Tag: culture

Why is this an "indian" problem?

I went to a very stimulating conference today, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon, Qatar, focused on research students had done on the issues facing immigrants living in Doha. I will leave aside my pleasure in undergraduate research, my congratulations to their faculty advisers, or my hope for their future as purposeful academics – all of which are true and any of which I could write a segment, and perhaps will later.

Instead, one remark has been ringing in my ears since I left the building.

A person from the audience interrogated one of the student panels, asking why the Indian Benevolence Fund did not intercede on behalf of a 63 year old Indian man whose restaurant enterprise had gone bankrupt, necessitating that he spend 7 years in Qatar working back a debt of 200,000 QR  (apx. 54,000 USD). The man was unable to see his daughter in this intervening period.

Why, the questioner prodded the student panel, didn’t this ‘fund’ do something about this deplorable situation?

Well, I have a different question.

Why is this an ‘indian’ problem? Why are only indians moved by pity for this man?

Does not the idea of 63 year old man, unable to see his daughter, burdened by debt, move any heart? Of any nationality?

This is the basic question facing Qatar: how much does nationality matter? And where does it stack against the fact of our shared humanity?

The case on the everyday Doha street appears to be that social class and status marks those points between human and some not quite sub human but not quite above dust category of species. 

In many countries in the world, you can be someone who works in plumbing, not a plumber, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday (or whatever days are your weekend). People can change their clothes, walk around with their families, be themselves.

But here, in such a small city, where we are all pressing up against each other, even on Friday, we see the small framed sub-continental men, shuffling their feet at the entrance of malls that they are baned from entering, regardless if they helped build them.

We in Qatar, and in the world, will only be able to progress in so much as we can move beyond race, class, even gender, to respond to the universal in those around us. We must do the good we can. Otherwise, all is lost. 

I felt good when I left that room this evening because I saw the stirrings of this generation, Qatar and the world’s hope, beginning to grapple with these larger questions of how to deal with rapid change in a just and equitable manner.

But the question plagues me. Why didn’t I, as an naturalized American national respond to the plight of this 63 year old man?

As the man from the Indian Benevelonce Fund stated, quite passionately, “The minute we knew about it, two business men stepped forward and helped.”

It is my promise that I will seek to know and to notice where I can help – whether Indian, Filipino, Qatari, or Australian.

After all, isn’t this why I’m blessed with discretionary income, employment flexibility, as much schooling as I want , even up to a Ph.D?

Aren’t you?

The funniest moment in my life

happened this past week. Having just returned from one of the best vacations of my life – made wonderful by all the family and friends and love I felt while away – I promised to bring positivity and energy into my everyday in Qatar.

After working out (another one of my life changes after a glorious summer) I went to the nearby office supply store to pick up a file cabinet. For the past two years I’ve griped about the fact that my request for a file cabinet has gone ignored while staff hired after me received theirs. The people who manage these requests shrugged their shoulder or smiled when I inquired about when I could expect my order. 

Miraculously, a few months later when I had finally made a breakthrough with the coordinator of procurement in our department, new office furniture showed up in time with my first year anniversary. I made it past the invisible line that said: This foreigner is serious – she is staying past one year- about making a life in Qatar (See another entry on this related subject: http://mohanalakshmi.livejournal.com/1828.html). The plush black leather couches raised eyebrows with all who passed by my office.

But no file cabinet.

So in my post-work bliss, I went to the supply store, bought my own three drawer file cabinet, loaded it into my car, and drove home.

The next day, I drove into work and handed the keys to Mohammed, our office worker, to see if he could help bring up my file cabinet (a perk of this type of organizational culture for sure). I sat down at my desk to see what was what in the world of email.

In the next moment – honestly, honestly – a group of three men in workmen’s overalls – standard to this part of the world, were rolling in a four drawer filing cabinet, asking me where I wanted it. 

This was not the one I bought the night before. This was the long waited, long promised cabinet, two years in the delivery.

I did the only thing I could do: laugh manically, causing the laborers to back out of my office, shaking their heads.

But I stayed true to my oath. I wasn’t angry when I took the cabinet back to the supply store and had to wait 20 minutes to get approval for a reimbursement.

“Why ma’am? Why are you returning this?”

“Because I don’t need it.”

“Anything wrong ma’am?”

(This is apparently the only reason to return something).

I shake my head no.

How can I explain a world in which a file cabinet shows up two years after the request, on the morning after another one was bought?

Laughter.

I did get my money and I did keep my smile.

Seen in Miami Int'l Airport

A family of six, five children, all Asian and the girls just adorable. What disturbed me was when the father places long tresses on the girls who couldn’t have been more than five years old. The dress up tresses, unlike their own shiny dark locks, were platinum blonde. The girls put on the wigs and proceeded to run around the waiting area.

For some reason, this sight really struck a chord with me.

Why would five year old Asian girls need blonde wigs?

On one hand this could be ‘just fun’ something to entertain them during hours of transit.

On the other, dressing up as someone you aren’t, as someone who represents the dominant culture which is so different from you, is slightly dangerous in term of self esteem, self image, what you consider ‘normal’ or even beautiful.

Your thoughts? Blonde wigs on Asians okay?

Have you ever seen a white child with a dark wig?

Does playing different only go one way?