We Indians Are Always In Touch!

When we were young, we eschewed contact sports -- football, hockey, etc. since we were just about alright with our own sweat and were averse to sponging off others'.  So, we focused on all other ball games and favoured cricket, tennis, table tennis, badminton. Ever since, during all these years, as a cricketer I have never had any body contact with another cricketer (except for hand-shakes and the like) -- well, almost never. I will be less than honest if I do not record the major exceptions.  Once in college, as I was standing up to a leg spinner as wicket keeper, the burly batsman used his brute force to take an exaggerated swing with the bat after stepping back deep inside the crease and made successful contact with the bridge of my nose.  A similar instance recurred recently in our weekly community cricket game and my glove was the beneficiary of contact this time. Needless to say, in both cases, the batsmen did not touch the ball but were nevertheless hugely satisfied with what they thought were better results.  I can visualise some of you shaking your heads in disagreement.  Yes, technically, these were not body contacts.  But you know what I mean.  Those days, we were too young to read any other major significance into our choice of sports.

 Now, after 40 years, this author harks back and sees a great message and a massive irony in that.  Without displaying this on any psychedelic panel, our youth was preparing us for a future full of contact -- unrelenting, unavoidable and frequently unpleasant at that -- with our tribe at every single turn of life, right and wrong. We were being shielded from too much of contact then because a gigantic dose of that `contact' was awaiting us in a bustling existence, with maddening crowds and sobering queues being hallmarks.  Only that we did not recognize the signs then and thought we were engaged in gentlemen sports, by choice!! You dig??  Let us revisit some normal, day-to-day experiences to illustrate what this scribe means.

You are in a movie theatre, in a line waiting to wave that omnipotent cell phone at the clerk there, which act would materialise the tickets.  You are third or fourth in line, even though there is a larger crowd milling around the counter space, because each person in front has some four friends jostling around.  Why are they in the queue? -- aha, there lies the rub - literally.  To provide that inevitable contact experience.  You derive some solace from the fact that there is none behind you, but not for long.  Soon, a couple joins the queue and the experience gets more intense forthwith.  The guy behind is talking to his girlfriend and he has to turn some 75 degrees to do this.  He is loathe to provide that tiny space required for him to turn without touching you and this is not for want of space behind him. So every time he has to do some koochikooing (this happens some 30 times in 5 minutes) he will nudge your back - left side first for a start and then to restore balance and equity, right.  All the time, blissfully unaware of the discomfiture he is causing.  When you have had enough, you turn around fully and stare at him after the 10th nudge.  He smiles at you benevolently and says a pleasant 'sorry' but still does not make the necessary allowance in space to avoid further unpleasant contact. This goes on till you tell him testily that you are not waiting to be touched.  Then he looks at you as if sympathising with a loser and responds patronisingly `I told you, I am sorry'!  Your experience might be enhanced qualitatively if the pre-movie ritual for such guys is a good meal of dishes generously laden with onion and garlic.  In that case, when they are finished with you, you have a had a glorious time bathing in that exhilarating smell and your shirt will have to go for dry cleaning (preferably with you in it!).  Sounds familiar?

Someone pushing a trolley at the airport is another scenario, loaded with immense potential.  Even as you are careful to avoid bumping into the person in front, the one at the back will, after some preliminary manoeuvres,  run the trolley's front wheels generously between your legs.  Making you go wide-angled suddenly and also making it difficult for you to steer your own trolley properly, resulting in your jamming the guy in front.  Others are somewhat considerate and avoid pestering you with the trolley wheels, but they have billowing suitcases spilling out of their trolleys which do the job.  So, when they push forward, that extra large suitcase is always in contact with you (yes, all this is not direct, but vicarious contact), caressing you now, nudging you a little later and then when they lose it a bit, hitting you behind the knee and making you buckle.  Through this process too?

One boards the aircraft after the customary jostling in the aero-bridge or the bus + ladders, as the case may be and feels somewhat relieved.  The tension abates.  But then one forgets a couple of scenarios, which are likely to resurrect the pain.  Inside the aircraft, moving along the aisle you are forced to notice that the lady in front of you, travelling alone with an infant in hand, has sprouted bags all around her.  In the Indian scheme of things, excess baggage payment is an insult to intelligence and therefore taboo. So, whatever cannot be stuffed violently into the checked-in bag, will be strung around the persons boarding the flight.  More so, if you have an infant, even though the cabin bags cumulatively have 50 gms of milk and two diapers intended for the kid and nothing more. This scribe can venture into a guess as to what the rest of the baggage is but will pass so that he does not incur the wrath of women, represented by, you know who!  Now, this lady has to move to the end of the aircraft, some 28 rows down, with the infant wriggling in one hand, a trolley bag on the other hand, a tote bag on the shoulder and her own personal bag hanging magically from somewhere.  And no, she does not know her seat number and has her boarding pass somewhere inside one of the bags.  Now she will swing to this side looking for it, hitting you gently in an introductory attempt. Then to that side, to the other bag, hitting more of you.  Even without the excuse of an infant, there are people who carry backpacks and tote bags big enough to hold another passenger inside and bulldoze their way. When such people are passing, if you happen to be in one of the aisle seats, you may possibly get a couple of bruises when they find that either they can pass or their bags can, but try to make it all go together nevertheless!!

We can go on and replicate the scenario in a wedding hall, waiting to bless the couple or be blessed with a meal.  Or inside a lift when people are seriously trying to prove that the maximum capacity indicated is wrong.  This happens all the time in India but outside you do not see much of this.  My tut-tutting wife says `less people and more space', is the reason. May be. But I still think this has something to do with where we come from and our ethos. Recently, my dear wife and I were returning from Sri Lanka. At the Bangalore airport, behind us was a foreigner (turned out to be Britisher) who surprisingly was behaving like he fulfilled all the `local' requirements, pushing the trolley quite aggressively into me.  He apologised when I asked him to stay back a bit and he did.  Later on he disclosed that he had been living in Sri Lanka and India for a long time and loved the climate, people and the bustle.  That explained a lot, my smiling wife told him pleasantly with a smirk!