Making Connections

I met 2 other Canadian women at the gym.  I'm kind of easy to spot since I wear my nearly free Roots Canada tees when I work out--the ones I got because they were out of one I ordered so they gave me a $100 gift certificate to apologize, which meant I got 4 tees for the cost of shipping which was something like $5.  At any rate, I now know of 3 of us and I can't help but wonder what we're all doing so far south?  The guy I work with at the gym is Mexican, so we've decided that between them coming north and us coming south, we're going to end up taking over the country.  Not in its current state though.

Usually I'm the one accosting people to ask if their family is from India so that we can chat about it, which sounds just as stupid as people telling me that they want me to meet so-and-so since we're both from NYC.  I mean yes, there are some common experiences based on that, but for the most part, not so much.  But we all do similar things.  Whenever someone finds out who the husband works for, they often have someone they know who does too since it's a rather large multinational company.  But because it is just that, a large multinational company, the odds of him knowing that particular person are slim to none.  Doesn't stop anyone from asking these kinds of questions though, even though if we stopped and thought about it, we'd realize how silly is it.

I have to admit, however, that my experience in India was a bit different.  For as large as it and the population are, you would think it would make such 'do you know...?' questions even more absurd.  Surprisingly, that's not the case.  In some ways it's a very small place and if you talk with someone for a while, you find that they have a cousin who went to school with the brother of the husband of your friend's friend--or something equally convoluted, but still surprising in its proximity given the number of people there are.  I am convinced that if I talk with any Indian for a few minutes, we will find at least one person we have in common, somehow.  Talk about 6 degrees of separation--it's the national sport and there seems to be a standard set of questions when you first meet someone so that you can get to the connection in about 2 minutes flat.   It's an art form in its own right when you see a roomful of people go at it. 

I think it has a lot to do with the caste system, which is officially illegal but still exists (so much so that even government forms ask for your caste).  It's easy to narrow down connections when you're only dealing with the people in your socio-economic group; in a country like India that eliminates millions of people before you even start (although I have seen people establish connections based on their home help).  If you're restricting the pool, it really becomes a rather small place.  But it's not done in any pejorative way; that's just how it is (which could be the national motto, for so many reasons...).

I guess what surprises me the most is that here, it appears that if you wear something with a place name on it, people assume you're from there (as opposed to just having gone on holiday there and bringing back a souvenir).  Or at least that seems to be the assumption with my Canadian clothes.  I have been stopped in supermarkets and asked if I'm Canadian and have wondered where that came from, until I realized that my sweatshirt said 'Canada' on it.  Maybe I should do a study and try wearing some other country for a while and see if that causes similar questions?  Nah--I'm confused enough with just dual citizenship and its wardrobe...