Southern Comfort: A Commentary on the Hospitality of South India
This is a guest post from my friend and travel buddy Shilpa, which she wrote after our recent ‘Tour de South India.’ Though she’ s traveled extensively in North India, it was her first trip down South.
I would be remiss if I didn’t begin the chronicles of our South Indian Adventure by commenting on the hospitality. To be sure, this was most noticeable when we had to get from Point A to Point B and it involved public buses and very few English-speaking natives.
I should back up by saying that most people, including some desi parents, may be stunned when we explain that we took these vehicles. I can’t say I blame them, considering the communication barriers (signs are not written in a script any of us read) and the physical barriers of bumpy and windy roads through the mountains.
But it turns out the very things you might consider to be challenges were actually welcoming and enjoyable experiences. The first of these came on our jaunt from Allepey to Kumily. At the station, we hesitantly approached the counter asking – which one of those buses lined up over there goes to Kumily? Within minutes, we were assured that there were frequent buses and to go stand over there (gesture implied).
Sure enough, after our preemptive bathroom trip (at Rs. 2 a piece), we boarded and confirmed with fellow passengers that we were on the correct bus. Why confirm? You see, the people of the South are eager and willing to help, but as we learned in Kerala, they don’t always give accurate answers. Case in point, in Allepey we were hunting for a Citibank ATM. Everyone was happy to tell us how to get there, however, the answers varied from “straight down that road to the left” to “Citibank? No that isn’t here in Allepey, it’s only in Kochi.” You’d think this would be frustrating. But, when a random man would turn to a group of people and ask them to direct us when he was unable to, you aren’t so concerned with what answer you get. Instead, you are just touched that he has taken the time to get you some information despite us being obvious (and clueless) foreigners in their hometown.
At any rate, our longest journey via bus took place from Kumily to Mettupalayam, which required two different buses and crossing state lines. The conductor at Kumily on the Kerala side told us how to get to the Tamil Nadu station, merely 50 meters away. At the Tamil Nadu station, a conductor explained to us that we had to switch buses after 2 hours. The location for the switch was unclear, but from this point onward, conductor to bus driver to conductor, the chain of communication we witnessed was a testament of their goodwill. Each bus had someone on it who would look after us and let us know where to go next or even where to sit so that we could keep our luggage close by. They would then tell the next driver/conductor where we were going so that they also knew what we were trying to do.
We encountered similar displays of caring in Ooty, when we had to take a short trip on a local bus to get from the center of town back to our cliffside hotel. The conductor made sure the people trying to board the bus waited for us to get off before they came on. He could tell we were frantic to jump off since we had just discovered that the bus was going down a road that was not headed to the right place for us!
Between directions and buses, the good people of Tamil Nadu and Kerala impressed us with their ability to make us feel like we weren’t totally lost or on our own, despite the fact that English was not utilized. One time, a security official even escorted us to the bathroom at the station since he could tell we didn’t understand his directions as to where to go. Given the stories I had heard from Rebecca about babies and backpacks being passed around when a woman or child could not carry them, well, I am no longer surprised by any of this. It actually makes me smile, especially when I consider the displays of less than desirable bus etiquette on the MBTA in Boston. We could learn a thing or two from the Southies!
To conclude: As a Marathi gal, I grew up hearing all sorts of good and bad stereotypes between North and South Indians, (Maharashtrians don’t exactly consider themselves as one or the other, we’re in the middle afterall). I will simply say that the aforementioned experiences enabled me to develop my own image of the South and it was one that was truly positive.
