Charlie Bell – Dinner Etiquette
This past Saturday I had my first experience being a guest for dinner in India. I had obviously been out to dinner since I’ve been here, but this was the first time that I was a guest in someone’s house and had to use proper Indian etiquette. The evening started off on a poor note as Mumbai traffic – unavoidable at any hour of the day – caused us to arrive an hour later than expected. Now this is bad by even the relaxed Indian standards. We were going to the house of an old grade school friend of our professor – and luckily enough for me I was in the later car with my professor. The seven classmates who arrived earlier than us had the pleasure of awkwardly waiting out our arrival in the presence of our host who was not pleased with the late arrival of the rest of us. Not to mention they were 45 minutes late themselves.
Once we arrived our host proceeded to be incredibly gracious to us. Serving us platters of all sorts of food – we had fried shrimp, eggplant, and crackers covered with mushrooms. In Indian culture, like a lot of cultures I’d say, it is considered rude or impolite to not eat the food a host has presented. To not finish it is one thing, but to flat out deny it is another. So, without any good talking points for small talk I decided to do the next best thing – eat!
Now, anyone who knows me knows that these would not be my usual go to snacks, but I was not about to insult my hosts. This was not like a family get together back home where my Mom or Dad would order pizza for the kids (I’m one of the most senior members of the kid’s table). I tried all the food and loved it! Well… I tried the shrimp and eggplant, and they were a lot better than my five year old pallet would have expected! Even the fear of insulting my hosts in a foreign country couldn’t bring me to eat mushrooms.
The night continued much the same with somewhat uncomfortable small talk and conversations of school, careers, etc… The same as always, but we bonded over one thing anyone can bond over… Babies!! The host’s daughter had two children aged four and three months that were certainly some cute children. When anyone explains a child they tend to use the phrase “cutest child in the whole world” or “cutest thing I’d ever seen.” I’m not going to say these were the cutest small children I’ve ever seen, but they were some damn cute ones.
The food finally arrived, but it was prepared by the chefs, and we were served by their servant. It was interesting to me that even in the household this difference of status still existed, and it was something that I personally had never seen before.
After our meal we got the signal it was time to leave when we were told we “could” call Ubers back. This “could” was more of a “should” and I found out later that our host was not feeling well and we had overstayed by a little bit because of our late arrival.
Looking forward to this week we’ll be in Pune, and then we’ll be moving on to Bangalore. Bangalore is a hub for IT in India – similar to Silicon Valley in the US. Indian history is very old with great rulers like the Mughals, Guptas, and Mauryans. I’m looking forward to seeing some older historical monuments as Mumbai was mostly settled and developed to its current form after the British arrived around the 1600s.
