Wednesday, June 5, 2013

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Are you newly married? Is this the first time you have moved out of your country? Better still, are you a newly married woman who moved into an alien country to accompany your husband, leaving behind the comfort of your home, job, friends and your country? If yes, you might relate to this post. If not, you might know someone who might relate to this post.

Let me tell you the qualities that make me eligible for the title of “Being a new wife in Pardes”.

I am a new wife in Pardes because:
  • I moved to a different country after 3 months of marriage. Obvious first reason, isn’t it? And you thought this was going to be a laugh riot kind of a post? O_o  I thought you should have, by now, learnt to keep your “expectations from me” a little low. Oh, you mortal creatures, when will you learn from your mistakes, when? :p
  • I crib every other day about not being able to work due to Visa restrictions.
  • I come up with a hundred entrepreneurial ideas every day to fill my pockets here. Nothing workable though.
  • I spend half my time on FB and the other half on phone.
  • I google and try new recipes every other day and post the pictures on FB. I pity people on my friends list. Little secret, I wanted to post pictures of Dosa on FB and my husband mocked me. Let me tell you that it is difficult to make nice Dosas here. Due to the cold weather, the batter hardly ferments. Husband doesn’t understand my predicament.
  • I use the oven more than the stove.
  • I try my hand at creative art work and if successful, post it on FB. Mine are not worth posting, because, all I do is make tables out of the many cardboard boxes we have lying in the patio. See, I used the term patio instead of balcony. This proves I am turning into a NRI.
  • I look at the calories and ingredients before I cook anything. Yes, yes, I was checking for calories on the cumin packet the other day. Cumin yaar, apna jeera.
  • I try to lose the non-existent weight that I feel I have put on after coming here. I have lost two pounds. Yes, I used pounds instead of kilograms.
  • I buy more sweaters than I buy tops.
  • I exercise way more than I used to in India. I do Zumba and go for a 2.5 mile walk every day. Don’t ask me what is Zumba. I am yet to understand it myself. Did you notice? I used miles instead of kilometers.
  • I convert pounds to kilograms and miles to kilometers using Google.
  • I vacuum our house instead of sweeping and mopping it.
  • I listen to music at a very low volume so that I don’t disturb the unknown neighbours.
  • I cook every day starting with a prayer that the smoke alarm shouldn’t turn on when I give Vaggarne/Chaunk/Tadka to my Daal.
  • I go to the Indian stores and talk to the store guys with an accent.
  • I say sorry everytime some phoren guy/girl talks to me because I cannot understand what they are saying.
  • I have shower curtains and no window curtains at home.
  • I crib about not having door locks in our bedroom.
  • Every weekend, we go to a new place, spending a few dollars, to twist all the bones and muscles and nerves we have in our body. In short, we go for an adventure trip.
  • I post pictures of our trip, to some place we have been, on FB and wait to see how many likes and comments I get. Darn..I wasn’t really bothered when I was in India. Here, I have a lot of time to bother about a lot of silly things.
  • I listen to sounds coming from our neighbour’s bathroom.
  • I kill time posting something nonsensical on FB and Twitter.
  • I refresh my FB page a million times a day.
  • I buy those fruits with fancy names and then google as to how to eat them.
  • I convert dollars to rupees and crib about how expensive things are here.
  • I listen to patriotic songs when I miss home. Such a nautanki I am.
  • I watch every episode of every season of every soap opera ever made. Again, I didn’t use “serials”.
  • I watch Hindi/Kannada movies wherever I can find them.
  • I ask my husband for a new laptop, because, I am not happy with the three we have at home.
  • I smile at every person I find on road.
  • I look at our countrymen here with the same surprise that an earthling might have when he sees an alien.
  • I accompany my husband to all Sci-Fi movies, which I would have certainly not watched if I was in India. Yes, I also post a check-in on my FB page.
  • I write such nonsensical posts when I have nothing to do and that accounts to half of my day here when the patidev is at office.

Disclaimer : These are my thoughts. I have not copied or plagiarized, but, if you feel you have read it before, don’t blame me, because, all of us Desis in Videsh feel the same about certain things.



22 comments:

  1. Ha ha ha..seriously even I could relate to some of the points there like vacuuming your whole house ...Anyway, when you come here, you may start cribbing. That's what i used to do.. When I was in Dubai, I was all patriotic and when I landed in India, I started cribbing about India and I missed(and still miss) Dubai. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand :) Gets weirder after you turn into a wife :p

      Delete
  2. Pooja, nice post!! Call me for batter tips.. I faced the same issue before... Now can make great dosas and idlis!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. Thanks Suma :) I know you can relate to it :p

      Delete
  4. Well, you are really having a time of your life, aren't you? :P
    And it must be super fun to use those converting apps that we hardly find useful in india!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fun eh? Yes, sort of :p
      Oh yes..now I find most apps useful here :)

      Delete
  5. Gud one! Luved reading your blog:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Loved it, :) esp the fire alarm going up with the vaggarne !! :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Rasika :) Seriously, that is one concern that keeps me awake while cooking :p

      Delete
  7. Been there done that :D :D.. welcome to being a NRI wife :P :P

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ha Ha ha, my wife does exactly most of the same things which you have mentioned here but few things are fun to be in videsh like:-

    1. You start loving to walk on road because the atmosphere is so good.

    2. You find using dishwasher as magic, you don't have to worry about how many dishes are using in a day. :)

    3. You find good varieties of cakes, pastries, candies etc and you just have them.

    4. You have everything associated with your personal number so you don't have to carry many papers sometime.

    ....

    But yeah missing India and other stuff is natural for every desi and videsh.

    ReplyDelete
  9. and yeah the fire alarm thingy, it went off once when my wife was cooking parantha and after that we used to open windows whenever we do some tadka shadka :), thanks to the god that here in Sweden fire alarms are not connected directly to the fire department, otherwise we could have fire dept people standing on our door in action :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't use the dishwasher at all. I use it to store the utensils. I find it a hassle to remove the Indian stains. Infact, washing the dishes here has made me develop muscles :p
      About cakes, pastries and candies..I love them all, but I am scared of putting on weight. Krispy Kreme is near our house and they sell assorted varieties for such a low price that uff..rehne do, I want to run there and eat all the doughnuts right now :(
      I hear so many fire engines going everyday and I realize we are present everywhere :D

      Delete
  10. hahaha and the disclaimer is too good ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Whenever you visit my site, I feel like a celebrity :-)
      Thanks a lot :-) Ah, the disclaimer was needed. I don't want someone to report me saying I copied their post ;D

      Delete
  11. ROFL. Yeah I read it somewhere, wait heard it somewhere, in my mind. I bet all the desi wives will nod. You looked for jeera calories :P

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know you can relate to it :)

      Yes, Jeera ke calories dhoondthi hoon yahan wahan :p

      Delete
  12. This is such a cute post Pooja. My twin sis moved to US last year after her marriage. i could almost identify with everything you said :)

    ReplyDelete

Admiration or contempt, bring it on!

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