No box today, but maybe tomorrow
Vicky, loyal readers might remember, shines and cleans shoes on Linking Road, which is not far from my house. A rickshaw ride there costs about $.25, which is the starting rate for all rides. Vicky wasn’t there, but I met a guy who claimed to be his brother. Amand was his name.
I was scouting for Vickey when Amand came up to me and asked to clean my shoes. I could see he wasn’t Vicky, so I ignored him. Being a white guy on the street, I am constantly accosted by anybody. Women and children begging, guys selling anything, people wanting me to come to their shops. Rickshaw drivers consistently pull up next to me thinking that just because I’m white I’ll need a ride. So when this unknown shoe cleaner guy started talking to me, I ignored him. I’m always ignoring people because I hate being singled out for being I’m white. I’m more comfortable shopping when I’m not accosted by salesmen. I hate high-pressure sales tactics and feeling forced into anything. A reason to not go to strip clubs, I guess.
On the other hand, now I’m worried what I’ll miss by ignoring. Not everyone is a scammer, and scams are pretty easy to sniff out. What’s the harm in listening to one guy’s pitch or one guy’s story before walking away? (I used to fear that if I showed a hint of interest and then walked away, I would get followed, and this does happen, but I’m better at getting these people to leave me be now. A kid tried to latch onto my shirt this morning, and I brushed him away, and he left me alone) A man in South Mumbai last week asked me to be in a Bollywood movie, but I ignored him and walked right past. I could have at least heard him out. I have read that white people really do get pulled off the street as Bollywood extras. I have never read that there is a Bollywood-extras related scam. I could have at least heard him out and smelled for the scam.
After first walking past him, Amand followed me asking if he could clean my shoes. (I was wearing suede shoes that can’t take a shine.) I remembered to myself how I was not going to keep brushing off every person who talks to me in the street. I asked him if he knew Vicky. He said Vicky was his brother and that Vicky had gone down to work at Colaba (tourist central) in South Mumbai. I was skeptical, but I kept talking to him, trying to feel whether he was a liar or scammer. I told him I had met Vicky last week and just wanted to talk to him again. I didn’t say that my mission was to buy him a box. I figured Amand’s mission would be to get me to buy Amand a box.
He asked if I wanted some tea. Vowing again to not think everyone is out to get me, I accepted. I walked to a sidewalk tea vendor with Amand. It was the kind of place I would never buy from. It was a guy sitting on the sidewalk in a makeshift stall. I think two glasses of tea were Rs. 2 ($.05). I would have bought or offered to buy, but all I had was a hundred Rupee bill, and I wasn’t about to let on I had this. Anyway, Amand invited me, so he payed, and I never offered.
About drinking tea from a place though very likely could give me diarrhea: I figure that when trying to be friendly in a foreign land, do as the foreigners do. It shows that you don’t look down on them. It shows that you respect them and appreciate their hospitality. Plus, it makes them like you. Yo, this is called “keeping it real.” This holds true whether hanging out with ghetto folk in St. Louis, slum dwellers in Mumbai, lawyers in Mumbai, or college kids in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
I kept talking to Amand, and after our tea, he walked me to the train station. I told him that he and Vicky should meet me at McDonald’s at 7pm tomorrow, and I would buy a box. They may not really be brothers, but I’ll feel them both out tomorrow. Even if they’re not brothers, as long as they’re as close as brothers, this is good enough – sometimes people call people brothers even if they’re not related by blood. My sense does tell me they’re close. Amand was telling me his dreams about how much money he and Vicky would make if they could set up their shoe shining operation next to each other at a train station. Right now they each make about Rs. 30 a day, but with a box they could make over 100. Amand said that he could also make shoes and that he would if he had a box. Amand never asked me personally to buy him a box.
He did tell me that he trusted me, and he could tell I had a good heart and soul. He said many times people said they were going to meet him back again on Linking Road, and no one has ever shown up. He said the fact that I had come back to see Vicky again made me extraordinary, even though I had never actually made plans with Vicky to meet again. I think he was also trying to say that he was impressed that I even stopped to talk, that people don’t usually want to talk to street kids. He told me that in India, if you show respect, you will be shown respect, and because I had shown him and Vicky respect, they would show me respect. I told him I was studying to be a lawyer, and he predicted great success for me.
Amand’s English was not as good as Vicky’s. And an idea that captivated me about Vicky, and to a lesser extent his brother (the extent is less just because we couldn’t communicate as well, and that negatively affects the building of a rapport), is that these good-natured, hard-working English-speaking kids could make what would be a fortune to them in the U.S. I don’t know where the Rajasthani neighborhoods are in the U.S., but I am sure that they exist in Queens and/or New Jersey. These kids could get a job in a shop and just start minting money, save that money, and maybe someday open their own shops or whatever business they wanted. Of course, this will never happen. The money to make the voyage would be a limiting factor, but the main problem is the U.S. visa. The U.S. electorate, being the ignorant bunch they tend to be, don’t want more immigrants in the U.S. Skilled Indian immigrants are having a hard enough time, let alone unskilled Indians.
Amand said his father had “expired.” Vicky had just said he drinks. Amand said he expired from drink. (so this is a possible hole in their story of being brothers) Amand said his father worked in construction, and his father’s death has put the family into dire straights. Amand said he had completed school up to the 12th grade, and I wonder if his father hadn’t have died, if Amand would have gone on to college. Here in Mumbai, they live in a shack with plastic walls.
Amand is 27. I told him I was 24, and he looked surprised. I asked if I looked older, and he started talking of how I’ve probably eaten healthy and eaten fruit my entire life and that it helped me to grow big and strong and healthy. He said he eats mainly vada pav (a spicy fried potato burger, quintessential Maharashtrian street food) and just generally hasn’t eaten healthy. Health is important, he told me. He is shorter and of skinnier build than me.
I was only prepared to buy Vicky a box, and maybe tomorrow I will only buy one box. But if Vicky and Amand look to be close, I’ll buy them two. I think it will cost around $20. Before we parted, Amand did ask if I could give him some Rupees to buy a vada pav. I didn’t have any Rupees, so I couldn’t. He said this was ok. But other than this, he never tried to hit me up for more money. The tea wasn’t a scam, and I did feel bad that he used his meager money to buy me tea. I could have given him the hundred ($2.30) in my wallet, but even though he needs it, to so nonchalantly whip out that large amount would be obscene, and I don’t want to appear to be loose with money, lest he get the impression that I can be worked over for more and more handouts.
Some more notes on Amand
I asked if he and Vicky had girlfriends. He smiled and said he didn’t, and he didn’t know about Vicky. He said in Indian culture, girls and guys aren’t supposed to be dating. So if Vicky was dating, he would hide it from his family. With their father gone, Amand is like Vicky’s father.
Amand said he liked the N.B.A. He said he watched it someplace on Linking Road. I’m not sure if it was a restaurant or shop.
Amand is a Hindu. I asked him if he liked Muslims. He quieted his voice and said no. Muslims are terrorists, and they steal. He said I should not go walking in a Muslim neighborhood. (There is, by the way, a Muslim neighborhood down the street from my office. It is also ghet-to.) Amand said he had seen the World Trade towers collapse on the news. He thought they had got the White House too, but I told him it was the Pentagon.
Amand said he could get a job if he had the papers to get a job. I was unclear on this. Vicky said he didn’t need papers, but it could be just that Vicky doesn’t want that kind of job or that they were lying or there’s just a language barrier. Amand said an electric bill would suffice as papers. The papers can vouch that you’re not a terrorist. But I just don’t understand this, and I don’t get why these papers are needed to employ someone. Sure, in the U.S. you need papers so that you can be registered with the government so that you can be taxed on your income, but since when are Indians concerned with abiding by tax laws? I dropped this conversation. I’ll try to figure it out later. Maybe it’s just that papers prove that you are not going to be a liar and scam artist or that if you are, employers will know where to come get you.
I was scouting for Vickey when Amand came up to me and asked to clean my shoes. I could see he wasn’t Vicky, so I ignored him. Being a white guy on the street, I am constantly accosted by anybody. Women and children begging, guys selling anything, people wanting me to come to their shops. Rickshaw drivers consistently pull up next to me thinking that just because I’m white I’ll need a ride. So when this unknown shoe cleaner guy started talking to me, I ignored him. I’m always ignoring people because I hate being singled out for being I’m white. I’m more comfortable shopping when I’m not accosted by salesmen. I hate high-pressure sales tactics and feeling forced into anything. A reason to not go to strip clubs, I guess.
On the other hand, now I’m worried what I’ll miss by ignoring. Not everyone is a scammer, and scams are pretty easy to sniff out. What’s the harm in listening to one guy’s pitch or one guy’s story before walking away? (I used to fear that if I showed a hint of interest and then walked away, I would get followed, and this does happen, but I’m better at getting these people to leave me be now. A kid tried to latch onto my shirt this morning, and I brushed him away, and he left me alone) A man in South Mumbai last week asked me to be in a Bollywood movie, but I ignored him and walked right past. I could have at least heard him out. I have read that white people really do get pulled off the street as Bollywood extras. I have never read that there is a Bollywood-extras related scam. I could have at least heard him out and smelled for the scam.
After first walking past him, Amand followed me asking if he could clean my shoes. (I was wearing suede shoes that can’t take a shine.) I remembered to myself how I was not going to keep brushing off every person who talks to me in the street. I asked him if he knew Vicky. He said Vicky was his brother and that Vicky had gone down to work at Colaba (tourist central) in South Mumbai. I was skeptical, but I kept talking to him, trying to feel whether he was a liar or scammer. I told him I had met Vicky last week and just wanted to talk to him again. I didn’t say that my mission was to buy him a box. I figured Amand’s mission would be to get me to buy Amand a box.
He asked if I wanted some tea. Vowing again to not think everyone is out to get me, I accepted. I walked to a sidewalk tea vendor with Amand. It was the kind of place I would never buy from. It was a guy sitting on the sidewalk in a makeshift stall. I think two glasses of tea were Rs. 2 ($.05). I would have bought or offered to buy, but all I had was a hundred Rupee bill, and I wasn’t about to let on I had this. Anyway, Amand invited me, so he payed, and I never offered.
About drinking tea from a place though very likely could give me diarrhea: I figure that when trying to be friendly in a foreign land, do as the foreigners do. It shows that you don’t look down on them. It shows that you respect them and appreciate their hospitality. Plus, it makes them like you. Yo, this is called “keeping it real.” This holds true whether hanging out with ghetto folk in St. Louis, slum dwellers in Mumbai, lawyers in Mumbai, or college kids in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.
I kept talking to Amand, and after our tea, he walked me to the train station. I told him that he and Vicky should meet me at McDonald’s at 7pm tomorrow, and I would buy a box. They may not really be brothers, but I’ll feel them both out tomorrow. Even if they’re not brothers, as long as they’re as close as brothers, this is good enough – sometimes people call people brothers even if they’re not related by blood. My sense does tell me they’re close. Amand was telling me his dreams about how much money he and Vicky would make if they could set up their shoe shining operation next to each other at a train station. Right now they each make about Rs. 30 a day, but with a box they could make over 100. Amand said that he could also make shoes and that he would if he had a box. Amand never asked me personally to buy him a box.
He did tell me that he trusted me, and he could tell I had a good heart and soul. He said many times people said they were going to meet him back again on Linking Road, and no one has ever shown up. He said the fact that I had come back to see Vicky again made me extraordinary, even though I had never actually made plans with Vicky to meet again. I think he was also trying to say that he was impressed that I even stopped to talk, that people don’t usually want to talk to street kids. He told me that in India, if you show respect, you will be shown respect, and because I had shown him and Vicky respect, they would show me respect. I told him I was studying to be a lawyer, and he predicted great success for me.
Amand’s English was not as good as Vicky’s. And an idea that captivated me about Vicky, and to a lesser extent his brother (the extent is less just because we couldn’t communicate as well, and that negatively affects the building of a rapport), is that these good-natured, hard-working English-speaking kids could make what would be a fortune to them in the U.S. I don’t know where the Rajasthani neighborhoods are in the U.S., but I am sure that they exist in Queens and/or New Jersey. These kids could get a job in a shop and just start minting money, save that money, and maybe someday open their own shops or whatever business they wanted. Of course, this will never happen. The money to make the voyage would be a limiting factor, but the main problem is the U.S. visa. The U.S. electorate, being the ignorant bunch they tend to be, don’t want more immigrants in the U.S. Skilled Indian immigrants are having a hard enough time, let alone unskilled Indians.
Amand said his father had “expired.” Vicky had just said he drinks. Amand said he expired from drink. (so this is a possible hole in their story of being brothers) Amand said his father worked in construction, and his father’s death has put the family into dire straights. Amand said he had completed school up to the 12th grade, and I wonder if his father hadn’t have died, if Amand would have gone on to college. Here in Mumbai, they live in a shack with plastic walls.
Amand is 27. I told him I was 24, and he looked surprised. I asked if I looked older, and he started talking of how I’ve probably eaten healthy and eaten fruit my entire life and that it helped me to grow big and strong and healthy. He said he eats mainly vada pav (a spicy fried potato burger, quintessential Maharashtrian street food) and just generally hasn’t eaten healthy. Health is important, he told me. He is shorter and of skinnier build than me.
I was only prepared to buy Vicky a box, and maybe tomorrow I will only buy one box. But if Vicky and Amand look to be close, I’ll buy them two. I think it will cost around $20. Before we parted, Amand did ask if I could give him some Rupees to buy a vada pav. I didn’t have any Rupees, so I couldn’t. He said this was ok. But other than this, he never tried to hit me up for more money. The tea wasn’t a scam, and I did feel bad that he used his meager money to buy me tea. I could have given him the hundred ($2.30) in my wallet, but even though he needs it, to so nonchalantly whip out that large amount would be obscene, and I don’t want to appear to be loose with money, lest he get the impression that I can be worked over for more and more handouts.
Some more notes on Amand
I asked if he and Vicky had girlfriends. He smiled and said he didn’t, and he didn’t know about Vicky. He said in Indian culture, girls and guys aren’t supposed to be dating. So if Vicky was dating, he would hide it from his family. With their father gone, Amand is like Vicky’s father.
Amand said he liked the N.B.A. He said he watched it someplace on Linking Road. I’m not sure if it was a restaurant or shop.
Amand is a Hindu. I asked him if he liked Muslims. He quieted his voice and said no. Muslims are terrorists, and they steal. He said I should not go walking in a Muslim neighborhood. (There is, by the way, a Muslim neighborhood down the street from my office. It is also ghet-to.) Amand said he had seen the World Trade towers collapse on the news. He thought they had got the White House too, but I told him it was the Pentagon.
Amand said he could get a job if he had the papers to get a job. I was unclear on this. Vicky said he didn’t need papers, but it could be just that Vicky doesn’t want that kind of job or that they were lying or there’s just a language barrier. Amand said an electric bill would suffice as papers. The papers can vouch that you’re not a terrorist. But I just don’t understand this, and I don’t get why these papers are needed to employ someone. Sure, in the U.S. you need papers so that you can be registered with the government so that you can be taxed on your income, but since when are Indians concerned with abiding by tax laws? I dropped this conversation. I’ll try to figure it out later. Maybe it’s just that papers prove that you are not going to be a liar and scam artist or that if you are, employers will know where to come get you.
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