One thing which I find really hard to guess is the age of whites. People either look very young for their age, or vice versa. Almost every other person having blond hair makes it almost impossible to figure out whose gone grey over the head. But one can never mistake the creased skin, a slightly shaky voice and a drooped posture. I was to meet such a person who happens to be my Home Letting Agent.
The old man immediately reminded me of my grandad. Not that he even remotely resembled my grandad, but probably because of his age. I had to fill up some papers, and once I was done with that, he looked into it and asked me "Why do Indian names seem to have almost all the 26 alphabets in their names and why is it so complex to pronounce?". Just as I was about to reply him with a sneer, there was a distraction in the form of my mobile. (Mobiles are not just the best saviours). It was my friend's mom enquiring if her daughter was out with me. My limited knowledge of Hindi and her limited knowledge of English, forced me into Hinglish.
And this seems to have amused our old man. In a mocking tone he asked me "Why do Indians mix English words with ANY language that they speak?". I replied curtly "We don't speak the SAME language with 100 different tongue twisting accents throughout the country.. we have more than 25 languages... and not all of us are familiar with so many languages...". A person blind as a bat would have understood better that the talk was infuriating me. But the old man was absolutely relentless. It looked like he had a dozen more such similar queries... And since I did not have all the time in the world to spare, I just finished the work that I had there and pushed off.
The other day, my friend had to hear the comment " That's so very Indian!" when she casually told someone that she was caught in the rain unawares, as she didn't check the forecast that morning.
Some attitudes seldom change. I'm only glad that not all have this attitude. There are people all over the world, who have the sense to understand and appreciate the good things in other countries, or atleast keep their attitudes to themselves....
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ps : On a totally different note, can someone tell me how to disable m2m?
