Indian Allergies – I’ve lost count …

Oh that’s right – Part 3. As I am sure you’ve all been “eager beavers” the past two weeks, glued to your computer screens waiting for this (just say you have, okay) day, I’d like to start by apologising for the lapse in getting this post up.

I was trying to find an appropriate antihistamine for all these allergies and ended up blowing my lab up instead, so I got all the kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, platypuses, echidnas and other native Australian wildlife to help me rebuild but turns out belonging to the same region doesn’t automatically mean you all get along. Suffice to say, my lab is far from picture perfect.

Anyway, enough rambling – here goes:

14. Indians by nature can’t quite grasp the World’s excitement around recycling because we’ve been doing it for ages; we call it “Jugaad”. Similar to everything Indian, its use exceeds one, it’s not just recycled a gazillion times over already, it’s likely to be recycled till air particles appear more solid and it’s what most would term entrepreneurial. For us, it’s just about getting a particular job done really, so we’re allergic to how “trendy” recycling is for everyone else.

15. Alarm bells go off in our heads if someone tells us something is “not a problem” because clearly what they’re saying is we’re screwed tighter than the beer bottle cap you can never seem to pry open. First rule of thumb for anyone conducting business in my country is if they say “it’s not a problem” it’s a mother you know what of a problem. Good luck buddy because though you’re going to need it, even a horrendous hurricane hurled at you at a million miles per hour is child’s play, basically see you later, it was nice knowing you.

16. Indians are allergic to not having someone other than a family member help you out around the home. Household help is not a nice to have, it’s mandatory full stop. We are allergic to having to do things for ourselves when someone else can clearly be employed to do it for us. People may snicker and say we’re spoilt but seriously, it’s all part of the economy. My problem is when I get scolded for making the bed when I visit my grandparents’ house back home, I just can’t seem to get my little pea sized brain around how doing the right thing is wrong, but our (what seems to be) ancestral household assistant can still whack me on the bottom so hard, she’d put Mohamed Ali to shame!

17. We are allergic to not making up our own language and take extreme offence to anyone suggesting that the languages we have developed aren’t “proper” forms of communication. Hinglish is not a form of colloquial, cultural expression, it’s a language, see – even spellcheck knows it.

18. Indians are allergic to not attaching “yaar” to the end of each sentence – “It’s hot na yaar?”, “that’s cool yaar”, “you look so sexy in that yaar”, “that guy is totally checking you out yaar” … The list goes on but you get the picture. You don’t add “Yaar” to the end of a sentence which is a friendly version for pal; I’m just not feeling it.

19. You are NOT Indian if you do not discuss politics at every opportunity you get, especially around the dinner table. Every single one of us is a closet politician, just waiting to be discovered. You don’t like politics; we look at you through distrusting lenses because clearly you’re a fake Indian. If I can’t prove that, it is obviously a deep, dark conspiracy where you “fake” Indians are infiltrating us real Indians.

20. There is a reason we have articles written branding our breed of people as “Argumentative”. We will blow your ear drums meticulously “debating” why your point of view could not possibly be more incorrect even if you slit your wrists and bled out right here and now. Don’t believe me, check out this guy. Though some non-Indians are a little terrified of us, we just think it’s the nucleus of the many great inventions we claim to have designed.

21. Every Indian grandparent is convinced they were a Medical doctor in a previous life. We even have a phrase for it; it’s called “Dadi/Nani ke totke”. No matter how hard grandchildren protest against the injustice of the barbaric, uncivilised medical remedies, our pleas of torture are unheeded and often fall on deaf ears.

Sore throat? Don’t worry, my grandma will fix that for you with some Mendel’s Paint, just remember – your throat is the toilet and the medicine a toilet brush, sure your initial soreness is history, but that’s because you no longer have an oesophagus left.

22. Dear Hippies & Alternative Living Enthusiasts, Indians have been tree hugging for centuries, we kinda call it Ayurveda and again, what’s the big deal with it?

23. As a side bar, we also don’t really understand the difference between Pilates and Yoga but whatever.

24. And finally – drum roll, we respect our closest relative, the monkey, so we let them roam around freely, either that, or we’re shit scared of them. Nevertheless, monkeys and mankind live side to side more often than not in our country, sometimes not so peacefully but generally we do well with a limited amount of space

Okay, so there it is guys! What most of us are allergic to. You may now aptly celebrate that this tumultuous ordeal has reached its climax and if you feel like I’ve missed out on anything just give me a slap on the wrist and share, share, share.

See you later my beauties 🙂

P.S. For those of you in love/starting to fall insanely in love with other Indian experiences, I really urge you to take a look at these priceless blogs by some of the MOST talented bloggers on this forum (at least the ones I’ve found so far)! Enjoy!

http://verseherder.wordpress.com/

http://keeppicturing.wordpress.com/

http://thisfernweh.wordpress.com/