Dinner Decisions

Buses in London are an interesting experience. Once I got over their punctuality and efficiency and the subsequent yet obvious comparison with the buses in Delhi, I started to notice other things. Like the number of languages I heard at once. Of course, buses in Delhi were a sea of languages as well, but London is understandably far more international and hence a little more appealing. 



Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love buses here because they are red and their seats are an engaging pattern of blue and green, but because they allow me to mentally participate in a number of conversations even if I don’t follow a particular language. Since the buses here are never as crowded as the ones back home, I usually find more room to observe people and their interactions in person or over the phone, in different languages and various situations. It’s as if I am taking pictures for a project on languages that I don’t understand. There is something satisfyingly universal about non-verbal communication and the way it adds and conveys emotion to the receiver. I can now tell how people from various communities exchange ideas of intimacy or pleasure in a public setting, or how the pitch of their speech evolves during a conversation. It keeps me busy especially if I am not carrying a book to read or my earphones blasting The National. 


The last sentence there was an attempt to establish that I am not always such a creep in buses.

Anyway, nothing beats finding yourself around a conversation in English around you though. People acknowledge, smile and carry on, even if they notice how uncomfortable you are. It’s not their fault they are loud, after all. You just have to suck it up and pretend to be elsewhere while you can hear everything. That’s just how the world functions and anyway, who told you to not carry your iPod?

This evening was reminiscent of many chats I had with my mother, sitting in a bus by the window, as the customary instruction to be in bed by a certain time came along. I was thirteen years old, after all. The parents were to continue their evening with friends over drinks. This is perhaps the reason I knew the relevance of alcohol in social settings but never got around to holding a drink and nodding along with those people sitting in our house. I used to be frustrated and jealous. It seemed to be something that adults did and I just had to wait to be one.

I was reminded of this curious feeling this evening thanks to a little girl talking to her mother, who sat there visibly exhausted and helpless. The daughter had been insisting that she would like to have a drink at dinner. In a few minutes five people around me were giggling and nodding their heads in approval as the mother read from her copy of Appropriate Dinner Table Behaviour For Kids. It was rather straightforward and did not please the daughter. At all. All of you hold your wine glasses so why do I have to use my pink water tumbler instead? This is not fair.

Not fair indeed. I felt sorry for the girl. I felt sorry for the little me sitting in a bus in Delhi, by the window, listening to my mother quietly. But this girl turned out smarter than I was.

Ma, I don’t know anything, I want to have wine at dinner. Uncle John will bring a bottle, he always does.
No. I told you, you can’t.
But this is not fair. Stop treating me like a baby.
But you *are* a baby.
I don’t care. Ma, can I please have wine at dinner tonight?
Stop that, Melanie.
Ma, please, please, please, let me, please let me have wine at dinner tonight.
You can drink juice. You like orange juice with your fish, right?
Why can’t I drink wine instead?
Fine, you can have a whiff.

A whiff is a promising start, don’t you think?