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'We are like this only:' For becoming our unoffical anthem

Welcome to our lives, a mixture of extreme contradictions

August 20, 2008

Yup, that's our tagline, the unofficial Indian anthem that we sing out loud to the rest of the world and we're proud of it.

Where else do stockbrokers launch an agitation because they believe a statue outside the stock exchange has caused the market to crash?

India, 61: The icons that make India

Where else will you see the driver of an Audi A4 swearing at a bullock cart driver in the middle of a busy intersection?

And let's not even mention that incident where a truck toting a decommissioned Boeing 737 through the streets of Mumbai just abandoned it halfway. Why? The driver got lost!

GPS? Ha ha ha! The only message our truckers are familiar with is 'Horn OK Please.' No, even we don't know what it means.

Welcome to our lives, a mixture of contradictions so extreme they have even us wondering! A pretty girl is an 'item,' street food is 'jhakaas and we want to 'make friendship' with everybody who comes our way (note to the roadside Romeos -- lay off already!).

And we're politically incorrect to the tee -- if you deign to strike up an argument about that, I have just three words for you -- paape, macapav and yandu gundu (yes, that offensive last term, derogatory as it is, is very much in use -- don't believe me? Google it!).

For those of you who are either smiling by now or still puzzling over the whole 'Horn OK Please' bit for the umpteenth time (you know who you are!), cheers.

For those of you who haven't taken any of the things you just read in the right spirit -- lump it.

Because hum nahin sudhrenge.

Text: Sanaya Dalal. Image: The Boeing jet being transported through a busy Mumbai street. Photograph: Rajesh Karkera

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