Behaviours

There are some behaviours here in India that surprise me very much.

At the school where I volunteer, the children often play a ball game in which if you miss the ball, you’re out. I was surprised to notice that hardly any child complains when he’s eliminated from the game, even if sometimes it’s not quite clear whose the fault is. In my country, I think that every single time that someone missed the ball, they would start a discussion asserting that it’s not their fault but someone else’s. Here, instead, it seems that children take it much more peacefully, probably because they know that in 5 minutes the game will start again.

In India friendship is very important. Close friends are often called “brother” or “sister” and there is even a Friendship day. What still surprises me is that friendship between guys is easily displayed and it’s common to see guys hugging or giving friendly kisses. Obviously in Europe this behavior would be straight away taken for gay, so beware Indians!

Here, time has a different length than in Europe. I must say that at the beginning I found annoying how everything takes a long time. Now I understood that it’s not for laziness, but people are always relaxed. I think I only saw people running after a bus, but for everything else, there is no hurry. Printing a page can take one day, deciding something can take one week, etc. Considering that I lived in hectic London in the last 4 years, where it is common to apologize if you reply to an email more than 5 hours after receiving it, here I’m in a different world. And I like it actually! Obviously I’m referring to the life in the village where I’m volunteering. I think that big cities like Mumbai are probably much more “European” in the concept of time.

When I started teaching at the school, I was often asked for small gifts or sweets from the students. Taken totally aback, I never had anything ready in my bag. I was then told that good students get something from the teacher. I think it is nice to award the best students with small gifts but again I cannot really imagine this happening in Europe.. the teacher would probably be blamed of giving too many sugars to the students!!

The one behavior that I will never get used to is spitting. Blowing the nose is considered impolite, but spitting on the street is totally normal. People of all ages spit on the street, often preceding it with all sorts of noises that would make an entire city turn in Europe! Also burping is absolutely ok. And this makes part of the big contrasts that you see in India: beautiful temples surrounded by smelly rubbish, beautiful women in saris spitting on the street and so on.