Love Thy Neighbor

So the last post made me think about the things that Indians and Pakistanis do or don’t have in common amongst themselves. Since the 1 billion people living in India are so diverse, thinking that the neighboring 17 million don’t bring variety (read drama) of their own, would be a grave act of misguidance.
Having lived in the US for a certain period of time, I have had a fair amount of exposure to the Indian population. In fact, almost all my dear friends in the US, including sweet M, come from the other side of the border. And of course the fact that I have spent majority of my time in the US in either the Silicon Valley or Microsoft land, gives me enough research material to work with.

As far as the other side of the spectrum is concerned, being an Army brat gives me more than enough authority on Pakistanis from every corner of the country. I also have 33 years of personal experience of being a Pakistani.

Now that I have established myself as some sort of an expert on the subject, I will commence the analysis of similar and dissimilar tendencies of our two South Asian friends. For this post I shall talk about the commonalities, since there seems to be so many ;-)

1. Marriage/Wedding: Yes, we both love our weddings and we both are obsessed with marriages. When I say obsessed, I mean live for it, dream about it; think about it morning noon and night. Our mothers start worrying about our marriages as soon as we turn 18, (or so it seems). Every decision of our life is deliberated on, in relation with its impact on our ability to capture the right spouse. What career we choose, what friends we make, how we behave in public, what clothes we wear, and what food we eat etc. etc. God forbid if a girl stays single past the age of 26 (30 in the guy’s case). Nothing worse than being a parent of a single person. Of course, when such an obsession is satisfied, it necessarily calls for a huge celebration. And so begins a month-long festivity, involving all kinds of rituals and Broadway scale singing and dancing. No matter which part of Indian Sub-continent you come from, you have to be married before 30, or you are basically doomed. And you have to have a wedding out of a Bollywood saga (Remember hum aap kay hain kaun), or…well, or you are basically doomed.

2. Jalebi: May it be a Pakistani or an Indian, from any part of the two countries, the sight of Jalebi will make his heart pound fast, fill his mouth with water, and make his brain spin inside the skull with ecstasy. The gold/orange delicacy is at the core of every South-Asian and just the sight of it can make many a heart tumble with joy.

3. Crying Babies: Wherever you go, a mall, a movie theatre, a restaurant, a street corner, if you hear a shrieking, whiney, uncontrollably hysterical child, you can basically guess, without even turning around to confirm, that the source of this entire racket is a Desi child. 95% of the time, you will be right. I don’t know if it is genetic, or bad parenting or just the fact that the kid knows he is born in a household where his entire life will be spent trying to live up to ridiculously high, unreasonable expectations, that he starts the mourning process so early, but Desi kids love to cry, a lot. I am in no way inferring that non-desi kids don’t cry, no way whatsoever. The 5% margin of error has been spared for the kids of African, African-American or Hispanic origins.

4. Emotional Blackmail: Whether it’s the parents making their single son/daughter agree to get married, or relatives trying to get you to throw the party you never intended to throw, or unwanted people trying to stay friends with you, we as two nations, excel at emotional blackmail. We also know how to do it subtly, unconsciously and extremely randomly. After all we are also passive aggressive by nature. You see we have been taught from an early age to be nice, never say no or whatever is on your mind, never listen to your heart and always follow the norms of the society (we are never told these things, we just learn them). So years of self-sacrifice, self-denial and non-verbal desperation turns us into kings/queens of passive aggression and emotional blackmail.

5. Corrupt Police: Yes police of both the countries is unconscionably corrupt, and collectively abhorred and dreaded by all. We also are the most law-abiding citizens in this country – of course, not taking into consideration the things we do to stay in this country. I guess that’s another thing in common.

6. Internet etiquettes (or lack thereof): If you are one of those people who sometimes scroll down on a YouTube video to read the comments, you will realize how stupid both set of people can be when it comes to expressing their patriotism and nationalism. A video as random as that of a Pakistani kid singing a nursery rhyme can ignite such vile, abusive (read utterly ridiculous) repartee, which would make a drug dealer from Crompton hide his face with shame.

7. Behavior when encountered with another Desi: Here in the US, when we encounter another Desi, we a) tend to pretend that we can see through them (b) might be checking them out from top to bottom, but on eye contact, pretend we didn’t even see them (c) on eye-contact, continue to stare without smiling or any other change in expression (d) when encountered with a friendly and smiling Desi, never ever smile back and just stare blankly or just get confused and nervous.

8. Accords/Camrys/Odyssey: The biggest commonality between the South Asian immigrants in America is their love of an Accord or a Camry. The third car, is the must have minivan for all NRI and NRP moms, which Honda is considering to rename O’Desi.

9. Cricket: Of course! How can I forget? Don’t need to say more on the subject.

10. Cultural and societal hypocrisies (“what?? We are not hypocrites, how dare you?”), aggression while drunk (“for those Pakistanis who do drink. What? There are Pakistanis who drink??”), extreme possessiveness of their women (applies to men only, “What? There are no homosexuals in India/Pakistan! How dare you?”), love of meat (“Haey Raam! There are Hindus who eat non-veg”??), male-dominance (“of course not, we are all equal opportunity employers and we don’t think women are dumb, of course not, you dumbass”), sexual frustration/suppression/confusion (“She said sex!! What shameless girl”), eve-teasing (this includes pinching, touching, kissy noises, bollywood song-singing etc. (“How is that wrong????”).

Dedicated to the people from both side of the border, Happy Independence Day!!