Quality control

(More from Delhi...)

I was taught when I was very young that there were two Qs I had to mind, and mind more than any Ps I ever met in my life. They were weirdly spelled, but since I soon found that much of English and any other language I knew was, too, I got used to it. The words – dinned into my hard little head by parents, teachers and assorted other shapers of my then-tender psyche – also had meanings deeper than I first understood; these meanings, and the understanding thereof, have been clarified, magnified and ramified manifold over the years I have been conscious of them.

And the aforementioned words: quality and its kissing second-cousin, quantity. The way it was explained to me was that quality was the 'what kind' part, whereas quantity meant the 'how much' of whatever the object of discussion was. And the two concepts clashed happily and unhappily over the years, as I gradually discovered when to prefer what and why. Slowly, sometimes painfully, I learned that however impressive the short term benefits or gains of quantity, the long-term effects and satisfactions of quality always won out.

It started when I was very young. My parents would help me explore the contents of my piggy bank and try and show me which round metallic object was what. And then they would offer me one of these, or even a flimsy piece of paper, in exchange for a whole lot of those bits. Anyone with any sort of logic would object – how could one ‘thing’ substitute for so many? It didn’t take long, however, for me to understand that the one thing by itself could get me a lot more chocolate than the many things had the power to. It was the first in a series of object lessons that taught me about the circumstance that makes my own life possible: money.

Then came the story of clothes. I was a downy working girl at the time, fresh out of college and back in the country, gainfully – or so my employers optimistically believed – employed. I made friends, some for lunch, others for shopping, a few for that strange, hormonally-linked phenomenon known as female bonding. The shopping ones again showed me the distinction between my two favourite Qs. We would all head for that Mumbaite’s mecca, Mangaldas Market, the place where fabric fiends find Nemesis grinning fondly at them over bales of cloth. They would scramble for the “Lettest, sister! Good price!” stuff, while I stood fastidiously, snootily, isolatedly by and gazed longingly at the soft, rich gleam of silks and the rough nubbiness of hand-woven textiles. We spent about the same amount of money, but I got just one smallish package while they strode triumphantly out with bundles to gloat over. I still have the outfit made with that purchase; my friends have had many new wardrobes since.

Then, one day, I moved to Delhi, far away from my own territory and cohorts. I saw a whole new version of the quality-quantity divide in the lifestyles and habits of the locals. There was the nouveau riche blowsiness of the average Punjabi peacock – in clothes, in food, in decibel level, in décor, in weddings – in complete contrast to the quiet, Brahmin elegance of an occasional Mylapore moorhen I was used to. I was rather startled, sometimes even shocked, in my finicky, elitist Mumbai-bred manner, at the excess they could achieve. But how they went about it was endearing – they were enthusiastically absorbed, childlike in their pursuits, convinced in every way that what they were doing was THE thing, hep, happening, sophisticated, classy and, most of all, what everyone else (even the moorhens) would enjoy as much and as passionately.

They ate with verve, huge meaty helpings surfeited with spices and floating with fats. They drank - indiscriminately, unimaginatively, immaturely – inexplicably preferring the high of lots of cheap whisky (the general choice) to the savour of measured Single Malts. They sang bonhomously loud and heartily, their voices raised sometimes tunefully in chorus to refrains from old film music or new bhangra concoctions. They dressed in all the glitter of the Times Square tree or the night-time displays from Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar, with sequins and zari, velvets and satins, pseudo labels and seventies-style safari suits. They made a lot of noise, attracted a lot of attention and had a lot of naive, unconcerned fun.

And they made me long – though very briefly - for a simpler attitude, one that would temporarily discard that old dinned-in notion of quality versus quantity and find the naive joy of a peacock dancing in the warm, friendly rain.