June 27, 2016

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

A vendor walked with me through the lane of bazaar stalls as I left Ajanta Caves near Aurangabad, India, in May, one of my last sightseeing trips before returning to the U.S. Several men had surrounded me as I entered the market, conveniently placed between the shuttle bus stop to and from the caves, and the parking lot. I had pleasantly declined to enter any stalls or to purchase anything that was offered me, almost thrust on me—shawls, rock crystals, small idols, cheap colorful baubles, and more. “No. No. No thank you,” I had said to everyone. But this vendor had become even more persistent, following me as I ate my packaged ice cream cone in the 100+ degree heat, my one concession to the market. “No,” I said again.

In a bitter voice, he said to me: “Don’t worry, be happy.”

It might have been the four or more hours I’d spent in the abominable heat touring the majestic, art-filled Ajanta Caves; it might have been the constant pressure to have to repeat something negative so many times; it might have been five months’ worth of hassling at that point—but with that bitter, or sarcastic, “Don’t worry, be happy,” I lost it.

I turned toward the vendor, stretched out my right arm and pushed my hand toward his face in a “talk-to-the-hand” gesture.

“What? What?” he stuttered.

I turned away without saying anything and stalked out of the market with my ice cream cone in hand, my sunglasses hiding my eyes, my straw hat betraying my foreignness, and my darkened, grim expression no doubt scaring all the other vendors away. No one spoke to me or approached me again.

“Take me out of here,” I said to my hired driver as I climbed into the back seat of the car. I was steaming mad.

I was angry, but why was I so angry?

And what did he mean with his comment, “Don’t worry, be happy,” anyway?

The vendor didn’t look old enough to know of Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” He might have known of The Overtones’ cover of 2013. Or, perhaps he was referring to a song of the same title from the Tamil action film, Nimirnthu Nil, from 2014, which although I can’t translate, seems to suggest that, like the other renditions, you should fight calamity with determined, even silly, happiness. Maybe the vendor meant to reassure me, although it is hard to imagine how this might have applied to me, even remotely, at that particular moment.

Or maybe he was referring to the slogan “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” coined by the Indian spiritual mystic, Meher Baba, in the mid-20^th century, which was the original inspiration for Bobby McFerrin’s composition. Meher Baba lived from 1894-1969 and claimed he was the Avatar, God in human form. He chose not to speak for nearly 45 years, from 1925 until his death. One of the many spiritual activities he practiced included the three-year “New Life” phase, where he and a few followers gave up all their possessions and traveled incognito all over India, begging food for their survival, endeavoring to accept anything that they experienced with equanimity.* Maybe there was a deeper cultural reference from the vendor that I was not aware of at the time. Perhaps he was suggesting that by saying “No” to him, and every other vendor that day, I must be content to lead a life of deprivation.

But that’s unlikely.

Of course, I have no idea what the vendor meant, and, obviously, I cut off any further communication with him. I’ve only dimly understood, after some time and thought, what precipitated MY reaction.

When he said, “Don’t worry, be happy,” I think I lost it because I really was tired of saying “No.” I am in the habit of trying to please people; I would rather say yes than no. After having lived in India for five months, I was well aware of the economic disparities between the poor and me. I was already painfully aware of my limitations to do anything about these disparities. I couldn’t buy something from all the vendors in India! To me, when the vendor said, “Don’t worry, be happy,” I heard in his voice (whether he meant it or not) blame toward me for being unwilling to part with my money on something so inexpensive, an amount that meant so little to my pocketbook and meant so much more to his.

But I was also tired of being asked to buy stuff. I was tired of being singled out as the white person with the money to make their day successful, maybe making the difference between dinner on the table or not. That was a heavy load to carry as I walked through any given market. I was tired of being seen in only one dimension, as if money solved all my problems and worries, because what more can I possibly want in my obviously happy life? As if all those things money can buy didn’t create a whole new set of problems? On the other hand, it’s a luxury to think the way I was thinking. How can I possibly understand living on the edge of, or in, abject poverty? The deprivations, degradation, the daily fight to maintain any kind of personal integrity?

Or maybe it is not like that at all. Maybe the degradation happens through having too much.

Clearly, the gap of understanding between the haves and the have-nots is very, very wide…or, possibly, very, very narrow.

Also: I was tired of the vendors’ marketing techniques. I wanted them to be nice; I wanted them to follow some rules if they wanted me to spend my money. As a sometime college composition teacher, I could make some suggestions to them about their attempts to persuade: Don’t pester. Don’t put potential customers on a guilt trip. Don’t point out the relative imbalance of earning power. Don’t make false claims about merchandise. Don’t be angry at Westerners if they bargain hard because that’s the game you yourselves have set up. Also: I wanted to be left alone to shop, with a salesperson available to help only if I needed it. In other words, I wanted them to be like vendors in the U.S. I’m not proud of this. I’m currently reading a book entitled, “Holy War: How Vasco da Gama’s Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations,” by Nigel Cliff (HarperCollins, 2011), and he describes da Gama’s 1498 first encounter with Indian bazaars on the Malabar Coast as a mile long inland (217). Bazaars have been going on for a long time, and, of course, in other locations and for hundreds of years before the 15th century. My bazaar squeamishness reveals a lack of sophistication, really, about the wider ways of the world.

I was tired, also, of seeing markets like this where people were trying to make a living selling trinkets, where these items were being sold as something I might actually want to buy. It was insulting. But in my travels around India, I frequently saw balloon vendors in city centers, in parks, along beaches, selling enormous helium-filled tie-dye-colored latex balloons, and I could not imagine what kind of life that must be, to try to earn a living selling balloons on the street. As I reflect about my experience at the Ajanta Caves market, it occurs to me that selling balloons, or other worthless trinkets, might be insulting to the vendors as well. I don’t know; I might be projecting my values on their situation. I mean, Indian vendors are probably selling relatively worthless trinkets because tourists like me are buying them.

After trying to describe these thoughts to a friend recently, she told me the story of one of her grandsons who recently quit a retail job in the U.S. because he found it soul-sucking to try to encourage potential customers to buy more than, or higher quality than, they needed or were able to afford. Here in the U.S., marketing and selling might take a different form, but it’s marketing and selling, nevertheless.

And that got me asking the question: Why is there so much stuff in the world, and why are so many people trying to sell it? What would it look like if people weren’t selling so much and others weren’t spending so much time and money buying? What other societal foundations might be considered valuable and essential? What kind of culture, what kind of civilization would that be?

Call me a Pollyanna, but could that possibly usher in something like a utopia hoped for by Meher Baba (and other spiritual masters), where the mantra, “Don’t worry, be happy,” might actually mean something?

*For more on Meher Baba, see www.meherbabainformation.org

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Thanks, as always, for following my journey! Stay tuned for my next blog post: “Trashed.”