Saturday, December 13, 2008

Pro Crass tination

Heavy snow beating down the city, awake at 0200 hrs, inevitable barrage of examinations (that word makes me imagine being under a microscope) of the author and he still finds reasons to procrastinate studies time and again. Few things you realize during exams:

* The den needs cleaning
* Garbage needs to be thrown out
* You need a nice pen even before you flip the first page so off you go to buy a nice one
* Can not work without a coffee

And now the blog.

Living near and moving around a wide variety of international students I have came across many non-Indian people with a healthy curiosity in India (rare are the chronic cases of Indophilia). Exchange of cultural exchanges ensues after acquiring acquaintance over different dinner or visit to a friend's place. Some cliched and stereotypical topics always come up:

* Hindi Cinema (referred to the derogatory name: Bollywood)
- The heroine has to change 17 dresses in a song sequence
- Couple get teleported to and from Switzerland instantaneously
- Couple break into song n dance at the drop of the hat

Now to this I do not have any answer, this is an existential question. How the hell can a fish tell a well frog why is sea water salty hence I can not explain why Amitabh Bachchan used to kill the villain after eating all his bullets.

* Indian Food
- spicy
- the better ones might know : chicken tikka masala, naan, biryani
- weird non vegetarians : pork, beef, fish, eggs (theoretically 2 raised to the power of 4 = 16 combinations)

* Kamasutra
- No they do not teach Kamasutra at school there would be a riot if it were to happen
- No every Indian is not an expert in it
- AFAIK it is not a manual to achieve the big O (frankly told to a couple who gave a knowing smile to each other)

* Gods
- Yea there is a plethora of Gods in India
- They dance, play, romance, fight, take human form and what not
- I know it is complex, probably you can do a master thesis on the list, for now take Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh that will do

But what threw me off was one guy asked me about the mammilla (word changed for obvious reasons) song. Half baffled and half embarrassed I asked him to show it on youtube. I expected some sleazy rendition of a popular song or a bawdry parody but it turned out to be Sushmita Sen's Dilbar Dilbar song which got Buffalaxed to mammilla song. The poor soul all the while thought text presented in the video to be English translation of actual lyrics. I had a hard time conveying him the actual meaning amidst uncontrollable laughter. India and Indians are indeed queer, quirky but we are yet to reach that state of what should I call, I am out of words, perversion, insanity, masochism?

After having a hearty laugh I recollected the real great time I had with my friend Hari who introduced me to the funniest of all Indian Buffalaxed songs: Benny Lava quite a while ago.

5 comments:

Parit said...

Waah sarkar.. i remember when this event happening.. wht about the incident when 2 inquisitive girls asked u the same question.. add that also..well apart from the fact kapil sir ran away laughing there was lots of interesting stuff discussed.

foibled spirit said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
foibled spirit said...

hilarious and ironic because the questions really come to you as "sincere" - those curiosities about india...the same happens the other way when you throw questions at your momentary "Other" and after a few laughs receive clarifications...the cultural translations perhaps will never end...always in a diffused flow...the smoke of a cigarette in Lost in Translation... nice note on Mammilla song...Buffalaxed might become the next "Dilbar" of researchers

Divesh said...

taza tareen aur ekdum mast .. thoda udhaar mil sakta hai kya sense of humour?

TheQuark said...

@Divesh bhai: Are hum aap jaise maharathion ko sense of humor udhar denge! humari aisi aukat kahaan janaab

@foibled spirit: in your research are you looking into internet and social media trends?