"Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land?
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand?"
Now I don't really know for certain whether my friend, Pheno Menon, was inspired by Sir Walter Scott's immortal lines when he decided to relocate to India after a lengthy stint in the US or whether his decision stemmed from more mundane considerations such as idli-sambhar. At any rate, viewing the motherland through the romantic prism of a fifteen year absence, Pheno decided to come back as COO of an IT major. 'Into that heaven of cyber freedom, my father, let my country awake,' may well have been his goal as his plane touched down at BIAL. Then he woke up and smelt the coffee and decided that Starbucks was preferable to filter kaapi.
He and his lady wife were overwhelmed when professionalism was ignored while plumbing and electrical issues at Casa Menon were governed by Murphy's Law. His heartfelt lament, "Bad enough I have major shit to deal with at work and then I come home and the basement is flooded…" fell on deaf ears. "Adjust maadi" is not part of the curriculum at Harvard; consequently Pheno and his missus were finding it impossible to cope with the chaos of daily life in namma Bengaluru. As any fule know the average citizen is relatively insulated from the slings and arrows of bureaucratic ineptitude in the West, while here in India, things are somewhat different. John Le Carre's pithy observation, 'When things work we are pathetically grateful and when they don't, such is life, comrade,' springs to mind.
However the Menons had one consolation: Mummy had sent them good domestic engineers.
Today Pheno Menon is a bitter, disillusioned man who can't to get back to homeland security. Initially the irritants were minor: doublespeak, lack of punctuality, incessant honking, chaotic traffic, heat, dirt and mosquitoes.'Oh gimme a break, these ABCD are only capable of moaning', said his colleagues behind his back. The final straw was a robbery at his plush apartment complex in which his neighbour's apartment was trashed in a manner resembling an unsupervised teenage party at Epsilon. 'There, but for the grace of God, go I,' could well have been his philosophic reaction, rather like the passenger who missed Flight MH 370 thanks to being stuck in traffic. Unfortunately his troubles were just starting.
The neighbour turned out to be that quintessentially Indian phenomenon: a rich businessman with connections. Pheno was away on a business trip during the robbery but that didn't stop the wheels of justice. His thugs entered Menon's apartment without a warrant or a by-your- leave, ransacked his cupboards, subjected his help to the third degree and finally ran their filthy paws over his wife's silky drawers in the forlorn hope that the stolen goods may have been concealed beneath Milady's lingerie. On his return, Menon was justifiably furious. As an upstanding citizen of the 'greatest nation on earth' where lowlifes, drug dealers, pimps and assorted sickos are read their rights before interrogation and arrest, he was livid to discover that extra-judicial methods are far more primitive back home.
His neighbour was totally taken aback by Menon's ire, 'Yaar, you were out of station and they didn't really maro them too much, just a couple of slaps. Dekko boss, my wife's jewellery was stolen, I should be the one who's shouting, yaar. Your flat tho kuch nahin hua. Here, first thing we suspect is inside job from these bloody servants. What to tell you? Even my own servants were taken to the station and hammered, yaar. Cool down.' As you can imagine, Pheno was by now apoplectic with rage since his maids were of unimpeachable integrity and were considered part of the family. "Do you know my maid brought back a $100 dollar bill when I threw my pants to the wash and you suspect them of thieving? Who allowed you to enter my house in my absence, you piece of $#it?' he roared.
Menon went to the cop station, dropped a few names, let off steam and went back home, sadder and wiser for the experience. But what truly shocked him subsequently was the total lack of empathy he faced when he recounted his experience at social gatherings. "How else do you expect the cops to do their jobs?" was the inevitable response. Basic human rights, concern for the underprivileged and respect for domestic workers is not the kind of thing that trends on Twitter or FB. We are like this only.
