Chai Tea

I've always found the notion of cultural authenticity to be absurd -- and found it irritating that non-Western cultures are particularly scrutinized for adulteration, as if we are expected to remain a live but stagnant museum of exotic rituals and aesthetics.  "California cuisine" can continue to evolve and experiment with salsas and chutneys; western conceptions of cinema, gender roles, and general lifestyles are undergoing constant change; but in many instances, a brown bro or hoe can't bring in the "modern" or "fusion" without brown traditionalists or cultured-white-people-on-Yelp considering this a tarnished venture.  The reality is that some cultural shifts deliberately borrow from external influence, while others are genuine and organic in response to changing circumstances and infrastructures.  It's difficult to delineate the origins or tipping points of new patterns, and it's also woeful, in theory anyway, to romanticize eras past. 

An India-born-and-bred cousin around my age was in town at my parents' place a couple of months ago, and I went over there to kick it.  In the midst of chatting with the backdrop of rain beating against the windows, I thought it would be nice to prepare a warm beverage to be cupped in and sipped slowly from each of our palms.  I proposed this to my cousin, inquiring, "Would you rather have tea, or chai?" "What's the difference?" my cousin asked, genuinely confounded.

I suppose in a way this was a case of "Do you know what they call Indian people in India? People."  Although I'm aware that "chai" literally translates to "tea," in my mind, chai is not just generically synonymous with, but a specific preparation of tea.  Water and tea leaves (Lipton yellow label, if not a proper Desi brand) are brought to a boil in a pot, and milk is added for the now-chai to be boiled to completion.  Cardamom and sugar are optional but always welcome, as I've learned from my sister's particularly fragrant chai, and other possible additions include whole peppers, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, and lemongrass.  I've always cringed at what Starfucks and other American coffee/tea chains package as chai, as it is so exaggeratedly spiced and sweetened compared to anything I've had in a Desi home -- but still, to call it chai, I would at least need to see some milk up in that shit. 

Several other relatives either from or with more recent ties to India than my immediate family were in and out of our home during that month, and the consensus seemed to be that chai is prepared sans cardamom, and the milk is not boiled with the water and tea leaves, but added later.  Since then, my mom has been preparing "chai" in this manner.

I still cling to my definition and preparation of chai, though I acknowledge that the notion of chai as an authentic Indian beverage is sort of wack to begin with.  Wikipedia research informs me that it's the British who really promoted tea consumption and introduced the milk and sugar.  Native Indian vendors in turn took milk and sugar to a whole other level, and added spices to boot.  Modern practices are sort of all over the map, and I imagine vary among age groups, class backgrounds, and from urban to rural.

My Indianness in many ways is stagnated to what I have learned from my parents, which is frozen in 1970s middle-class Bombay.  Meanwhile, my parents are taking a more active interest in adjusting the way they perform their Indianness to comply with modern practices of our family back home.

Why I Am Not a Criminal

I more or less stay within the confines of the law.  This is not because I have some sort of moral compass or anything, but because I am not smooth enough to carry it off any other way.  Besides, I am too delirious to acquire enemies, too awkward to enlist co-conspirators, too complacent to desire riches, and too slothful and out of shape to, like, pry and kick shit open.  These qualities all supersede the requisite mens rea for committing most criminal activity.  I'm astonished that I even took the effort to italicize that term.  I also find it totally pretentious.

Blancy

Last Monday, I decided to give my lethargy a break for the noon hour and attend a yoga class in the Montclair district of Oakland, which is a relatively upscale patch of the city.  I arrived about fifteen minutes early and for a moment considered feeding the meter and taking a short walk before the class, but instead opted to save those few dimes and sit in the car and browse Facebook on my phone.

A couple of minutes into my perusal of cat and Bollywood videos, I saw a truck slow down next to me, and the passenger rolled her window down to allow the driver to call something out.  Assuming the driver hoped I was leaving the parking spot, I furrowed my brow, rolled down my window, and flatly stated, "I'm not leaving."

"Do you want me to fix those scratches on the back of your car?" the yellow-toothed male driver inquired across his passenger.  I noticed a child in the back of the vehicle as well.

"Oh! Maybe," I replied, puzzled.

Within moments, the truck found a spot for itself, and the yellow-toothed driver emerged behind my vehicle.  I got out of the car to allow him to explain his offer.

"See all these scratches on the back and sides of your car?" the yellow-toothed driver noted, pointing with one hand and cupping his chin with the other, "Looks like you've driven into some fences or something?"

"Mm hm," I nodded.

"I can paint over and fix them all for you for $250."

"Oh, yeah I have problems with fences and poles and curbs," I explained.  "There's a big dent in the front of the car too.  Would you be able to fix that too, and how much would it cost for all of it?"

The yellow-toothed driver walked around to the front of the vehicle and examined the damage, confirming, "Yeah, I could pop that back out for you.  Tell you what, I can take care of all of this right now for $300.  I've got my wife and son with me; they can just wait while I work on this."

"Do you have a card or something?" I asked.  "I'm about to go to yoga class, but I can call you and maybe schedule something later today or tomorrow."

"I can do it right now and have it done by the time you're out of your class," the yellow-toothed driver persisted.  "You don't even have to pay me anything upfront.  Once you're out and you see my work, I can follow you to an ATM and you can pay me then."

"OK, well I'm not doing it right now, but give me your number and I'll call you," I replied, taking out my phone.  "What's your name?"

"Blancy," the yellow-toothed man seemed to blurt out.  "B-L-A-N-C-Y?"  "Yeah," Blancy replied, providing his phone number upon my prompting.  "Tell you what, if you go with me today, I'll take care of everything for you for $250.  I've got the factory paint and everything."

"OK, I'll call you," I promised.

Just then, a distinctively redneck-looking man in a classy but ill-fitted suit walked by and shook hands with Blancy, saying "HI! Nice to see you!"  The redneck then addressed me with a raving testimonial for Blancy.  "He's helped me with my car several times.  He does great work!" I smiled and nodded.

"OK, I have to go to my class now, but I'll call you!" I vowed.

Later that same afternoon, I went to my car dealer to get an overdue major service on my vehicle.  The workers took a couple of hours to change the filters and check everything out, and as they were wrapping up, I asked my service adviser how much he thought it should cost to get the scratches and dents on my car fixed.

"We don't do that work here," he clarified, "But instead of taking it to a shop, I would call one of those mobile services that could come up and take care of it.  I'm guessing maybe $300-500."

OK, so it wasn't unheard of to have a random dude pull up and fix up your car -- and it seemed I would be getting a bargain through Blancy. To be honest, I had been thinking about getting this manner of auto work done anyway, but I just figured it would cost way more than I could afford.  Perhaps the universe had conspired in bringing Blancy to me! Why even mess with that beautiful universal flow by Google-stalking or Yelp-stalking him or other possibilities?

I called Blancy that evening; his wife answered the phone and took down my request to have him meet me the following afternoon at 2pm at an address close to my office.

Blancy called the next afternoon at around 1:30pm and said he was in Modesto picking up supplies and would be running slightly late.  I said that was fine and he could call me when he got to my neck of the wood.  Blancy called around 2:45, and I met him on location.  He arrived with two other men and said it should only take about 20 minutes.  "This is about $800 worth of work if you took it to a shop," Blancy informed me, "It's actually a quick job, but they would just let it sit there until someone could get to it."  As he was talking to me, one of the men had already started firing up the area of the dent and indeed had almost completely popped it out.  I was impressed.  I realized I hadn't yet withdrawn cash for this service, so I told Blancy I would go to the ATM and be right back.  "We'll be done by the time you're back," Blancy promised.

When I returned, the other two workers were heading back to their truck, and Blancy awaited me at the front of the vehicle.  He first showed me the dent which had been popped out, and then walked me around the vehicle, showing that the scratches had been painted over.  However, it seemed that the color of the patches that were formerly scratches was now a greenish color, whereas my vehicle was silver.  "See this polish?" Blancy said, pointing to the green, "Just leave it on for about four hours, and ideally overnight.  Then wipe it with a wet cloth."

"Oh. OK!" I chirped happily.  I pulled out $280 in cash and thanked him, saying I would refer other business to him as well.

"Thank you," Blancy replied, "I'll give you a free detail for the referrals."

Blancy and his men drove off, and I got in my car, feeling excited about how new and awesome my car was going to look.  I drove off to San Francisco to meet a friend; however, a few blocks before reaching my destination, a police car signaled for me to pull over.  "What the fuck have I done?" I wondered.  I had just been driving on a straight road for a while without making any funky turns, and I definitely hadn't been speeding; I never speed, as it seems like a whole lot of effort when I could instead just take my time along the journey and listen to Pitbull.

"Hello," the police officer greeted me as I rolled down my window, "ID, insurance, and vehicle registration please?"

"Can I ask what this is about, officer?" I inquired pleasantly.

"I'll get to that," the officer replied curtly.

I handed the requested items to the copper, who then explained that my front right headlight was out.  "I'm just going to issue a fix-it ticket," he said, explaining that I would have to get the headlight replaced, get a certification from the police department, and then mail it into whatever agency with a $25 fee.  I normally would have tried to talk my way out of this, but I deliriously nodded and accepted the ticket, wondering how this could have happened when I had just gotten a major service the day before.  The only plausible explanation was that Blancy's man had somehow taken out the headlight while fixing the dent right under it.  Dammit, Blancy!  Oh well.  It was just $25 down -- and I had gotten such a bargain on fixing my dents and scratches!

The next day, I looked at the polish and determined it would make no sense to wipe it off with a wet cloth, because it had really pretty much hardened onto the vehicle.  What a curious polish, I thought.  I decided I would just go through a full-service car wash so my car would come out good as brand new!

I drove out of the car wash full of excitement and anticipation for the sight of a sparkly, evenly silver vehicle.  However, when I emerged from the vehicle and walked around it, I saw that the greenish color remained encrusted on the surface -- and only then did it dawn upon me that this might not have been polish at all!

I tried to phone Blancy the next morning to express my disappointment, but an operator message informed me that the number was no longer in service.

Dammit, Blancy!

Well, here's the thing. Blancy, or whatever his actual name is, did swindle me -- and I do totally resent that he may have profiled me to be a gullible fool on the basis of my age, gender, color, and/or propensity to hit up a noon yoga sesh in Montclair -- but, he could have done much worse, as many people are doing in these unfortunate times.  The appointment I made with him was in a public place and during the day, but it's not like there were too many people around at the time; he and his two men quite easily could have just carjacked me, and/or run off with my purse.  Nay; Blancy actually is a hard-working entrepreneur, driving around and soliciting business, deploying skills of project management, negotiations, and stress management for all that risk-taking, no doubt -- and, he puts diligent effort into procuring at least a semblance of labor and supplies for his services. And, he has other expenses!  All that gas driving around searching for business, hiring redneck plants to provide live customer testimonials and probably renting suits for them, and then having to change his phone number every who-knows-how-often!

I paid $280 to have my vehicle defaced -- but at the end of the day, I still have a very comfortable place to call home, many wonderful people to call my family and friends, and copious amounts of delicious food entering my belly every 3-5 hours.  I have hardly been impoverished by this incident; one could even argue that my common sense has been enriched.  Blancy, on other other hand, seems to come from a different point on the spectrum of the 99%.  He can't seem to afford a dentist, so I doubt he's going to be running off with my money to a holiday in Rome.  That shit would have pissed me off, but it seems to be more the stuff of Enron executives than a guy who drives around with buckets full of crappy paint in his truck.  Nor do I believe Blancy is going to throw the money on meth or alcohol, since he seemed genuinely alert and enthusiastic about rounding up customers.  Whatever the case, at least his family should be getting a fabulous meal tomorrow.

99 Probablems

I just entered to win a copy of Mindy Kaling's new book.  The odds are stacked against me, as only ten copies are available, and over 1800 have been requested.  Still, I'm thinking there's a chance I'll be one of the lucky ones.  Any time I enter a contest or a raffle or buy a lottery ticket, I hope that I'll beat the statistical odds.  Yet I take comfort in statistical odds showing that my loved ones and I are unlikely to get into a fatal accident or come down with a chronic disease or be drafted into the Hunger Games.  I guess this is a pretty obvious and common way of maintaining an optimistic outlook, but I had somehow not really put it into perspective this way.

Death Wishes

This is not a suicide note or a will or anything like that.  It's more of an acknowledgement that I could die at any time, in any whimsical manner that the universe may choose for me, and it may be at a time that is considered premature for my demographic (financially endowed fat brown girls in North America).  It's sort of a blessing to be able to express, while still alive, some aspects of how I'd like that to be treated posthumously.

First of all, I know that my family and close friends will grieve.  But in the words of Michael Scott, "There is such a thing as good grief. Ask Charlie Brown."  Really, it will be such a double-whammy suck if I die AND the joy of my loved ones dies.  My spirit will certainly find itself a rocking existence in whatever parallel universe it is sent to, and it would much rather that my peeps take my departure as an opportunity to further cherish those still in their lives and continue spending their time in ways that bring them fulfillment.

Also, no vacations or major plans should be cancelled or delayed because I'm gone, unless I would have frowned upon said major plans, in which case they should NEVER occur!!

Then there's the whole 21st century aspect, which is actually what sort of inspired this post.  I don't know how I feel about people tagging me on Facebook with "RIP" or spamming Twitter and listservs about my untimely death.  I mean, I do sort of enjoy the idea of posthumous infamy, but I also find it creepy!  Like, unless I achieve fame/infamy in my lifetime such that random people would care, or unless I die in a way that has some type of political significance, what business do strangers have to know about me?  I like the idea of my close peeps doing something joyous to celebrate my awesome legacy, but I'd feel weirdly exploited if people I didn't kick it with that much invoked my death for dramatic effect.  That's truly just morbid!

No Privacy

Someone contacted me today about a letter he -- actually, his landlord -- got from his ISP.  Basically, the ISP wrote to notify the landlord that it had received a subpoena from some adult entertainment company to hand over his IP address because he had illegally downloaded and shared torrents of some beaver cream something-or-other video, which allegedly amounted to copyright infringement.

I didn't take the case or anything, but it just reminded me of how we really have no privacy, and how much that sucks!  I mean, I'm not all overflowing with compassion for this guy, but how embarrassing.  As a tenant, I'd be mortified to have my landlord knock on my door with news like that!  Between that, ScarJo's butt cheek photo leak, and those fucked up anonymous guys thinking they're activists for publishing a bunch of people's names and passwords from the BART website, I'm realizing how I need to be a bit more cautious with what I do by myself in the privacy of my own home, let alone share with others.  I mean, I stream my porn instead of downloading, so I think I'm OK with that?  I take naked photos and videos of myself all the time -- not to share with anyone, but to see what I look like from angles that aren't easy to gauge in the mirror.  Some asshole better not hack into my phone or computer and share that shit!  Also, my passwords are usually pretty mundane, but what if I made it "iheart[nameofsecretcrush]" or something and that got published all over the place for the whole world to know about my secret crush?! 

I Do Not Condone These Ads - Example #1

I can't control what ads come across my blog -- and I guess the nobler choice would be not to be the fucked up capitalist sell-out and just remove the ads -- but how cool would it be if I could truly just blog for a living?

Anyway, my solution will be to supplement decrepit speech with good speech.  So here is the first in a series of calling out ads coming across my own blog.

There was one ad I saw for a website that purported to assist with immigration, and offer "affordable" immigration forms.  Just keep in mind that pretty much every immigration form you will need is downloadable for FREE at uscis.gov.  There is a filing fee, of course, but the form itself is free.  Be very wary of websites that sell anything immigration-related!  You can get many logistical questions answered by browsing through uscis.gov or calling their customer service number or making an Infopass appointment; any actual legal advice you need should be obtained through proper attorney consultation and not some punk website.

I'm not saying don't click; I'm just saying don't believe what they tell you! ;P