India Flashback

I just came across Firangi Mama - a blog by a New Englander with a South Indian husband and their little girl. They lived in Bangalore for some time and now they´re back in the U.S.A. I enjoyed reading her archives and found the following anecdotes very familiar because they brought memories of my days in India:

- The value of money.

- The funny (and frustrating) experience trying to communicate with the maids.

- Cooking with Light Propane Gas.

- Funny Indian English terms: "leg-finger" means toe; "my head is paining" means "I have a headache"; the expression: "What is your good name?" (as if you also had a bad one!)

- Funny Indian English pronounciation: The letter A is the letter /yay/. The letter W pronounced as/v/, i.e woman /voman/.

-How foreigners are pointed out and stared at. I also heard this question quite often: "You are basically from which place, madam?"

- Beggars

- Grown-ups being referred to as "Auntie" and "Uncle" out of respect.

- Having an "office boy" or driver come to your rescue. (Hi, Hemant! Hi, Arjun!)

- The black dot on a baby´s head to avert the Evil Eye. Shaving a baby´s head (even if it´s a girl) to make the hair thicker or for religious purposes.

- You should never go back (towards the house, once you leave in the morning. Brings bad luck!)

- The way religions co-live in one environment.

- Indian etiquette. (I enjoyed this post. Very true!) My MIL once asked me three times if I wanted more food at a family dinner in a restaurant. She just wanted to make sure I wasn´t eating because I was feeling shy.

- You´re not suppossed to smell the pooja flowers.

- English sounds like a different language when spoken with another accent. (My anecdote is that the anesthesiologist was telling me something right before my emergency C-Section operation and I said: "I only speak English". And he replied: "But I am speaking English only!". -- I´m sure Sopan & Priya also noticed that I eventually asked them to repeat things less often. One day SIL-Priya kept asking me if I wanted an "egg-fry" and it was only when I saw her put an egg on the frying pan that I understood she was asking me if I wanted a "fried egg"!)

-Buying eggs that come in a normal plastic cover and some even have chicken poop on them. I still don´t know why a friend of mine in Vashi was surprised to see me wash the eggs before putting them on the refrigerator.

-Child-rearing advice from your Mother-in-Law. (In my case, my MIL suggested I keep a young boy to help me around the house when Fabi was a newborn. I declined, as I just wanted ONE kid in the house and not feel responsible for having a child-laborer).

-Missing the dhobi.

- The correct way to refer to people.

- Learning that my marriage is a "love marriage". I was shocked the first time I heard this expression...Is there any other kind? Oh!...yes...as oppossed to an "arranged marriage"! (Btw, good Blogher post on the topic of arranged marriages here.)

- Basically, knowing that India changes you.

(You can read all my posts of my "Life in India" here.)