Preparing for India
Thursday, November 13, 2008
 
Let’s be brutally honest - I’m not sure how one goes about preparing for a trip to India, and I don’t think you’d know either. Sure, the name rolls off the tongue - India - a simple, aromatic blend of both the exotic and the familiar. We think of India and our thoughts bounce right off the Taj Mahal and then back home where the smiling, skinny, overly friendly Indian man accepts our payment for gas and slim jims, or the soft-spoken family practitioner gives your kid a sticker for being such a brave little trooper, or the bedazzled elderly couple next door shuffle around in their pajama-style outfits and politely nod as they exhume their house just by opening the door to get the mail. Smiling. They’re always smiling. The Indian immigrants here are so often stereotyped and pigeon holed in the media as the bumbling, well-meaning goofballs of the world that one can’t help but be lulled into the false sense that all of India itself must be a giant, well stocked Quik-E-Mart, endlessly echoing “Thinkyoo for coming!”, and offering all sorts of delightful knick-knacks for the more sophisticated countries of the world to give out as souvenirs or put on the mantle-place. “Oh! India!” People will say. “Can you pick up an elephant foot ashtray? Or maybe a pair of those pointy shoes!” as if you were taking a quick detour to the world’s most densely populated Pottery Barn. But anyone who’s ever visited a place from which an animated character is loosely based, soon finds out that such simple approximations are largely false at best, offensive at worst. The French are hardly slurring, love-sick skunks. The Irish are only mildly interested in breakfast cereals. And the Indians... well, they must be more than the shop-owners of the world. So how does one prepare for Angry India? Or Cruel India? Or Manic India? Or an India where yours is the funny sounding name (because counter to what tech-support calls might have you believe, guys in India are rarely named Mike). The answer? I’m not sure. I’m going with an open mind. Because they can’t be that different from us....I mean, Columbus thought WE were India, am I right? Who knows, maybe i’ll find an Indian gentleman with as poor a grasp of history as me.