You guys must have seen the promotional ads for Indian tourism which are endorsed by Mr. Amir Khan. This post is dedicated to the attempts made by me and friends to make all visiting firangs feel at home in India.The success or failure of such events... you will be able to gauge by the end of this post.
The first account involves VR's bachelorette party in Goa. There were four of us (ofcourse all girls). Those of you who are familiar with the Goa scene, would know how a group of girls, unaccompanied by the male of their species, can find the absence of the latter, both boon-ish and bane-ish, since we were subject to a lot of unwanted and wanted attention from locals as well as firangs. So this one night, we are at Mambo's and we are trying to find VR a pretty boy to flirt with. Now VR is like this super-duper choosy one, and we are having a hard time finding a cute firang to make VR want to flirt with him. After a lot of people watching, VR suddenly starts a frantic tugging of my non-existent sleeve and then coyly points out this MAJOR HUNK (australian, so we thought). The rest of us went..phew! Then, in sync, we started beaming towards THE HUNK, who rewarded us with his pretty smile. VR decides that she needs a couple of shots before actually doing anything about the beaming happening across the distance. So we move towards the bar counter (where THE HUNK was standing too). For the second time, I experience VR's frantic tugging at my non-existent sleeve, only to be pointed towards THE HUNK cozying up to another hunk (!!) which eventually turned into you know what! So in this case our efforts to make visiting firangs welcome in the country were totally wasted, as you can understand by now that they had already made themselves quite comfortable.
The second account also belongs to the same Goa trip. Change the setting to Tito's, where this REALLY REALLY cute guy (a Brit .. Tom) took the initiative to smile his pearly whites at us. So I decided, enough of acting as the wingman for VR, and smiled back. Eventually we started chatting up (or rather communicating by writing notes on the table napkin...the music was really loud!). Oh FYI - I was not single then. We did some harmless flirting and when Tom suggested that I accompany him and his friends to some other shack or some such place , I politely excused myself and re-joined my friends. Next day, I get a message from Tom while I was relating the whole story to the boyfriend. When the boyfriend, who anyways was not very amused with the story, gets to know about the message, he asks me "He messaged you ...meaning??". Me "Huh...he smsd me..." mental note "Sheeeeetttt!!" (You see I had forgotten to tell the boyfriend that I exchanged numbers with Tom!!) And I ended up getting an earful from the boyfriend. So this attempt too, to be nice and friendly to the visiting firangs, got me no brownie points.
The third episode is a more serious one and involves a recent trip to Colaba causeway. SA and I were standing near a footpath sandal stall when this weird lady came upto us and started pointing towards a near by fruit stall. She was trying to make us buy her some fruits. Now if she looked like someone who really was in need, we would have bought her the fruits. But this one was pretty decently dressed and had that cocky manner of the streetwise which gave us that peculiar impression that after taking the fruits from us she would walk off to her air conditioned shanty and start watching some daily on a plasma screen television. So while we were ignoring her, this firang uncle came by and stopped at the fruit stall to buy some bananas for his kid. Predictably the aunty swamped him with her pleas and the firang uncle, just so that he is left alone in peace to buy the fruits, agreed to comply to her requests. In a split second, the aunty left us speechless when she actually started picking and choosing what fruits she wanted and even after the poor firang uncle had bought her the fruits, she generally kept haggling for more, till the firang uncle walked away exasperated. While I witnessed the entire scene, Mr. Amir Khan's virtuous face from the tourism ads flashed in front of my eyes, and when the aunty restarted her ranting while pointing towards SA and me, moaning how heartless we were companred to the firang, I lashed out at her saying "Aapko sharam nahi aati. Koi bahar se aaya hai aur aap usko aise pareshan karte hain". SA, egged on by my bravado, also added a couple of lines . Bad move. The spate of cuss words we had to hear from her after that, made us run away, red-faced, as fast as was possible from there, while the faces of all the surrounding shop keepers (who were watching the entire drama with much curiosity) lit up with amusement.
Understandably, it was MAHA embarassing and I dont think I need to tell you, whether this attempt was a success or not.
But rest assured, these minor bumps will not deter me from till being warm and welcoming towards all the visiting firangs, albeit from a safe distance.