i took the subway home tonight (the WRONG WAY! I've clearly been gone too long, but that's another story), and it's definitely not the people-watching bonanza that characterizes train commutes in India.

I was trying to imagine how i would feel if I was taking the subway for the first time. It's all so fast and shiny. How are you supposed to determine which doors will open? What if you couldn't read English? Is it really $2.25???

The weirdest thing is how we go to such great lengths to avoid making eye contact. I've got to say it: we come across as pretty damn unfriendly.

Some guy was talking to himself in a corner, and each polite Canadian snuck an discreet peek out of the corner of his or her eye and then went back to contemplating empty space in an unintrusive kind of way.

So opposite from India, where people just look at you all the time, and it really isn't considered rude at all. If something - anything - happens, it is fair game for public discussion.

Once a young woman passed out on my commute home, and the poor girl had to endure a long open discussion about why she'd fainted (fasting? too hot? pregnant? clothes too tight?), followed by the recounting of countless fainting stories (my neighbor... my pregnant sister... our servant girl...), followed by endless advice to avoid future fainting spells. Opinions flew back and forth between strangers as sixty women craned their necks to get a better view of the commotion.

Another time, a guy had a seizure, and everyone rushed to pull off their shoes and put them under his nose because apparently the smell of leather cures epilepsy.

(???)

THAT'S another story.

2:24 a.m. - 2004-01-27