Indian Hospitality

A couple nights ago I ran into my roommate, Arjun, as I was walking home. He invited me to join him and his daughter to see his son perform stand-up comedy. Arjun, like nearly every other person I've met here, has been unbelievably welcoming, friendly, and helpful. He's taken a serious interest in teaching me about Indian culture and he's offered to let me sit in on his daily yoga lessons. Hope to do that soon. I immediately accepted his offer, excited to see what stand-up would look like in Mumbai.

The stand-up comedy turned out to be a poetry slam, with Arjun's son the only one offering up any comedy. The rest of the poets were a mixed bag, but definitely as good if not better than anything Cafe Gato Rojo has served up at Harvard. Most of the poems were in English, so I could follow along pretty well. Arjun's son's first poem was hilarious and earned him a spot in the second round of the competition. The host clearly favored some of the other, more serious poets and Arjun's son wasn't able to overcome the anti-humor bias. Nevertheless, he put up an excellent showing.
Varanchi, another person who's given me a lot of help here, explained that for Indians, a guest is like a god. What that meant wasn't immediately clear to me, but I think I'm beginning to understand.

I've got a more-than-healthy cynical streak, which serves me pretty well on the mean streets of Newton, but I've had to put it away here to appreciate just how kind and welcoming everyone has been.

The sense of welcoming extends across social and economic lines. On the train ride from hell (described earlier), we were all terrified of being robbed. But now, looking back on it, there was really never a single occasion where we had any reason to be afraid of that (maybe, the fact that we were sleeping on the floor made us seem like pretty poor targets for a robbery, but I think we were much more wary than we needed to be). Similarly, walking around the streets of Mumbai at any time of night, I've felt safer than on a late-night walk from Lamont to Dunster. Rich and poor live right up against each other in this city, but violent crime just doesn't seem to be a part of the co-existence.