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My problem with life in India is that it’s simultaneously too hard and too easy. The easy bits are getting main roles in films, getting into A-list parties, and staying out of jail for drunken, unlicensed, uninsured, helmet-less motorbike riding only costs about 6 Aussie dollars. But the stress and frustration associated with something simple like buying coffee or getting dressed can cause me to vibrate and clench until I pop a valve.

I just went looking for Sony Pix to do an audition. I plugged “Sony Pix Mumbai” into Google maps and got a hit:

So I rode to the designated dot with the help of my occasionally awesome but frequently annoying GPS guided phone, to find the dot was on a big pile of crappy nothingness.

I checked the map again and again, and came to the reluctant conclusion that someone had actually bothered to go to Google Maps to place a marker, but had not bothered putting it in the right place.

I rack my brains every time this happens, trying to deduce the mentality that leads someone to make such an effort with a result that is worse than had they just done nothing (I fixed it).

On my way home, I stopped for coffee at Baristas. I pulled my bike up to the curb, kicked out the side-stand, switched it off, got off, pulled my helmet off and when I started walking away the security guard, who’d been sitting there watching me the whole time said: “You can’t park here”

Surely my intent to park the was apparent from the moment I pulled up, or perhaps more obvious when I kicked out the stand and leaned the bike over, but definitely when I turned off the engine, and I absolutely don’t plan on re-parking it anywhere after I’ve stood up and got off – but no. He waited until I’ve removed my helmet and started to walk off before he said something. Exactly the same thing happened only yesterday – it happens so often. I try to laugh it off but often fail and sound like a manic pirate: “Haha-har-harrr-arrgh!”

Pull this handle.

I think one explanation for the general theme of this directionless drive to do could be the notion of ‘dharma’ – which is your life’s purpose, doing what you’re meant to do. Dharma doesn’t care how efficiently you do something, it relates more to being in a continual state of doing whatever it is you were born to do, as well as you were destined to, until you die. Getting stuff done early doesn’t mean there’s any less stuff to do. If you did do it, then you’ll reincarnate into an even cooler caste with yet another dharma. There’s no escaping it, life after life, and aspiring to escape your destiny within this life is almost disrespectful.

Sure, people break free from the restraints of caste and rise to dizzying heights like the Ambanis, but it is much more common to go down the caste system than up. Climbing takes hard will, courage and lots of luck. Falling is as easy as having cow blood thrown on you, marrying wrong, getting raped or even divorced. In short, acting out of turn is more likely to send you down the ladder than up. In India, innovation is infrequently encouraged.

Pull the other one!

So I went in to buy my coffee and noticed that the glass door has a “Pull” sticker on the outside of the door, and another “Pull” sticker inside – but it’s a swinging door and can go either way, and anyway, neither side has a handle, so in effect neither can be pulled, nor need they be.

Maybe he could have put a push sticker on both sides, it’d easier to do with a coffee in your hand, but why did he bother at all?

Because that was his job. The fact that this swinging door doesn’t need stickers doesn’t change the fact that his purpose in life includes adding stickers to doors.

I was shooting a TV commercial recently, and the costume guys always love to help me get dressed. I assure them that putting on clothes is something I can and do do frequently without them,  but they are determined to help; even if that help consists of them holding my fingers and causing me to fumble as I thread my belt through the loops in my pants, all the while saying:

“It’s fine. No really, I’ve got this. Please, let go. You aren’t helping. You’re actually making it harder”.

But the costume wallah has a purpose. Part of what makes dharma a righteous path is the fact that sometimes it’s a challenge. Many obstacles will pop up to deter you from your purpose, but if you’re born into a job (as castes often are – and named so – Mr. Sodabottleopenerwalla) then you’d bloody well better do it, regardless of how pointlessly irritating it might be.

It must be noted that the excessive amounts of wasted effort do seem to keep everyone rather busy, doing and undone-ing things that took a lot of doing and didn’t need getting done in the first place. It’s a wonderful system that seems to support an unimaginable number of people.

Many Kakapo birds only gets laid once, AND THAT'S WHEN THEY'RE AN EGG! - Zing.

It’s ecological. If one billion people suddenly became efficient, if they only did things that needed doing, and did them right the first time, then I recon an overwhelming number of lovely Indian people would quickly find themselves unemployed and starving to death.

The Socialist Party of India recognized this, and rather brilliantly suggested that India ban English in schools, computers in offices and all farm machinery, which would send it back into the dark ages.

Inefficiency and absurdity might be an evolutionary result of overpopulation, much like how New Zealand’s Kakapo bird, which has evolved in an environment devoid of predators, has dealt with overpopulation by becoming fat, flightless, and amazingly inefficient at mating. Those factors are now sending it close to extinction, a fate unlikely to face Indians anytime soon.

*I must note that my observations are the subject of personal opinion, and in this are predominantly about traditional Indian culture – and are not at all about Indians in any kind of intrinsic, genetic sense. I am also not making a negative value judgment about it. Yes, it annoys me, but that doesn’t make it bad, it just means that I don’t get it. I hope you’re only mildly offended.

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