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/

Indian Allergies – Part Two

Firstly, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise for my unusual, shocking ability to remember what I’d promised more than 60 seconds ago this one time when most of you probably wished I hadn’t!

I come armed with Part Two of My Indian Allergies Post secretly ecstatic that no tomato stains will inflict my pristine veneer when you smash them in desperate agony at your computer screen, because washing up more than twice a day is a serious bore for me. So here goes:

7. Indians are genetically allergic to anything below 100%. We like the look of a skinny “1” followed by two fat rounds “O’s”. You get 97% in anything in life; everyone around you is going to be disappointed. It’s as simple as that, which is probably why I am constantly struggling with my weight, unless it’s 100% fat free I’m not going to be un-Indian and ingest that “try hard”, “wannabe” fat free chip right there shamelessly celebrating its underachievement.

8. Indians are by nature allergic to any outdoor activities, which is why camping is such a BIG No-No for us. If I absolutely have to camp, like in the heat trodden majestic outdoors of Rajasthan’s Ranthambhore, my tent better be a five star accommodation like this. Complete with electricity, running water, a television and the absolute imperative power point to plug my laptop in. Indians and IT, we’re inseparable.

9. What the heck is a “DIY” apart from an absurd juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated letters? What in the World would possess anyone to do something themselves when there are clearly other options? Indians just don’t get it. If we can find someone (and we know we will) to remove that transformer toy car wedged between the kitchen counter and the wall with nothing more than a spatula that was designed (or at least reworked) for this very purpose and some used chewing gum, you know we will. We just need to find the one of many “LIT” (learnt it themselves) potentials on the street outside our home.

10. Indians are highly, toxically allergic to personal space and talking in what we consider to be inaudible soundwaves (by this, I mean saying anything that can’t be physically heard by everyone within a 50 metre radius). We’re the second largest population on the globe fast becoming the first. This is not a choice; it’s a survival mechanism that would put Charles Darwin to shame. Getting heard and a space to call your own, now that is near to impossible.

11. Indians are allergic to most professions unless it has taken us at least seven years to complete them. If you’re not in Information Technology, Medicine, Engineering, Finance and a few choice others, we’re going to be looking at you sceptically if you tell us you’re an Indian because we’re not going to believe that your family gives a crap about your “achievements”.

12. We’re distrusting of any Indian family that doesn’t have a clear boundary that would put the Indo-Pak border to shame between their normal family stuff and those reserved for the guests that may or may not be worthy of bringing out the new stuff (namely bed linen and bath towels along with other toiletry essentials). The very thought of this ever occurring is enough to induce excited champagne popping dreams by all the kids in the family if this does in fact, ever happen. This dream, just so you know, is hardly ever realised and is instead passed down the many, many generations to come.

13. We do not understand the idea of different genres in movies?! Why would you ever restrict yourself to just one? An Indian cinema experience involves everything jam packed, Van Damme crammed into one movie – romance, fighting, tragedy, action, musical, dancing, singing and that’s just in the first five minutes. You want it, we’ve got it!

Because my computer has started steaming at the abhorrent, unjust onslaught I am pounding away on my keyboard at the moment, I’m going to stop. I promise that my intentions were noble and that I did think that this would be over by now, but it turns out that Indians are allergic to a lot more than I had previously thought. I know, poor us. All sympathy baskets and donations can be sent to the following address:

Indian Allergy Donations Headquarters:
The first Indian family you find (NOTE: Just mention these words in the following order “we’re sorry for the allergies inflicted upon you courtesy your DNA”) and they’ll know what you mean. They’ll probably invite you in with their “come, come” and force feed you till you’re on the verge of requiring an ambulance.

See you later my adorable peeps 🙂

Indian Allergies – Part One

Okay, so by now most of you know that I’m from India and as an Indian, I find that my kind are often inflicted with allergies that are synonymous to our DNA.

Don’t laugh, it’s true. Okay fine, you can laugh a little, but make it more of a snicker please. Thank you.

Over the years, after having keenly observed those of my heritage (namely family members, friends and complete strangers) over “pakodas” and “samosas” (the Indian version of Big Macs and fries), I have come to the conclusion that we are unusually allergic to some aspects of life that those who do not share our DNA are fortunately free from.

For those of my treasured followers who are Indian, I am hoping that you will be able to sympathise with my predicaments (or at least some of them) and for those who aren’t, I presume you’ll be grinning in quiet contemplative satisfaction at having missed out on our genetic makeup. 

For easy referencing, I am bullet pointing them, just so my fellow Indians can do a quick check of where they sit on the Richter Scale of being “Able to fake it successfully” to the “Shite – I’m screwed” rating.

1. As an Indian, we are extremely and dangerously allergic to minding our own business. That’s correct, you read it right. If it’s my business, I’m not interested. I absolutely MUST know everything about everyone who is related/not related to me in any and every possible way, from my fiftieth cousin to my milkman. Basically, if it’s happening on Mars – I need to know.

2. We are not morning people – no Sir-ee. In fact, I am positive that the rest of the World has it the other way round, mornings are definitely meant for sleeping and nights are for staying awake. The Owls have it right.

3. Indians cannot understand the sole obsessive need for physical sexiness the rest of the globe harbours. We don’t completely comprehend the hunger for Playboy & Playgirl. We want a magazine called “Brains are sexy”. Give us a brain in a thong, and now we’re talking.

4. Indians are anti one lifetime. This has absolutely nothing to do with any sort of spiritual endeavours but centres around the single, most important aspect in our lives – food. We keep on coming back again for nothing else because there are far too many delectable culinary delights to cram into one life.

5. Indians don’t understand how anyone can have brothers and sisters that fit into single number categories. Unless you have a gazillion siblings (some of which share your blood), you can’t state you have a family because to us, that’s more like a very, very underdeveloped foetus.

6. Indians are highly allergic to stating any simple word once, just in case you miss it. This has completely nothing to do with our inability to grasp the English language or our doubt at your aptitude in grappling with simple instructions but please don’t be alarmed if we say “sit, sit”, “eat, eat”, “come, come”, etc. It’s just the way we reaffirm our hospitality.

Due to our ill-fated allergies centred around our genetic composition, for the first time ever I have had to divide this post into two parts. Stay tuned (or sob in relief that this traumatic experience has finally come to an end … for now) for Part Two, unless I am barred from WordPress. After which you may all celebrate in joyous reprieve 🙂

See you around everyone!