Family Living

Our driver, Anil, was kind enough to invite us into his 2-room home in the outer suburbs of New Delhi, for a cup of masala chai. There was a bedroom-cum-sitting room, which opened directly off the outside passageway on the 1st floor of the block, & a kitchen which was accessed from the bedroom. The bedroom was approximately 12 feet by 12 feet & held a double bed, a single bed & a wardrobe. When we arrived, Anil's brother was performing his morning yoga (dressed only in a towel) on the double bed, beneath a small shrine on the wall. We were offered a seat on the single bed where we were served our chai by his very pretty young wife, who kept her eyes lowered during our entire visit & hovered hesitantly in the kitchen doorway as we drank our tea. It turned out that not only did Anil, his wife, his 2 children & his brother live in the flat, but also his parents - & they all slept in the 1 bedroom together!


It was an early lesson in the fact that the concepts of personal space & privacy are generally foreign to the Indian psyche.