Food is my religion

Food is something I miss the most being away from home. Honestly there's not much healthy food around here. If it has to be a quick bite it always has to be some fried food which me and european friends label it  "evil". I love trying other cuisines especially Calhoun Street(opposite to UC) lined with all the multi cuisine restaurants. Partly my trip back home in the winter break, when it had just been three months from when I got here was because of the food. I'd blame that. Well, me gaining all the extra pounds proves it all. I had made a list of all that I had to eat while I was there, and I did cover them all even before I hopped on the plane back here.

The best part about Indian food is that every state has it's own speciality and if there are any common dishes, they never taste the same because of the ingredients and method of preparation. In fact my dream job would be to be a tv host for a show where I travel around and experience food from all over. A perfect Indian meal would be called a "thali" which is eaten off a  banana leaf as a plate, where the leaf is said to have digestive properties. This is popular at weddings. A thali is a perfect balance of all the nutrients. Traditionally, you sit down on the floor and eat. Here's a picture of what a thali meal would look like.

The speciality when you go to north Indian states is the concept of "dhaba" like small eat out restaurants on the way. These are perfect stops for travelers. Though some of the food in North India is high on cals, it's delicious!!!

 Only now is the concept of fast food catching up in India, with the entry of McDonalds and even some competition in a few cities. Gaining popularity these days are the Chinese, Mexican and Italian cuisines and restaurants. But for now, I have my own cooking and the Indian restaurants to satisfy the urge for Indian food.

Culture shock!!

This is something we all experience when we go live in a new place. I've known friends who've gone back home because they couldn't live here. I'd probably just laugh at them. But I feel since the western countries are more open to everything, people coming here wouldn't experience much as the people from the other side of the world already have a bit of exposure to the western culture and are in fact even starting to adapt it to a certain extent. I was thinking about this when I had a friend from UC, who's from Chicago over for dinner, last night. She'd been to a village in Gujarat, India part of her undergrad internship program and she absolutely loves that place. We hit it off the minute we met because we had so much to talk about. Listening to her experiences I would say she really did have a "culture shock"! I wish I was there to help her. She had to have some one to teach her to use everything around her. She asked me if someone had to do the same here, but actually, not really because nothing was very new to me except the fact that I was living away from home for the first time! Everything was different for her from relationships to eating habits(eating using your hands), sitting with a male person on a 2 wheeler to celebrating numerous festivals, dressing sense(very important or you'll have people gaping at you) to concepts of a joint families(where they have big houses and there are like 30 family members who live together) I mean this really doesn't exist here. Well, she lived with a family as a paying guest and I feel this is the best way to experience living in another country and I heard from another friend who did that here in California too. I am considering this seriously! Atleast for a while.  I want to learn and understand as much as I can. To finish it off, we had an amazing conversation talking about our experiences so far.

The many languages

A local american friend (asks me): So what language do you speak?
Me: Well I speak kannada. It's the regional language of my state Karnataka, where I'm from
Friend: Nice! So are your roommates too from the same state?
Me: No, they're from the next state
Friend: So do they speak your language too?
Me: It's funny! We are from the same country and we don't even speak the same language.

This is the usual conversation with each one of the locals I meet here. I end up explaining about how many languages we have and it's dialects. I like to enlighten them about these facts. I feel happy when I teach them something about my country. But is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well if it's good, it makes every state and every story interesting. I travel 3 hours to go the next state and I see the languages on the sign boards changing, everything changes. I cant even talk to them, for god's sake! Which is when English comes to the rescue. It's a language which unites us.

We are a land of diversity and same with languages. Hindi is our national language and we have English listed as our second national language since 1965, and it's popularity is rising.  I see people communication more in English these days, it has replaced the other languages to be the most spoken language in India. Is this the impact of new trend of people moving in different states for jobs/school or whatever reason, or is just for convenience? I've notices my grand parents or anyone from that generation are so happy when they listen to someone from our generation speak in our respective regional language and not in English. I see that concern in them, especially when they've preserved it for long. It's again cities which face this wrath because I've seen native languages still being intact n deep rural areas in India. But is it fair to blame it on globalization and development?

Traditions

Coming from a land of rich history, culture and heritage where we are influenced a lot by our parents or elders. I grew up learning a lot about my culture, tradition and practices. It sometime's is human, to not appreciate what you grow with but instead appreciate something else. Probably I was one of them for a while. Since I knew most about mine I really didn't appreciate much in it, when I was young. I tried to learn about cultures in different countries. Only later, did I actually try to understand my culture better. There are some things you just do because you are thought to do so, without knowing why, it's only when you know the why that you start appreciating the beauty in it.

I realized that we have a scientific reason behind every religious practice/tradition. Even from the oldest Indian civilization, i.e the Indus Valley Civilization which dates back to 2500 BC. They knew it all! How is an entirely different theory and there are various theories put forth. But these traditions have been passed on through generations. Our  ancient Hindu(which is a religion and a religious tradition) scriptures has a solution to every modern day problem, though these were written thousands of years ago. The more I learn about this the more surprised I am. This is something which defines us, our thinking, actions. With the influence of other cultures, I can see how the traditions are diminishing slowly. I wait to see how long, before it's almost gone especially in the major cities