Well if you are in America, you are no doubt getting ready to slip on the stretchy track pants or sweats and let slide an enormous variety (and quantity) of food down into your belly. The annual gorge-fest, more popularly known as Thanksgiving, has arrived. Let us rejoice.
But here, on the other side of the planet, well let's say I get to see first hand why our American mothers always told us"you better eat that because there are starving children in________!" Fill in you favorite guilt provoking country.
It's not that I am trying to provoke guilt, just making observations as I see them
So for the promised Thanskgiving tale...
I will title it in the traditional elementary school manner of "Why I Give Thanks." But I will also give it working subtitle of "The Nature of Business in India."
Let us begin...
Once upon a time there was a fair Westerner--pink you could say--who decided to travel far, far away to the land of spices and call centers. She was hopeful of acquiring exposure and experiences in this oh-so foreign land.
Filled with this hope, she traveled throughout the land of India tasting its tastes, seeing its sights, delighting in its delights. She saw beauty and misery in step with one another everywhere she looked. Her heart filled with wonderment and pained from sorrow.
Well into this journey she was offered the chance to learn a traditional performance art form from a master artist and instructor. She had been connected with a guru. She reeled with enthusiasm at the possibility of training for three weeks with this guru. Dates were agree upon. Fees were agreed upon. Press coverage was agreed upon. And so the lessons began.
Our fair Westerner learned and practiced with sincere dedication, as the guru noted. Upon the closure of each lesson they discussed the plans for the next lessons and days to come. The girl was nervous at the prospect of just three weeks training before performing, but felt confident with the guidance of such a capable guru.
On the sixth lesson, which was near the end of the second week the girl asked:
"When will be the last day that you will teach me something new? How much time will I have to practice?"
"Friday will be the last day."
"You'll teach me something new the day I'll perform?"
"Yes, you will come two times tomorrow. Once for lesson. Once for the press."
This gave the girl pause for thought: tomorrow? That was only the end of the second week, only the seventh lesson.
"If you want to wait until next Friday and take more lessons, then you can."
What was this? The girl felt ill at the thought that she was being fleeced. The number of lessons, the dates, all of these things had been confirmed in the beginning and again just two days before. It wasn't meerely the money, although it had been a fair amount. It was that a guru of dance, of a creative art, was trying to swindle her.
Some fast talking ensued between the girl's host and her guru. The guru would grant two additional lessons.
Two additional lessons? the girl thought. It was more like two lessons less.
After leaving that day, the girl resolved to only take her seventh lesson on the last day of her second week, and not return. She realized her mistake and was sick from disillusionment.
In her time in India prior to meeting the guru, she had seen many slick business dealings where a sales or service person told her hosts one thing, then denied it the next day. Would promise to come and then not call for four days. Would quote them a rate and then see the girl and ask for double. It was clear and present fleecing all around, and not always because of her presence.
Her mistake had been to assume that someone of the arts wouldn't pull such a slick move. Someone whom she had been personally recommended to. Someone who wanted her to perform for the press and say good things.
She was simply wrong.
In the end the fair Westerner was only sad that such an excellent teacher could be such a treachorous business person. After all, in her short time she did learn more than many do in a year's training, for that she was happy.
And being that she was in India, she firmly believed that karma would likely counteract such an underhanded deed.
So she went on with her exposure and experiences with this foreign land and only took with her her dance steps and the lesson of never blindly trusting anyone in India with a business arrangement, unless, of course, it is writing AND signed by two witnesses.
The End
So really, I am thankful that I was able to take these Kathak lessons from such a good instructor, but I'm not kidding at how sick I felt with disappointment when I realized we were being fleeced.
I'm not going to punish myself though...how could I have known? I'll finish my lesson tomorrow and then be done with it. I can't even pretend that what she did was okay and therefore cannot, in good faith, allow her the press coverage of my training.
What to do, what to do.
I am giving thanks today, that I am in this wonderful land filled with beauty, depth, misery and deception. I have definitely been getting what I hoped to get out of this experience.
I will say that there are many unpleasantries (some simple and subtle, some downright shameful) that I have been privvy to since I've been here, but I've refrained from discussing them as they are generally passing and a lesser part of this experience. But I couldn't keep quiet on this one because it was quite a shameless act of greed that was even stunning to me, an American.
With that, I bid farewell. I hope that I will bring more pleasant tidings with my next post.
Peace,
A Pink American
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