You may be missing India, when you ......

torryquine

Thanks for the word Soulfood, yes that's what I mean - I'm fascinated by anything hadmade.

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snowcrab

When you start thinking of rice as a food group.

TimMakins

Take off your shoes before going into church, then break open a coconut on the altar. Encourage the handicapped to squat in a line near the entrance.

Ask strangers for their 'native place', then take a photo of them with members of your family.

Slyly ask young guys if its really true they have sex with their girlfriends.

Be surprised when your male friends won't hold hands with you.

Invite friends around for a barbecue, then slaughter a goat in front of them with an old sword.

In your local pub, turn off all the lights and play loud music. Add parafin to the whisky so it tastes better. Charge foreigners 10% more for all drinks.

Ask random travellers if they'll write to you when they get home.

Encourage your wife to put on weight. Get her to do the laundry in the local boating lake.

When starting a journey, refuse to set off until you are 2 hours late, and have all your family to wave goodbye.

Any journey over 15 minutes requires you to take various foodstuffs in metal tins. Wake your wife at 4am so she will have time to cook it for you.

All vegetables, especially spinach, should be cooked until unrecognisable. Any remaining taste should be diguised with spices.

At the railway station, ignore any seats, and after urinating off the platform, wrap yourself in an old bedsheet, lie on the floor like a corpse, and snore loudly.

Remove all gears from your bicycle, and add 2 bells. Ride straight into oncoming traffic without looking or taking any note of other road users.

If you know more than one language, use snippets of each in every sentence. Before talking, fill your mouth with leaves.

When getting married, demand a TV, a motorbike, some bedsheets, and a lakh of pounds from your future inlaws. If they don't pay, invest in a kerosine stove.

At the tobacconists, purchase cigarettes singly. Complain if there's no burning string to light them with.

Release all cattle from local farms, and guide into the high street. Throw plenty of garbage into the gutters, so they won't go hungry. Stick dung-cakes on the walls of your house.

Recruit 6 servants, who can be housed in the potting shed at the bottom of your garden.

Regard taxi-seating limits as a challenge. Commute to work on the roof of the train.

Introduce a pecking order at work, and get a flashing red light for the roof of your bosses car.

Send a telegram of commiseration at the birth of your friend's daughter.

Refuse to eat with Cockneys, citing caste differences.

When staying in a hotel, dispose of all top bedsheets. Increase your TV volume until the walls shake, then complain if 6am bed-tea does not arrive.

And finally, just to prove that you are really behaving like an Indian, be friendly, tolerant, kind, helpful, generous, and welcoming to all the foreign visitors you encounter.

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http://www.mapability.com/travel/

Quote:

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

steven_ber

Great post Tim, it made my morning.

Maybe my sense of humour is a bit warped, but I though the funniest one was: -

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How to get helpful replies to your transport/Itinerary questions.



Train information.

nickooji

very warped, but very funny!

ploink

I'm guilty! Stalker.
Sad, isn't it.

-You loiter for hours in "Intian Basaari" ("Indian Bazaar" - these shops exist in many Finnish towns, the selection of goods reminds me of Paharganj) and "Indiska" (A "hip" chain of shops selling all things Indian or "Indian", has spread from Sweden to Finland, for example) and feel like shouting that, you know, you've been there, in India! (--> See "the glazed look" thread.)

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But rather, ten times rather, die in the surf, heralding the way to that new world, than stand idly on the shore! -Florence Nightingale

starCrosser

When you're secretly hoping all taxi drivers would shout auto auto and you open all the windows so it feels like you're sitting in a rick

Sniff...I miss India

machadinha

Good observation -- it's the one thing I got fed up with at some point, men talking to you with that red-mouthed wrinkled-nosed incomprehensible splutter of paan. Oh well. Where's my wobbly-wobbly emoticon.

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Reading tips, all picked up at IndiaMike : INDAX's A Comprehensive Guide To India / Dinoj Surendran's Desi Humor / ITHVC on Culture Shock & Travel Health / JetLag Travel Guides For the Undiscerning Traveller / India Travel Links

nickooji

when you use google.co.in as standard, just because you can!

Jeroen

... when you start missing the sight of armed policemen strolling around holding hands

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'To see the world in a grain of sand; and heaven in a wild flower; to hold infinity in the palm of your hand; and eternity in an hour'

rangss

..when you get into the taxi and look for a starting rod...

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...and I took the road less travelled.

steven_ber

I'm surprised I was never asked to explain this one.

machadinha

OK Steve what happened

Tell us tell us!

steven_ber

I remember reading a newspaper article in India; it was about half way through the Allahabad Kumbh Mela.

30,000 grandmothers had reported that their families had deserted them; the most shocking thing though was the 'matter of fact' way the story was reported.

It seemed (from reading the report) that this kind of thing was normal at big Mela's.

To get a better idea of numbers, I feel I should point out the following.

That particular Kumbh Mela was gigantic, the Mela is extra important every 12 years, and this one even more so because it was the 144th year - 12 X 12.

Throughout the whole Mela, 70,000,000 people attended (yes 70 million).

30,000 don’t seem so high now, and it’s likely that many had just got lost.

But I never forgot the report, and always imagined a proud granny saying "my grandson is a wonderful man, he's taking me to the Kumbh Mela!"

lotus blossom

i love seeing this!!

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Not all who wander are lost