HillsBus again ft. hippies

The last post (read that first if you haven't) seemed to interest a lot of people and provided fodder for more conversation on the bus, which in turn, is feeding back into this...

First, a glorious text I was sent about a week ago:

Somebody on hillsbus was eating mandarin pieces with toothpicks as chopsticks :///

Then she went to the back of the bus and lay down to sleep with her ass in my face.

Rai and I caught the same 620X last Friday with the horrible man who starred in the previous post. His reaction to us was ambiguous, not sure whether he was intimidated or trying to be intimidating. I was reeeeally tempted to sit directly behind him again, to pick up the threads of the conversation where we had left off last. It didn't happen, I am a spineless worm.

I've had many interesting bus conversations since I wrote here last, but none have have stuck in my mind and continued to whirl around as much as this one with Simran. It was a while ago so it's a little blurry how much of this was actually spoken and how much was tacked on later in my imagination when I replayed it in my head.

After some random banter, we somehow landed on the topic of cultural sensitivity and what a warped idea of it most people seem to have. The fact that I'm Indian does not mean I want to talk to you about butter chicken. I mean, I especially don't want to, being vegetarian and all. Nor does it (or our films or yoga, or henna) constitute any significant part of "Indianness". Exoticising a culture by stripping it down to gimmicky, superficial things like this is demeaning. You're reducing it to something that's really two-dimensional and ultimately, not as legitimately "real" as Western culture.

If you're reading this and cringing at the fact that you've done this around me, just take this as something to keep in mind. Some of my favourite people in the world are guilty of it all the time. I don't really begrudge them because it's obviously not something that people do malevolently, so much as for a conversation filler. Besides which, that may be the depth of your knowledge on the culture (disturbing) so it's not like you have anywhere else to start (just don't) 

Anyway, then we moved on to discuss stupid Tree of Life salesgirls in bindis and harem pants. I actually love that shop, their cotton dresses are just luverly... but occasionally when I walk in, I cringe a little at these girls who think that, in donning the clothes that they do, they somehow are a greater authority than me on my own culture. Yes, that's actually how a few of them act. You might think I'm being excessively bitchy here, but it's a lot more sinister than it seems at first glance.

Mainstream society abstracts stuff from its original context, shakes it around, completely confuddles what it really "is" and then imposes the reinterpretation on the people it really belongs to, often as a frivolous, disposable trend. I read something years ago about how destructive this has been with naive Americans. It just isn't nice to hijack and trivialise things like that... ESPECIALLY when it comes to religion. Ganesh and Saraswati are NOT funky trinkets to hang around your neck. The Swastika... let's not even go there.

This brings me to the hippies. Most people are surprised when I say I dislike them. Though I agree with the ideas they theoretically espouse, what did they actually do, apart from strum and smoke pot? Not a lot. (rhyming! heh I am so clever)

When we were in India earlier this year, my family took a short trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh, two important places of pilgrimage. Rishikesh, a town at the foothills of the Himalayas was beautiful. The Ganges were amazingly blue (it's still pristine at this point, gets messed up further South) and it made me feel all floaty and happy. Until I saw the scraggly hippies scattered along the pavement, nursing bongs and putting lots of effort into looking as nonchalant as possible. I know it's a totally irrational but something flared up inside me and I got really, really mad. The sanctity of the place was being tainted by some complete wankers who were so goddamn smug and self-important just because they were in the "East", had dreadlocks and stupid "om" pendants.

 

kk I love the Beatles, but.

All in all, what an I saying? I don't mean to imply in any way that white people should completely stop interacting with other cultures for fear of corrupting them. All I ask is a little more respect and some acknowledgement that some things run deeper than you can understand or even perceive. Another person's culture is not something you can just slip on, and it is no less meaningful or sophisticated than yours. Also, India's only an example I took to illustrate something that's universal. 

I'm all hyped up and kind of tempted to rewrite the first part of this for Honi or something because I really wish more people were aware... but you know. Most prob. won't :)

P.S. Don't take this too seriously, it's just a delirious 2:00 am rant. I am prone to exaggerationz

My love to HillsBus xx

I'm juggling between work, piano class, gym (ok I hardly ever bother with this one), social life, uni, readings (umm) and occasionally stuff with societies. I love being busy, but I really need some time to myself and some SLEEP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I don't feel like myself any more. I'm not used to being on my toes constantly, and my typically meandering, whimscal thoughts are being uncomfortably tethered by practical things... it's all just a bit alien to me. It doesn't help that I kept running around during the winter break. I should have just stayed in my cave and chilled with SRK. In the middle of all this, the one thing keeping me sane is... HillsBus

When I meet people at uni and tell them I live in Cherrybrook, the conversation will predictably move like this-

person: Cherrywhaaat?
me: (sigh) It's near Castle Hill/Pennant Hills/Hornsby... like, Hills district?
person: oh... shiiiiiiiiiit, how long does that take you?
me: uh, up to two and a half hours door-to-door one way but it really depends on the traffic. Usually less
person: whoa that sucks! Why don't you move out?

It doesn't suck. I love public transport! It is the organising principle of my life, and I'd probably be a different person without it. It's a buffer zone that lets me catch up on sleep or finish off my readings. It's the time I just sit and meditate on life and people and... things. It's the time I amuse myslef by inventing colourful life stories of stuffy, suited, irritable old men  affable co-passengers. I also like to pass time by staring at people out the window and judging their clothes/lives. If either or both my parents are with me (not uncommon), I sweet talk them into giving me sum moar $$$$$.

I've met so many cool people on the bus, some of whom I now consider to be pretty close friends. Last week I struck up a conversation with a girl I very vaguely recognised as a friend of a friend I'd met years ago.  She happened to be on the same bus on the way back too and we bantered like old friends about Margaret Thatcher and parents and hipsters. She was lovely, but I sadly can't remember her name. I also have public transport to thank for keeping up friendships with people I probably wouldn't otherwise go out of my way to contact. And how could I possibly neglect to mention the times I've fallen in lurve on the magical M2? The best part is that I can just sit and be besotted with a stanger at a distance, without him opening his mouth to shatter the illusion of his perfection.

Of course, you have your characters: drivers that cruise past you even though you're flapping like a bird to signal him and the next bus won't come for another hour, cranky co-passengers...

So I was on the 620 with Rai last week and our conversation, fascinating as always, ranged from student politics to flippant gossip to questioning the value in democracy (courtesy Tocqueville), and back to flippant gossip. At one point she said if she wants pads she can just say so to her father, and it's no big deal, seeing both her parents are doctors. I said I can't imagine doing that to my dad, ever. We wandered into the topic of Jane Caro on QandA, and that saying "vagina" should not be tabboo. An old man in front of us twitched violently, turned around and proceeded to berate us for five minutes: "the whole bus could hear you and you're making a fool of yourself" "have no respect" "talking non-stop" and... "highly inappropriate".
In my head I was responding:  "Speak for yourself, you're the man  directly in front of us, not the whole bus. I mean, duhhh you can hear us", "we're hardly being rude/vulgar", "since when was talking a crime",  "OHHHHHHHH THE IRONY! LOL" but I'm a wuss so what passed through my lips was "I'm soooo sorry", multiple times even as he kept ranting. I need to grow a pair. Rai put him in his place with some hilarious staged whispers which made him visibly uncomfortable. Cherrybrook is such a conservative backwater, WHY do I live here?

All in all, it was quite funny.
HillsBus FTW