The essence of being an Indian: From Rajnikant to Autodrivers

(Ajmeri Gate, Jaipur, Source: personal Copy)



I am an Endo-dontist dealing with periosteal lesions, in other words a dentist

The other day my dad’s business associate from Ukraine came over to our house to meet me saying that he needed my help and I assumed that it was a dental problem so as he came in I made him sit on the dental chair and asked him to open his mouth, he gave me a surprised look opened his laptop and said ’ there’s something wrong with my laptop’ I looked at him and said ok so what can I do Yuri and then he told me with a sense of know all “well you’re going to fix it aren’t you guys at good at IT.” I told him that I was a dentist and he was shocked “so does that mean you can’t fix it?”

But the incident got me thinking as how the world’s opinion about Indians had changed because way back in school, we had an exchange program with a school in Holland and I was really excited when I received my first letter from my Dutch pen –Pal, he said wow you’re from India I am so excited to meet someone from India finally so tell me how do you go to school by elephant or by Magic carpet? Now I was confused hadn’t seen an elephant for a while and I did have a carpet in our living room but my mom would never let me take that to school.

I have come up with a list of attributes unique to Indians

We are very romantic people, well how many of us have had candle lit dinners in the last one month? Well I don’t know about you but I have close to half a dozen, of course with some help from the state electricity boards. And guess what we have Indianized even romance, for e.g. take the movies which are heavily inspired by Hollywood except when ever there is a lewd scene in a Hollywood flick the India version would have two flowers meeting, or two birds pecking.

Staying with the subject of Indianising, The other day I took a Chinese friend of mine to what I till then considered the most authentic Chinese restaurant in Delhi. After the very first bite my Chinese friend started screaming for water, and kept shouting very hot very hot. I wondered what was wrong with him, and reassured him telling that this was the best Chinese restaurant in Delhi to which retorted somewhat horrified ‘Nooot Chinese maybe Japanese too hot to be Chinese’ that’s when I realized that these cooks in Delhi had indiansed Chinese food by adding all the masalas, which made it un-palatable for my Chinese friend.



Of course when I went to shanghai I could not their version of Chinese either, that was quiet an adventure but aren’t Indians one of the most adventurous people in the world.


Well if the white man has to go on a adventure trip he packs his backpack and heads out into the woods or the mountains but for us everyday is an adventure. Going to work everyday in India is a trip to the wild side. Ask me , I go through the fluovers bridge everyday and it involves split second risk taking decisions, an inch to the right or an inch to the left can be the difference between disaster and triumph, and when I see the auto drivers trying to squeeze in like Schumacher between the chicanes the adventure and thrill is complete. I have a simple rule for these adventures when I see the auto driver with a Rajnikant poster I convert he one inch into one foot.

By the way Rajnikant real name is Shivaji Rao Gaikward but in India some times the names are shorter than their qualification. The other day I met my friend a few days ago and he is one of the most educated people I know and he had more degrees than his name very unique Indian trait, his name read like Dr XYZ, MBBS, MS, DNB, FNP, FRCS, MNAMS, ICO wow!! What he forgot to mention on the card was that he was 10th and 12 Th pass as well.


But it is funny considering you can’t be an MS if you’re not MBBS and so on as each preceding degree is dependant on the previous degree completion as a qualifier.

Educational degrees have made their way into movies as well “Munna Bhai MBBS”

But the most unique characteristic of Indian cinema is the Amma, or the mother
Every movie begins with the Amma being troubled by the villain and the son taking revenge in the end or the Amma putting an end to the son’s atrocities. This is very unlike Hollywood which inspires most of our movies. For e.g. we have never seen Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Amma inspiring him and he saying ‘Amma I’ll be back.