the Caste system and religious nuttery galore! Wow. What a potent mix. I’m wondering if there are a few oligarchs and plutocrats in the West that look to India for a better way to control the ever expanding chasm they’ve created. The West has already interjected the ignorance of religion into society. If only it could get something like India’s Caste system interjected, too. Double wow!
When I walk my dog I feel as though I’m one of the bad guys of the world. But I don’t give a sh*t anymore. In this short period of time, India has taught me more than any other country I’ve ever been in, it truly is game-over for the rest of us. If the West can pull this off with a country like India–this perfect control of the poor–then it’s only a matter of time until India becomes the new model society. India is proof that no one in the West should have children anymore. No one should work-to-live anymore. Heads of all pseudo-aristocracies, pseudo neo-feudalists, should roll in the streets. For you must see, dear worst-reader, greed and revolution is the only thing the West has to give humanity. And so. Upon being beheaded, the blood of all the useless dead rich (most of which are all rich because of what they inherited not what they achieved) should serve as art for future generations to observe. Indeed. The bitterness of poverty, the bitterness of post-colonialism, the bitterness of human confusion mixed with a false sense of national pride is a potent and destructive tool. This beast that the West has created is perfect for controlling the poor, it’s perfect for India. Control the poor everywhere.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, as Indians avoid their own reality, building distortion fields like Bangelore–it gladly cuts its nose off to spite its own face. I must appear to these people, while I walk my dog in their neighbourhoods, like a ghost of an evil past. I am a horrid figure that comes from a world of really, really stupid working classes that think they actually do things with their useless eating lives. Which mean, everything workers in the West do, they do only to become India.
Thank goodness the morons of the world have their Gods to help them figure things out. (See pic above; turn sarcasm off; end life as we know it.)
Rant on.
-Tommi
worstwriter 