Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

My weight, and my supposed resemblance to Katrina Kaif’s sister, is a big topic among my customers all across India. To their defence I must say that I am probably the only foreigner girl they do business with (and for so long), and that it’s in their blood, gossiping... So I'm well known. In all humility. Not a meeting where I don’t get to hear about my weight. Curious is it not?

I have a fantastic client. A big vet, always wearing a tie decorated with dogs, a voice from beyond the grave, an impressive collection of yucky stuff kept in formalin and gadgets full of dust everywhere in his clinic.

When we met for the second time (one year after the first time), it was morning and I was not yet really awake (like pretty much every morning in fact) and very cranky (it happens, luckily not every morning!). And I was greeted with something like "Oh! You really have put on weight since the last time we met!” Bam bam! Go swallow your pride girl... Even though I know it is kind of a compliment in India, there are days you just can’t take it... So that morning I could not help but tell him, with a smile, that in my culture this kind of comment was highly offending. You moron.

When we met for the third time (four years after the second time), I saw him coming from far (as in literally). I didn’t believe it was possible but... He looked at me from toes to head, paused, and tells me: "Oh! You love Indian food don’t you eh! You have put on so much weight since last time!” He would have added "you fat cow" and I would have had it all! Except that this time I was in a good mood and moreover I was more or less back to the weight I had when we first met so I just smiled...

I will conclude by quoting one of my big clients – which had pushed the limits by even giving an estimate (of 3-4 kgs) to my weight loss in April – who told me, the same week I met that vet: “I am doing very well, how do you find me??" He had put on weight since April and was expecting a compliment...

Ah! Culture...

See also in the same spirit:

http://www.indiandacoit.com/archive/2011/12/15/the-encounter-of-the-day.html

http://www.indiandacoit.com/archive/2012/05/02/how-to-put-an-elephant-in-one-s-pocket.html

With incredible views: the amazing quantity of trash brought back by the sea and covering the beach, the number of kids playing cricket, cops who empty the beach because of high tide and the turkey.

 If there is one topic that I am not interested in, it’s politics... So Indian politics I let you imagine…

And all in a sudden, while I think I am going to read about a love story, I find myself engulfed in The Red Saree, a book by by Javier Moro! 

I panicked a bit at the beginning, as the novel begins on very soapy tone with the love story of Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi. 

But rather quickly it engages on the political history of India since Independence through the private and political life of its main characters (namely the Nehru-Gandhi family). 

Basically, it all started with Nehru, Member of the Congress Party and first Prime Minister of independent India and thus until 1964, date of his death (of a heart attack). 

Then his daughter...

(Click on Lire la suite to read more)