And aesthetics are key around these parts. I realize, before I leave off blogging, that I have to write a bit about the sheer visual impact of walking around in Hyderabad. Clothes, faces, temples, hubcaps, babies, dinner, doorways - the Indian motto seems to basically boil down to "No Valuable Thing Left Unadorned". (Occasionally, "No Lily Left Ungilded".) Either way, it has my vote.
My current location - a free-of-charge, safety net hospital overlooking the highway - certainly isn't the wealthiest place around. But it turns out that doesn't really matter. Even the little girls living in plastic tarp tents on the side of the road are wearing dainty metal anklets on each foot. And for the middle class, the accessorizing is downright impressive. I took a close look at Dr. Sugunamma the other day and took careful inventory: for a basic weekday clinic, her professional dress includes a gorgeous silk sari, at least 8 bangle bracelets, one gold ring, two necklaces, gold dangly earrings, a diamond nose stud, gold anklets, two silver toe rings, a gold watch, a colorful hair barrette, the traditional red Indian forehead dot (a "botu" in Telugu) and red dye streaked through the midline part of her hair. There's no way I could afford to keep up here.
Shopping downtown near the Charminar last weekend showed me where it all comes from: the streets are crammed with jewelry shops of every quality, from plastic rhinestone-encrusted bangles to multi-string necklaces of real black pearls. And it's not as if it's all a matter of upstaging one's neighbors: I saw bustling groups of Muslim women in full black burkhas buying armfuls of bangles, in every shiny design and color - that no one outside of their houses will ever even see.
No matter the price of the materials, the design approach is always the same: ornate to the point of overwhelming, at least for my bland American sensibilities. Necklaces have multiple layers of strands, hair brooches are a sparkly swirl of colorful cubic zirconias (called "American diamonds" here, which cracks me up), rhinestones are decorated with...more rhinestones. And while I find that any one item looks like costume jewelry on me, the overall effect on Indian women wearing 20+ items of this style is spectacular. Sparkly sparkly sparkly.
However, going shopping with other Indians here can be a bit tricky. They find my tastes baffling. Supraja, one of the social workers at the HIV center, kindly offered to take me out shopping last night around her 'hood. It was fun to feel like part of the shopping crowd, rather than (just) an easy mark, but I found myself in the slightly uncomfortable position of having to politely decline all of her suggestions. Having seen my empty pierced ears and rubberbanded hair, for example, she kept filling my hands with of earrings ("hangings") and hair clips made of gold-painted plastic that looked like they'd been Bedazzled. It's quite hard to explain that you don't want something because it looks like it'd be part of some little girl's Belle costume in the US, even though you honestly think it looks great on the suggester herself.
The funny thing is that I somehow expected this sensibility only to apply to the analog world. But working with Dr. Sugunamma and Supraja on this series of Excel graphs and Powerpoint presentations, I've realized just how all-encompassing the Indian aesthetic is. I look at a chart and I think, "This is terrible! It's all too busy, and the pie chart colors are way too 80s" - whereas the Indian ladies look at the same chart and think, "This is terrible! All those colors match! Nothing is in bold! This needs more orange and neon pink, immediately! And can we change everything to Comic Sans?" It's been an adventure in learning to ignore my belief that "professional" = "understated"; after all, they know their audience's tastes far better than a boring, unadorned American like me.
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