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Thursday, August 13, 2009

What I've been mulling over for sometime.

Over the past few weeks, too many things have been running through my mind – the onslaught of Swine Flu, Pakistan’s refusal to take back the bodies of the dead terrorists, the typhoon in Taiwan, Google’s big blunder of writing the names of Arunchal Pradesh’s towns in Chinese, Bangladesh’s theft of Indian resources (read smuggled cows) and so on and so forth.

Yeah, and also the fact that NE TV actually airs a show which consists mainly of highly pixilated clips taken directly from youtube.com, with some irritating and sarcastic, and not at all funny commentary running in the background!

I have realized, again over the past few weeks, that watching the news and reading the newspaper is not actually a waste of time, but a very novel way of keeping yourself abreast with all that is happening all over the world.

Of course I knew that all along, what with Dad’s innumerable lectures on the benefits of watching world news and reading newspapers. I mean, which idiot would not know that? It’s just that I wasn’t willing to accept it (read my big fat ego came in the way).

And I’ve also realized that there are issues much bigger than my not-at-all-happening-love-life that are worth recording in my journal/ blog.

Like, for instance, the experiences that I’ve had as an “almost foreigner” here in Bangalore.

While the people back home try to ward off the Chinese from invading Indian towns in Arunachal, here I am, a half-Arunachali, half-Bodo, and a complete Indian, who people presume is Chinese. Heights of irony, eh?

As I alight from an auto on Brigade Road, half of the hawkers try to sell me a map of not just Bangalore, but India as well. A chudi-wallah thrusts his products onto my face, asking very eagerly, “Which country Madam? Buy one. For memory of India!”

Imagine the look on his face when I reply in pure, unadulterated, good old Hindi. “Nahi chahiye bhaiya!”

Ah! I relished every moment of my triumph over these blundering baboons!

But it does tend to get on my nerves sometimes, especially when auto-wallahs repeatedly presume that I’m a foreigner and keep asking me for horrendous sums of money for a trip as short as Brigade Road to Forum! But I guess one eventually gets used to such things over time.

I suppose I have. Now, whenever someone asks me about my nationality, I just smile and nod in agreement. And later on, when the moment is just right, I floor them with my non-accented Hindi.

If some auto-wallah asks for heart-attack inducing amounts of money, I just ask someone else, and this time in pure Hindi.

If someone tries to force sell something to me, I just walk off nonchalantly or stare at them with a bewildered look on my face. I figured it gives them the impression that I don’t speak anything but “Chinese”!

But, but, but, there are people around me who do know, without me having to convince them, that I am not Chinese. Thank God for these wonderful people!

I mean, ok, some of them still don’t know, but hopefully they will, some day, know that there are parts of India where people, who look like Chinese, but are actually Indian, exist.

And it’s quite forgivable, really. Even I had no idea that Mangalore existed on the Indian map. I always thought it was Bangalore mis-spelled! What a doofus! I had no idea that Telegu people existed. Or even Kannadigas for that matter. I thought South India belonged only to the Keralites and Tamils! Scandalous, I say!

But, at the end of it all, it’s good fun. Makes for some interesting after dinner banter! And for blokes like me who write, it does provide a good scope for the expansion of the creative intellect. Not bad actually. It gave me over 600 words for my blog. Not bad at all!

6 comments:

  1. well written... love it.. India is a BIG country..

    ReplyDelete
  2. the state of realism is harsh and beautiful.ur post reflects it in perfection.
    harsh becoz they r blind to realise the INDIA..beautiful becoz U see India thru cores..

    ReplyDelete

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