"It happens only in India"

Before I say anything, I must write this disclaimer so here it goes: My entries in this blog are in no means meant to mock or degrade the Indian culture, traditions, life, or the people. They are merely a bunch of hilarious stories that happened and told by an Indian guy, who has come back to India after 6 years (well, I was here 3 years ago, but that doesn’t count as it was only for 3 weeks and I didn’t really do anything). So there… now I guess I can say anything without feeling guilty;)

It has been more than a week since my last entry and so much has happened that I don’t think I can do justice to them all. Alright, I guess I will write about things that are most vivid in my memory… like the time I almost got attacked by a bunch of MONKEYS!!! That’s right… monkeys… My cousin took me to one of those spiritual places we always think of, when we think of India… You know, a place with a guru and his followers and they meditate, do yoga, figure out the meaning of life, etc. It was an awesome place.. the cleanest and purest place I have seen in India. So my cousin, my sister and I were just walking and taking a tour of the place. There were a lot of trees so in one place, there was a huge group of monkeys chilling, jumping from tree to tree, doing what monkeys do best.. AHAHAHA… I saw two monkeys fighting too.. it was excellent.. It was like those monkey fights where they fight with knives and such… The expression on their faces was exactly like one of those ;). So, this place was like a circular building with like trees in the middle and the side, so there were monkeys everywhere… But that didn’t stop us! (You gotta remember, In India, we believe that animals are nothing to be afraid of… Humans and animals can coexist without any problems… this reminds me of another story, that I will save for later :P) So anyways, we were walking around that building, and then the monkeys were fighting in our way, so we couldn’t walk past them.. We come back (remember it was a circle) and there were three more monkeys just fighting and playing around.. So we were trapped! But after a while, they went to the side and just ran past them, lol… Then we were going back and we hear a loud screech of all the monkeys on the tree that was right next to us and above us… Like the tree was shaking and we were right there… We knew they were’nt happy.. So we ran away and got the security guy.. The guy laughs and says that the monkeys like to tease outsiders.. They wont hurt anybody… This was true... WTF… the monkeys didn’t do anything.. they would just block our path and watch the fun as we squirm to get out of the place… How I wish I had a camera to capture this :(


Speaking of Monkeys, let me tell you about something that happened to me a long time ago. This was when I was here (about 6-7 years ago)… I had some chocolates and there were a huge group of monkeys.. of course, they wanted it… I saw a monkey coming towards me, so I gave the chocolate to my aunt (AHAHAHA… I was a sneaky biatch)… the freaking monkey climbed on top of my aunt, took the chocolate and left.. LOL…that was hilarious… Its great…Indian monkeys are harmless but they like to have fun ;)

So, that was a little experience that happened at the place… Now, getting to and from the place was a mission.. A mission, I tells ya… We took the freaking city bus and those get crowded as hell. The place is in some village so the people that get on are all villagers… There was something about them that I couldn’t figure out.. They were all staring at me and my sister… I was like WTF… then I figured that it was prolly cuz of my unbelievingly dashing good looks ;) (AHAHAHA… they were all like wearing raggedy clothes, while I was pimpin’ it out in my Lacoste shirt…lol.. I even popped my collar).. So while getting back.. we climbed the bus while it was freaking moving.. It stopped for a while, when we started to get on it, the guy started to drive off.. WTF.. so we got on a moving bus from the back.. and the guy who sells tickets sent my sister to the front. (In India, Girls are supposed to sit at the front of the bus and Guys at the back… (Rosa Parks, where are you??? ;)) The bus was crowded and there were people fighting, jumping off the moving bus, then getting back on the moving bus… I was starting to get scared as the staring had not stopped yet… I unpopped my collar, but that didn’t work.. at this time, I was more worried about my sis. Only my cousin knows where to get off…my sister and I are clueless as to where we are… The result was pretty anti-climatic. Nothing really happened. She came to the back when the crowd had cleared out a but and we got off at the right place.. phew… I decided to never use public transit, ever...


So, to get to places, we have this thing called the “auto”... it is a three wheeled vehicle that is much more expensive than a bus, but cheaper than a cab.. India is overrun by these three wheeled munsters… So I would just use that. But if you were to be rich, you would have your own car with a chauffer.. like my aunt.. LOL whenever I go anywhere with her, the driver takes us wherever we want to go.. He drops us off at the door… and just disappears off somewhere… When we are done, we just walk outside and he appears out of nowhere.. so we just get in, lol… my grandparents also have a maid to clean the house, wash the dishes, etc… it is soo great.. I never felt this pampered in my life.. The maid comes to my house at like 5 am everyday and cleans the house.. the first day that I was here.. I didn’t know that we had a maid, and I still had jet lag… so I didn’t really sleep much.. I wake up around 5 am and I see this woman sweeping the floor... I was like WTF…but I just went back to sleep as too many crazy stuff was happening at the same time :D.

‘WTF’ would prolly be the phrase of this trip ;) But dudes and dudettes… If you have money in India, you are King! If you don’t, you’re nothing! Now, let me talk about the people in Bangalore a little bit… In general, they can be categorized as western wannabees… especially the middle to upper class kids… They all speak English now… and when you go into a store, they would exhaust all the English that he has ever learnt to sell you his product.. Like the other day, I went to a Reebok store, the guy’s English was horrible, but he wouldn’t speak in English no matter how much I speak to him in Kannada. But when I AM speaking in English, I try to hide the little bit of American accent that I have and try to speak in an Indian one… LOL… I never thought that would happen… Everyone has become brand conscious and they all wear nice Reebok, or nike, or w/e… And everyone has gone cell phone bananas… they don’t even talk anymore.. they just send text messages to each other… It takes like 5 mins for me to type hello on that thing… but these kids are super fast with it!

At the other end of the spectrum, there are really ignorant ones too… Like the guy from my street that I used to chill with all the time and still do.. He asked my why I am still brown! He expected me to become white and come back as a blondie :S He’s like WTF, how come you are still the same colour as you were when you left? People there are soo white, how come youre not like that? All I could say was… “well, nothing happens overnight.. you gotta live there for several years to turn white”… I didn’t know what else to say. But in general, my expectations about the people were shattered. I was expecting some nice, pretty, and semi-conservative Indian girls… But here I am and they all are talking in English, dressing like Americans and to my surprise, some even have boyfriends! So here’s what I am thinking right now… If Indian girls become American, then there is nothing special about Indian girls anymore…BUT.. then again, I’ve only been here a week so I cant really say anything as its too early… this is just what I’m thinking right now :P

Remember in by previous blog entry, I told you that there was absolutely no security check at the French and the Indian airport.. At the Indian Airport, something showed up on the metal detector and they asked me what it was… My mom did the packing, so I was forced to say that I don’t know… I volunteered to open up my suitcase but the guy said that its ok.. and he let us go… Now, I go to the movies right.. and the security there is soo tight.. WTF!!! They had us walk through metal detectors and then they had individual checking with the metal detector and with hands… WTF… I felt soo violated. But the thing about this check was that the metal detector beeped everytime anyone walked through it, but they didn’t really do anything… So, only in India would they have intense checks at the freaking movie theatres and none at the airport!

I think I have rambled on long enough.. If you made it this far, I congratulate you… You now know only a fraction of the hilarious things that happened to me in the one week that I was here. But let me end of with some food talk… That has been the best part of this trip. THE FOOD IS SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD…. My grandma’s cooking is excellent… The other day, I went to the bakery with my grandpa and we bought these butter cookie type things… It was sooooooooo good.. they were just bringing it out of the oven and it went straight into the mouth.. Sure it was HOT! But I didn’t care… it was soo good… Then we went to this other store (In India, you gotta know the right places for the right stuff.. other places have these foods too, but there is only one store where you get the best foods… like the bakery we went to was famous for the butter cookies).. So, we went to this other store that sold these sweet things called “Gulkhan”… Let me tell you about how its made… It made from ROSE PETALS and HONEY… that’s right… its unlike anything I’ve ever had before in my life (well, ive had it when I was here :P) So they mix the Gulkhan with like Butter and then if you want they can add ice cream, or fruit salad, or dry fruits, w/e… I took the one with Ice Cream… Holy SHIT… I am unable to write about it.. I am drooling as I am typing :P… it is SOO damn good. So, that’s some of the foods that I’ve had so far. If you had the patience to read this entire entry, I congratulate you and for each reply that I get.. I will bring you ONE bite of this Gulkhan that I speak off… I’m off to have some more wacky adventures.. My only regret is not bringing a camera :( So… Im Offf.. Cheeeeerag Up, Up, and Away………