Today I went and painted by the Patwon Havelli again. I've been painting here every so often because the views are nice and eventhough it's a major tourist attraction, I can still find some shady seats where I can paint in peace.
One problem about this spot is this annoying Indian guy who lives nearby. I don't know his name, but I know his sister is Hemleta. She's really sweet. One day I was paintnig there and Ashlee was sitting next to me, and Hemleta invited Ash in and they hung out, drank chai and Hemleta gave Ash and beautiful red sari and showed how to wear it and basically do a bunch of girl stuff.
Hemleta's brother is an oaf. He kept bugging me about me giving him a painting. I told him he could buy one I said $200 USD. He's replied, 'oh 200 rupees? Here you go..." Then he went on and on and on. So today when I went back and was painting a different view of the havelli, he showed up. Today he was more annoying then before. 'Give me, give me give me' was his basic conversation. It was obvious this guy had tons of money, he lived in one of these intricately carved, beautiful havelli's, his clothes were clean and pressed and he had that 'I've got money' attitude that's easy to spot on people.
I tried to tell him that this was my job. I'd be happy to give him a print of it, if he liked. But this wasn't good enough for him - only an orginal. His arrogance and greed annoyed me to the point that I was going to start being rude, but since his sister was Ashlee's friend, I held in my negative response.
Later that day, when I was out walking around looking for that guy getting married, I came across another guy I see daily. He's a young kid whose deaf and spends his days shining shoes. I always smile and we sign language with each other and say hello and I can tell he's cool. As I was walking around he was sitting drinking chai and he motioned for me to sit down with him. At first, I was declined, but then I said ok. And we sat down and I ordered a chai. After we drank it, he totally caught me off guard by offering to pay for my chai. I was like, 'no no no' please, let me. but he insisted again. I eventually overruled him, and paid for both though.
Now here's this kid who makes his living off of other people's generosity. Shining shoes seems like a hard job. In India, where people throw thier trash on the road and cows poop everywhere, I'm sure it's as bad as it gets. He's as poor as you can get, doing a crappy job, but he's got a great attitude. To top it all off, he wanted to pay for my chai. That one simple gesture made up for all the other times these annoying children wouldn't shut up about asking for "one school pen? one chocolate?"
Thinking back on the situation, I should have let him pay for my chai. Not because I didn't have the money, but because he wanted to. He wanted to share. People like buying chai for other people, it's a sign of friendship. In the long run, I would have made up for it by buying him some samosa's and other food anyway. So I think next time, I'll let him get the chai. That five rupee's he spent on the chai, was nothing compared to the feeling and satisfaction of sharing a tea with a friend as an equal. I think that is priceless and in India, in his position a situation like that is hard to come by.
Now if we compare this cool kid, with this other fat f*ck who just begs like a street rat for painting that he doesn't really care about. I think he just wants it, just because. It shows two different types of people living in two different types of world. Since I can chose my company, I'll chose the deaf shoe shiner anyday.
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