Kismet, Karma & Kamasutra: Survive India or Die Laughing

Namaste.

Book I

Back to the Roots—Coming to India

Calcutta (The City of Joy)

1

Goodbye Arabia, Namaste India

The ominous look in the approaching cop’s eyes halted me from shooting back my seventh consecutive tequila. His gleaming eyes, bulging out of a big head that was screwed to a massive set of shoulders by an eighteen-inch neck, instilled a morbid fear in me. I looked around and realized that the band at the Billy Blues of Houston, Texas was packing their gear and the people that had started to leave were struggling on their alcohol-debilitated feet and rearranging furniture as they made their way to the exit.

The cop tapping my table with his drawn truncheon, towering over me with his gargantuan size, gave me the silent treatment. With one hand firmly placed on his immense girth and after a brief pause that felt like an eternity, he said in a deep, gravelly voice, as if reading my epitaph, "You’re here with an Iyrab friend, buddy? His voice boomed in my ears as it ricocheted from every corner of the hall. People stopped and waited for the upcoming free show. Something told me that the officer was not asking but demanding an explanation so I whimpered, Yes. Anything wrong, officer?"

Your partner is in the ladies washroom and chasing them with his penis. Would you like to get him out of there, or shall I? growled the cop, patting his sidearm with his burly hand.

Needless to say I sobered up instantly and made my way over to the ladies room with the giant gorilla cop in tow. At the ladies washroom door I hesitated, like all men would, but the raised bushy eyebrows of the three-hundred-pound enforcer in blue convinced me to enter. And there he was. My friend Abdullah who, having downed fourteen tequilas earlier, was lying flat on a counter with his underpants and pants wrapped around his ankles and his penis pointing towards heaven. With a big grin on his face he was addressing the frightened ladies huddled in a corner, while slowly moving his arm in a circular fashion, mumbling, "Come on, come to daddy Habibi."

I tried to drum some sense into Abdullah by cupping his head in my hands for his brain to focus on me and leave the Habibies alone, but I should have realized that his brains had already slipped way down close to where his pointed organ was located. I felt a steel grip on my right shoulder. I shuddered with fear and turned around to face the mighty cop. He was grinding his teeth. Stand aside, let me handle this, barked the cop.

Suddenly I remembered my promise to Abdulla’s father back in Saudi Arabia to bring Abdulla back safely from the land of infidels and I had every intention of delivering on that promise. My commitment to Abdulla’s father was not as much out of loyalty as it was due to the fact that Abdulla’s father was my sponsor and displeasing him meant the loss of my employment. And I needed my job, not for my career development but to maintain my alimony payments. I pleaded with the cop, Just one more chance, officer? He is harmless, and as you can see, he is not carrying a weapon. Let me get him out of here. Please?

The cop grunted and relented for the moment, handed me a pair of white rubber gloves and shouted, "Stuff his goods back in his pants and get him out of here, now." And that I did, while the poor frightened ladies were able to leave the washroom. The raised banner was brought down and stuffed back in Abdullah’s pants.

The next morning we were at the head office of a large engineering corporation where Abdulla insisted on taking the lead in negotiating an agency agreement to represent them in Saudi Arabia. But apparently not a single coherent thought came out of his head as he struggled in vain to negotiate with his foggy mind that refused to focus, even after four aspirins and six cups of coffee. And it didn’t help that during the meeting he kept dozing off with loud snores. Later that day we reported back to Abdullah’s father the news of our failure. Excuse me, my failure, as Abdullah did not waste any time in explaining to his father that I was responsible for getting him drunk the previous night.

Needless to say that upon my return to Saudi Arabia, I was promptly fired from my handsome-paying business development position. But rather than issuing the dreaded ‘Exit Only Visa,’ I was shown some mercy by Abdullah’s father by allowing me to find another job in Saudi. You see, it is impossible to change jobs in Saudi Arabia, as by law you are required to receive a no objection letter from your current employer to apply for another job. And what are the chances of getting a no objection letter from a disgruntled employer? You guessed it, nil.

My next job had to be anything that could be found in a hurry as regardless of all the calamity fallen upon me thus far, these tragedies were less than what a Cypriot lawyer could do to me if I failed to maintain alimony payments to my ex-wife. Cypriot law and my predicament with it is another story for some other time. Maybe if you drop me an email, I’ll tell you all about it. Anyway, I grabbed the first thing that flew in my face and started working on a fraction of my earlier salary at a chemical factory in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Living in a residential compound consisted of inhabiting one of the ramshackle porta-cabins located on an ominous murky brown beach of an industrial swamp.

My best friend who helped me get this job candidly explained my low salary was a result of exploitation rather than supply and demand. He explained in detail that it had to do with the fact that I was in a vulnerable and desperate situation to get a job, any job, and my new employer had every intention to use that to his advantage—beggars can’t be executives.

Another difficulty that I faced working and living in the industrial swamp was that my new wife was working as a physician almost six hundred kilometers away and we could only see each other during the weekend. Life was dull, barren of any fun, and I counted every day of my misery as a penance for bad karma. Yes, I put it to kismet, bowed my head and let the wave pass over me. Not just any wave, it turned out to be a tsunami. The situation was sad and hopeless, but what else could I do? Hmm, only if a dog was also included and died in this situation, I could have written a country song about it.

But there must be a confused angel who may have mistook me for some lucky person and bestowed upon me an urgent call from a US corporation offering through their Canadian subsidiary an executive position to head their recently formed, major Indo-American Joint Venture Company in India, and I felt like frolicking barefoot in the industrial swamp and doing the routine ‘singing in the acid rain.’

From there on I believed in angels and divine powers. For exploring our souls in India my wife decided to quit her job in Riyadh and join me on our new journey of intrigue, excitement and adventure. My new Canadian wife and I dressed in T-shirts that read ‘Happiness is an Exit Only Visa,’ as we packed our bags to depart for India, the country of my origin that I left over twenty five years ago. She was delighted and ecstatic at the prospect of tasting exotica in the land of mystique, ancient culture, and culinary delight that to an Indian would translate into intense corruption, complicated bureaucracy, and severe stomach cramps. But there you have it, as one once said: A black man’s misery is a white man’s adventure. Don’t get me wrong; I was delighted, too. Anything is better than that industrial swamp.

As we headed for India I was about to find out the meaning of an old Indian riddle, ‘If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys’.

Goodbye Arabia and Namaste India.

2

Welcome to Mother India

India is explained as the land of many experiences from where, when you leave, you take only half of you because the other half you lose due to dysentery, nausea, vomiting, sickness and such other weight-loss techniques—Dr. Atkins paradise, you might say. But that is not the picture I painted for my wife. Oh, no. To her I gave a detailed account of mystique and romance that India offers through its celebration of colors, festivals, friendly people and spiritual teachings. I explained the magic of its diversity, the richness of its colorful history, and the delights of its culinary experience. I even managed to giftwrap a book on Kamasutra and presented it to her under the pretense of a book on yoga exercises. All that shattered, as if someone threw a brick through our windshield, as soon as we landed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at New Delhi.

It was acrid, blue fog through which our Air India jet gradually descended to touch down at the airport at New Delhi, bringing us to the frontier where only warriors armed with Imodium can survive. My Canadian accent and my blue-eyed, blond Canadian wife made us an immediate target of the prime kind for a young and shiftylooking custom officer. I could see glee in his face as he approached us. Many things to declare? he asked, spreading his arms as if sizing up his fortune. He was on the obese side shoving people out of his way by using his belly as a weapon, and with his quivering girth looked more like an Indian Michelin Man. His ears were tiny, making his grin look rather large like that of a cobra when he has his prey mesmerized.

You see, the only other people that airport custom officers love to rip off, worse than the supposedly wealthy white foreigners, are NRIs (Non Resident Indians, like me). NRIs are the second largest investment group (second only to the USA) in India and it is their wealth that brings them the wrath of lazy but suffering Indians who never had a chance or didn’t want to work overseas. On top of that, the accent NRIs bring home speaking Hindi with a British or American influence gives further impetus to normal Indians to dislike us.

NRI with a white woman as a wife was like a butter chicken with extra butter to the approaching custom officer. He was practically salivating with joy.

"Shouldn’t it be anything to declare? my wife whispered. Shushing her, I faced the custom officer and with a forced big smile on my face responded, There might be but I don’t think so. You see, you have to resort to double negative responses to leave the door ajar and these guys are professional and would pick up on the hint in no time at all. Welcome, he said, gently beating his large stomach like a drum and then in a voice that was hardly audible said, It is three of us, including the supervisor, you understand?" As he scratched his head a silvery shower of dandruff rained on our suitcase.

That won’t be a problem, officer, I responded and as I shook hands with him he deftly squeezed out the folded-up, three five hundred Rupee notes from my palm. And we were through.

That is illegal what you just did, my wife complaint with a touch of frown on her face. You don’t understand the ways of India, leave your man to handle it, is what I wanted to say but instead I uttered, I’m so sorry dear, it won’t happen again.

Oh, I feel terrible for lowering myself to such trickery, but if you can’t beat them…you know what I mean? We came out of the terminal to face an onslaught of taxi drivers shouting and jostling for a fare. Amongst them I saw my name placard held up high by the limousine driver that my employer had arranged earlier for airport pickup and his eyes were anxiously searching through the arrival passengers to find his customer.

I waved to him and he, with a broad grin on his face, forced his way through the crowd, poking a few with the placard to make way, and grabbed our suitcases then started leading the way to the limousine parked a little farther away by the roadside. He used our heavily laden trolley to crunch a few toes to make way to the limousine.

My wife was about to complain about his aggressive behavior so I quickly presented a defense on his behalf, He is a Sikh.

Sick with what? Is that why his head is all bandaged up? she demanded.

No, not sick. A Sikh. He is from the warrior class and they always wear a turban. He knows what he is doing.

She simply shook her head and said nothing. Our driver was smartly dressed in a green hotel-color Nehru jacket suit with shiny brass buttons and with a matching bright green turban. His long beard and mustache were waxed and combed and neatly encased in a black netting that was mercilessly stretched and tucked away at the sides under his tightly wound turban giving him a tight facelift with stretched, slanting eyes.

Sir Ji, he said politely (that roughly translates Sir Sir, a sign of twice the respect), as he deftly maneuvered (with the constant use of his horn) the limousine through the crowded streets of the city, where people, animals and all modes of conventional and not-so-conventional transportation were mingling in a mad cacophony. Mem Sahib Ji is very white. The Indian sun will be good for her. Also, some hot curry would bring color to her skin. Curries are good, Sahib Ji, world famous and very healthy.

This is something one has to get used to: The Indians are direct. They don’t beat about the curry leaves. It seems that the words come out of their mouths before even their brains can conceive them. Indian believes that brain is for higher thinking for god put it at the highest place in human body, while mouth sitting lower than the brain is for saying whatever one feel likes. Upon our arrival as we entered the hotel lobby, we had a little problem seeing through the blue acerbic fog and felt an acidic sensation at the back of our throats.

Suddenly two very pretty ladies and two gentlemen in black suits greeted us by placing garlands around our necks and scattering rose petals at our feet. This impressed my wife immensely and confused the hell out of me. I know Indian hospitality is legendary but this was totally unexpected. As soon as the hotel management realized that I was not the Minister of Health they had been waiting for they asked us to return the garlands and they swiftly swept away the petals and put them back into a large and delicate china dish on the reception counter. Granted, they were a little dusty and withered, but nonetheless reusable.

We approached the reception desk and to soften their embarrassment I tried a little ice breaker, Isn’t the government doing something about cleaning up the environment, this air pollution must wreak havoc with your lungs?

The smartly dressed young man in a black suit behind the counter turned his face to one side and almost doubled up in a in a fit of a horrendous, dry cough. Wiping his face with the back of his hand and then extending the same to shake mine said, Actually, this pollution is good for us, for it builds our immune system.

I quickly joined my hands together and said, Namaste. An Indian-style greeting to avoid shaking his infected hand, a very handy thing to remember. As we completed check in formalities I wondered if I could sue my US employer for exposing me to an unhealthy work environment? I took a mental note of that for possible future use. Retirement plan!

3

Go East, Mr. Vice President

It was rather nostalgic for me to return to my home country after over a twodecade of absence. I guess after the sudden loss of my job, I was very thankful to find not only a well-paid, senior position but also to have the opportunity to come back to my country of birth—all expenses paid. Besides, ever since I watched ‘Roots,’ I was convinced that only by returning to India would I find answers to all those questions that had been hounding me for a very long time.

You know the questions we all tend to think of when we lose a job through no fault of our own, like: Is there a god? Why me? Will I find peace? Will I come back as a woman in my next life? Okay, maybe not the last one, that may