Ethnography From an Elliptical

I unwittingly crashed an Indian wedding yesterday evening.

I had just left the gym. The lobby of the Days Inn hotel where I work out was flooded with wedding guests. They spilled through the front doors and into the hotel’s circular driveway, where the groom and his mount awaited a procession. I couldn’t leave without squeezing past women in sequined saris and men in scarlet turbans. I was in plastic flip-flops and a shirt drenched by just-washed hair. I came within two feet of the horse’s rump as I waded through the crowd.

But I'm not considering my to-do done.

I’ve been going to the gym quite a bit. There are lots of reasons why, and near the top of the list is the fact that Chennai rivals Vegas in its fondness for all-you-can-eat dining. Here are some others reasons:

THE SHOWERS at my gym do this remarkable thing: produce hot water. My shower at home doesn’t do that. I relished cool showers during my first month in Chennai, when the heat and humidity had me rooting for a revival in fashion sweatbands. But it’s the end of monsoon season now. That means cooler temperatures (as low as 70 F last week!). Sometimes it means wading through ankle-deep puddles. A hot shower in which to scrub my mud-splattered calves is heaven.

THE TV at my gym has a couple of English-language channels. I don’t have a TV at home. If I didn’t work out, I never would have learned that Tom and Katie tied the knot. Usually, the television is tuned to a cricket match or Indian music videos. But if I’m alone at the gym, which happens a lot, I can flip channels to my heart’s content. A gem like “Win a Date With Tad Hamilton!” can inspire a marathon-length jog. (“The Pianist,” on the other hand, rendered me listless.)

THE CHAIR. You know those massage chairs that Sharper Image and Brookstone use to lure customers? The recliners that knead, roll and tap and make you look like you’re possessed by demons? There’s one at the gym. It’s in the “cardio row” -- along with two treadmills, a stationary bike and an elliptical machine -- and faces a mirrored wall. Which may explain why some gym-goers mistake it for workout equipment. I’ve seen men in head-to-toe athletic wear spend 10 minutes on a treadmill before retiring to the chair for twice that. For me, the chair is reward for 100 crunches and two dozen arm curls. I imagine if my gym offered daiquiris I’d up my workouts to two or three a day.

The modern gym is one of those American inventions that’s taking hold in India. Every month brings new workout facilities and weight-loss clinics. They reflect India’s new-ish technology boom. As the number of desk jobs -- with accompanying commutes -- grows, so do waistlines. Two other American exports have been a boon to India’s fitness industry: fast food and diet crazes. Not long ago I overhead an Indian teen at a beauty salon insisting on sugarless, black coffee. “I don’t eat carbs,” she declared when the manicurist offered biscuits.

Still, the gym is a fine place to observe Indian culture. You have the men who lounge in the chair or gab on cell phones between bench presses. You have the women in colorful salwar kameez with matching dupattas that slip off their shoulders as they stroll on the treadmills. There's the gym supervisor who burps loudly as he surveys the scene. There’s a family – father, mother and infant – that works out together. He takes long strides on a treadmill while she slowly peddles the stationary bike, their baby propped on the handlebars. They take turns doing arm curls and minding the child.

Most seem determined to avoid sweating. I've seen just one sprinter. He was bucked off his treadmill after reaching over to tap me on the shoulder. He landed on his back as I punched at the treadmill's red "stop" button. It was only after he'd picked himself up and I'd yanked out my earphones that I realized the reason for his tap: my ringing cell phone. He limped to the chair after that.

To Do

I passed two weddings on the way to dinner yesterday. It must have been an auspicious time. Hindus don’t wed on any old day. They wait for muhurtham – an auspicious time, astrologically speaking – for everything from marriage to surgery to betting on horses.

I was on my scooter. The weddings spilled into the streets and caused minor traffic jams. I was happy for the bottlenecks because they gave me a few moments to bop to the thumping music and gape at the grooms, who were astride horses and dressed in finery.

Weddings are a big deal in India. The index in the back of my Chennai atlas lists more banquet and marriage halls than art galleries, banks, cinemas and “historical places” combined. Celebrations last several days. Brides go through elaborate outfits faster than pageant contestants. Grooms arrive on horseback – or by elephant – and guests can number in the thousands. A ceremony attended by 400 is "intimate" by Indian standards.

This is what I’m told. I’ve never been to one.

Sure, there was Sunita’s wedding in Maryland. Sunita is a dear friend from college who dressed us bridesmaids in bangles, bindis and custom-made lengha cholis with silvery embroidery.


But Sunita is Christian, not Hindu, and she married a WB (white boy), so her wedding wasn’t like the fetes I glimpsed yesterday. Hers was an elegant affair that was part samosa, part finger sandwich. In short: no horses.

I thought about pulling over, parking the scooter and crashing the weddings, but I was in t-shirt and khakis. Besides, Ben and Nico were waiting at Benjarong, a Thai restaurant that serves a mean yellow curry. I put it on my India to-do list: Go to a wedding.

All invitations welcome.

Recommended Reading

I really must read some Dostoevsky.

When people find out I was born in Russia, they often react in one of three ways:

1) “I thought you looked Russian.”

2) “Say something in Russian!”

3) “Dostoevsky is my favorite author. ”

I’m quick to respond to the first and second. (“Ya plocha gavaryu pa Ruskiy,” I say when asked to perform. “I speak Russian poorly” always impresses.) The last one leaves me mute. I nod. Sometimes I manage a “really?”

I don’t know squat about Dostoevsky. I briefly grappled with “Notes from Underground” in a high school English class but retained little more than the very handy phrase “existential angst.”

Yesterday I went to the bank, and I did a lot of nodding.

It was my first trip to an Indian bank for anything besides an ATM. I needed a demand draft -- a money order of sorts -- to secure a booking at a guesthouse in Pondicherry, the former French colony where I’ll be spending New Year’s Eve. I expected long lines, surly tellers and body-checking customers. My views on Indian “customer service” are no secret. Instead, I got a bank clerk versed in the collected works of Dostoevsky, a cup of coffee and complimentary stationery.

The Punjab National Bank branch I chose looked like a storefront bookie joint: cashiers behind metal grating, carpet worn to its burlap base, and grubby fans affixed to desks and walls. Rather than long lines, there were small clumps of customers at each counter. Behind the counter for demand drafts sat a man with a receding hairline and a spot of sandalwood paste between his brows. He showed me where to write my name and address, then summoned a bespectacled, grandfatherly security guard with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The guard escorted me to a cashier, who took my money and stamped my forms. Then it was back to the teller. I gave him my forms, and he offered me coffee.

“That’s OK,” I said, puzzled. Nobody else was drinking coffee. (I’ve been trying to cut back, too. After my last coffee-related entry, mom sent a gentle e-nag: “Do you think that is a little bit too much?”)

I took a seat on a couch pressed against a wall. It had wooden armrests and velour cushions with a jungle motif, reminding me simultaneously of babushka and college parties.

A woman brought me coffee.

I balanced the saucer on my lap and sipped the sweet, milky concoction. (Sorry, mom.) My teller looked up with a shy smile and raised a hand with fanned fingers, assuring me the wait wouldn’t be long. The security guard with the rifle whisked away my empty cup. When the teller finished, he waved me over.

“You are Russian?” he asked as he passed me the bank draft. My surname had tipped him off. He looked hopeful.

“Yes,” I told him, eliciting a smile so wide that I caught a glimpse of molars.

“Dostoevsky. I like him very much!”

I smiled and nodded.

“You know ‘The Idiot’? ‘Brothers Karamazov’?”

I nodded and prayed for an opportunity to slip in “existential angst.”

“I very much like all the Russian writers,” he said. “Dostoevsky. Tolstoy.”

He searched for a third, tapping his head.

“Pushkin?” I offered.

“Yes!”

That did it. I’d managed to mask my ignorance of Russian literature. I’d also made his day.

I asked for the nearest post office. He summoned the security guard, who disappeared for a minute and returned with a fresh envelope. Then the guard escorted me out of the bank and pointed the way to the post office.

I walked there, congratulating myself on completing a chore. Life as an expat is a series of small challenges: learn how to make a phone call, how to cross the street, how to buy a train ticket, how to haggle with rickshaw drivers. I’ll never blend in here, but after three months, I’m starting to feel streetwise.

I swaggered into the post office, envelope in hand. “Dang, I’m streetwise,” I thought to myself as I ran my tongue along the envelope flap.

And then I heard titters.

“Gum is there,” a postal employee snorted.

Several hands pointed me to a tin of slime. I studied the envelope flap. It didn’t have an adhesive strip. I dipped my index finger in the gum, sealed the envelope and wondered which of Dostoevsky’s masterpieces to tackle first. “The Idiot” sounded like a winner.

Fthftirty: Why I’m Taking My Life Into My Own Hands

I bought a scooter. It may be a lemon. It also may be the end of me. But it’s better than dealing with this every day:

ME: How much?

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Hundred rupees.

ME (looking shocked and appalled): A hundred rupees! That’s ridiculous.

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Ok, ok. Seventy rupees.

ME (arms akimbo and eyes rolling): It’s a 30 rupee ride!

RICKSHAW DRIVER (looking shocked and appalled): Madam!

ME (walking away): Thirty rupees.

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Ok, ok.

ME (coming back): Ok?

RICKSHAW DRIVER: Fifty.

ME (walking away again): NO!

I really hate haggling with rickshaw drivers. It’s an unsavory part of life in Chennai. They have meters, but they don’t use them. When they see a white chick, they see deep pockets, and that means protracted dickering. Sometimes I jump into a rickshaw after settling on a fare only to discover that the driver has no idea where we’re going. Destination is all but irrelevant. What matters is how craftily you argue and bluff.

I’m a good debater. I lettered in debate. My mom has a roomful of trophies and plaques from those high school glory days. I’m an OK bluffer. Texas hold ‘em with the ladies in L.A. taught me that boldness is as bankable as a royal flush. But I’ve had it with debating and bluffing my way across Chennai. Because even when I win, I lose. I climb into the auto rickshaw battle weary, grumpy and a mite guilty. What’s 40 rupees to me? That’s just under a dollar. It’s a cappuccino at one of the upscale joints in town. It’s a Diet Coke at Citi Centre. And he needs it more than I do.

The exchange transcribed above happened on Thanksgiving as I was leaving the Days Inn hotel where I work out. Catching an “auto,” as they’re called here, outside a hotel is like buying blueberries in February. The premium can be staggering.

As I walked away, I wondered if I’d pushed too hard, been unreasonable. I didn’t wonder for long because another auto pulled up within seconds.

ME: Ispahani Centre. How much?

RICKSHAW DRIVER #2: Thirty rupees.

I almost hugged him. I jumped in without argument. As we rattled past Rickshaw Driver #1, I shot him a “take that!” look. But I know he got the last laugh. Two lady tourists were exiting the hotel and heading straight for him.

Often, auto drivers congregate on corners, and it’s me against three or four.

“How much?” I asked a gaggle the other day.

“Fthftirty,” came the reply.

Or that’s what it sounded like when one quoted “fifty” and another “thirty” for a ride that shouldn’t have cost more than 15 rupees.

Yesterday I flew to Bangalore and back for an interview with the CEO of Air Deccan, India’s first low-budget airline. I’m writing about him for Yoga + Joyful Living magazine.* I paid 130 rupees for the half-hour ride from my apartment to the Chennai airport. At the Bangalore airport, I fended off taxi drivers whose opening bids ran as high as 350 rupees and made my way to the auto stand.

“How much?” I asked before hopping in.

“Per meter.”

The half-hour ride to Air Deccan’s headquarters, a 10.2-kilometer trip, cost 61.5 rupees. I gave the driver 70 and considered moving to Bangalore.

Instead, I’ve bought a scooter. It’s a 1999 Honda Kinetic, and it cost about 7,000 rupees, or $150. It broke down on my first outing. The mechanic who sold it to me “fixed it” for free. My second outing ended similarly. He took it back again, and then he fell off the map. After repeated phone calls, a visit to his (literally) hole-in-the-wall shop and threats involving the word “police,” the scooter was returned to me. The whole affair made haggling with rickshaw drivers seem like holiday.

It’s rickety, this scooter of mine. It tends to stall after potholes and bumpy patches. It lists to one side or the other. Its engine is about the size of a powerful chainsaw’s, and it makes as much noise. It’s not pretty, but my vices have never included vehicle-related vanity. In college I drove an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme with a headlight that dangled pendulum-style from a single wire. I drove a Buick Century in car-crazy Los Angeles.

My mantra as I bounce along Chennai’s roads is “left left left left.” Which is useful to a limited extent. Indians drive on the left side of the road unless driving on the right is more convenient. They don’t believe in “lanes,” and intersections are free-for-alls. Scott tells me to think of driving in India as playing a video game, “except you only have one life.” Unlucky for me, I was never much into video games. Ms. Pac-Man was my game; the only skill that imparts is gobbling.

The good news -- mom -- is that traffic moves slowly in Chennai. My scooter’s speedometer doesn’t work, so I can’t tell you how slowly. But it’s slow enough that you needn’t lose sleep. Collisions are frequent but not terribly deadly. They’re like stubbing a toe: painful and disorienting and hell on a pedicure. But no worse than haggling with rickshaw drivers.


* SHAMELESS PLUG: Check out my “Journeys” piece in the January/February issue, on newsstands now!