So who am I now?

Dumb friend in School: "So you are a South Indian? How come? You are fair and tall unlike the rest of them."

Me: Duhh.....

That my friends, was one of my first brushes with typical North Indian arrogance.

So, we all know how kids in the north are rarely taught geography, especially the South Indian context of it. So, their mothers or teachers or whoever is responsible for their stunted Geo knowledge let them safely assume that

1. Below the Vindhyas, India is one massive state called Madras.

2. All the people down there are called Madrasis.

3. All they eat is rice (with their hands, licking each finger as they do it ;)), sambar and rasam. On special days, they manage vadai or dosai (pronounced annoyingly as dosa with a D like as in "Don't")

4. They are short and dark-skinned. Well not Sridevi or Hema Malini or Rekha or Jayaprada or Vyjayantimala. Just the rest who didn't make it to Bollywood.

5. They have to say "Aiyyo" atleast once in every 5 minutes.

Thanks to increasing knowledge dissemination and proliferation of the student community across NIT's and IIT's and BITS, there are minor change in view-points...

1. So Tams are the guys who study a lot. RG even more. Become scientists and go into research. Worship Rajnikanth (thanks to Sivaji:The Boss, they know the Tam guy pretty well now)

2. Mallus are the guys who eat beef and manage to down enormous quantities of alcohol. (I can't say my Mallu brethren have helped dispel that particular rumour.) Also, Mallus are the ones you'll find as nurses in hospitals and who own most of the tea-stalls in the world. (refer pic above!)

3. Gults are the ones who score top board marks and get into every damn IIT and BITS possible.

4. And then there are Kannadigas... who I guess have Bangalore.(isn't that where all that software shit happens?)

Anyways, slotting of people is something I've always been amused by and always subjected to...

In school in Bombay, my dumb Catholic friends thought I was Punjabi (refer tall, fair comment's inference from above) while the fact that I spoke decent English was reason enough for most of my dumb non-Catholic friends to assume that I must be Anglo-Indian...

The Tams think I must be a Palakkad Iyer because I can speak Tamil and look the "chamathu" part...

The Mallus think I must be one of those "Snob Mallus" who speak only Hindi because they've

been up north too long...

The Family (especially Ottapalam Valliammai) thinks I am a "Hindi-kaaran" as my Mom will always be a "Hindi-kaari" (due to her long Rajasthan stint). Forget the fact that even if she writes prose in Malayalam, she'll still be a "Hindi-kaari" who managed to learn Malayalam thanks to their conscientious efforts...

Then there are those who think I am Gujarathi; courtesy the gold chain.

I get Bengali sometimes (I have no retort, no explanation for that one) or Maharashtrian (because of the Bombay connection; although I must admit given recent events, most outsiders would be forgiven if they assumed only Maharashtrians were allowed in Bom....err Mumbai).

The most incredible one I've got is Parsi. (I must admit I kinda enjoyed that one:))

The latest is "Fraud-Mallu"; courtesy my friends at Bangalore and the fact that I've never stayed in Kerala...

The last one I got was at the college office last week in Bangalore "Malayalee annale? Kanda manasilavum" (translated as "Malayalee right? I could say that from the face"). Maybe the Mallu blood is finally getting thicker...( I say, it all started with the drinking ;) )

*Hindi-kaaran/kaari = Hindi speaking guy/girl

*Valliammai = Grand Aunt

This post is not meant to hurt anyone's sentiments. If you've been hurt, there's really not much I can do...