Let me celebrate my desi-pan with Gulab-Jamun
I have come to realization, after struggling much with myself; the word ‘desi’ neither has a derogatory connotation nor a sense of exaltation to it. It is just another word which represents certain demography of population—of South Asian Diaspora. I am pretty sure other migrating communities too have words to represent themselves, which I am unaware of.
In the beginning, I didn’t find myself a part of desi solidarity– in a cultural sense, nothing to do with politics and opinion, moreover, I made a conscious effort not to associate myself with the phrase, though I hail from Nepal–a quintessential desi sub-culture. My apprehension might have been the word itself desi, which sounds more of a Hindi than any other South Asian language, and how weKathmandu basi are blindsided by the aura of that superiority over the dhotis, definitely derogative, not surprisingly for the same reason Madesh is burning.
How that reminds me of a story of Manjushree cutting a gorge to let the water out to make
Kathmandu valley inhabitable. Allegorically speaking we are the toads that were left behind, when the water drained out, and who have never ventured out of the well—Kathmandu, furthest we have gone is Thankot check post that too for selfish reason, to bargain with god–Manakamana.
But, however cozy we are in our little bayou, we have to venture out once a while for different personal reasons mostly to the south of the border. And when we do so, our toad spirit is ruthlessly crushed by UPites, Bhiharis and Bengalis sharks at the border. Our bruised ego <b> (remember the bravest in the world)</b> clouds our rational thought, and we conveniently clump the whole nation—India as a thug. Matter of fact, every society has its criminal elements, and those goons do not represent their society, moreover they do not reflect the values/virtues of the society they live in. Likewise there is no shortage of mean spirited Neapli bastards among us, who often prey on hapless or Indian vendors on the streets of Kathmandu.
Leaving arrogance and ignorance behind, ultimately it’s the matter of perspective, on what you want to see–similarity in dissimilarity, or dissimilarity in similarity. And all this time I had been working hard to do the latter. My conceit was hilarious; I was no pearl among the gems, desi community has nothing to lose from my indifference and my apathy. In fact, I was at loss, loss of opportunity of experience nearest to home—continent sub-culture.
Oh, how we (Nepali) love to hate, and poo-poo the idea of associating ourselves with sub-continent culture, predominantly Indian. We are the most chic among the bunch, while rest of the sub-continent was getting over the colonial hangover, we had the flower children flocking the gullies of
Kathmandu, foraging for local pots and hollow nirvana. When rests of the continent were listening to Nehru and Jinnah, we were listening to Hendrix and The Beatles, and we were so delighted to have the social rejects of the White societies—the hippies. (But I have to concede, they were far more interesting than those righteous conservative bastards, only White non-hippies were the missionaries, spreading the word of Jesus, nonetheless high on the divine directives, on the same breath, how we love to hate all Christians, but often miss the point that all the prestigious schools in Kathmandu were established by them.)
Coming back to desi-ness, among all the immigrants, only people I can relate to are Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Bhutanese, in a cultural sense, since, I don’t give a fuck about religion, but undeniably that’s another strong bond. My language, food habit and even those social eccentricities* match closest with these communities.
How we drive the distance almost to the effect of KTM to Pokhara just to watch a Hindi movie, it becomes our obligatory duty to try any/every Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri-Lankan restaurant in every town we visit, and how we love to bitch about getting duped—selling same food with different names in these restaurant. And how we are bound to bump into at least ten Nepalis in every Indian stores anywhere in the US at any given time of the day.
Earlier, the thing I despised the most was, when any Indians would walk up to me and start taking in Hindi, taking for granted I speak Hindi. I do speak Hindi, at that better than most of the Nepalis. That put my mercury up, I was mistaken for their ignorance for arrogance. Then I realize, I do the same when I see some Tibetans, or Manange from Mustang, I talk to them straight away in Nepali. For these minorities, my ignorance might have come as my arrogance. But not that we are part of India, and we are supposed to know Hindi, as opposed to other minorities in Nepal ought to know Nepali. My analogy was just to shed some lights on disparities of cultures, and our presumption of them.
More than Indians taking to me in Hindi, I despise on how Nepali talk in Hindi. After watching hundreds of three hour long movies, and thousands of hours of Indian TV, and three years of Ramayan, and another four years of Mahabhara on TV, we speak a pathetic Hindi. What are we a dyslexic? With so much of practice for so long, even a dog can learn Chinese. There I go for the people, whose lives revolve around Bollywood, and can’t construct a decent sentence in Hindi—or may be they are just pretending not to know Hindi, in order to stay chic.
I don’t have to like my sub-continent brothers personally, but I can’t deny the fact I am one of them, and we are bound together with similarities than dissimilarities, like it or not. Then why not take delight in my desiness rather than deride it.
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Now, let me go and have three somosas, four gulab-jamun, and freaking spicy curry over some cheesy Salman’s number playing in background, probably from the Appu’s store from Simpson.
Social eccentricities* Digging my nose, scratching my crotch, clearing my throat loud and spitting mindlessly in public, smell like walking garam-masala, shamelessly haggling for price, and thinking all white women are promiscuous.
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Side Note: Formating in WordPress is pain in the butt, let me know if you guys have a better tool.
Re: Side Note
Go to “Your profile” under “Users” menu in admin, and tick “Use visual editor when writing” option, if this is what you are missing!
Thanks MP, your info was helpful to me as well.
“How that reminds me of a story of Manjushree cutting a gorge to let the water out to make
Kathmandu valley inhabitable.”
i suppose you meant to say “habitable” instead of “inhabitable” - unless it is a double meaning, in that KTM has become inhabitable, morever now-a-days.
Hehehe, my pandityai pradarshan. I’ll do a longer comment later, after I brush my teeth and eat the Khasiko curry that I made yesterday. Incidentally I got the khasi from an Indian store run by a Lebanese and frequented by Nepalese.
Melting pot, no?
haha … melting pot indeed … khasi ko masu re …. sarai bhok lagi ra cha … aauna paryo ki kya ho ….
Sure, the mean spirited Nepali bastards pasturing Indian (or of Indian ethnicity) vendors in the streets do not represent the core of the society. However, i clearly remember myself turning a blind eye every time one of those poor vendors was looted by the street thugs. I dont remember my mom beating the same thugs with her purse when these events took place around her in the tarkari bazaar either. And ofcourse, also remember the majority of us using a “bhayea … timi” to a vendor obviously from the southern part of the country, while using “dai … tapai” to any pahadi vendor standing alongside. It might not be the criminal elements responsible for tarai burning, but might it just be us with our “subtle ignorances”, in parts, responsible for this travesty, that was a long time coming ?
I have to admit, i do fall into that category of kathmandu-ites who cant form a grammatically correct sentence in hindi after having watched uncountable hours of products from bollywood. I, to this day, fail to understand, I understand the language perfectly well, and while attempting to speak it, i also know what i am saying is wrong, and on second thoughts also know what it should have been, but for the life of me, cant utter it out in time.
You know it sucks when you are give a damn by your colleagues because you do not belong to their regions…..
school maa tha thiena testo..college pugay pachhi…. “desi” sort of feeling was significanlty noticed among others…………
mistake bhaechha maathi spelling …… hos……..
this is so bold an entry. and equally gross to be seeing someone re-itering the National Etiquette here in such a Direct manner! ha ha ha
What are we a dyslexic? With so much of practice for so long, even a dog can learn Chinese.
these words felt as though directly hitting not the bull’s but My Eyes! I fall in that Dyslexic, dog bhanda ni battar category!
yah after knowing each and every character of Ramayan and Mahabharat by heart, add watchin Chanakya, Vishwamitra and all those regious serials that followed.
n love samosas, i think its the most popular khaja in most college canteens..tara 4 gulab jamuns ( isn’t is lalmohan in nepali) ali badi nai guliyo hola ni combination hundaina ra for sb not liking the chasni jasto chiya
Can you give me your email address?
mp,
thanks for the pointer, i haven’t looked at it yet, hope that solves my problem of formatting…
twaaks,
“How that reminds me of a story of Manjushree cutting a gorge to let the water out to make
Kathmandu valley inhabitable.”
Thanks for the correction, no double meaning there, i meant to say habitable…
hehe…someone should get back to me with the same Kader Khan dialog that I have been delivering here…after freaking decades of english education, i can’t construct a correct sentence.
ke garnu afno aang ma vaisi hideko dhekdaina, auro ko jiu ma jumra paani dhek ne
but i do sense a satire in twaaks benign correction… machickne dhurta pundit
pakhe,
wow, an excellent example to bare our double standard–”dai–vaiya, timi–tapai”. just to add few more and make it TRIPPLE standard–aaee syowos, kahi syowos…..
vashek,
i would say such experiences are not pleasant, but we do need them time to time, to wake us out of our slumber…
Zade,
ah! who we have here? the princess of blog-dom herself..thanks for dropping by…
dog bhanda ni battar category
do not take my sensless ranting at heart, they are just rant nothing more…
but look at the brighter side, hindi or no hindi, by watching those riligious epic dramas, we are much better off with our general knowledge….
in general conversation, i realize, i know more than other people about the Hindu myths..credit goes to Indian TV, and for me Indrajal comics…
how many of today’s youth know, Shivaji has a son name Kartike
tara 4 gulab jamuns ( isn’t is lalmohan in nepali) ali badi nai guliyo hola ni
how do you think i’m such a SWEET guy?
We all Desi faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to extinction. Let us pray we choose correctly and stay close
WOW.. I love indian food (samosa, dosa, dhokla, aloo parantha, began ka bharta etc the list goes on..) I am crazy about indie movies & songs, love indian weddings (esp after “monsoon weddin”
and of course meetha paan…as a kid I enjoyed watching chitrahaar, rangoli, mahabharat n ramayan… mugli..neev…Byom bakshi.. mungeri laal- the only entertainment we were spared in our hostel…And i spent 5 years of my precious youth in India and it became an “era of memorable moments” of my life
So I respect India & Indians for whatever they’ve given us (unlike many people who claim to hate them) I think it’s sad…
anyways I will be back.. have more to say…till then
Cheers!!!
u take care gols..
a nice “desi” song for sleepy heads like meh:
“jaage hai derr tak hame kuch derr sone do..
thodi si raat aur hai subha to hone do..
aadhen adhurein khwaab jo puren nahosaken
ik baar phir se neendmein woh khwab bo-ney do”
- movie “Guru”
then Ujjwal find out golay!
then Ujjwal found out Golay!
Gols, I had mentioned your blogs in the blogger’s meet. Hopefully, you don’t have problem to be listed in Nepalivoices and other sites.
Watch this movie “Apna Sapna Money Money”.A Gurkha is a bad guy in this movie. The movie in overall is stupid but the gurkha part is really funny. Normally gurkhas get very small role in hindi movies like rajendranath’s side kick or something but in this movie gurkha has some significant role. I actually found some chic nepali dudes who were very offended by the portrayal of gurkhas in this movie and they had recommended not to watch this movie. Thats how I ended up watching it.
social eccentricities you didn’t complete
Social eccentricities* Digging my nose and sticking it in the wall, scratching my crotch and sniffing
Smirti
that was a mouth wateringly long list of Indian food, but you missed one major major dish
–Maa ke hath ke banaye huye ‘Gajar Ka Halluwa’
loore
ah! scratching crotch and sniffing, reminds me of someone..uh huh!!!
i will try to watch Appna Sapna Money Money, if they have that in our local INdian Store…
but i have heard rave reviews on this movie
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi , if you get a chance do see it..
Vashek
Yes, I went through the piece in Mr. Ujjawal’s blog on Kathmandu bloggers. Wow, so much seems to be happening in Kathmandu blogging community. wow, and by mentioning my blog at the meeting, you made it worth noticing.
thanks a lot for that.
gols I have seen that movie.its a good movie much better than usual hindi flicks. I don’t know if its any good than Salam-e-isq twanke’s favourite movie hehe
hehehe…
loore
Salam-e-isq herna ta twaake lai bhauju le lagera gayo holani….small perks of getting married, make life wonderful…hehehe:D:D