About this site

Hello. Welcome to the spiritual home of the Bloody Indian. Please be warned that this toxic waste site contains offensive and explicit language, sweeping generalisations and blatant cynicism. Surfer discretion is advised.

A good place to begin would be with the Frequently Uttered Questions (FUQs). If you're not Indian, may I suggest the Whitewash page?

Comments can be made below most articles.

Typecasting
The Bloody Indians described on this site are divided into standard issue and prime grade. These people usually respond in very different ways to a situation, for example travelling abroad.

The standard-issue Bloody Indian goes abroad and talks only to other Indians. He or she will eat only rice and daal cooked in the communal kitchen where Bloody Indians gather. They complain about foreigners, their loose women, their dirty ways and their disgusting food. They will, however, religiously and respectfully put away these foreigners’ high-exchange-rate money every month.

The prime-grade Bloody Indian will go abroad and get a full-blown accent on the walk from the plane to immigration (some even get one on takeoff, and some of the worst offenders get one even before they’ve left home). They suck up to all the Westerners they meet and try very hard to prove to them that Indians are just Westerners in disguise.

The grading is not, however, to suggest quality differences. Standard issue is tough and hard to swallow, but is at least honest and down-to-earth. Prime grade seems tender and nicely marbled, but has actually gone off, as you’ll discover once you start to chew. As a result, standard issue might make you angry, but unlike prime grade, will not make you sick.

There’s a certain kind of prime grade that is even more rarified – the “faq-yu” beef of Bloody Indians as it were. These people are very pointedly don’t get an accent, are studiedly unimpressed by everything they see, very pointedly know their blue cheese from their armpits and are oh-so-blatantly Indian in their khadi and deep knowledge of Carnatic music.

These usually are people who need to be slapped hard in the face. With earth-moving equipment.

Whitewash

If you say “Indian, and I don’t mean Native American” to the average Westerner, many think of short, dark men with bristly mustaches, a Peter Sellers “Indian” accent and a white skirt.

Or they think of the short, dark man with the bristly mustache and a weird mongrel accent who runs the shop on the street corner. (About the accent, even an Indian finds it startling to have a good Bihari bhaiyya say, “Hi there, howya doing” in an accent that takes the best of Bihar and the worst of America and rolls them together like two curs fighting in the street.)

Anyway, these Westerners are often surprised to find out that Indians, as with other crawling insects, come in a bewildering range of colours and sizes. This can cause some confusion within India as well. Even Malayalis – those much denigrated people – have sons and daughters of the (stereotypically short and dark) South who are tall and startlingly white. How they weren’t burned under the coganut sun to Ban Chip consistency is anybody’s.

If you interact with Indians, the first thing you need to learn is that Indians rarely – if ever – speak “Indian”. This is mostly because Italians, Germans and Swedes, rarely – if ever – speak “European”.

Also remember that most Indians, in addition to English, have a working knowledge of two or more Indian languages, and have the ability to curse in many more. Even I, whose knowledge of languages other than English is shaky, can tell you terrible things about your mother in five distinct Indian languages.

This means that you must be very careful about generalising. Every time you think you've explained the Indian, one who doesn't fit the rule pops up.

With luck, this site will help you generalise with more confidence and stereotype with a sense of fairplay. After all, that's exactly what the site is doing anyway.

Frequently Uttered Questions (FUQs)

1) Who is this site for?

2) Who the hell are you to talk about Indians in this way?

3) I want to stage a rastha roko and burn effigies of you until this site is shut down. How dare you remain anonymous?

4) All this is fine, but why are you so cynical and negative? I hate your outlook.

5) How can you waste time and money on this site when there are people starving in India? Can’t you use your time and talent to help them?



Who is this site for?
The site is for anybody wishing to learn more about the Bloody Indian. May be you’re Indian yourself and want a little insight into the actions of your self, friends and family.

May be you work with Indians and want to learn more about why they are the snivelling little rats they are.

May be you’re moving to India, or about to holiday in India and want to meet the people.

Or may be you’re that idiot who ruined my last holiday with your filthy, selfish habits and I want to put you up here for everybody to read about. I hope that you burn to a crisp with shame.



Who the hell are you to talk about Indians in this way?
Oh I’m a Bloody Indian too; I have no claim to superiority. I have grown up in India, live here at present and am a proud product of the Indian education system. Yes! I learned my perfect English in the colony! Without the benefit of a US/Aus/UK/Can education!

May be this site is a way for me to get more in touch with my Bloody Indian self. I exhibit several important characteristics.

1) Show me free food and I’ll eat it – whatever it is. Even if it’s the caked, congealed tail-end of a buffet, I’ll scrape myself a decent helping and chow down – just because it’s free. And if there’s a chance of a free meal, I’ll do foolish and humiliating things to get it. I’ll bark like a dog. I’ll attend press conferences at which I’ll talk to the painted PR. I’ll gatecrash dinner invitations with friends. I’ll rummage through stranger’s refrigerators.

2) I never let a hotel room stay cluttered with all those shampoos and conditioners – even though I KNOW I’ll never use them myself. However, unlike many Bloody Indians, I know that taking the little booze bottles from the minibar is a big no-no.

(If a Bloody Indian makes this error, he or she will put those bottles in the home “showcase” where they will remain for several centuries. And one day, the great, great grandchildren of the original hotel thief will say, “Oh what the hell, let’s splash out” and open up the bottles… only to
find that the alcohol evaporated away at some point in their father’s childhood.)

3) If there’s a way to do something cheaper or for no money, I’ll find it. Few Indians are born without this talent. Once, I was living abroad and had to use a laundry room now and then for my clothes. The dryer took coins and sometimes, if the coins weren’t put in at the right angle, they fell into some mysterious part of the dryer never to return. After much bending and peering I found out where those coins went and also discovered that I could retrieve them using a piece of Blu-Tac attached to a pencil. The use of the dryer was free for the rest of my stay there. And I got some pocket money for soft drinks.

4) Being somewhere between a prime-grade and faq-yu (see About this site) Bloody Indian, I’m very snotty about my English. I instantly dismiss somebody who pronounces the ‘h’ in vehicle. And then, in typically Bloody Indian fashion, I won’t know that you don’t pronounce the ‘h’ in vehement.

5) Once I’ve paid for something, I bloody well make sure I get my money’s worth. If I’ve hired a car for four days, I’ll make sure that I go driving every single day, even if I’m dying of exhaustion. If I’ve paid for a day tour, I make sure I spend the day touring, even it’s 45 degrees C in the shade.



I want to stage a rastha roko and burn effigies of you until this site is shut down. How dare you remain anonymous?
In real life, I’m a somebody who hates to be rude to people. Staying anonymous gives me the ability to be scathing and abrasive and to say things about your sister without you finding me too easily.



All this is fine, but why are you so cynical and negative? I hate your outlook.
Oh I’m so sorry that a delicate darling like you has been forced to come here by that nasty man standing behind you and threatening to bludgeon your pet rabbit to death with a pipe wrench unless you read and are offended by every post on this site. I’ll make it up to you I promise. I’ll say nice things about rabbits to everyone I meet.

I’ll tell them how tender and juicy they are when cooked slowly with lots of herbs.

And I sincerely hope that once you’re done here you’ll go to all the porn sites you can find and post messages about the objectification and exploitation of women. Go to Bonsaikitten.com and tell them that it’s just not funny. Find spammers and tell them that they are very naughty men.

Once you’re done, your usefulness on Earth has come to an end. Therefore, you should make a large bowl of nice, warm vermicelli payasam, take it to the temple and gently dunk your head in it for at least one minute longer than you can hold your breath. Unless you’re a free-diver, four minutes should be plenty.

Why vermicelli? Because the rice can get in your nose and choke you. Oh, and vermicelli payasum is much nicer – rice in payasum is like one-day-dead maggots.



How can you waste time and money on this site when there are people starving in India? Can’t you use your time and talent to help them?
Why are you suddenly so concerned about how I spend my time and money? This site costs less to host a year than it does to have four drinks at an average Banglore pub. Why didn’t you come up to me when I was slugging my rum and colas and tell me not to waste my money on booze when I could be building nursery schools in outer Doddagutlihalli?

And regarding my time, before this site, I used to spend my days lying on my bed and gazing at the ceiling. Where were you then, when I needed you the most?

If you’d come to me then I could have joined you where you are now, undoubtably in the poorest parts of India (but not so poor as to not be within driving distance of an internet café), where you build walls from shovelled shit and teach children how to read by the light of the shine in your eyes.

Special report: Mallus

No, I’m not Malayali, but I think they deserve special mention. The Mallus manage to defy history, geography and even fundamental physics in their ubiquity.

If you’re an employer, remember that if you hire a Malayali, you hire a large portion of the state of Kerala. Let one of them into your office and before you know it, it’ll be home to a large population of Jobis, Shyjus, Nijos, Shylas, Marias, Nairs, Matthews, Jijus, Menons, Kuttys, Gopis, Sweetys, Vergheses, Chakos, Abrahams, Georges and Rosys.

You will probably get a lot of work done. But you will also find that suddenly, all your clients speak Malalayam… but how is that possible? They’re Scottish.

“Yess, I know, butt my cujjin Mybo is verking as a coafee boi.. so ve are dealing with him only noew.”

Apparently it’s no problem because Mybo’s cousin has outsourced the work to his brother’s best friend Jobi whose uncle works in a big advertising agency and uses the computer systems on Sundays to get the work done, and it’s taken to his best friend’s brother’s printing agency where it’s printed for nearly nothing at 4am when the owners are asleep and delivered through Joseph on his bicycle along with the morning papers.

The whole process costs about twenty paise and is done over the weekend. Your Scottish clients used to pay 20,000 rupees and wait for a month.

========================================

If you’re visiting friends or relatives in Kerala, don’t be surprised if one day you hear this:

“Tomorrow, we will be driving for 23 hours to attend the marriage of a clawse relative.”

Twenty three hours?? Who is it?

“You remember Aunty Minakshi we met yesterday? Her brother’s cujjin’s sister-in-law’s sister’s son’s brother-in-law. Clawse relative. So we are going.”

More as it comes.

No Southies spared

So, you thought the Southies were going to get away huh? No chance. Here are some conduct rules for the snooty Souths.

1) ‘Shaving off your moustache’ and ‘emasculation’ DO NOT mean the same thing. If your moustache is the only thing that makes you look “manly”, then you’ve got a bit of a problem haven’t you? In fact, in some cultures, having a moustache and no beard is the GAYEST thing you can do. Note, Southie girls, this doesn’t apply to you – please feel free to lose the moustaches. The sideburns can stay though. They’re cute, especially when the sun’s shining from behind.

2) Going to sleep afterwards in your vest and lungi DOES NOT increase your chances of meeting her again.

3) Saying “chumma” all the time and ending all questions with “no?” sounds just as disgusting as “yaar”.

4) Butter chicken, balle balle – you’re a little bit envious that India’s most visible culture is all North Indian aren’t you? (Yes, yes, Punjabi as well.) A little bit? YOU’RE JEALOUS!!!! People around the world think all Indians ride white horses to their weddings and YOU’RE PISSED OFF. Kamal Hassan is not nearly as famous as he should be and you’re UPSET.

5) Choose one: (a) Your future spouse reads Kafka and rides a Luna. (b) Your future spouse reads Dan Brown and drives a Mercedes Benz. The Southie will choose (a) in public and (b) in private. We’re soooo snooty about being cultured and accusing the Northies of being “money minded”, but in the end, AT LEAST THOSE NORTHIES ARE HONEST, which is more than can be said for you.

6) If God wanted to you live with oil in your hair, he would have made you sweat Parachute nariyal theyl.

Lessons for the Northie

I can forgive somebody from France for thinking we all speak “Indian”. I can even forgive an American for thinking we ride to work on Bengal tigers and charm snakes on the weekend for extra money. But I can’t forgive the ignorance of the North Indian.

I live in Bangalore and I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been asked, “So, do you speak that Karnataka language?” Or, from somebody better informed: “So, do you speak Kannadi language?”

And these are Northies who’ve lived in Bangalore for years. As for the ones who’ve never been south of the Vindhyas: “So, do you speak... their language?”

I know that you speak Gujarati (or maybe even Sindhi) in Gujarat; that you speak Oriya in Orissa; that you communicate in grunts and hisses in New Delhi. So why do you, Mr. North Indian, know so little about us?

The Northies I’ve met call us Madrasis and think of us as short dark little men (they think the men and women are indistinguishable) who wear lungis and eat nothing but dosas, and let sambhar and rasam run down to our armpits from where we lick it off as we go.

If you’re a Northie, here are some lessons for you.

1) The south of India is divided into FOUR states – you know, those Rajasthan, Harayana type thingies?

2) There are, consequently, FOUR distinct major languages. In KARNATAKA they speak KANNADA. In TAMIL NADU they speak TAMIL. (NOT Madrasi, or even Chennaiee.) In ANDHRA PRADESH they speak TELUGU. In KERALA they speak MALAYALAM. (NOT Keralese, Malayali or Mallu language.) Samja kya?

3) The advanced Northie learner may want to discover that it doesn’t end here. There are other languages (Tulu and Konkani for example) and there are many dialects. Magar yeh bahuth complex complex hai, so baad mein, thik?

4) Contrary to popular belief (your popular belief) not all of us are honoured to be spoken to in Hindi. “But it’s our national language!” When you can name the four southern states beta, then I’ll speak your national language.

5) We have a rich and varied cuisine. We DO NOT live on dosas with an idli or two thrown in for variety. And we drink water just like you, NOT rasam.

6) We agree that you’re all pretty nice looking, but also agree that once you open your mouths, the attraction dies instantly. No, not halitosis – but even that would be preferable to: “Eh nooo yaaaaar, mein tho bahuth friendly haiiii yaaaar. Come on hum shopping jayenge. Shopping.”

7) We can’t believe that you actually think we are uncouth.

8) Where, oh where do you buy those hideous clothes? And how do you manage to wear two items of clothing that shouldn’t even be in the same city together? Sorry, that’s not a lesson… my emotion is getting the better of me.

Waiting for a miracle

India is not known as a land of great customer care, but is home to the world’s best restaurant service. I haven’t dined in restaurants around the world, so I’m not even remotely qualified to make that statement, but I just did, and you just paid attention to it – such is the power of the written word.

Most of us in India take the near-perfect service at an Ullas, a Shanti Sagar, a Sukh Sagar, or even a Hotel Ramesh, for granted. But once you’re exposed to service in other lands, you’ll realise how brilliant these guys are.

You walk straight in and head for the nearest empty table. If there isn’t one empty, you simply slide in at somebody else’s table. The instant your bum touches the seat, the waiter comes across with the menu and a glass of water.

If you’re a regular at the restaurant, he might give you the faintest smile, or even a hello. But in every other way it’s a no-nonsense transaction, he comes over, you tell him what you want, he goes away. Perfect.

If you don’t feel like reading the menu and want to order quickly, you can ask the waiter what there is. You’ll need a good ear for this though, because he’ll rattle off the dishes at about 6,000 words per minute.

"Let me show you to your table”
In the developed nation I recently spent time in, the procedure goes a little differently. You have to stand by the door of the restaurant and be stared at by all the patrons while you wait to be noticed by the staff. Eventually somebody sees you and comes over – not looking too happy about it. You have to go through a “Hey, how are you guys doing today?” and then wait to be seated.

When you are shown to your table, you have to say hi all over again to the waiter, or, as is often the case, the waitress.

Through the evening the waitress acts as if she is doing you a HUGE favour by waiting on you. You feel uncomfortable and on edge – you’re almost scared to ask her for things. She comes across with the menus and asks if you’d like anything to drink. You say the following (tell me which bit of it is confusing to you): “Water with no ice please.”

“Water with no ice sure. Will that be all? Okay, I’ll just get you your water with no ice and then you can decide on the main course okay?”

Yes miss.

Five minutes later, she’ll come back with a clinking glass – full of water, and full of ice.

“Err… excuse me…” Hey, I’m scared of these ladies okay? “Errr… excuse me? I’d asked for no ice.”

“Oh yes, I’m sorry. Here let me get that for you.”

What? Now you’re doing me a favour by correcting an order you got wrong in the first place?

He never gets it wrong
Back to the vegetarian restaurant in India. You can have a group of 20 and the waiter won’t bat an eyelid. The ordering can go on for 10 minutes, but the waiter won’t write anything down. In fact, he’ll look as if he isn’t even listening. You know how it is in a group – you order, somebody change his mind, you change the order, somebody hears something that sounds nicer, she changes her mind, you change the order, somebody adds something to the order, somebody cancels something… it’s just one big mess.

What won’t change, however, is the waiter’s expression. A newcomer might lean over and say, “The snotty little git is going to forget everything we say right? He’s going to get everything into an almighty blundery muddle isn’t he? He’s going to bring us wrong things, forget to bring us things and it’s just going to get pissing off isn’t it?”

Nope.

He won’t forget.

He won’t get it wrong.

There are times you’ll think he’s got it wrong, but he’ll remind you that you changed your mind at the last minute. How can I say this more convincingly? HE WON’T GET IT WRONG. EVER.

Apart from that, you know the best part? Unlike the waitress across the world, he doesn’t have a running commentary.

“Here’s your food, I’m just going to make a little place for it now. There, this is your fish. Enjoy your meal!”

And, ten minutes later, the instant you put a large forkful of something into your mouth, she’ll come over and ask, “How is everything over here?”

So you have to mumble and nod your head because you’ve just stuffed your ugly little face, and she gives you a Look and vanishes. About 15 minutes later, just as you take your last giant mouthful, she’s back.

“I hope everything’s going okay. Are you enjoying the food?”

Again you go, “Mmmmmble mmmm bbble gmmm.” And she gives you another Look and vanishes.

And once you’re done: “If you guys are done, I’m just going to clear those plates for ya.”

For me? I’m paying good money and taxes for this meal and I’m expected to tip you 15 per cent. You’re doing this for you lady, not for me. It’s your JOB, so just shut up and do it.

“Okay, now that’s done, have you thought about what you’d like for dessert?”

No, so could you shut up and bring me the dessert menu please? Thanks.

Instant satisfaction
Back in Shanti Sagar or was it Sukh Sagar – I can never tell them apart – you don’t have to look around for the waiter. You look up and he’ll catch your eye – even if he’s carrying 41 paper masala dosas to table three while writing bills for tables five, six and eight. He’ll catch your eye and nod. As soon as he starts to come over (which is quite quickly because he isn’t busy telling each table how to do his job), you just have to point at a plate or bowl and hold up a finger. He’ll nod again and head for the kitchen, knowing exactly what you need.

And if you’ve pointed at your chutney bowl (he knows, at 40 feet, which bowl is which – even if you’ve moved them around and not spilled down the sides), he’ll bring you two bowls of chutney and one of sambhar, just in case.

And if you ever have to send something back (which you never will) he’ll just bring you another – no glaring, no scratching his head, no muttering to his colleagues.

And you know what? He’s not highly paid either. So don’t use that as an excuse.

PS: If you’re from a developed nation a lot like the one described, DO NOT order coffee at one of these restaurants. You’ll be struck by the horrible realisation that all this time S*******s has been serving you brown ditchwater; and charging four bucks for it.

Heyyyy, howya doin'?

When I first visited America, I thought, “Oh that’s so nice! The people here are so friendly – they keep saying hi to each other!”

After two weeks of that, I’d cross the street to avoid saying hi. I’d pretend to get an SMS just before I passed somebody. And I’d take three flights of stairs rather than get into that torture chamber – the lift. Sorry, the elevator.

“Hey, howya doing?”

“All well thanks.” Now shut up. I don’t know you, you don’t me, just shut up.

“The weather’s been great hasn’t it?”

Oh frigging fuckwort. “Yeah fantastic.” Come on bastard lift door, close and get on with it.

“I’ve been out all day walking – it’s wonderful.”

Two more floors. “Oh yeah? Sounds great.”

“Oh yes. There are some great walking routes over by the lake.”

Any into the damn lake? “I should go there sometime.”

“Oh you should!”

“Oh thank the lord, it’s my floor. “Okay, see you then.”

“Have a nice night!”

Yeah, and up yours too.

Awww. You might think. Awwwww. Such a nice man. How can you think so rudely of him? See, the thing is, it doesn’t take long to see through all this friendliness. The lady at the supermarket checkout counter? So friendly, so hearty. “Heyyyy. Howyadoing? Everything goin’ okay? Great day today!”

And then, the instant you show some kind of need – for example if you’re not sure how to work the discount card swipe machine, or you stumble over which one’s a dime and which one’s a quarter – WHABABP!!! The friendly door SLAMS shut. Her face goes all hard. She acts as if you’ve just asked her for a huge favour – like, “I don’t have money for a taxi – can I borrow your car?” And then it’s all you can do to rush through the unpleasantness and get the hell out of there.

How does it slam shut?

WHABABP!!!

I knew you’d like that one.

Anyway, the point is, after I returned I LOVED the fact that I could get into a lift and nobody would even smile. I wanted to EMBRACE the rude watchman at my office who wouldn’t say good morning even if you lit a Lakshmi bomb under his bum.

I wanted to KISS the… okay… I wasn’t that happy. But I was happy.

Bumwashing

Bumwashing is the single biggest proof that modern India has descended from a great and ancient civilisation. Toilet paper is one of the most barbaric things I can think of. Do your duty and then wipe it off? Not much of an advance from squatting in the woods and scraping yourself with leaves is it?

Say “skid marks” to an Indian and the only thing he or she will think of is hard braking. I’m not saying all of you TP types have skid marks, but you should know that the non-road skid mark concept is unknown in India. We have squeaky clean bums and can sweat without concern in our bright, white VIP underthings.

Dirty hands you might say? Well, when you’ve rubbed your finger on your own bum, you tend to make bloody well sure that you wash your hands properly. With toilet paper, there’s the danger of getting lazy. There’s the danger of saying, “Hey, I was careful today – I didn’t make direct contact – I folded over to the perfect thickness each time. May be I won’t wash.”

THAT’S DISGUSTING!!

Do you know that bathrooms in India today have little water hoses on the wall beside the toilet? They’re fantastic. And in summer the water is lovely and warm; you could spend the whole day washing.

Trust me, if one of your tasks in hell is to spend a month in somebody’s butt crack, you’d do well to choose a Bloody Indian.

We need our own kitschy zeitgiest

English is often lost for words in India. And so, inspired by the Germans, who have words for everything (consider Schadenfreude, zeitgeist, angst, kitsch and wanderlust), here are some Bloody Indians and their ways that we desperately need descriptors for:

– The chap who stands the instant the plane comes to a halt and remains there for 20 minutes, head pressed against shoulder by the overhead locker.

– The one goat at a departure lounge who’ll make everybody nervous by standing right next to the exit. Before him or her, everybody was relaxing, reading, chatting – suddenly a “queue” (see queueing story) starts forming and there’s tension in the air.

– Old people who wear sneakers with musty navy-blue blazers for airline travel.

– The overestimation of a waiter’s rudeness or inefficiency to excuse not leaving a tip.

– The (occasionally fulfilled) desire to snatch your tip away from the table as you walk out.

– The overcharging of a captive audience – such as the Rs.250 burgers in the Mumbai international airport transit lounge that wouldn’t feed a five-year-old. In fact, the burger with the toothpick and cherry on top should stand for the general meanness of owners of coffee shops in India.

– An inability to decide on the ratio of jeera powder to dhania powder and just stick to it.

– Women who wear jogging shoes with saris.

– Women who fondly believe their soaked salwar kameezes offer them modesty when they enter the sea.

– The tongue click made when eating something sour.

– In inability to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ just once. Usually said rapidly in bursts of seven or eight.

Can you think of any more?

Taking too easy a stand

Performing arts troupes that visit India from abroad should be warned that Bloody Indian audiences have loose morals. They’re horribly critical of anything home-grown, but throw their arms open wide for ANYTHING from the west, especially theatre from England and music from Europe.

Suddenly the audiences are all warm, cuddly and accepting, laugh loudly at the smallest joke, readily accept vulgarity, make small grunts of appreciation at literary references and, best of all, give a standing ovation at the end.

In most parts of the world, standing ovations are reserved for the truly great or brilliant. In India, a mediocre pub troupe from London would get a standing ovation (provided there are enough whites in the cast). Or any show with a famous name in it.

It’s almost as if the audience members decide before leaving home that they’ll worship.

“This play from Bombay has Naseeruddin Shah in it – so we MUST stand up and do somersaults at the end. Are you carrying your pom-poms?”

“It’s a play from London so OF COURSE we’re going to fervently love every second of it. I'd better put on extra underwear.”

Sometimes this enthusiasm tells on the performers. Classical musicians, for example, will find that their Indian audiences clap loudly and enthusiastically between movements. The ones who don't, get glared at. "What a spoil sport, he's refusing to clap." Shows that end on poignant silences will find that Indian audiences ALWAYS start clapping too early. In fact, any silence longer than four seconds, will bring forth volleys. Have lots of fill-in music.

Running for doors
If you’re not visiting from England or America and you don’t have a movie star in your cast, don’t be too pleased at the occasional standing ovation. It’s more likely that the audience just wants to rush for the nearest exit so they can avoid the crowd on the staircases.

This is especially obvious at movies in India. You’ll find that the instant the hero has blown up the villain’s hideout, people will stand and run. They don’t want to bother with silly stuff like ashy kisses against a backdrop of flames and rubble. There's no chance of a sex scene between that and the credits anyway.

Sometimes these people stand up too early (may be the monster isn’t actually dead) so half the theatre watches the end of the movie standing in the aisles near the entrance.

All of this just to be the first to get to your car and sit in it waiting for everybody else to come and move theirs out of the way.

Spitting

In the west, commuters and shoppers are often troubled by excess PDA – Public Display of Affection. A survey has shown that even there, PDA makes people uncomfortable. I say “even there” because Bloody Indians tend to think of the West as a place full of loose white-skinned people rubbing each other up in the streets with nobody giving a damn.

Except for nightclubs full of teenyboppers, PDA isn’t too much of an issue in India. The problem is with PDE, or Public Display of Expectoration. It’s hard to put in writing, but it goes something like this: KHKWHARRRRRRRKHHHHHHH.

And then there’s a pause just long enough to allow you this thought, “The man has brought up three truckloads of mucus and he’s just sitting there with them in his mouth??”

And then it comes. A nice, heavy, wet TPHUUU as he spits out a pillow-sized gob that splatters all over the pavement.

Bloody Indians with this habit give a new meaning to the verb “to hawk”. It’s more a form of mucoid catharsis – you can almost see those pink and shiny airways flowing free again when they’re done. They reach so far down that you’d think they’d never have to do it again in their
lifetimes… but ten minutes, they’re at it again.

Not all Bloody Indians hawk before spitting though. There are some that seem to generate more saliva than their bodies can handle, so they keep spitting it out like this: Thup. Thup. Thup. With minimal effort they propel little globules amazing distances, where they flop to the ground and give themselves little dust jackets. And these spitters keep doing it over and over, until you want to fix it so that they have to gently spit their teeth out one by one as well.

As a result of all this PDE, people who ride motorcycles or motorscooters in India, quickly learn to be very careful when overtaking buses. People who wear helmets hurriedly snap their visors down as they pass. And if they see somebody leaning out and doing the KHKWHARKH, they honk loudly or shout so that he won’t release until they’ve gone by.

Being spat on is an insult pretty much anywhere in the world, but in India it is particularly heinous. (In fact, if you’re in an argument with somebody on the street, the best way to insult and annoy is not to tell them that you’ve slept with their sister, but to dry spit. Just say “Thoo” loudly and it’ll have all the effect you’d ever want.)

This means that if you are ever accidentally spat on as you pass a bus, it would be perfectly within your rights to stop the bus, get on and beat the spitter up. Or spit back.

You might find, on bad days, that you’re half-hoping to be hit.

Sense of humour

It is often said that Bloody Indians have no sense of humour. That’s not true – they do have one, it’s just that it’s a vestigial part sitting on a useless bit of a half-used excretory organ.

It is often woken up by puerile, over-the-top humour that is showcased in many Indian movies and TV shows. Many Bloody Indians are threatened and turned off by sarcasm and cynicism. On the internet, they love sweet pudding darling sites and emails – ones in which they can heave their bosoms about flowers, trade e-hugs and bat their eyelids against each other’s backs for a job well done.

(“Consider that through history India has never invaded another country blah blah.” India has never invaded another country through history because it never got itself together long enough to do so.)

Anyway, consider the following:
1) The 100% American is 99% idiot.
- - - George Bernard Shaw

2) I know why the sun never sets on the British Empire: God wouldn't trust an Englishman in the dark.
- - - Duncan Spaeth

3) German in the most extravagantly ugly language - it sounds like someone using a sick bag on a 747.
- - - Willy Rushton

4) The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.
- - - Paul Theroux

5) Indians are the anthropomorphic spam of the new millenium.
- - - BloodyIndian.com

If you are a true Bloody Indian, your response will be as follows:

1) Hahahahahahaha. Bloody Americans.
2) Hehehehehehehe. Bloody Brits.
3) Hohohohohohoho. Damned Germans.
4) Huhuhuhuhuhuhu. Crazy Japanese.
5) WHAATDHABLOODYFUCK? DON’T BLOODY TALK ABOUT INDIA LIKE THIS. SHOW SOME RESPECT OKAY, FUCKING ARSEHOLE. YOU THINK YOU’RE SOME GREAT FELLOW EH? YOU THINK YOU’RE SOME FUCKING GORA? BLOODY KALLU – YOU LOOK AT YOUR OWN ASS AND TALK, FUCKING GHANDU, FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING.

Prime-grade reactions
The prime-grade Bloody Indian responds extremely well to dry humour and wit. British humour is prized, PG Wodehouse is known by heart. But usually even the merest semblance of wit is enough to get them started.

Go to a book reading or a play and you will see several of these people. They are the ones who laugh loudly to show the people around them that they understand the jokes. Then they’ll look at each other and nod in appreciation. Some of them (usually the ones sitting right behind you) repeat the lines with a laugh to make absolutely bloody sure that you all know they got it. “Yes, yes woman – what do you want now? A prize?”

These people spend more time showing each other that they appreciate and enjoy what’s going on then actually appreciating or enjoying what’s going on.

Queue please

Bloody Indians take to queuing like ducks to concentrated sulphuric acid. May be it’s a gene that’s been knocked out of line; may be it’s a mind that can only think laterally – but Bloody Indians just can’t queue.

This is strange because in India we have to queue for everything. Schooling. Emergency treatment. Cremation.

Bloody Indians in queues are like pythons – each time you exhale, they squeeze a little more. Somebody in front just has to scratch her ear and everybody behind will stumble forward. Just like at traffic lights, Bloody Indians cannot come to a halt. They have to creep.

A Bloody Indian in a queue will gently place his chest against your back, even if there’s an entire shopping mall behind him. At airports, Bloody Indians will keep bumping their four-ton luggage trolleys into your Achilles tendons. When you turn and glare at them, they say, “Sorry sorry sorry” and then two minutes later, they do it again.

As new Bloody Indians join a queue, they never stand behind you. They come up alongside, making you feel vulnerable and causing you to move to one side to cut them off. The instant you do that, the person behind you moves forward. Remember the python.

Bloody Indians can’t even handle two-person queues. You’re standing at an ATM waiting for the person inside to finish. (If it’s a Bloody Indian, they’ll take 20 minutes – but that’s another story.) A Bloody Indian arrives, but doesn’t stand behind you, he stands a little in front. Adrenalin surges, you pick some choice words, and you ready to leap like a leopard. As the person comes out of the ATM and you surge forward, the Bloody Indian actually turns to you and politely tells you to go ahead.

Thank you respected sir. But I was here first, SO HOW DARE YOU TELL ME TO GO AHEAD. BUFFALO.

Pretentious eating

Bland, uncooked shit. This is what a Bloody Indian thinks of Western food. Some make a big issue of appreciating it – “Oh I lurrrve bland food.” Morons. If it’s bland it doesn’t taste of anything. Nobody likes bland food. Not even the British. Yes, I know they eat fish and chips, but they put vinegar on it don’t they?

You can cash in on this weakness. If you want to make a lot of money in India, open a restaurant. Call it Sodium. Or Garlic. Or Stove. It should be one word and pretentious. That makes money because Bloody Indians think pretentious is cool.

The food should be pretentious as well. Use as many Italian and French words as you can. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they mean or if you’re using them wrong, just fling them around. Bloody Indians are too pretentious to admit they don’t know French and Italian words – and too lazy to find out what they actually mean.

Get some wilted lettuce, squirt some brine and yoghurt over it, sprinkle on some pepper and chillies. Don’t call it “Hands up, this is culinary dacoity” as you should. Call it “Freshly picked Italian pastrami dipped in pis de mer, served over a delicately creamed nougat sauce, topped with penne mascarpone”. Charge 250 rupees for it (it’s ESSENTIAL that it be expensive) and watch them go at it like a bunch of half-starved bunnies.

Getting the idea? Here’s another example. Heat an oven to 375F. Take a chicken leg and wave it around inside for 20 seconds. Take some ketchup you’ve left in the sun for a couple of days and crumble over it. Sprinkle with sawdust.

Call it “Smoked French duck served rare in a blanket of fine herbs and sun-dried hand-picked Italian pellati parmesano”. Charge 1,000 rupees for it. If you charge any less, you'll get beaten up for serving raw chicken. Charge a 1,000 bucks and whoever's shelled out will assume that they just "don't get it".

Try and squeeze these descriptions out a bit. Have a couple of paragraphs. If you do, you can easily charge double of what you think might get you beaten up. And if you get somebody who actually knows the words you’ve used, simply say you’re a fusion artist and you adapt the recipes for local conditions.

If they say, “Yeah, but you’ve said chicken osso buco – you can’t have chicken osso buco. And you’ve said this has…”

Interrupt with the following. “If you shut up, your dinner will be on the house.”

If that doesn't work, nothing will.

Fingers and food

When Japanese people visit a Japanese restaurant, it is extremely unlikely they will be ashamed to use their chopsticks and make a big point of asking for cutlery.

But when a Bloody Indian goes to an Indian restaurant, he or she will insist on a knife and fork. If they’re in the company of somebody who uses their hands, they’ll look embarrassed and say something like, “Oh, you’re eating with your hands is it?”

Yes, you pretentious twerp. And I dig my nose in between mouthfuls to get more flavour.

This is strange, because apart from bumwashing, if there’s one thing that Indians have got right, it’s eating with the fingers. Tradition has even politely assigned a hand to each end – left for loo, right for rations.

It is also strange because Bloody Indians just can’t use knives and forks. They hold them up as if they’re paying unexpected shower visits. They look as if they’re trying to kill their food even as they eat it. They send peas flying across the table like bullets. They never, ever put the knife and fork in the position that signals they’ve finished eating.

Cutter confusion
Bloody Indians go to even the smallest Indian restaurants and ask for cutlery. The kind of restaurant where if you say, “I want a knife and fork boss”, the waiter will scratch his head and go to the owner. The owner will get up from his desk near the door and go into some back room where he can be heard scrabbling around for 10 minutes before he emerges with a fork that bends on contact with food and a knife that wouldn’t cut toothpaste.

And there are actually Bloody Indians who eat chapattis, naans and – god in heaven – dosas with a knife and fork. The next time you see somebody doing this, lead them gently out of the restaurant to the lane behind and break all their fingers with the cricket bat you keep down your trousers. This is so that the next time they ask for cutlery, THERE’S A BLOODY GOOD REASON.

Indian food is not designed for cutlery. A biriyani isn’t a biriyani unless it’s sucked off fingers. (And unless it’s mutton. Don’t get me started on “vegetable biriyani”.) If you eat biriyani with a spoon, YOU HAVEN’T TASTED ONE YET.

Finger pleasures
And who cares if it’s a swanky restaurant with white tablecloths? In a swish Chinese restaurant you get chopsticks and nothing else. You have to ask for a fork and endure a scornful grimace from the waiter. So it should be in Indian restaurants: the default eating device should be your hungry little digits. No matter how adept you get with a knife and fork, you’ll never do justice to the best part of the chicken – the piece with the “oysters”. You’ll never know the delights of sucking gravy off bones. You’ll never experience the reassurance of being knuckle-deep in warm rice and daal. (But the good thing is, you’ll never discover how boiling hot rice is like napalm – it sticks to your skin as it burns its way down to bone.)

If you’re a finger-eater, as you should be, I have a request for you. The next time you’re out in a group and you hear whiney hiney in the corner asking for cutlery, pick up the nearest piece and fling it HARD at him or her as you scream the following:

“TAKE A FLYING FORK!!”

Eveteasing

Most men around the world fantasise about going to bed with two women. Any two women. The Bloody Indian fantasises about going to bed with a blonde woman. One will do.

There are many possible explanations. One of them is that the first naked women the average Bloody Indian sees are usually white: Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler. Their youthful shock at these anatomical revelations becomes intertwined with teenage lust, and these images become part of the ultimate pink-nippled fantasy.

It’s a funny thing though, I don’t believe Indian porn will work. Bloody Indian men shout and whistle at women on the street, but if they see an Indian girl in pornography, they say “Tch tch tch. What kind of family does this girl come from? Imagine her parents, how bad they will feel. Chee chee chee chee.”

Bloody Indian men like passivity in women. If you’re standing on a bus minding your own business, then you are fair game for a pinch in the bum. If you isolate one of these guys and confront him, you’ll find that his bravado melts away. If you tell him, “Hey, actually you’re quite cute – and I think your wolf whistling is really sexy” he will go limp and start to dissolve. He will look scared, glance around for his friends and say something like, “Blhabubablahbubbub”.

If you continue to advance, he’ll probably start crying and calling for his mummy. Bloody Indians are sexual cowards – they operate in groups.

Touchy feely
Bloody Indian men touch each other a lot. In fact, the average Westerner can be forgiven for thinking that India is the centre of rampant queerdom because Bloody Indian men have their hands all over each other all the time. They play punching and pinching games. They walk hand in hand, and with their arms around each other. They’ll hold each other tight on their little mopeds as they ride through town and whistle at girls. They think this makes them look virile beyond compare.

The serious side is that things can get bad for girls in India. Especially if they’re not covered from head to toe. In fact, many girls involved in molestation incidents get the blame simply because they were wearing something deemed “revealing”, or “provocative”. Bloody Indian men think that short skirt = loose = fair game for a little fondle.

However, in many instances, just being a woman is cause enough. There are places (the streets of Delhi for one) where if you want to be left alone you should contemplate being dead on a hearse. This doesn’t mean that you won’t get your bottom pinched, it’s just that your rigor mortis may prevent them getting a good grip.

Bloody Indians have a quaint, almost comforting word for sexual harassment and molestation – they call it eveteasing. Sounds like something relaxing to do after dinner. “Honey, I’m just going out for a spot of eveteasing with the guys.”

“Okay, don’t be long. And don’t be too hard on those girls yeah?”

If you’re inclined to use the word, please stop. Call it what it is.

Directions

Directions to a party “in abroad”

Inviter: “Okay, you have a pen and paper?”

Invitee: “Yes, go ahead.”

“Okay, first take Highway 7 South, exit at Calvin Street, that’s exit number 56. Turn right, go through two lights. Turn left at Hazelnut. Turn right at Greenwood. Take the second right onto Culver. The house is number 5416 about half way down on the left.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you at eight.”

“Excellent, see you there.”

Directions to a party in India

Invitee: “One sec, I’ll just get a pen and paper.”

Inviter: “Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo? Hallo?”

“Yeah I’m back.”

“Ah very good, very good. You have penpaper?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll tell you now? You’ll write?”

“Yes tell me.”

“First you come down that straight road near the place we went last month – remember? When you bought that suitcase? Which one? Ah that one. You come straaaaaaaaiiiiight down that road. No left, no right, straaaaaaiiiiiiiiight you come. Okay? Ah, then, there will be one police fellow standing there – and one big junction. Go straaaaaight only. Then there will one big left turn with a shop with many many tubelights selling clothes. The shop is called… ah… MALATHI? MALATHI? WHAT IS THAT SHOP CALLED? THAT ONE ONLY, THAT CLOTHES SHOP. AH OKAY. The shop is called Sister Bakery. What? Yes yes, clothes shop only. Don’t take that left turn, go straaaaaiiiiight. There will be one right turn with one tree on the corner, a Gulmohur tree with one yellow metal sign on it saying “English Tooshans”. Don’t take that. You go go go go go and then you will pass one white building. What? No no no, there is only one white building. The others are white, but they are dirty. This is one clean white building. When you pass that white building, there will be one small shop on the right side. Right side. There is one right turn there. Riiight opposite that, there is one left turn, near one tree. Take that. Yes yes left. Then you go straaaaaaiiiiiiiight until you reach one bridge. Two turns before that bridge is one left turn next to one big complex. Turn there. Okay? No no, the road name is different, I don’t know… it is the road with the big tree on the corner. Then you come straight and there will be one two three cows standing there. After the black cow, there is one right turn – don’t take that. There will be one more right turn and then one left turn. Go straight. Then when you see one school on the right side, you should turn left into one gully. Go through that gully and then you will come into one big field. Take a right turn near one big bush and over the field onto one more road. Then you turn left and you will see one house with a black gate. There are many houses with black gate, but this one will have one blue Bajaj scooter under one tarpaulin inside the garage. Okay? Very good.”

“Okay great, I’ll see you after eight.”

“No no no, this is not my house. This is my aunty’s house. My house is little difficult. You go knock and my cousin will come and take you to my house. It is very closeby.”

“Errr… okay I’ll see you after eight.”

“Okay… one minute minute. That road I told you no? With the tree? It may be closed. If it is closed you just go on the flyover and turn right. My cousin’s house is there only. Okay?”

“Okay…”

At the office

Bloody Indians are the most unprofessional people on earth. The only way I can picture creatures more unprofessional is if there’s a tribe whose members join a company, murder everybody in it, steal everything in sight, set fire to the place and then stand by the water cooler all day complaining that they didn’t get confirmed at the end of their probation period.

There are certain jobs that Bloody Indians are very good at. And complaining is one of them. Bloody Indians can spend decades complaining and doing nothing else. We’ll find cronies in the office and spend hours sitting and muttering with them.

The problem is, we never ever say anything to anybody who can fix things. Even the smallest things. Instead of walking around and looking for a sheaf of paper to put in the empty copier, we’ll stand by it and say, “Just look at this company man. Too cheap to even buy enough paper for the copier. Every time I come here it’s empty and I have to wait until somebody fills it. I tell you, these people have no respect for their employees. No, they have no respect for human beings.”

The reason for all this is, Bloody Indians have a master-slave complex that is hard to break out of. We endured 250 years of colonialism. We’ve been taught that elders are betters even if they’re dribbling old men who grope schoolgirls on the bus. We’ve gone to schools where there were canings and beatings. We’ve had to go down on our knees to people in cassocks to get an education.

As a result, we are servile to somebody who is in charge. We say horrible things about them to each other at lunchtime, but then go back upstairs and ask to kiss their toes.

Bloody Indian bosses
On the other hand, Bloody Indian bosses are a good example of why they aren’t complained to. Every complaint is treated as a personal insult to be avenged.

“Sir, I don’t think it’s right that the employees drink water out of the toilet between uses. I request you to install a water cooler.”

“How dare you call me a bloody idiot who doesn’t know his arse from his belly button???”

“But I didn’t….”

“My mother did what??? Get out right now.”

And the boss will proceed to torment the poor complainer and make his life miserable until: (a) he goes home one night and kills himself and his family, or (b) he hands in his resignation.

Many Bloody Indians will choose (a) because it requires less get-up-and-go than (b).

Accidental wisdom

If you are in an accident in India, remember, it is never, ever, ever, ever, EVER your fault. Ever. This is why accidents here ALWAYS result in huge roadside shouting matches.

In most countries you have several well-defined rules. Such as, if you hit the back of somebody’s car, it’s your fault because you didn’t maintain a safe braking distance. If you’re coming out of a side street and are hit by a car, it’s your fault because it was the other person’s right of way.

In India, if you are drunk, driving a lorry without brakes and lights in a non-HTV zone down the wrong way of a one-way street, and you fall asleep at the wheel, swerve into somebody’s driveway and smash into their parked car, you must get out and shout, “EH!!! CAN’T SEE WHERE YOU’RE GOING AH? BLOODY BASSSTID!”

When you do get into an accident, people with strong opinions who have nothing whatsoever to do with anybody on the scene will miraculously appear and begin heckling. You’re fighting with the guy whose car hit yours and suddenly from behind a tubby man in a safari suit will start shouting to your opponent: “Hit him! It’s his fault only. I saw him! Hit the rascal!”

There will be many other people like this – if you’re lucky, some will be on your side. However, they won't be – no matter whose fault it evidently is – if:
1) You look as if you’re richer than your opponent
2) If your car or motorcycle is bigger or better than your opponent’s
3) If you can’t fight fluently in whichever local language applies
4) If you look even slightly scared or confused

Remember, the sympathy goes to the underdog first. If the underdog looks scared, confused or apologetic, the sympathy will instantly transfer to you, because you’re going to be the winner. Strange huh?

Nothing happened no?
Once, I was riding my motorcycle and approaching one of my favourite corners (its one disadvantage being that it was totally blind). I thought I’d take a nice swooping turn around it, but suddenly remembered that it had had policemen just on the inside the last time I was there. I wasn’t above the speed limit, but, just in case, I slowed down and took it with extra care. It’s a good thing I did.

Just around the apex was a public transport company bus barrelling at high speed down the wrong side of the road so that it could make it through the traffic light first. Because I wasn’t going too fast, I wasn’t too canted over and could swerve and get out of the way. But it was a close, close thing. I stopped because I was shaking. I decided that I must not let this go, so I turned around and came up alongside the bus, which was waiting for the light to change. The driver was seated above my head.

I asked him – not in the politest terms – what exactly he thought he was doing. He leaned out of the window and said (in Kannada), “What’s your problem? Nothing happened no?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but what could I have possibly said in response?

I then had one of those moments where a part of me disconnects and watches myself doing things. My left hand came off the handle bar, swung back and WHUPPPPATTTT!!!! I slapped him. I still remember his wide-eyed face, it was like John Paul Stapp on his rocket sled ride – cheeks rippling with the force of it. Then I turned my bike around, gave him two short parting words to ease the pain, and rode off. Five minutes later, when I got to where I was going, my palm was stinging terribly. I smiled.

Now if there’s anybody reading who’s put off by this and thinking things like “advocating road violence” etc., remember, this guy almost killed me just because he didn’t want to wait for a traffic light to change. If I had been going even slightly faster, I’d have gone straight under his bus. If I hadn’t died then, my life would probably be very different and painful even today – 10 years later.

Anyway, the point of that story was to illustrate the next powerful evasion tool: the statement, “Nothing happened, so what’s your problem?” This is probably the one most infuriating, insensitive things you could ever hear. I hope you’ll never use it, but it’s good to be prepared to
hear it. Practice your swing.

Don’t hit the walkers
In the underdog vs. the car story, obviously the worst thing you could do is hit a pedestrian or a cyclist. But if you do, just be aware that even if the person isn’t hurt, he or she may just keel over, feigning death/multiple fractures/agony so that they get a lot of money from you. If the underdog is honest and says she is okay, the tubby man in the safari suit will appear (WOP!) and assure her that she is mortally wounded. He will then turn upon you and list all her injuries, and demand several thousand rupees to fix them. The non-injured pedestrian will hear the amount and suddenly keel over with a newly discovered broken knee. You’d have to be a hostage situation negotiator to get out of this one without parting with a lot of money.

Leave the cops out
Unless your car is badly damaged, or somebody is injured, don’t even bother with the cops. Dealing with the police requires a fine balance of demonstration of social might, bribery and backslapping camaraderie. You might go in to report a dented door and suddenly find that your undamaged opponent’s car requires a hundred thousand rupees worth of chassis repair. “You can’t see it, but I know it’s there.” And suddenly you’re responsible for tiding him through this crisis with handouts, mediated by the police.

And the next time you complain about the horrible traffic snarls, think about this: would you want all those morons out there to be able to drive those fancy new cars of theirs at high speeds?

Travel pictures

As mentioned in the helpless story, Bloody Indians like to have items to show for money spent.

Travel is an uneasy exception. You can’t pack it into a suitcase to take back home, but you can take pictures. This is why, if Bloody Indians spend on travel, they’ll graft themselves to a camera – video or still – and document every minute. They have shots of people getting off planes and entering grey terminals. They take pictures of themselves sitting in buses. They sweep the camera over every single stop, as if searching for bugs; even at dreary rest stops that look so much like the previous one you wonder if the bus is going in circles.

You will rarely see a Bloody Indian lift up a camera and simply take a photo of a beautiful view or a monument. They will ALWAYS be a Bloody Indian posed in the picture – incontrovertible proof that “I was there”.

Sometimes, a group of Bloody Indian boys will have just one pair of sunglasses and a cap among it and they take it in turns to wear them and stand like rude Michelangelo’s Davids in front of monuments. If not standing singly, you can be assured they will have their arms tightly around each other.

Bloody Indians will do anything for a photo that impresses. They go up to stranger’s motorcycles and lean on them possessively. Sometimes they even break a biker’s cardinal rule and sit astride them. In this situation, Bloody Indians love Harley-Davidsons most of all.

I have, with my own monkey eyes, seen a fat Bloody Indian in Switzerland go up to a girl at the top of a ski slope, hustle her off her skis and then stand on them, bending over and holding the poles, posing for a picture. The poor girl stood to one side wondering whether to scream for help or just wait until it was over.

It was going to be a long wait. All his friends were in line.

Home and away

Some Bloody Indians are very different people when they travel abroad. Here are some situations in which reactions at home are at odds with the ones in distant lands.

Beggars
In India: “Eh poda thendi. Get lost!! Bloody beggars are such a nuisance. They should all be
shot.”
Abroad: “Oh look, a homeless man – so sad no? Oh yes, there’s a lot of poverty in India too, but I think that’s a good thing because it gives you a sense of place. When you see an armless woman holding a headless baby at a traffic light, it give you a chance to do something for humanity. It’s so humbling. Come let’s give that poor man some coins.”

Licences
In India: “Look at that idiot driving like that. I tell you, the RTO will give licences to any goat that pays money.”
Abroad: “Eh I’ve failed my driving test here 60 times. In India the system is so good men, I can just pay 200 rupees and I’ll get a licence.”

Efficiency
In India: “To get one bank draft I have to talk to 20 people? Get with the times you good-for-nothing inefficient bastards.”
Abroad: “Chee chee chee – look at this... machines to do all the work in two minutes. There’s no human interaction, that’s why these people are like this – so unstable.”

Traffic lights
In India: “Go go go!! Who cares – red, green, blue – just go! Cut him, cut cut cut. Kill the
bugger.”
Abroad: “I know it’s green. I’m just slowing down in case anybody else wants to go. You should be polite on the road.”

Waiters
In India: “Tss tss! Ai! Come here you! Yes, you bloody fellow – look at this, my soup is not hot. Take it back. TAKE IT BACK NOW! I’LL KICK YOU, DONKEY.”
Abroad: “Excuse me please ma’am? If you don’t mind ma’am, pardon me for saying so and being so bold, but my vegetarian pasta has pieces of bloody meat in it. And a caterpillar. I’m so sorry to disturb you miss, but you see, I am a stricccct vegetarian. Yes madam. No no, don’t change it ma’am. I just thought I’d tell you.”

Driving and driving tests

All Bloody Indian men think they are fantastic drivers. Even the ones who don’t drive. A non-driving Bloody Indian in the US was once heard to say, “I’ll be able to pick up driving really easily here because I know all the routes.” (He said “rowtes”.)

He was a constant backseat driver, telling you to wait, telling you to go, telling you to turn right when you were in the furthest lane from the turn, telling you to stop… IT’S A RED LIGHT – WHY WOULDN’T I FUCKING STOP??? IF YOU DON’T TRUST ME TO STOP AT RED LIGHTS, WHY THE FUCK DID YOU ASK ME TO DROP YOU? TAKE A TAXI, OR ARE YOU TOO CHEAP FOR THAT?

Those IT boys are leaving our shores and causing mayhem on the roads of the US. They believe they know all there is to know about driving, and regularly run through stop signs, turn onto main roads without looking, have no clue what a blind spot is, change lanes without indicating…

Making a mistake in a new system is totally understandable, but the Bloody Indian does not believe he’s made a mistake. He’ll blast through a four-way stop sign and then curse the “blind fucking American scoundrel” who tried to run him down.

Good driving here, and there
A “good driver” in civilised societies means somebody who is courteous, aware and safe, but firm. A “good driver” in Bloody India is somebody who steers with one finger, drives with an elbow on the window, goes at three times the speed limit and accelerates and brakes as violently as the car will allow.

Bloody Indians love using the word “control” in this context. “He has great control yaar”.

As a result, some rental companies in the US have started refusing to hire cars to Indian IT boys. Some IT companies have got tired of paying insurance and now use shuttles for their employees.

The number of accidents is astounding. It’s all the Americans’ fault of course. “They don’t know how to drive men. They keep stopping even when there is no traffic on the road. They drive inside those white lines men – don’t they know the car is supposed to be over the lines? Eh, why are you waiting men? Just go.”

You’re an idiot. You don’t know how to drive and you have so much to say? And also, dickwart, after you get out, you don’t need to slam the door so hard. This isn’t your Kailash uncle’s Premier Padmini from the year 1940. It isn’t the door of the Godrej cupboard that your ancestors hid in during the Sepoy Mutiny. It’s a modern car with doors that close with just a push. You slam the door like that again, I’ll cut it off using the boot lid – you’ll find out why we Bloody Indians call it a dicky.

Real driving tests
I lived for a few years in a country that had a lot of Bloody Indians, and also a reasonably difficult driving test. Certainly more difficult than the one I had in India, where the examiner stood on the third floor of the RTO and watched me drive out of the parking lot, around the lane outside (where I was hidden from view most of the way) and back in again. I passed because I remembered to stick my hand out of the window and wave it up and down to signal I was slowing down, and then held it up to signal I was stopping. The man walking in front of my car carrying a red flag did a great job, so I tipped him well.

I met many Bloody Indians who would come to that country for a licence. I became adept at guessing how many tries each person would need. The ones who needed to learn how to drive from scratch, and who were a little nervous before the test, got it fast. Sometimes even on the first go. Most of the women, unless totally uncoordinated, got it in three tries or fewer.

The people who did the worst were the men who already knew how to drive.

One person told me, “I used to drive in India – I could steer with just one hand man – I’m good. I’ll get it first or second try.”

I told him “Ten tests minimum, you fool.” We bet. I won. The asshole backed out and didn’t shave his head.

Most of these people were too bloody minded to learn from their mistakes. There was a little bit of bias against Indians in that country, but not a lot. This would be their excuse. “Bastard examiner, I didn’t do anything wrong. He failed me. Nothing I did men, nothing – and that gandu failed me.”

“There must have been something.”

“No man nothing! I just took a turn a little fast once, but otherwise nothing men, nothing.”

“So you took a turn a little fast?”

“Yes, but he failed me because he hates Indians.”

There it was. A lesson that could have been learned. But because the person believed he’d failed only because of somebody else’s bias, he went and failed again. And again. And again. And again.

Being helpless

Bloody Indians are often infuriatingly helpless when abroad. They expect to have their hands held for them every step of the way. They use the “I’m new here” card for months on end. “I’m new here, can you get me something from the vending machine?”

They have instructions in pictures, stupid.

Some of them get this helplessness so ingrained that they won’t eat unless they’re served. They won’t help load or unload their own suitcases from a car... and they won’t even go and get a trolley. If they’re abroad on work, they’ll know absolutely nothing about the city except for how to get from the office to the hotel.

Only after a couple of visits, will they slowly get to know the few Bloody-Indian-approved spots in the city.

Safe zones
I’m sure you’ve noticed, Bloody Indians are always seen in groups at the same places. That’s because these places have been deemed “safe” by generations of visiting Bloody Indians. Places where the food is not too experimental, and there’s good value for money. Places that have sales and bulk offers. Malls. (Bloody Indians love malls because they are free (most important), impersonal and full of girls to lech at.)

Some Bloody Indians feel so crippled by the exchange rate that they spend barely enough money to survive. Let’s face it, it is difficult when you come from a land where you can get an excellent cup of coffee for ten cents and can eat yourself to death for a couple of dollars.

Some get out of paying for stuff and actually act as if it’s their birthright to have somebody pay for them. “Why the hell should I pay 400 rupees for a sandwich? Let them pay, anyway they’re rich.”

Which is the same as: “Amma. Ammmma. Ammmma? Pay for me no amma? I have rupees amma, and you have dollars. Pay for me no amma?”

GOT SHAME?

In this way, Bloody Indians save lots and lots of money. More money than you would have believed possible. Give an Indian an allowance of $500 dollars a week and he or she will have saved $12,000 after two months. Nobody knows how it’s done. May be God feels upset about these people living on stale eggs and crumbs and gives them some of His own money.

A large portion of this loot is sent back home. After repatriating 90% of it, they’ll still have $4,000 or so. Yes, it’s a miracle and it happens every day. They’ll take this $4,000 to the closest bulk-goods store and spend and spend and spend. They’ll buy four tons of cheap chocolate. One hundred and thirty pairs of Nike trainers. Case loads of shirts and
trousers.

You see, the Bloody Indian believes in having something to show for money spent. Good food and entertainment is for the birds – you can’t pack it into a suitcase and use it impress the folks back home.