New Year: For New Year I was in London. With V. And her family and friends.
I noticed something, something I hadn’t actually paid that much attention to before - her parents are from India. Obviously I’ve met them before, but never in their home environment…… I’ve always just thought of them as the parents of my English girlfriend. I.e. not really Indian at all -
Naturally, I didn’t want to be disrespectful to her parents, so when her mother or father said something in Hindi I always replied with “What are you jabbering on about?”
Of course, I didn’t do that at all (well okay, not that often), but rather stared blankly out into space wondering if they were talking about me. And if they were talking about me I can only assume it was along the lines of “do you think he’s still hungry? I only managed to force 12 extra portions onto his plate…” I don’t know what it is - it’s one of those world-wide, true-in-every-culture phenomenons; whether your girlfriend’s mother is Indian, English, German or whatever, it doesn’t matter - she’ll automatically assume you’re 50 pounds underweight and go about trying to rectify the situation.
It goes without saying that the only Hindi words I learnt were during the “name that food” part of the day. Thankfully I was not alone - I got to watch V and her brother searching in desperation when being asked to fetch various curiously-named items from the kitchen and have to be told “it’s in the bright orange bowl in the middle of the table”.
The biggest difference between us that people notice stem from her being a Londoner and me being from a small village. For example. Did I manage to get lost in Croydon shopping centre? Yep. Does she think Newcastle is in Scotland? Cue rolling eyes and finding a map. Can either of us speak Hindi? Well, we know what the word for “chicken” is….
Once, we would both have been seen as scandalously rebellious, now apart from the odd “Katalogbraut” comment here in Germany, all I get is “what a nice boy! And such a healthy appetite!”
German Word For Today: “Katalogbraut” - Hard to translate that one….
Song playing as this was published: Jerry Seinfeld “I’m Telling You For The Last Time Track 12″
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