India at a Glance -- Part 2: Communication

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by C&K

A smile is part of the universal language between cultures. Even if you don’t share the same words, a smile can bridge the gap between people. It is a shared expression, a natural reaction to humour and happiness.

Not so in India. Smile at someone here and they will typically expect to get something from you. It could also just be that, relatively speaking, a lot of people here don’t have anything to be happy about.

The general form of every small-talk conversation with a local goes something like this: “What is your good name? Where are you from? How many children do you have?”  This becomes rather tiring after the umpteenth conversation of its kind. We have now realized that the answer to the second question provides them with a basis for their asking price, according to the power of your currency (Britons are presented with a higher asking price than North Americans, for example). They then try to impress you with their knowledge of your country of residence: “Ah, Canada! French side or English side?” (This is only impressive the first time... ) To inject a little fun into these encounters, we have now started to reply that we are from obscure places that the average Indian has never heard of: Slovakia, Bolivia, Belarus, Mongolia...this usually stops the sales-pitch dead in its tracks.

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The Indian tourism industry is choc-a-bloc full of attempts to demonstrate friendliness and engender a bond between traveller and proprietor. Written signs in guesthouses such as “Forget the Rest, Believe the Best!” and “Come as Tourist, Leave as Family” make us feel simultaneously amused and welcome—and yet somehow cheated. Therefore, when you are not being mobbed by touts espousing the qualities of their services, you are inundated with cheesy pick-up lines that just ooze superficial charm.

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A couple of friends and fellow travellers suggested using humour to help make a connection with Indians, but this place seems devoid of such a concept. The only time an Indian initiated humour with us occurred on one of our many explorations of a crowded city bazaar. We had just passed a stall occupied by two bawling kids and two exasperated parents, when the father called out to us: “Do you want some children?” By then well accustomed to ignoring all sales-pitches in an effort to avoid lengthy and inescapable conversations, we continued on autopilot to our destination. We realized he was being intentionally humourous when he added, “They have been very naughty. You can have them for free!”

View of an STD sign from our rickshaw.
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The most humour we have experienced here is through the unintentional misuse of the English language and the unfortunate connotations of some of their signage. We will let the photos tell their own stories.

Travelling without a cell phone (yes, it is possible!), we are acutely aware of the communication limitations. In acronym-happy India, a phone booth is known as a PCO (Public Call Office) and the public telephone system carries the unfortunately descriptive acronym of STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling), an expression that carries a drastically different meaning just about anywhere else in the world. By far the best-named STD stand that we came across was in Bharatpur. At the time it didn’t occur to us to take a photo, so you will have to take our word for it. In big, bold, black letters against a bright yellow sign screamed the words Satisfaction STD. ‘Nuf said.

The STD system is actually a very easy and typically inexpensive way to make phone calls, and you can find the yellow-coloured booths just about everywhere. But after a couple of weeks we found ourselves having the following kinds of conversations: “Do you know where I can find the closest STD?” “Is there a cheap STD around here?” Anyone within India would know perfectly well what we were talking about. To anyone else it must sound insane.

All in all, our attempts at connecting with the locals in this crazy country can probably best be summed up by the error screen—and ensuing emotions—that popped up when once we tried to log on at an Indian internet café: “Unable to connect due to communication failure.”