Deaf in DC: A Memoir

12. Cultural Abyss

44 12 Cultural Abyss HAVING READ BOOKS BY ZANE GRAY, EDNA FERBER, EARL Stanley Gardner, and some other American writers, I felt that I knew American culture pretty well and didn’t expect any cultural problems. I knew how Americans dressed, what they ate, how they behaved, and what the general customs were. However, I learned the hard way that my knowledge about American culture was sketchy or erratic. Some experiences were funny and some embarrassing. I can look back and laugh at those experiences now, but they were not very funny then, either for me or for others involved. The Sunday Washington Post was a joy. It had more pages than an Indian newspaper’s combined issues for one month. The comics alone were a dozen pages. Of course, most of the paper was devoted to advertising things I could not afford. Most students slept in late on weekends, but being a morning person, I usually woke up at six or seven in the morning, even on weekends. I came down to the lounge wearing my pajamas and slippers, got the hefty newspaper, and sat down on a sofa to read it. Just before I had finished reading the main section, a student passed me. I said hi to him. He didn’t respond, just walked on hurriedly and then came back. He gave me head to toe inspection like a mother does before sending a child to school and shook his head. “You know that girls will be coming here soon.” He kept looking up and down while making this important announcement. “Nice.” I smiled. “You need to change clothes before they come.” He was very serious. “Why?” I was puzzled. We went back and forth and I learned that I was not supposed to come out of our room in my pajamas. That didn’t make sense to me. My body c u l t u r a l a b y s s 45 was covered from neck to toe in my pajamas. The guy who was faulting my dress code had no shirt and was wearing a tattered shorts that he had designed by cutting off his jeans. The idea that I should change my pajamas to cut off jeans to be presentable to the visiting girls just was too difficult for me to grasp. “You think you are dressed properly?” A rhetorical question from me. He didn’t dignify my question by responding to it. I got up and went upstairs to wear my suit. In Gagret, we didn’t have special sleeping suits or pajamas. What we wore all day was what we slept in. In Delhi, we used pajamas or other loose shirts for sleeping. But that ensemble was fine for going out for a walk in the morning or going to the bazaar. Going out in a pair of skimpy shorts and without a shirt is not considered appropriate for a grown-up man. An American girl can go to the beach in a thong bikini, which shows 99 percent of her breasts and barely hides her private areas, but she cannot go to the beach in her pajamas or a nightgown. Another dress gaffe I made was when I used my chappals or sandals with my suit and tie for dinner in the cafeteria. During the fall of 1967, the Hot Shoppe people who ran the cafeteria decided to have “family-style” dinners. We had to dress up and sit as a family while some of the hired students served food to us. Everyone hated it, but you had a choice to go hungry, eat out, or wear a suit or dress. I didn’t mind wearing a suit, as I did it even for attending classes. Following my Indian habits, I used sandals with the suit. I became aware while standing in the line for the cafeteria to open that some of the students were looking at my sandals furtively and talking to each other. Finally, one of them came over to me and very politely asked me, “Please go back to your room and put on proper shoes.” I looked at their shoes. They all wore pump shoes or tasseled dress shoes. No one, except for the girls, wore sandals. As I look back, my old Indian sandals under the really neat suit must have looked gross to my fellow students . But at that time, I didn’t see anything wrong with my clothes. Despite the student...