Some Signs That Say You’ve Recently Returned From India
12 Nov
_written in January but disappeared into a notebook I didn’t want to see again_
# The act of crossing roads is no longer sacred. Having taken on Kolkata’s, you stroll across _any_ road with _any_ traffic, believing yourself above traffic, bullocks, kamikaze vehicles and the humans inside and outside them.
# When you miss a bus, you sprint for it and want to fling yourself at its back door, grasping some imaginary bars you think should exist on anything which calls itself a bus. But they don’t, and the doors shut tight — and horror — the windows are sealed. Air-conditioning exists.
# When driving, or next to someone who is, you now believe the horn is only to be directed towards the vehicle in front of you: all other motorists have to be warded off by (1) knocking your knuckles against the sides of your door (2) and chanting “ya ya ya!”
# Squat toilets are now a-okay. They help build butt muscles.
# You pack mineral water, a flashlight, toilet paper, mosquito repellent, into your bag. Every single day.
# You turn up for a 7pm appointment at 9.30pm. That old joke: 7pm IST, India Stretchable Time.
# You can’t fathom the concept of dinner until 11pm, at the very earliest.
# You become appalled by the flesh shown on Western media: it beats you how anybody can depict sex the way it is without horses galloping in the wild, rings of fire, and without dancing of any kind.
# You think the Lord of the Rings ran way too short and you want your money back.
# You’re shocked that personals ads in newspapers at home are so ambiguous, rather than “fair convent educated 25 year old Brahmin (of a specific subset of Brahmins) family”. Then again, with larger sample space, the odds of being closer to X-bar are greater.
# You’re even more shocked the ads don’t necessarily have matrimony in mind, that your mother has no intention of placing one for you.
# In response to finding out somebody is Indian-born but has been living in the United States, you say: “So he’s a Not Required Indian.”
# And there are people around you who understand that joke.
# When meeting little kids, you try to shake their hand by sticking out your index and little fingers. They think you’re insane.
# You go to your teh tarik uncle and order “chai”.
# Unwittingly, you hand the teh tarik uncle three Singapore cents. Because tea was always one rupee, and you can take home the cup.
# You send back your teh tarik and demand 5 times more sugar.
# Everybody thinks you’ll be knocked down by a car one day, given how you cross roads now.
