Happy Independence Day

The smell of incense sticks… The morning breakfast (idli, dosa, puri…? Could never quite make out what it was)…The soft murmurs of a prayer… My mornings in India always began with these things. However, the commotion truly started when I heard the final shout to get up for school. I would take a quick shower, focusing on the lizard stuck to the wall, always dreading the moment it would plummet to the ground. To my relief, it never did. By the time I came out smelling like Shikakai and Lux, my gray school uniform would be laid out for me on the bed, neatly pressed by the laundry lady. Along with a red and white striped belt to go around my waist, the maroon tie to be neatly tucked under my collar, and the gazillions of badges that I had to pin to the dress (name badge, school badge, class leader badge, first class badge, good pupil badge… It went on…). Then my mother would come rushing in with a comb in her hand and the Parachute Oil bottle in the other. I was amazed every single time how she managed to pull my frizzy hair into a plaited braid with two black ribbons woven into it and how she would “puff” them up in the end, to give it that “extra bow” look. I used to stuff the delicious breakfast into my mouth and run to the front gate to wait for the rickety blue school bus. I would stand there with my bag weighing down around my shoulders, which was filled with carefully covered schoolbooks. (The night before the first day of school, my mother and I, as if it were a sacred ritual, would sit on the floor with the glossy brown paper spread out before us, cautiously cutting and wrapping. I would worry over the colorful labels to go on those books, never sure if the Mickey Mouse sticker should go on my science notebook or the math notebook). In my right hand, I held a white and blue plastic basket with my steel “tiffin box” next to a white plastic water bottle that popped out the straw as soon as I flipped it open. I would look up to see the “Johnson Grammar School—Hyderabad” words materialize into view around the corner… And that is how it always began… My first day of school in India… Ever year…

The memorization… The exams… The Sunday morning habit of washing the hair and sitting on the mat in my parents’ bedroom with my cousin to do some extra studying… The eagerness to watch Mowgli or Mahabharat on T.V because we didn’t want to study… Always waiting… Waiting for vacation time to roll around, because we knew that was when the REAL FUN would begin.

I used to love the trips to Shirdi during the summer, because that was when I could buy the steel kitchen set. They were quite flimsy and would not even last by the time I got back home, but I enjoyed playing with them. I mixed water and sugar together, which was my “sambar”. I would have a small amount of rice puffs, which I would serve to everybody as “rice” and the tiniest amount of pickle, which would take the place of the “curry”. My cousins and I would play for hours together in my grandma’s house with these kitchen sets, oblivious to the scolding about how were wasting her sugar and rice puffs. We would run to the closest supermarket to buy the best snack of all: Maggie Noodles and Picnic chips. Packets and Packets would be bought, only to disappear within seconds. And then came the summer nights… We would all gather up on the terrace, under the night sky, lined up side-by-side whispering to each other, giggling about how we were scared out of our wits to find grandpas’ teeth in a glass on the sink.

I now think about the evenings in India where everybody used to sit out on the front porch, saying hello to people that passed down the street. Someone charmed by the full moon, would start singing classic hindi film songs… I think it always used be jolly old Vijji uncle, but I’m not sure I remember correctly. Whenever the craving to eat pani puri, bhel puri or dahi puri (hmmm… notice how they’re all “puri’s”) overwhelmed us, we rushed to the roadside stand and gulped them down as if there was no tomorrow, eyeing the jilebi’s and rasmalai and wondering if we had any more place left in our stomachs to squeeze them in. It was ironic how even though we knew that all the food was prepared under the most unsanitary conditions possible, we ate them anyway, savoring every bite. After all that chaat, we managed to have enough money left over for a couple of Cornetto butterscotch ice creams, Perk chocolates and Nestle milky bars.

It was in India that I learned the joy of living in a joint family. There was always somebody there to take me outside, play with me or someone to go to when I was just plain bored. I remember the bickering my grandparents used to have over the high volume of TV because of my grandpa’s poor hearing. But they always reconciled because they did not want to miss their daily soap operas in the evenings. I remember my young uncles on their Suzuki motorbikes fetching me from school, driving skillfully through the traffic, zigzagging through the cars and pedestrians. They lectured me on how important school was, but I knew their secrets. Every night, grandma told me stories about the different tactics they employed to miss a day of school, but they were eventually caught. I would always want to try one of those plans, but never actually dared to do so. Then there were those movie nights with cousins, where we all went to Sandhya Theatre or Aradhana Theatre to find out which movie was showing that day. Grandpa’s ranting in the background continued, “500 rupees for a cinema ticket? That’s useless…The movie nowadays aren’t worth watching anyway. Why spend 500 rupees for a movie ticket? In my day, it was just 20 rupees!” Funnily enough, when I mention this to my father, he says the same thing, “In my day, it was just a 100 rupees… 500 rupees for a cinema ticket?”

But the best time in India was during Diwali or Weddings, where the most memorable things occurred. The loud firecrackers, the appearance of relatives that we did not even remember, the mehendi, the sweets, the singing, the dancing, the comparing of dresses, the glistening jewelry, the colorful rangoli, the open doors, the running from one house to another, the gossip…
I honestly say, after visiting and living in four different countries in my nineteen years of life, I have not found any other country like India. I guess its true what they say:

"IT HAPPENS ONLY IN INDIA!"

Haha... Nah... I was just kidding... The following pictures are the REAL India and I'm absolutely proud to be an Indian! :-)

"THIS DEFINITELY HAPPENS ONLY IN INDIA!!!"

Celebrate the 60th anniversary of India's Independence!