Serious Critique on Maharashtrians and Their Ways
Serious Critique on Maharashtrians and their ways!!!
All the characters here are entirely real, and resemblance to anyone you know is not a coincidence at all – of course, with the rider that there are honorable exceptions to every stereotype …
Most entrances to homes greet you with a ‘Welcome’ mat, or maybe a pair of plaster hands in Numuste pose, or even a sticker proclaiming “Guest is God”. The Maharashtrian's front door, however, will greet you with the terse suggestion: “Slippers here” … (Note the economy of words – Lesser mortals would have wordily said: “Kindly remove your slippers here”). Other such injunctions include: “Ring the bell, and WAIT” or (of course in Pune) “Salespeople and hawkers will be handed over to the police”. Once you’ve run that gauntlet, and been allowed entry – but only after a good, long 2-mins inspection from the peep-hole – chances are that you’ll be left to find a place to sit, while the family disappears inside to wear shirts and pull on trousers over their banyans and striped boxer shorts – the “Kulkarni Bermudas”. That done, it is not unusual for them to announce, “We just had tea”. And that is that. Don’t take it personally. We are like that only. If you had visions of chai and pakodas, you're in the wrong part of India. The Rest of India may waste time and money on hospitality. We have better things to do. The Maharashtrian shopkeeper extends this rather dim view of visitors to his customers too. Just because circumstances have placed him in a position to have to soil his hands with the degrading task of selling things, that doesn't mean you take undue advantage of him, enter his shop, and rub it in, by actually asking for merchandise and service, dammit. They've got their strategy worked out. While one may greet you with a “We don't stock it”, another may helpfully point you towards some more enterprising shopkeeper (who is dismissively referred to as ‘non-Maharashtrian’) where you can take your
All the characters here are entirely real, and resemblance to anyone you know is not a coincidence at all – of course, with the rider that there are honorable exceptions to every stereotype …
Most entrances to homes greet you with a ‘Welcome’ mat, or maybe a pair of plaster hands in Numuste pose, or even a sticker proclaiming “Guest is God”. The Maharashtrian's front door, however, will greet you with the terse suggestion: “Slippers here” … (Note the economy of words – Lesser mortals would have wordily said: “Kindly remove your slippers here”). Other such injunctions include: “Ring the bell, and WAIT” or (of course in Pune) “Salespeople and hawkers will be handed over to the police”. Once you’ve run that gauntlet, and been allowed entry – but only after a good, long 2-mins inspection from the peep-hole – chances are that you’ll be left to find a place to sit, while the family disappears inside to wear shirts and pull on trousers over their banyans and striped boxer shorts – the “Kulkarni Bermudas”. That done, it is not unusual for them to announce, “We just had tea”. And that is that. Don’t take it personally. We are like that only. If you had visions of chai and pakodas, you're in the wrong part of India. The Rest of India may waste time and money on hospitality. We have better things to do. The Maharashtrian shopkeeper extends this rather dim view of visitors to his customers too. Just because circumstances have placed him in a position to have to soil his hands with the degrading task of selling things, that doesn't mean you take undue advantage of him, enter his shop, and rub it in, by actually asking for merchandise and service, dammit. They've got their strategy worked out. While one may greet you with a “We don't stock it”, another may helpfully point you towards some more enterprising shopkeeper (who is dismissively referred to as ‘non-Maharashtrian’) where you can take your