On its face, there is nothing remarkable about a company picnic. If what I’ve learned from media representations and other secondhand reports stands up, it seems that they happen just about everyday in some part or another of the world, and that they all involve a bit of hair-letting, whether with ice-cooler beer at the neighborhood park or mini-fridge delectables in Vegas. It is this understood relaxation—or evisceration—of daily norms, of one’s decorum, coupled with the acceptance of its temporality—because of course, work does go on the next day, and you must confront those who yesterday saw you transformed—that gives these professional gatherings their almost sacred quality in the religion of the workplace. Whether mentioned in hushed tones or all too self-consciously laughed off, the company picnic/outing/soiree is, in the daily grind’s cosmology, the potential site of the divine, of the disclosure of truth and the unmasking of custom.

So I don’t think I overstate it when I say that yesterday I bore witness to (and, yes, sometimes partook in) culture. Twenty hours in a bus through the hills of Tamil Nadu is culture, and my inability to draw from my fellow travelers a suitable translation of its subtleties (I mean, who can speak fluently about his own culture?) made it that much more profound. No, this may not have been ‘culture’ in the sense that the Martial Arts show down the street purports to be, nor is it ‘culture’ in the same way that the locally-inspired cuisine at Cardamom County’s All-Spice Restaurant is.

This was culture in the minute, unsalable sense. This is that culture which happens in the infinite, petty moments between friends. Continue reading →