Lost in translation

Can you realize how difficult for me if even Indians is not able to understand each other [sic]. His head in a whirl, the guy’s exasperation with life itself is palpable. On his own in a new country, he cannot fathom what is going on! For the first time ever, I suppose, he really is up against India’s formidable diversity! 

Lenny, as I shall call him, is a member of the global workforce, a foreigner in India, and here on assignment.  Blessed with the characteristic zeal and drive of generation next, he is able with technology, and unafraid of diversity. He hasn’t the comfort of a compatriot group at his back, but surely, with his skills and temperament, he can take on anything!

He is the new tenant in the building. But he insists he is not new to India – he has lived in Gurgaon off-and-on for about a year for his last assignment. Now, that is an affluent complex outside Delhi that caters to non-residents Indians accustomed to the lands of plenty. It is a home away from home for expats too, with exclusive highrise buildings, and airtight windows that preserve interiors. If you live in Gurgaon, you live in a bubble. Like at an idyllic oasis in the desert, there’s no need to get down and dirty! I think I should warn him, now that he has transferred to an ordinary metropolitan city, that Gurgaon is very atypical India. Of course, of course, he agrees at once that every place will be different.

  

I ask the most pertinent question, do you have Hindi? No, he smiles. Well then, I think wryly, the culture shock awaits! Lenny may manage fine at a hotel, but running his own household may be a different proposition altogether.  I hope somebody mentioned to him before that English is only one of the 22 official languages spoken here, not to mention some six thousand dialects. These may differ widely in grammar and syntax, and hence, so do the thinking processes their people learn growing up. Even in a “common” spoken language, what is said, and what is understood, may be two very different things. Simple matters may then become complicated.

Lenny has an impressive work ethic and puts mind and heart into whatever he does. Within a day, however, he looks drawn. He tells me he was up all night cleaning the flat he thought was left dirty. It was cleaned before you came, I tell him. This is everyday dust, and it collects all time. Cleaning has to be done once or twice daily. Even locked flats soon cake with dust in this region, as you will see. He stares, and I see the wheels turning in his brain – when will he get to work then? I advise hiring help, but without a translator to back him, how can he?   

The problems pile up - there is no water in the flat. In the heat of the Indian summer, Lenny is wilting. I call the plumber, and stay to translate. I notice the flat has almost no furniture at all. I wonder if he expected to be moving into a furnished home. If so, the letdown of bare walls must be immense! It begins to dawn on Lenny that managing work and home alonein this country is daunting. He comes from a wintry country, so the weather here must really saps out his energy. And by not having the language he is lost, like never before! 

His driver arrives to transport him to work, and is instead drafted into the water project alongside the plumber. He has Hindi and passable English picked up in his line of work, and seems to relish the new role of go-between. Lenny quickly delegates the home issues to his new Man Friday. I’m relieved! It had became clear that Lenny, a fit young man who bounds up and down the stairways hardly losing breath, was quite unaware that other age-groups might struggle to do the same. In politely trying to keep up with his pace, my knees are killing me!

Some pipes and valves are changed and eventually, there is running water in the taps of the flat, everybody is happy! By the evening, however, it is all gone again. The plumber is surprised at the news. He had filled the tank to last a day or two and can’t imagine what they did with all the water. Well, I say, the sahib couldn’t shower properly for a couple of days, so he must be making up for it! 500 litres, the man mutters incredulously! But actually it is a new issue - the tank is unable to retain water, and they would have to map the entire pipeline to locate the problem points. 

That would take quite a while, and Lenny has to be at home for it to happen. Schedules would then need to be coordinated. The driver in his enhanced role, wants to protect his boss from these small matters, and tells me all communications should pass through him instead! I hand over the relevant telephone numbers, and decide that now they can help themselves, I am done. But by next evening, their octogenarian landlady is in a tizzy over another plumber on the scene! She cannot reach the tenant or his driver, so she frantically calls me to intervene. I’m mystified as to how she has suddenly become involved.

She tells me the first plumber was working elsewhere in the morning and was unresponsive to phonecalls. New Man Friday then decided to exercise initiative. He phoned her to point out the persistent problem and the plumber’s failure to respond, and asked for a replacement. Late in the evening, when they will be back from office, would be the best time for the work to be done. Too helpfully, she engaged an alternative person to work on the water system that same evening. Notably, there is no further communication between her and the driver thereafter. This second plumber arrives in time to find the flat locked, and complains. She feels left holding the bag - and the second plumber’s bill! 

Lenny, happy to have delegated, is still at work miles away, and blissfully unaware of these new developments. Immersed in a totally different world, he falls from the skies when I call to ask him what is going on. He has no knowledge whatsoever of a second plumber being engaged. He cannot understand how the issue arose, because his information is that the first plumber has been reached and his time booked for the next day. Bewildered, he points me to his driver for answers.  I accost Man Friday next to explain the mess-up. He distances from it forthwith, denies any such conversation with the landlady, and sticks to the information of the first plumber’s next visit.

I begin to get the classic picture of blocked communications. The first plumber resurfaced at the end of the day. At that time, the work schedule was re-fixed with him. Caught up in his regular duties through the day, the driver clean forgot about the other plumber being engaged by the landlady at his (Man Friday) word. His own initiative taking exercise of the morning had slipped his mind, and since then it has turned too embarrassing! Lenny, in being ‘protected’, was kept out of the loop altogether, as was I until it snowballed. 

I suggest to the old lady she involve no further for her own wellbeing, and send Lenny a cryptic text message: Lost in translation. He responds in utter confusion: Can you realize how difficult for me…