Cultural Tsunamis

The biggest challenge in adapting to a foreign country, apart from having to adhere to road rules and desist from mindless littering, would be handling cultural shocks, said a few of your well-wishing acquaintances. "Heh", say you, rather haughtily.

In-flight, when you saw the lady next to you order some whiskey to go with her dinner, all that it had was a familiar ring to it. Matter of fact, It was so familiar that one could've mistaken it for a hang-out in chennai. When the girl from the window-seat crossed your seat, with atleast one piercing done for every 5-square-thumbs of skin, it felt very normal again. Back home, even we are moving from ears and noses to till-now-unexplored areas like tongues, eye-brows and belly buttons. Cultural shock ?? That was not even a mosquito bite.

That clean shaven guy holding his girl friend by the waist and playing an interesting game of guessing what she had for breakfast without having to ask her ?? nah, whats out of the ordinary there ?? Havent you seen people do this in pubs before ?? Another clean shaven guy holding a guy by the waist and playing a similar interesting game, ah well, not that you have seen this regularly, but as long as they are okay, it shouldnt be anyone else's problem. A mild "woah" and nothing more.

At the gym, a newspaper hits you in the eye. Someone who tries to read a newspaper for news is going go to be slightly disappointed with that bunch of papyrus. With more than 50% of it filled it with advertisements for liposuction, breast implants and escorts services, it more than just hits you in the eye. All that it entices out of you would be a mild shake of the head. Shock ?? Fat chance. A quick glance into the supplement given for TOI would say we are headed in the right direction with promises of weight reduction and complexion enhancement within weeks.

As you finish your run in the treadmill, ruminating all this, you sort of feel proud that you havent been hit by anything as remotely as a culture shock. A lack of other things to feel proud about makes this all the more important. You feel at home anywhere you go. You connect with ease. You are a cultural monolith. You are neither shaken nor stirred. Surprisingly, You are not a vodka martini either.

Then you notice that the shower-room in the gym has walls only on three sides and a flimsy curtain for a door. A curtain. A white curtain. A strand of cloth which someone could accidentally lift, take a look, say a polite sorry and visit the next shower and leave you in tatters. You also notice the relative ease people are in at seeing a fellow-exerciser in bare-minimal garments. In a track shorts and tee-shirt, you are overdressed for the occassion. You have two choices: You can pick yourself up, give a smile as if you entered this place by mistake, stink all the way to home. Or be a part of the crowd (in other words: strip), enter an unprotected shower-room (in other words: run the risk of being scarred for the rest of your life), prove to the world that you are part of the shower-room culture and leave with your newly acquired "cultural monolith" title intact.

Tic-tock. Tick-tock. Tic-tock.
A one-mile walk back home laced with sweat: Bearable.
No more bragging about "connecting with all cultures": Acceptable.
Chastity unharmed: Priceless.