Musings in Athens

The taxi driver who drove us from the Athens airport was a chatty type. Taxi drivers usually are. They like to project themselves as guides. By being helpful and conversational, they hope to get a bigger tip. In countries like Greece, it’s generally assumed that foreigners, particularly those landing at international airports, are richer than the local population.  I like to talk to taxi drivers.

The driver in Athens was different. His English was good. Instead of telling us about the passing monuments, he talked about Greek politics and economics. Instead of discussing weather, he asked questions about India and Hindu philosophy.

“What’s your education?” I asked.

“I am a mechanical engineer.” He said.

“So this is your side job.” Half statement, half question.

“No, this is my main job, my only job. The state our economy is in, where am I going to get a job as an engineer?” he asked, smiling.

*****

In 1991, when I lived in Moscow, hiring drivers was very cheap. Along with their cars, they cost 50 cents an hour. I had two, Sergey alias Seryozha –an engineer, and Vladimir alias Vlad, a doctor. For survival, they used their private cars as taxis. Russia boasted about its 100% education. Coming from India, where 67% of the population hasn’t passed the fifth grade, I felt envious about super-educated European countries. When will India come anywhere close to them, I used to wonder.

During the talk with the Greek taxi driver, I was no longer certain 100% education is such a good thing.  Unless you can get a job that your education deserves, an occupation that makes the best use of your professional training, what is the point of being super-educated? Underemployment is a recipe for permanent frustration.

*****

The same driver warned us about the strikes, demonstrations and protests held almost on a daily basis. Our visual and olfactory senses experienced the results. During our Athens stay, garbage collectors were on strike. Only when garbage is not collected, you can appreciate the work they do.

The young Greeks I spoke to were not particularly happy that they belonged to the EU or that their currency is Euro. In the past, I always thought austerity was a positive thing. I associated it with self-discipline, asceticism. But in Economics, it has a technical meaning. Austerity requires the government to spend less, and normally as a result the poorest sections of society suffer. Government spending on public welfare, including medicine and education, usually goes down. Employment falls, because new jobs can’t be created. Taxation goes up, leaving even less money in the hands of the common man. (In the UK, the labour party has been talking strongly against austerity as well).

It’s like somebody taking your credit cards away, and asking you to hurry up repaying your mortgage.

Credit may be a bad thing, but it inspires consumption which in turn inspires growth. The EU imposing austerity programs on Greece has created a chronic crisis. Greeks look stressed; they smoke everywhere, an unusual sight. Girls are rolling their own cigarettes (Roll Your Own: a cheaper way to enjoy nicotine). You can’t get better evidence of an economic crisis.

*****

Naturally, Greece has no Polish people, unless they are tourists. Last year, in England and Ireland, I was talking in Polish all the time. The shop assistants, waiters, plumbers, carpenters, bus drivers, even some police officers were from Poland. Migrants move from cheaper to expensive places. Things need to be really bad for a white person to migrate to Greece.

I saw a few Ukrainian girls as shop assistants, though. I had a long conversation with one of them. She admitted she liked Greece because the house rents were so cheap. Out of the 1000 Euros salary she gets for working 12 hours/day, 7 days/week, she manages to rent a decent flat (400 Euros a month), send something to her parents and survive. She wouldn’t think of marrying or having kids, though.

“How did you start talking to me in Russian?” She asked me. “My Slavic features?”

“Features, yes,” I said, “but mainly your red lipstick.”

Greek girls in shops use light lipstick, while the Ukrainian and East European girls, for some reason, use a bright red traffic light lipstick.

This reminded me of an incident from Moscow in the early nineties. My Russian wife (now ex-) and I were walking on Gorky Street, a prominent Moscow street that begins across the Red Square. Russia was, as usual, in a crisis. Many girls had taken to prostitution for survival. Gorky Street had several luxury hotels and shops. It was rumoured that some high class prostitutes carried a swiping machine, allowing their clients to pay by credit card.

During our walk, a huge police van suddenly appeared and with the efficiency and ruthlessness Russian police are known for, rounded up all the sex workers before we could blink. A girl taken to the police van had stood just a few feet away from us. A few days later, I narrated this incident to a Russian policeman who looked friendly and unthreatening.

“The road was full of Russian women. How did the police know exactly whom to pick? I’m very happy my wife wasn’t touched. But it’s completely random, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no.” He said. “It’s easy. Girls with no purse in their hands are hookers. No Russian lady will walk on Gorky Street empty-handed.”

“But if you guys know this, the girls must know it as well. Shouldn’t they carry purses so as to avoid arrests?”

“If they carry purses,” he said, grinning “how will their clients identify them?”

*****  

The Bangladeshis migrate to Greece, of course illegally, by crossing a small river from Turkey. They either bribe a boat owner or swim. During the crossing, they throw their passport and any other IDs into water. This is an old trick. You then land into a country as a stateless person. You have no papers, no name and you speak in a language nobody understands. Greece, as most EU countries, is then obliged to provide you with temporary documents, turn a blind eye to any unlawful trade you might run. Your files stay with the government for years. During that time, your wife and children remain in Bangladesh. If you are lucky, after 8-10 years, you become legal. At least cease to be illegal. Then you begin to wait for your passport. You dream of bringing your family to Greece. In many cases, the family reunion may never happen.

We met a young Pakistani man in the National Garden of Athens. He first talked of cricket. I congratulated him on Pakistan’s recent victory in the championship trophy.

“What do you do here?” I asked him.

“I sell smuggled cigarettes,” he said. “The Russian mafia smuggles containers of cheap Marlboro into Greece, and we Pakistanis sell them.”

It’s a risky business, but where you are officially called illegal, does the risk really matter?

*****

The Greek beaches are full of white men and women in semi-nude attire, a variety of lotions applied to their bodies glistening in the sun, lying on beach towels, at intervals swimming and then drying off, ordering drinks and food from the beach cafes, reading books, or doing nothing. The high temperature, a heat wave, humidity don’t matter to them. The key objective is to get tanned.

Many white people say they envy us Indians our lovely skin colour. They dream of becoming as dark as Indians by lying for weeks under the scorching sun.

If White people wish to become dark (the reverse of Michael Jackson), why does racism exist in the form in which it exists?

Gillette, the shaving blade company, had conducted a global research many years ago. The company proposed introducing an operation after which a man wouldn’t need to shave for the rest of his life. Thousands of males worldwide took part in the survey. Almost nobody wanted such an operation, even when absolutely safe. Many men may hate shaving, but the notion of a permanent clean face is gross.

I wonder if the Gillett story explains those sun-tanning Whites. As long as the tan is temporary, they are fine with it. Offer them a permanent tan, and I think most of them will refuse it.

*****

What I like most about Greece is its similarity to India. Last week, I mentioned our possible common ancestors as evidenced by linguistics. Though relatively poor and ridden with crises, there is a feeling of freedom in the air. People are friendly and smiling.

Beggars and dogs sleeping next to uncollected garbage; timetables designed to merely let you know how late your bus or train was; ads such as “3 Euros for a free Wi-Fi”, govt instructions such as “danger of landslides, walk to destination in 12 minutes”; a taxi driver not wearing his seat belt, smoking, and checking his phone while driving, opening the car window to throw out garbage, and when asked how much to pay for the journey telling us it depends on whether we want the receipt or not; super-long queues to Acropolis served by a single counter, with the girl at the counter taking all the time in the world over each visitor; instructions given by our Greek host that power will go off if AC is switched on at the same time as the geyser; both pedestrians and car drivers using common sense rather than the discipline of traffic lights; hardly any CCTVs, no turnstiles at the metro, and no ticket checkers (you want to buy tickets, buy them, if you don’t, don’t. A hefty penalty for ticketless travel, but we never saw a single ticket checker, possibly they are on strike as well); preserving ruins and ruining everything else; omnipresent plastic bags; old men sitting in the same chair on the road after you have come back from a four hour walk.

Through shabbiness, indiscipline, economic crises, the Greeks have warm hearts. When hearts are warm and smiles broad, everything else can be forgiven.

Ravi