Shefaly (68)
Easily Amused (61)
Roshni (50)
Mallika (27)
Kislay Chandra (23)
Gori Girl (22)
litterateuse (22)
Dinesh (21)
Joanne (19)How to stop being a pseudo-intellectual and start earning respect after your move to India
Neo’s grandma is just the funniest and the most devastatingly logical person you will ever meet. During Neo’s recent vacation, when his uncle was in the middle of an interminably long soliloquy on pranayama, Neo’s grandma stopped him with “Nonsense. Claiming that using alternate nostrils is beneficial to your breathing is like claiming that eating from alternate sides of your mouth is beneficial to your diet.”
Neo laughed so hard he had kheer streaming out of (both) his nostrils. (The other eleven people around the table were silent.)
It should be hard for any self-respecting scientific mind to understand Neo’s uncle’s claim that alternately breathing through your left and right nostrils somehow helps regulate the two halves of your brain – especially after you consider Neo’s grandma’s brilliant point – that air enters the same windpipe, and that oxygen is equally absorbed by both lungs regardless of which nostril it entered from.
Unfortunately, not all of Neo’s older relatives are scientifically-minded. Many have a love-hate relationship with science. They love science when it appears to prove their traditional beliefs (e.g. the health benefits of turmeric). They simultaneously hate science when it challenges traditions (e.g. the health benefits of garlic). (Many in Neo’s family will not hesitate to give you all sorts of mumbo-jumbo reasons to avoid garlic).
Neo has realized (a little too late) that the quickest way to get labeled as a pseudo-intellectual in his family is to unflinchingly champion the cause (and supremacy) of science.
To avoid Neo’s fate, you must appear to be a “moderate believer in science”. You need to demonstrate the capacity to “believe” in the science behind say an automobile or a computer, but refuse to believe in the science (or the YouTube video) that shows that Sathya Sai Baba is a fraud, and cannot generate ash or gold chains out of thin air. That is the sort of “open mind” that will earn you the respect of many in Neo’s extended family.
Speaking of open minds – during the Mumbai terror attacks, Neo wondered aloud why superhuman yogis were not volunteering to storm the Taj hotel instead of the mundane army commandos.
Only his grandma laughed.
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Category: Elders, Food, Return to India, culture | Tags: 2008 Mumbai attacks, Home, Love-hate relationship, Sathya Sai Baba, Warfare and Conflict, YouTube 18 comments »
April 28th, 2009 at 11:51 am
So the question is: what’s NeoIndian’s Grandma’s stance on garlic?
[Reply]
April 28th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
@Shefaly
She hates the smell but totally understands the health benefits. Actually even the garlic-haters in my family eat garlic (e.g. when they go out to eat), but they “make up” for it with weird restrictions like “we don’t eat garlic at home”.
-neo
[Reply]
April 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Interesting post! Wouldn’t mind more grandma wisdom stories.
[Reply]
April 28th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
seriously, the kind of crap some people believe in!! And, the enormity of their ignorance is enough to boggle the mind.
However, don’t be too discouraged.. there are weirdos in the US too who are washing their hands every 5 mins with anti-bacterial soap to wash off any viruses of swine-flu origin!!
Btw, how did you get kheer to come out of your nostrils?!!! You must be a yogi!
[Reply]
April 29th, 2009 at 12:37 am
Roshni
The joys of a fluttering epiglottis are insanely numerous
[Reply]
April 29th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Know what would be fun to read? Your nephew’s blog
g
[Reply]
April 29th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@gauri
Even if he had one I doubt you would be able to read it. cz he luvz 2 wrt lk ths.
[Reply]
April 30th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Now, I laughed too, with Neo and his grandmother. I’m so relieved with the scientific explanation that pooh-poohs ‘pranayama’. Have never understood the ‘logic’ behind exerting your nostrils thus.
[Reply]
April 30th, 2009 at 10:57 am
As I get older, I no longer disdain for smug ‘my superior Indian culture’ simply because so many things make sense. I find many customs, beliefs rooted in ’survive & thrive’.
[Reply]
May 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
True Yogis do not see the need to come in public and display their powers. Unfortunately there are imitators for everything and people fall for it.
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May 15th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Apparently true Yogis don’t see a need to come out even when their countrymen are being slaughtered.
[Reply]
May 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am
“In both Hinduism and Jainism, garlic is considered to stimulate and warm the body and to increase one’s desires. Hindus generally avoid using garlic and the related onion in the preparation of foods for religious festivities and events. Followers of the Jain religion avoid eating garlic and onion on a daily basis.”
So one should skip garlic only if you don’t want to be hot or horny .
I do . I eat it .
[Reply]
May 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
@Kislay Chandra
Funny.. ha! ha! that (garlic) should explain why the Italians are so sensual and horny all the time.. but unfortunately it’s all a bunch of BS.. apart from sildenafil’s and beer goggles, for now there’s little else to get the old motor started…
Bit of garlic butter.. and you can eat almost anything..
.. yummy!
[Reply]
May 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
The Beer Goggle effect that isn’t?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5182492/Beer-goggles-idea-is-a-myth-claim-scientists.html
[Reply]
May 18th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Wooah! Thanks for the link…
This changes everything…
I must now speak with RXXXXX about the tranny he was making out with… uuumm.. It wasn’t the beer…I knew it all along.. that boy will _do_ anything on two legs.. ha! ha!
[Reply]
January 6th, 2010 at 10:21 am
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