From Warli Painting by Shabbir

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I was sent this creatively written poem when I was a student several years ago. Although this site is reserved for my thoughts and reflections - I thought I'd post this here because the point the poet makes is thought-provoking.

American in India

                        by Unknown

Scared to free ourselves in the Land of the Free,
Shutting out the very glamour that we came to see,
Back home, girls were 'MAST CHEEZ',
Here, it's no girls please, we’re 'DESIS',
The 'IN' thing to do then was watch MTV,
Now the 'appropriate' channel is DISCOVERY,
It's like waiting all our lives to live the American way,
Now from everything American we stay away,

Back home, we were so ‘WILD’,
Keeping our westernness alive,
We jived to rock,
And boogeyed the night away,
We lived in jeans and
scorned the Dhotis & Kurtas,
We drank 'PHOREN' liquor ,
We smoked foreign brands ,
We forgot to speak
in the tongues of our lands ,
We ate burgers and steaks ,
And had a disdain for spices ,
We wore Dockers and Nikes ,
Throwing Raymond's and BATA away,
We talked about Internet and Java ,
Throwing Desi magazines away .

Now, we are here in a strange land,
Wearing clothes from our native land,
Spicy and hot is how we want our food,
And a kurta in summers feels so good,
A beer should be Kingfisher,
A smoke should be INDIA Gold flake King,
We're nodding to Hindi songs and Ghazals,
Indian movies are what we 're watching,
Hey! I speak Hindi, Marathi and Tamil,
on special occasions I wear a Bindi,
Every week I go to a temple,
and log onto the Internet to read Desi stuff.
HEY! I am an INDIAN in America
I was an American in India.
 


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