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India Ink

Giving Hawkers the Finger

posted Thursday, 22 September 2005

Not that finger, silly! :o)


Sunglasses, anyone?

As at any high-profile tourist place in India, the hawkers at Kanyakumari can be relentless.

Beautiful postcards, madam?
Nice necklace for you?
Hello, madam. Film for your camera?
Madam, I show you seashells!

No matter where I'm standing, someone's trying to sell me something. Saying "no" rarely works; they always think they can convince me, and it wears me out trying to explain why I don't need what they have to sell. Even walking away isn't effective; I've had some of them follow me for blocks.

So when one of them approaches me as I'm waiting for sunrise, I brace myself for a fight.
Sunglasses, madam? madam? You need sunglasses?
With annoyance at having my attention drawn away from the sunrise, I turn to him and put my finger over my lips in a shhhhh gesture.  He looks puzzled, and falls silent for a moment.
Meditation? he asks.
Yes, yes, meditation! I answer, figuring that greeting the sun is as legitimate a form of meditation as any other.
He quietly walks away.

Wow! That was a first.

I try this trick again as I walk past the rows of vendor stalls.  Each time I pass a vendor who shouts at me, I place my finger over my lips and softly say shhhhhh!  I think of it as my own personal form of non-violent resistance, in a situation that in the past has bordered on leading me to violence.

They eye me with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment, but one by one they fall silent.

I wonder if in India the gesture means something other than shhhh??

__________________________________________

Update: If you liked this hawker story, you might also enjoy this one: Is Not Possible, Being Shhhh!

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1. shannon left...
Thursday, 22 September 2005 12:22 pm

You think that will work in my classroom of 22 five year old children????????


2. DonnaK left...
Sunday, 25 September 2005 1:04 pm

What a perfect solution. If in a few months, you can see this gesture all over India, we'll know who started it. It could be like all those scenes out of Forrest Gump. You know where is the one who started the running craze etc.


3. Basia left...
Monday, 26 September 2005 8:08 am

Shannon - I think you should try it on your five-year olds - let me know how it works...

Donna - I always wanted to be like Forrest Gump...:o)