cultural challenge

There was a time, for a few years, just after I returned from Switzerland and my first forays into the transpersonal realms, that I actively sought out places and situations that would challenge my personal and collective conditioning. I spent a night in the forest alone, I went to five-star hotel restaurants, slum tea-shops, ghetto hang-outs, churches, durghas, gurudwaras, synagogues, economically low class markets and even graveyards and cremation grounds. But I never got around to visiting a bar alone.

So given the assignment I thought I might as well complete that old challenge I had set myself. I imagined walking into a bar, sitting at a bar stool, ordering a drink, and observing what transpires next. It was important I do all this alone. I knew I would be challenging several cultural taboos for respectable middle-class Indian women. Good/nice women do not go to bars alone; those who do are looking for trouble or asking for ‘it’. Shady/loose women visit bars in order to get picked up. Although I do not buy into these beliefs any more they are the background of my cultural conditioning and it will be an interesting experiment to see how they might operate unconsciously in me.

With this in mind, I take care to dress up in casual ‘neutral’ clothes, no skirts, nothing too feminine, nothing too showy nor revealing. I set out at 10.30 pm and plan on going into the local Latino bar on San Carlos Street. I drive past the first one and decide it is too dingy and obscure. The second one is plain offensive with pictures of semi-naked women. No way am I going in there alone. Of course this is my conditioning and my fears as also my feminist stance, but I get to decide my level of challenge and discomfort.

So I drive down to Santana Row. “Chicken” says my mind and I have to agree. But even an upper-class bar poses challenges, although of a different kind. Walking alone down the lane at that time is also somewhat challenging. I am aware of a couple of police cars that pass by and also aware that the cops note my presence. I wonder if they think that I am a hooker looking for a customer, or a damsel in distress (as though women can be only either of the two). But I do not look particularly like either so they pass by without any offer of assistance or enquiry or comment.

I am aware as I walk down the lane that I am breathing from the chest, my arms are folded across my chest rather defensively. I pass by a group of four young black guys, one of them is carrying a camera on a tripod and I have a moment of fellow feeling. I walk into the ‘American Bar’ as it is fairly crowded and open and feels warm. I walk down the length of the bar stools and am tempted to sit in the far corner so it will be easy for me to merge into the background, but then go over to the middle and sit right in front of the beer tabs.

I am aware I am making myself invisible. It is almost a reflex action. I go into myself, being just the observer and breathe very subtly. I wonder how long it will be before someone notices me. I take a look at the menu and decide I shall have the “femme fatale” There are two guys behind the bar. The white guy, who seems to be the manager is at the computer facing away, busy tallying up for the day or some such thing. The other waiter is Asian looking and younger, he is busy with the glasses and bottles. The clock on the wall says 11.15 pm. I wonder if I am already too late. I decide I will leave by 11.30 pm if no one attends to me.

I notice a guy at one of the tables is looking at me. I feel embarrassed and look away. I am not as invisible as I imagine. The Asian guy looks over and says ‘Hi’. I ask him if I can get a drink. He looks almost guilty as he says they are closed and that they close at 11 pm. I imagine a young white woman in my place. She would probably have flirted with him a little and tried to convince him to give her one last drink and probably succeeded at that. I just say ‘oh’ and then ‘ok’, slide off the bar-stool, pick up my bag and leave. I am careful to not look back at the guy who was looking at me, in order to not give the wrong signal. I have a feeling of disappointment mixed with relief. I can go back home to my safe haven.

As I walk past the high-end designer-label Santana Row stores I am aware of the old anger at the ‘filthy rich’. For the most part I have come to terms with or numbed out my feelings around the inequality in the distribution of wealth. But every now and then I have a flash of anger. As I am walking down with these thoughts I notice a fat man, who is coming towards me, kind of shrink towards the wall while passing me. I wonder if I look scary to him or if he was responding to my angry vibes.

A while later, a car passes by and the driver makes a cat call at me. I cannot hear what he says but it sounds like an invitation. As I cross the street to where my car is parked another driver calls out to ask if I need a ride or some such thing. I wave to say ‘no’. If this had happened in India my heart would probably be pounding by now. But here or in Europe I feel much safer as a woman. I figure men are not as sexually repressed, they can get what they want much easier so chances of rape or sexual molestation are much less.

Also as a teen-ager I had endured or fended off butt-pinchers while riding in public buses and at other crowded places. I decided then that no one could do to me what I did not want them to do. Since then something shifted in my energy and I never had to face any incident of molestation again. And I do call that to mind when I need to face challenging situations as a woman.

So much for my visit to a bar! I am sure one of these days I will get out of my cocoon and go out and have a drink by myself. I am well aware that the world is a mirror and it reflects back what you put out. Facing culturally foreign spaces is one way of meeting the phantasms of my mind. In a sense the whole of the past two years have been a visit to a culturally foreign place for me. Making a home for us, negotiating our way in the USA, building a social network have all been culturally foreign challenges. Without any mentors or close friends, using the internet as a guide in most everything, even a visit to the DMV can be an ordeal if seen as such. A close watch on thoughts, attitudes and feelings and the willingness to trust are my beacons as I traverse this culturally unknown territory that slowly becomes familiar and sometimes even feels like ‘home’.