So this post is a little personal to me.  I always thought I grew up poor.  My friends had two parents, I had one and two grandparents for a short while until one died when I was ten.  No cousins and the rest of the family are the unspeakables.   But that is OK.  The sentence that is not OK was me who thought I grew up poor.

In a sense, yes I was poor.  No college fund.  No alimony for my mother and no child support.  Not a drop.  Since my mom lived with my grandma, she was too rich to collect assistance and would have to pay to go back to school.  My grandparents were not poor but they had to make their money last just in case they made it past eighty.  My grandfather died a few months before all of the benefits kicked into the 100% category for retirees which screwed my grandmother.

But on life went.  I had food on the table which was never a question and a roof over my head that kept me dry at night.  I was in an OK school district.  (I hated relying on my mom for having to drive me everywhere.  I wanted my independence and missed my NJ, across the GW bridge lifestyle where I modeled in NYC from age 1 – 7 when I moved to Florida.)

Was I poor?  To some people yes.  I had no idea what college was.  I thought it was collage and who needed extra school for that I could do all the time by myself?  I did not know people who went to college.  Teachers?  They never talked about it until 8th grade.  College fund?  What you donate to colleges?  But only vets (for animals) and lawyers went to those.  Teachers just graduated high school and then knew everything to teach you.  Yes, that was me.  I was good in school too, always top 5% of the class.  I never had tutors.  I always thought that was for the slow kids and asking for help was out of the question for me.  It hurt my ego if I admitted I needed help so I spent hours figuring out problems by myself until they were solved.

Oh, and I remember the arguments I had with my friend who had brothers in high school and college already about the words: freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior.  None of those made any sense to me.  I thought a freshman was a 12th grade because it was a fresh new person full of education waiting to use those ideas in the workforce.  What the beep did I know?  Here is the irony, I bought Apple stock when it IPO’ed and knew all about how the stock market worked when I was 7 years old.  Yes, I have my shares today.  My mom gave me money for that. She likes slot machines and why not teach your child how to gamble?  We were miles away from Atlantic City so the stock market was the next best thing.

Then compare me to the kids I went to high school with in south side St. Petersburg, FL.  Kids who had to work and contribute to the family’s income (AND NO, they were not teen parents either!!!!)  Kids who walked and took the bus because cars were too expensive.  Kids where the military was their only way out of skid row.  They mostly had food to eat all the time although a few did not (and I often shared my lunch with them) and I did not know of anyone who lived on the street but I bet a few did.  These kids were poor, especially by first world standards.

So OK, there are two definitions of poor.  But then I met and taught the real poor in Bombay.  The ones that lived in slums and studied under street lights because to buy electric light from the lighting company cost a few days’ wages.  This is in 2014, almost 2015 now.

I guess in defense, Bombay is rather brand new again, sort of like NYC in the 1800s where electric was questioned as to whether or not it was a fad.  You can still see houses in Brooklyn with both systems.

Or so I thought I met the real poor of Bombay.  I remember writing in a blog that I have and that poor dressed beautifully too.  But no, those people are not the true poor of Bombay.  The truly poor folk are the ones with sacks made of tattered cloth who just spent their last rupee commuting to Bombay from the feudal villages they live in.  Feudal meaning middle ages feudal by all sense of the word.  They escaped.  They are the lucky ones.  They wish that they were part of the groups that sleep underneath the overpasses at night but they are steps below that class.  You hardly see these people, or at least if you are me, you hardly see them.  But I was told that is how you spot them.  They have no English, but that describes most of the people in the slums.  They are completely illiterate (maybe a few can read in one of the many Indian languages out there.)  But somehow they knew that where they lived was not right and so they came to Bombay for a better life.  I must talk of these people in my paper and presentation but will be unable to say much more because most of Bombay is not exposed to them.  I would love to know how they claw their way up.  I know that some do but how?

The rich are the rich.  They don’t have to think about spending money on things and do not have to budget.  They don’t have to millions or billions of dollars in the bank either.  They are rich.  Simple as that.

So where am I going with this?  I defined a few groups of people.  Well, there was an article I saw on Facebook today talking about how the elite in UK are the only ones getting conservatory style music education: https://news.tes.co.uk/b/opinion/2014/11/14/39-an-education-in-the-arts-is-limited-to-those-already-economically-privileged-it-is-an-unjust-waste-of-national-talent.aspx

I would tend to agree with that but I think the author is missing something: the middle class.

When I think of middle class, I think of Leave it to Beaver.  Classical definition.  What couldn’t be better?

This is a different time and people often talk about the disappearance of the middle class.  When they talk about it they mean the Leave it to Beaver definition  I will agree with that.  OR I can do one step better.  (Please note that I am just throwing money figures out.  Don’t take them seriously.  Take the scenarios seriously.)

Those people now work in middle management at financial firms making 300K per year.  They are comfortable in that the family can live on the income, even in Manhattan, of one spouse (give that they don’t blow their money and know how to save.)  Even if they have to financially support elderly parents too.  They can do this.  They go on vacations once every 2-3 years, do not own a car, take public transit, eat out twice per week, etc.  These people are comfortable.  If a job is lost, they can live a year or two off of savings, get a job, and rebuild them again.  They can give their kids music lessons (within reason) without batting an eye.  If the local school loses their music program, or the program stinks, they just turn to the private sector.  They are few and far between.  They make too much money to take any of the government housing tax breaks and other breaks though.  They are equated to 750K and millionaires.  They are on the lowest end of the highest tax bracket.  They are the new Leave it to Beaver middle class, like it or not.  (Make your adjustments for other areas of the United States.  This is Manhattan only I am talking about.)

Then, there are the people underneath them.  They make, oh about 75K – 100K per year, combined income.  However, when it comes to providing lessons for their kids, they question it. These people would become devastated if the bread winner(s) lost their income.  The savings would dry up, if they had savings to begin with.  Music lessons are a luxury and they try to give it to their kids on a constant basis if possible.  Thankfully there is You Tube and the Internet now.  If the school music program goes belly up, it becomes a big problem to the parents.  Now they have to pay for a private youth orchestra too on top of private lessons?  ****!!!!  Ulcer, ulcer, ulcer, stress, stress, stress.  I want my kids to have it, I want MY KIDS TO HAVE IT, I NEED MY KIDS TO HAVE THE DAMNED MUSIC LESSONS!  Hello Wal-mart?  I studied Spanish in high school, do you need a bilingual, grave yard shift cashier so that I can pay for my kids’ music lessons?  Sure, that will be 8 bucks an hour on top of your full time job.  Shoo.  My kids have lessons!  (That is best case scenario.)  Let’s call this class and the one below:  Squeaking by.

Then there are the people in the above category who do not get the second job and just say: Kid , keep practicing on your own.  Music becomes a memory.

One class below that are the people that work 3 jobs for their kids to put food on the table and may pay for a lesson here are there but are too rich to qualify for needs-based anything and too poor to do much else for their kids.  Let’s call this class: No Man’s Land.  The parents don’t have time to fight for the child’s terminated music program but he is sad just the same.

For both classes that I defined, transportation is another serious issue too and it is much worse for the people in No Man’s Land.  No driver’s license, no public transit.  The screw you of suburban and rural societies (and some cities that do not know how to do public transit.)  No freedom for the kids to work and go to activities on their own and have to wait for their overworked parents.  (That was the personal hell I grew up in.)

Squeaking by and No Man’s Land.  The two classes that get ignored by 95% of research, philanthropists, and educators (many educators fit in these two categories to and may not realize it.)  These are the kids that need music too.  Everyone needs it.  I flitted between the classes of Squeaking by and No Man’s Land.  I finally realized what I was growing up.  I was lucky.  I had the consistency of music lessons to the growing debt that I found out later in life to my mother and grandmother.  (I now financially support them.)  Had I known they went into debt like that, I would have quit and got a job.  Everything was a secret.

What does this have to with Mumbai?  I was not introduced to anyone in the  Squeaking by or No Man’s Land classes and nor were in the hundreds of hours of conversations and interviews were these people mentioned.  I did meet a few people from this class outside my research though so I know they exist.

I will have to go back and dig but right now, I have my operational definitions for middle class and I have finally defined myself.

Everyone speaks English.  Don’t worry.  You don’t have to do anything different.  You can get everything you need and don’t need to bring much from home.

Two words: Bull Dung!  Yeah you heard me.  Offended?  Well click off this post.  If not, read on.

When I worked for a major financial investment firm a few years ago, I saw that many of my colleagues who had fancy business degrees did not go near the international calls.  I made them and enjoyed them.  If you were expecting everyone to speak English, you were living in another world.  Really?  Do you English speakers think that you are the world’s true majority?  Think of the millions of Chinese and Spanish speakers.  My limited Spanish was of real help because the firm’s clients’ English phone skills were limited but not their Spanish skills.  It would have been better if I knew French or German but Spanish was still accepted.  But yes, you had to get through the operators first to get to the person you wanted.  The automated ones were worse but somehow, were able to pick up my Spanish.  I started retaining simple key words and numbers in French and German very quickly to get past the machines.

I loved my international clients!  Loved, loved, loved them.  A knowledge of world history  and world current events was always a good ice breaker.  It is very difficult to develop a trust in five minutes.  I was dealing with very sensitive documents with some deals worth billions of dollars. I miss the financial industry.  It was such a rush.

Oh and the things that I discovered and learned at the time like the country of Lichtenstein (I want to go there so bad!),  wonderful dishes to make (sometimes deals did not close in a short amount of time), places to see, cultural differences, what raising children is like where they are from, etc.

Anyway, what does this have to do with my current music education research?  Everything!  You are told that everyone speaks English in Mumbai.  Well, it is true in a loose sense.  Hundreds of languages are spoken in India and English is the connecting language between all Indians.  However, I have an American accent.  When you speak to an Indian who has a British-Indian accent while they speak English, some of them have trouble deciphering your American accent, especially on the phone.  There is a lot of: “can you repeat, please” and “could you speak more slowly” and “I am sorry, I am not used to an American accent (refer to the first two phrases in this sentence.)”  I think it would be a lot worse if I had a thick Boston, New York, or southern accent.

Speaking loudly, slowly, and enunciating is not offensive.  People do no have the time to be offended here.  You will instinctively know when it is appropriately to do these things.  They are probably as fascinated with me as I am with them.  I have so much to learn from them.  Their insights are amazing.  And yes, I love the variation of a British accent here.  So musical.

This next part will be repeated in an India, music education post but needs to be spoken about here too.

After the trouble with speaking to people on the phone with the schools, I decided to do a non-structured interview where I took notes on the computer, a round table discussion, if you will.  I DID NOT whip out the computer right away.  It was normally introduced after 15 minutes of discussion.  This was EXTREMELY effective and the people I met felt very comfortable around me.  I did not spring the video camera on them (maybe one organization knew about it in the emails) until I established a relationship with them.  Video cameras are intrusive.  I then came up with the policy that I will create interview questions that they will approve and will video tape the interview.  They will have the final say about the video before i post it to the blog.  This makes people even more comfortable and for this type of research, it completely works.  That is why the media has not posted yet.

Better yet, I started the conversation talking a little bit about myself and deluged a lot of the information (and some Hindi words) to let them know that I have done my homework.  That is when the conversation took off lightening fast.  Sometimes, I would sit back and listen and not take notes.  The places where these conversations went were amazing and totally unexpected.  I could not have predicted some of the twists and turns.  I can’t wait to share them with you later on.

Mentioning the Bollywood movie 3 Idiots is a great conversation piece!  It definitely reflects the Indian culture even though it was made 6 years ago.  It even leads to discussions on how Bollywood effects children’s exposure to music and hearing loss (more about that in the research portion of my blogs later.)  I even talk about the Indian chick lit novel that I am reading, not the novel itself, but how the author works in a high powered financial job during the day and writing chick lit is her release.  So yes, getting to know your client through pop culture is great.  They are impressed that you took the time out to care about getting to know about their culture.  Also, you may learn a thing or two.

As I have mentioned before in a another post, reading British chick lit has also helped me.  The British idioms that you learn in those books help with speaking to people in Mumbai and understanding them when they use them.  Some are not so popular in America.  Many people were shocked that this was my first trip abroad.  Reading and seeking knowledge helps.  I can’t stress that enough.  Hit up your local library and get started!  Delve into genres you are not comfortable with.  It will help if you ever do research like this.

Knowing the history, going back to the time of Christ is very important as well.  It helps explain so much about what is going on today.  Bombay is definitely not an exception to this.  This is how I am able to pick up Hindi.  Some of the words have British influence and some are Latin based thanks to the Portuguese that held control hundreds of years ago.  The Muslims also held control as well except my Arabic is pretty much nonexistent.  It also helps you understand the culture too.  Take a step back and look at America now and think about how the history from a couple hundred years ago shaped today’s society.

I must also mention that having someone as a translator with you (my chauffeurs) has been wonderful.  I was finally able to get the charger adapters.  My hotel is woefully inadequate in that there is no tourist store to purchase the necessities and the mall across the street is not much better.  I was able to get awesome chargers for $10!  My chauffeur was tipped well for his efforts.

Also, don’t look down your nose at the blue collared workers.  Strike up a conversation with them.  They love to share what they know and a lot of times, it was dead useful information.  They will also go out of their way to help you.  I have three chauffeurs that fight over me for my business.  I am a great client.  🙂

Off to my next interview with another organization.  Loads more to come.

Post scrip: This monolinguistic culture in America has got to go!  A high school diploma should only be given to those who have mastered 2 languages with English being one of them and the second one being of the student’s choice.  I am guilty but at least I have moderate Spanish skills to get by.