The word "international" is as domestic as it used
to be international for me two years ago. I own the unfamiliar now.
Staying in an internationally local country, where you will
always remain 'new' even after decades, where you'd always be asked 'which country are you from'...where you'd always request for instruction manual in English, where you'd always
hesitate bargaining too much.. not letting people presume that all Indians are misers, and silently preserving the honor of the tricolor that you carry on your head all the time.
Spending long weekends in your 450 sq ft shared
international apartment with the people of different culture, skin and eye colors and time zones!
Of all, the kitchen becomes truly international. At 6pm, the
mates from Far East boil meat for their early dinner. At 7pm, inmates from
Europe stuff cheese in every dish they have cooked... and hit the bed by 10pm for their skype calls. Later,
the lazy Indian can't sustain the hunger pangs drumming inside the belly and heads towards
the kitchen.
Well, I must share- the best thing about sharing kitchen
with non-Indians is that your Indian snacks are safe. So are your home-grind spices
that you treasure the most. None will touch them!
Fresh cardamom is dipped in the hot oil with dried coriander
powder and something mouth-watering invigorates the whole apartment with an
edible tandoori smoke in the kitchen. "What the hell are you cooking in the
middle of the night that we can't resist", sleepy inmates come out sneezing and complain.
Pure vegetarian Indians adjust their dal-chawal pateela with a headless chicken on
the same shelf of the fridge, and then eat it later too, without puking. They are also used to throwing onion peels in the
same dustbin where chicken bones lie discarded.
We use microwave more than pressure cookers and cook using induction than gas stoves. We google for English speaking locksmiths and hair-stylists, and feel at home while ordering Indian delicacies at Indian restaurants with Hindi speaking waiters.
We have learnt to exchange business cards with both the hands with Chinese name printed on the flip side. We either have a wide touch screen Android phone or I-Phone...qwerty key phones are unrecognized.
Skype is our local phone and Facebook, our local photo frame.
We munch chips of the same Indian brand but with a blonde model on its wrapper. We
confidently buy and use the products of the brands that we never heard before. We roughly calculate money in Rupees before buying in Dollars... think a little, but still buy.
We buy
those vegetables that we are unsure if are fruits. We prefer brown breads than white.
Our daily soaps are intercontinental
comedy series and we have seen all the seasons. We work on Diwali and Holi and await
Chinese new year holidays and learn to wish Gong Xi Fa Cai and exchange lai see. We checkout
overseas travel packages on approaching long weekends.
And still feeling proud when someone says "Oh, you are
an Indian... I love Indian eyes, Indian food and Bollywood".
