There's is more to being a fresh off-the-boater than meets the eye. With 'lingo' to throw you off to an excessive politeness from strangers (that raises our naturally set alarms), there is a lot that one takes in when eyes first meet the happy sign welcoming you to the city of sails! This isn't yet another collection of sentences that describes how different Auckland is from any typical Indian or for that matter sub continental city. This is a personal account from a handful of us who not only made it past the Indian border, but welcomed New Zealand as their home to be.
When I first heard sweet as, I literally turned around to see if my posterior was really as commendable as was being said. To my surprise it wasn't about my (aesthetic!) posterior at all. 'Cool bananas' was yet another term my mind could not comprehend as quickly and the pictorial representation made it hard to not laugh every time I heard it. You would too, trust me, if you pictured two hip-as bananas in ray- ban aviators. I learnt quickly that the infamous rubber slipper that Bata made a name with back home now morphed into a new colourful being called the Jandal and I also (hesitatingly) learnt the art of jandaling it to almost all places of public agglomeration.
I wasn’t as clueless as the coke guzzling Gopal in Anurag Mathur's: Inscrutable Americans, for I come from a land of rising promise, growing opportunity and a mall at every corner. However, being an island far flung from all else, New Zealand did and still does manage to amaze me with cultural surprises albeit in a good, relaxed and what I now understand as kiwi way.
Rishi came as a student way back when and now has a definitive taste for all things that come with the kiwi lifestyle. But just like all of us, with an Indian twist. For there is no greater joy than to BBQ Amritsari style tandoori chicken on your well deserved 4 burner BBQ with your well earned home, on your well oiled deck with a white picket fence thrown in. Some of us adapt and blend with the new circumstances and some of us still hold on to our Indian ways of life-and I mean that in the kindest and most gracious way possible. It is just the other day that I saw two women walking down Shortland Street on their lunch break, in a Salwaar kameez on mufti day! It made for a sight that warmed the cockles of my heart- for I felt at home.
Just like I feel at home when I stop by Sandringham at 10 in the night for meetha pan and savour the delicacy propped up against my car with the cool sandringham wind blowing in my face.It is then that I have to remind myself that I am not in the streets of good old Delhi, but in my new home far far away from the home that I once knew. What’s the point of it all you ask? The areas on behind this little ink and papyrus soiree you ask?
Just so that you know when you read this, that you are not the only one who feels this way. We live as one with the environment we have around us and yet we manage to find our individuality. We celebrate Anzac day and still boost a flag on Indian republic day. We watch Hindi movies on that are filmed in Queenstown and then boast to our friends at work the next day. We eat Paradise Biryani and polish off the meal with a Hokey Pokey or Pavlova. We ladies n gentlemen are the new face of migrant India, familiarising ourselves with our world today. In the words of the eternal Rekha, in Umrao Jaan:
“Is anjuman mein aapko, aana hai baar baar;
Deewaar-o-dar ko gaur se, pehchaan lijiye!!”
Cheers to that.That's mean as eh cuz?