Let's not get curried away!

Please feel free to jot down notes on how to be as Indian as possible throughout this post.

Namaste *insert folded-hands emoji* from the land of butter chicken and naan. I hope you have had a wonderful day so far. I actually have had a marvellous day. Kicking it off with my daily yoga routine, complemented by the soulful chanting of "Om" through an "Indian Yoga Tunes" CD I picked up from LuLu while shopping for spices, I truly couldn't have asked for a better start to my day. The serenity I acquired from my morning yoga was nevertheless vanquished by the brain wracking long day of math that ensued. I mean, math is probably the only productive use of time that Indians like investing in, isn't it?

Let's be real. No. Math is not the epicentre of the Indian culture. Neither are curry, elephants, snake charmers and yoga. Consequently, I may have employed a little bit of an exaggerated sardonic tone in the preceding paragraph and would thus like to clarify that none of those elements were really constituents of my morning. Actually, who am I kidding? I may have done some math today... but that is besides the point.

What I am trying to essentially zero in on is the fact that Indian culture in the entirety is gravely misconstrued in the western world. Whilst I could rant on for hours and hours regarding this topic, the predominant misinterpretation that vexes me the most is the fact that some people, for reasons I am yet grappling with, believe that Indians speak in "Indian". To keep it simple, let's put it this way: Indians speak the language Indian just as much as Americans speak American and Canadians speak Canadian. Basically, we do not speak Indian. However, I do not blame anyone for being under this illusion. I mean, I do to some extent understand where this misconception may have stemmed from. When a country is home to about 22 official languages and 13 different scripts, non-natives may have the tendency of settling the confusion by simply classifying them all as "Indian". And that is perfectly okay for no Indian expects a non-native to be acquainted with all these languages. I myself can only name perhaps 10 at the most. Nevertheless, India's principle national languages, to this day remain Hindi (not Hindu) and English. So while we may not converse in "Indian", we do on the brighter side converse in Hindi often.

Fun Facts-
#1 I can speak 4 of the 22 official languages of India.
#2 I do not eat curry every day (what a terrible Indian)
#3 I cannot tolerate spicy food (is she even Indian?)
#4 I have never seen a snake charmer in my life (definitely not Indian)

Thank you for reading!