Honest Greetings...!

The sun is out today. I could not bear the heat. It is mid October and people say its time things cooled down a bit around New York. "I came real early today!", I reminded my self looking at the clock in my cell phone. I also realized, like many I have also given up my habit of wearing a wristwatch. I remembered the Con-Ed energy saving tips I saw on the subway today, and started to think about the amount of energy and money I could save by saving the number of times I flipped or clicked my cell phone to check time and there by reducing the number of times and duration of my recharging. "I must be really bored" I said to myself looking at long unchecked items on my 'to do-list' which I drafted up, for a change, today morning!

I decided to go out and get a smoke. Getting out of my office and walking towards the elevator, I could see the behinds of people entering the center elevator. I pretended like running and made noise alerting the people to hold the door for me, and I succeeded. As I was entering, I noticed one of my professors in there, who slowly turned around. A courteous smile spread on my lips, seeing which she threw a greeting at me. " How are you?". "Good! Thank you, How about you?" I retorted. "Good" she said. One of the slowest in the trade, the doors of the elevator closed finally with a squeak and we started moving.

With the conversation having ended, I turned and stood facing the door, and she was a few inches onto my left and behind facing the same direction. I could the hear beats of a pop song coming from an I-pod stuck deep in to the ear of somebody behind me. I was starting to think about the interaction few seconds ago and trying to understand what it meant. I have always wondered about the routine of greetings, especially after reaching this country. It is not greeting like good morning, good evening or good night, which has a wish attribute to it, but more like an enquiry. The genuineness of the questioner and the person answering in question, I have realized that, there is something to it, which makes it an acceptable form of greeting. I always wondered as to how much about a culture does a form greeting symbolize? "A lot" I said to myself, deriving the answer from a split second analysis using a billion mental calculations of things stereotypical and otherwise , from cognizance and subconscious, which I have come to know about this culture. I was starting to do the second set for my own, when the elevator came to a slow, sliding halt on the fourth floor.

The doors squeaked again and began to open reluctantly. I could feel the despairing sigh of impatience from my fellow-riders. There were two gentlemen standing and talking on the corridor in front of elevator doors. A good two seconds after the doors were completely open the gentlemen realized that the elevator is going down and they had called it there. One of them, in haste, still talking, walked into the elevator. "Is this going down?" he asked, and we replied with an impatient "Yes!!" in cohort. Never caring to thank he took another step into the elevator and turned around to continue his conversation with his friend who was standing out side. The doors started to squeak close was when, announcing a big "OK" he stepped out. The door which was starting to close slid back as it sensed motion in between the doors. He continued asking his friend some question and then turned around and entered the elevator again and this time his friend followed him. Though I was seeing and registering all this passively, I was lost in my thoughts of the appropriateness and cultural implications of greetings. This 'modern drama' which was playing out suddenly struck the nicotine thirsty blood streams and nerves in some nook of my brain and I started to feel a little impatient myself.

"I have started working with this new company" continued the person after stepping in. His friend was rather quiet replying in nodes and hmm's. "It is a small venture.." he continued. "We do something in the lines of you tube, though not like the popular interactive video blogging! But more like the same, but more interactive and content rich". In the mean time the elevator had finally managed to close itself and had started moving down. In the wake of sudden invasion of space, I moved on to the right and turned around a little bit, putting my shoulder and then shifting to my back on the wall of the elevator. As I turned, my eyes crossed that of my professor who was looking at me at the same time as to convey something. She gave a meaningful smile with a little twitch of her lips and a motion of her shoulder, which I accurately deciphered as being "Anh.. That was funny, what is that guys deal? Isn’t it?" I returned a smile accompanied with a sudden front jerking motion of my shoulders agreeing and saying "I couldn't disagree!!" "That is so cool!" suddenly I heard the silent friend reply in his heavy voice. "Ya" continued the other, " It is pretty cool, and it's very interesting!"

I was intrigued again. I couldn't place the coolness anywhere from the minimum information I had over heard. Apart from the facts that some thing to do with video and internet blogging, there was hardly any information to get excited about, and I had seen ton of them already to feel more disgust than cool. "Is it one of those meaningless exclamations like the 'how are ya?'" I wondered. I could still hear the I-pod pumping out PMPO's into the ear of the blond girl standing behind me. As I started to get lost in my own thought of making a connection of this latest incident to my primary curiosity of cultural implications, the elevator came to a grinding halt at the ground floor. The doors opened slowly and I made way for the women to exit first. Acknowledging the thanking of my fellow female riders with a smile and a nod, I walked out behind them and I saw one of my fellow graduate students waiting to enter the elevator. "How are ya?" I asked, as I started walking towards the courtyard getting my packet of rolling tobacco out of my pocket. His answer was lost in the growing distance between me and him and the background noise, ever increasing with our paces in opposite directions. I walked out to the courtyard to pay respect to the overzealous demand from my nerve centers for some stimuli...