Attention all hagglers of Gariahat. Yes, those of you who pride themselves on negotiating prices down till the vendor has slashed them by more than half. Wipe that smug smile off your face as you walk away having victoriously purchased the two-hundred rupee nightie for “fifty only”. If you’re headed out of India, that is. And all of you public litterers, spitters and ahem, bathroom goers.
If you are planning to do that dream world tour anytime soon and are wondering where to start, you had better pick up a copy of Professor Abhik Roy’s comic book type travel guide, “Traveling Blunders” lest such a trip becomes a nightmare instead. The laugh riot of a tiny tome packs into the 150 odd pages, sixty or so short stories all sticking together with the glue of a hilarious common theme: “culture shock”. The tales are like physical, hardcopy versions of Instagram “reels”, those pithy, digital bytes of today which somehow manage to comprehensively squeeze in a beginning, middle and an end in a capsule spanning but a few seconds.
That’s pretty much how long it takes to finish reading each of the stories in this book, which for some humorous reason, the author decides to call, “chapters”, leaving you wishing for more. Professor Roy was born and grew up in Kolkata but went to the United States to study where he subsequently became a professor. His quarter of a century teaching tenure not only saw him being conferred a number of prestigious awards for his scholarship which included invitations to deliver talks at esteemed institutions, but found him travelling, literally, far and wide.
That is: from the western most parts of the world to the farthest east. The countries included (and still does, as he continues to travel) China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Myanmar, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France, England,The Netherlandsand the United States. The stories he tells doesn’t just detail, hilariously, the kinds of blunders that he himself made because of his own cultural conditionings but those of others, including tourists from different parts of the world and those of the people of host countries. Let’s take a look at a few.
In the chapter called, “The Eyes Have It” Roy writes, “Growing up in India, I was taught that looking someone directly in the eye was a sign of disrespect, almost rude. Children were socialized to avert their eyes in front of elders, teachers, or anyone in authority. Staring back boldly felt like misbehavior.” Noting that while this practice of not looking directly into people’s eyes while talking didn’t pose problems in other Asian countries which follow similar traditions, in the United States, the shifty-eyedness was misconstrued to mean a lack of self-confidence or worse, a sign of downright dishonesty. “To them,” writes Roy, “avoiding eye contact meant you had something to hide or that you weren’t trustworthy.”
So much so that he was, on occasion, told by sundry to look them in the eye while talking. “I can still hear my Western friends and colleagues saying: ‘Roy, look me in the eye when you talk to me!’”,he writes with self-deprecating humor, adding, “Suddenly my polite, downward glance and gaze-at-the-floor style was working against me.” While Indian culture too would have evolved since the septuagenarian author’s childhood days, with today’s post liberalized generations likely to identify more with the western ways, Roy really hits it on the nail as far as ferreting out a subtle and nuanced cultural trait of yore is concerned….the “virtuous” trait which have even been eulogized in popular songs…. like the famous gazal, jhuki jhuki si nazar (oh those downward glances) by Jagjit Singh.
Or sample the chapter, “To Haggle or Not to Haggle,” where the author as a young student in the United States, makes the ultimate faux pas of trying to bargain with the salesman at an upscale showroom selling exclusive premium watches. “In 1983, soon after I arrived in the United States, eager to buy a watch, I walked into a New York shop and spent ages examining the Seikos. Finally, I made my move and offered the seller a much lower price,” he admits. What happened next is something that the readers themselves should find out. All I am about to tell you is that the author himself called it a “Big Mistake”.
Then one day in China, the author, now ostensibly seasoned to the ways of the world, confidently arrived at a dinner party, duly carrying what he thought was a thoughtful gift. Boy was he wrong! On unwrapping the present, the host’s happiness turned to horror. The writer writes, “My ‘thoughtful’ gift was basically saying, ‘Here’s to your funeral!’” Find out, as the author admits to having donethe hard way, what to gift and what not to in China in the chapter, “The Gift that Bombed.”
As we read with riveting revelry about Roy’s seemingly endless bloopers and blunders as he travels through Asia, Africa, Europe or the Americas, we are also provided, at the end of each chapter, small footprinted “learning lessons” which are essentially the writer’s observations, reflections and ruminations, not to mention tips that could be anything between practical and philosophical. Speaking of tips, beware how you “tip” in different parts of the world because Roy once tipped a cabbie in the United Statestwo dollars and found that it was not the right amount. Too little or too much? Well, decide for yourself when you read, “The Tipping Tangle.”
Not that the faux pas were committed only by the author himself at various phases of his life in different parts of the world. There is also the flip side of the travel blunders coin in which countless others from different parts of the world come to India to find out how things are done the right way, the hardway. For instance, the hapless and clueless Western tourist who offered a shocked shopkeeper in Delhi money using the “wrong hand”. The wrong hand, the wrong line, the wrong queue, the wrong word and of course the wrong gift form a long list, lucky for us readers.
And if you are not already falling off the chair and rolling on the floor laughing, take a side glance (or maybe even a bombastic side eye to use TikTok lingo) at the illustrations that accompany each of the short stories. Sketched by Gwen Grafft these appear on the left hand page of every story and seem to match Roy’s humor word for word, line for line. The tales, personal and anecdotal however reveal a lot other than the gaffes and glitches. There are for instance, fascinating facts, including historical backgrounds to traditions and customs of countries which spice up the stories.
The reason why you should never clink beer glasses in Budapest, for instance, is a piece of information I found intriguing. Fortunately Roy belongs to the category of travelers who do not like to plan the trips down to the last detail as tourists are often wont to do. Instead, he prefers to take the unbeaten path, discovering serendipitous moments, stumbling upon little known places by chance and meeting people he would never have met on a judiciously and meticulously planned itinerary of the known destinations. The funny little tales in this book emerge out of these spontaneous detours.
(The reviewer is Editor, Features)