Who knew coffee could be so much trouble?
As a "North" Indian, tea was the dominant beverage during my growing up years. Coffee would be a rare treat made out of Nescafe/Bru coffee powder, and not at all tasting like coffee! (Somewhat like north indian sambhar - when I first tasted real south indian sambhar I thought that the restaurant was not good and had served bad sambhar! I had grown up with the quacky north indian one and did not know better.) So, obviously I did not know a lot about how coffee was made. Even later when I moved to the south, I did not really understand how the whole 'decotion' (I don't even know if I have spelled it correctly) system worked. When I was older, coffee was all about "making things happen over a cup of coffee" and I would be more immersed in the company to think about how the coffee was made.
All this preamble is to introduce the thing called "coffee filter" - picture below.
When I moved to this country, I 'really' saw the coffee machines. Coffee is a big part of life here and you have no choice but to make it the preferred drink when you are not home. All offices have huge coffee machines where coffee is brewed through the day. The coffee filter is used in brewing the coffee.
The coffee filter has very deceptive looks. It is NOT such an outlandish thing that you would ask about it as one of the questions "a newbie in this new world" asks. On the other hand, it is also not something which can be understood intuitively specially when you have not grown up with coffee. I know this only because I saw it lying in the break room and asked my jijaji about it (for a time I worked with my sis and jijaji in the same account).
And so, it leads to AWKWARD moments. Let me write about a couple:
Awkard Moment 1:
I had just moved to Austin and joined my new project. A close family friend/cousin also worked in the same project and we used to have lunch together. The microwave in this office had a note taped it asking people to cover their food while heating (I don't know why - maybe to avoid splatters). Well, this young guy took the dabba, ignored the paper towels, picked a coffee filter from the stack lying nearby, neatly used it to cover the dabba and put it in the microwave! Later, at home, I asked him why he used a coffee filter instead of paper towel and he replied 'oh woh coffee ke liye hai? I always wonder why the americans stare at me when I use it cover food!". This guy has a very good sense of humor and we had a good laugh about it and switched to paper towels from the next day.
Awkward Moment 2:
Now this one was a bit tricky. Last week a bunch of folks came from our Chicago office to visit us for a week. One day, I got samosas for them from a nearby hot spot (yes my office is very conviniently located near a good Indian restaurant). We didn't have plates and a girl offered to get it from the break room. Now this lady is very sensitive, diffident and panics easily. She has been in the country for 5 years and still is not able to eat any non Indian food which made me feel really sorry for her (she did not finish even a slice of her pizza when we went for dinner and I felt bad that she went hungry. I felt better when she told me that she had some indian stuff in her room). Anyway, she goes and comes back with a stack of, yes, coffee filters! Now, if it had been someone else, we could have laughed it off . I had already gauged her sensitiveness and I did not know how to react in front of the 10 people in the room. Fortunately, everybody understands her and nobody said anything at all. I just said that these were coffe filters and would aborb all the chutney and I would get the plates since I knew where they were kept. I am not sure if she or anybody else thought about it later.
So, I have been thinking about these filters a lot. Coming here and adjusting to a new culture is a big thing and it shows up in these small incidents. They are not big enough for people advising you on the culture to touch on. For the people here, it is a part of daily life and it will never occur to them that we might not know about it. Everybody is prepared for big things but it is these small things which never let you relax when you are not in your own country.
I look forward to years of nervous alertness.
P.S. I hear Starbucks is finally coming to India. One more things to tempt me to stay here gone.
P.P.S - I was reminded of this incident when I called myself a North Indian. When I was in Chennai, there was a guy in my project who used a ask a lot of questions about the north (me being the only representative from the region). The first day he told me that he had a brother who lived in the north. Curious, I asked him which place in north? His answer - "BOMBAY"
As a "North" Indian, tea was the dominant beverage during my growing up years. Coffee would be a rare treat made out of Nescafe/Bru coffee powder, and not at all tasting like coffee! (Somewhat like north indian sambhar - when I first tasted real south indian sambhar I thought that the restaurant was not good and had served bad sambhar! I had grown up with the quacky north indian one and did not know better.) So, obviously I did not know a lot about how coffee was made. Even later when I moved to the south, I did not really understand how the whole 'decotion' (I don't even know if I have spelled it correctly) system worked. When I was older, coffee was all about "making things happen over a cup of coffee" and I would be more immersed in the company to think about how the coffee was made.
All this preamble is to introduce the thing called "coffee filter" - picture below.
The coffee filter has very deceptive looks. It is NOT such an outlandish thing that you would ask about it as one of the questions "a newbie in this new world" asks. On the other hand, it is also not something which can be understood intuitively specially when you have not grown up with coffee. I know this only because I saw it lying in the break room and asked my jijaji about it (for a time I worked with my sis and jijaji in the same account).
And so, it leads to AWKWARD moments. Let me write about a couple:
Awkard Moment 1:
I had just moved to Austin and joined my new project. A close family friend/cousin also worked in the same project and we used to have lunch together. The microwave in this office had a note taped it asking people to cover their food while heating (I don't know why - maybe to avoid splatters). Well, this young guy took the dabba, ignored the paper towels, picked a coffee filter from the stack lying nearby, neatly used it to cover the dabba and put it in the microwave! Later, at home, I asked him why he used a coffee filter instead of paper towel and he replied 'oh woh coffee ke liye hai? I always wonder why the americans stare at me when I use it cover food!". This guy has a very good sense of humor and we had a good laugh about it and switched to paper towels from the next day.
Awkward Moment 2:
Now this one was a bit tricky. Last week a bunch of folks came from our Chicago office to visit us for a week. One day, I got samosas for them from a nearby hot spot (yes my office is very conviniently located near a good Indian restaurant). We didn't have plates and a girl offered to get it from the break room. Now this lady is very sensitive, diffident and panics easily. She has been in the country for 5 years and still is not able to eat any non Indian food which made me feel really sorry for her (she did not finish even a slice of her pizza when we went for dinner and I felt bad that she went hungry. I felt better when she told me that she had some indian stuff in her room). Anyway, she goes and comes back with a stack of, yes, coffee filters! Now, if it had been someone else, we could have laughed it off . I had already gauged her sensitiveness and I did not know how to react in front of the 10 people in the room. Fortunately, everybody understands her and nobody said anything at all. I just said that these were coffe filters and would aborb all the chutney and I would get the plates since I knew where they were kept. I am not sure if she or anybody else thought about it later.
So, I have been thinking about these filters a lot. Coming here and adjusting to a new culture is a big thing and it shows up in these small incidents. They are not big enough for people advising you on the culture to touch on. For the people here, it is a part of daily life and it will never occur to them that we might not know about it. Everybody is prepared for big things but it is these small things which never let you relax when you are not in your own country.
I look forward to years of nervous alertness.
P.S. I hear Starbucks is finally coming to India. One more things to tempt me to stay here gone.
P.P.S - I was reminded of this incident when I called myself a North Indian. When I was in Chennai, there was a guy in my project who used a ask a lot of questions about the north (me being the only representative from the region). The first day he told me that he had a brother who lived in the north. Curious, I asked him which place in north? His answer - "BOMBAY"
1 comment:
Pandeji, if at all I come to the US of A, I shall look out for these filters :-)
oh yes Starbucks!, sab kuch hain India mein :-)
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