112 thoughts on “Do You Want to Know What’s Under my Blouse, too? ;)”

1. Sorry to hear that the author is down to a single ovum at age 32. Are you sure you don’t have ova?

   I’m sorry that you feel the need to switch handles to leave your smart-assed observation,”Observer”. I don’t know whether I have ova or ovum…I’m not pre-med and I don’t care. Is every detail YOU mention while speaking (before your morning coffee, no less)100% fact-checked and flawless? I’m imperfect, so I can’t or don’t claim that.

   I just wanted to share an actual conversation I had with a younger, Indian co-worker which stuck with me, because I thought it might amuse some of you. Yes, yes, you all have the right to dissect me because I “put myself out there”, but I also have the right to not enjoy it. And that lack of enjoyment is exactly why after over four years of blogging, I no longer feel like posting quite so much.

   To everyone who welcomed me back, under this post, with such kind, genuine words– thank you. Those sincere good wishes are what I gather and hold close; they are also what leave me torn about whether I should continue to leave myself vulnerable…for years, the sweetness trumped the trollery. Now…I don’t know. After those same long years, hearing (via email, wikipedia histories, other desi blogs which some of you are the writers of or hell, on anonymous comments left on MY other blogs or fotolog) about my weight or my skin color or how it’s no surprise that I’m a spinster or how I’m lame and I suck and how my writing is shitty…well, I’m sick of it. It takes a toll. And my life is too short to tolerate bullshit.

   No, this isn’t me fishing for compliments or requiring that you all kiss my ass and tell me not to leave. I’m not three and threatening to run away, nor am I the girl who storms out and then hovers outside for the “obligatory five minutes”, hoping you follow. Finally and most importantly, this is NOT an order to my ever-loyal praetorians to attack “Doc”/”Observer”. People can disagree with me; I don’t give a shit, as long as they’re not cruel.

   This is just an explanation that some of you seem to have wanted, regarding my absence and intentions. If you were kind enough to care and notice that I was gone, then I owe you that much.

2. ANNA , though i know that it does not matter to you , still i will say that Sepia Mutiny is incomplete without you .

   I love your posts , your honesty and you 🙂

3. “still i will say that Sepia Mutiny is incomplete without you .”

   I second that. Your topics usually are not overtly desi, neither do they particularly address the vaunted desi culture, but they are still very much sepia because, Anna, if you weren’t a desi, you would have had a very different “sensibility,” to use a term from my old literary criticism days. So in that sense, your amorphously desi blogs do complete the more focused desi-specific SM offering.

   As SM has grown – and I have been on it only a year – it may have become less familial and more public. Now there is a parade of new commenters, some of whom may regard it as just another place to stick a note rather than treating SM as a slowly evolved community with a defined cyber-culture that should be respected and preserved. So blame yourself – actually, yourselves – for inadvertently making SM so popular but please learn to accept some of the headaches that always come with success.

4. I have NEVER, in my ENTIRE life, met an Indian who had never heard of Kerala. Maybe the guy in question is from a different desi country? I can accept that there might be a 2nd gen person who has never heard of Kerala, but a homegrown Indian? Anybody with enough education to come to the US would at least have a general idea of where it was. I think this has come up on this site before and I still refuse to believe that it’s true.

   I’ve met first-gens who don’t know where or even what “Bangalore” is. They think I mean “Bangladesh.”

5. Anybody with enough education to come to the US

   PLENTY of desi immigrants post-1980s are poorly-educated in a formal sense (although it’s true that most have at least a basic literacy in Punjabi/Gujarati/Bengali/Urdu etc and sometimes English).

6. ANNA, your comment #101 is pretty much what I suspected in terms of why you weren’t posting so much anymore. It’s understandable.

7. Re: your comment 101. It’s immaterial to me whether you are pre-med. You are a writer, and therefore vulnerable to comments on your grammar. If you consider such comments to be “personal, non-issue-focused flames,” as cited in the comment form, so be it.

8. “Doc”:

   I think suggestions about grammar (or anything else, really) are taken far more seriously when troll-like behavior isn’t exhibited by those who are making such suggestions. Switching handles in a matter of seconds to leave two different comments on the same thread, back-to-back doesn’t really give the impression that you care about grammar or being constructive. The fact that you have never commented here before (from that IP at least) also doesn’t help, since there’s no past record to consider when trying to discern whether you are genuinely interested in dialogue vs. genuinely attempting to be an ass.

9. Sorry to hear that the author is down to a single ovum at age 32. Are you sure you don’t have ova?

   Well if it IS singular, then I think what was said is even funnier. Thanks for clarifying and improving it.

10. PLENTY of desi immigrants post-1980s are poorly-educated in a formal sense (although it’s true that most have at least a basic literacy in Punjabi/Gujarati/Bengali/Urdu etc and sometimes English).

    Yes, I’m aware of that. I don’t think you need a formal education to have heard of Kerala. I think if you were from a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and had never left, you might never have heard of Kerala, but if you know there’s a larger world out there, which you would have to know if you left the country, obviously, you probably would have heard of it.

    (Anna, I’m in no way implying that you made up that the guy didn’t know about Kerala, and if it happened to you, I believe it, I just refuse to believe that it’s as prevalent as everyone says it is among Indian born Indians, after having lived in India most of my life and never having it happen to me)

    Well if it IS singular, then I think what was said is even funnier.

    I agree. And that’s my official medical opinion. And it’s not ungrammatical either. She didn’t say “my ovum are stale”.

11. Yes! Its true. Only Desi FOBS have no shame in asking for salary, rent, immigration status etc. smack right up to your face. Its so embarassing. I experienced this with some Madrassis I’ve worked with in the past, maybe they were from Hyderebad. The only conversation topic they had was how to save money. Worst company I’ve expereinced ever!

12. My favorite Desi “streetcorner interrogation” actually happened on a train. This guy struck up conversation with me on the El and, after running through the various questions on school, job (complete with advice about how I should go to medical school and/or become an engineer, naturally), region, family, marriage (and how I totally should, ASAP), friends (and how I should only hang out with other Desis), etc… leaned in and asked where was a good place to meet women. I took it kind of good-naturedly, although I didn’t really know what to say. I tend to meet women by, I dunno, doing normal things. I wasn’t going to send him to the local random college hookup skank bar, obviously. In fact, after the tirade about drunk Westerners I wasn’t going to tell him to go to a bar at all. So I’m basically bullshitting (“uhm, I don’t know, maybe the temple?”) when he leans in and says “no, no, I mean a woman for just one night. You see, I’ve been here for several months, and I’m VERY LONELY” and stares at me meaningfully. I don’t know how you all would react to that. I could barely keep myself from laughing and I got off the train at the next stop. I kind of feel bad for the guy in retrospect, but seriously, asking some random guy you just met on the train (and talked to for maybe 10 minutes) where to find a prostitute HAS to violate some sort of social norm even in India doesn’t it?

    The memories!

    How many times have personal questions been asked by strangers on trains in India? At first I was totally charmed by the immediate connection and desire for openness. But often times the openness is expected to come from one part — me only, and is not reciprocated.

    For some reason my financial situation is regarded as a very personal thing by me and sometimes I took it as an affront when asked so bluntly about it by strangers. It was as if I felt they were trying to find out if I was rich, to fit their stereotypes of foriegners or something. Once or twice I retaliated by asking them about their sex life, something that to them may be as personal and private as I regard my financial life. But then I realized that the people asking me these questions just don’t feel the same secrecy over finances that I do — the ones who, when I ask them about theirs, they give details. But the other type of inquirer was one who wanted to find out all kinds of stuff about me without reciprocating the same type of info about themselves. I would give them answers, thinking that when it’s my turn to ask them questions they will answer as I did, but then they didn’t and I was left feeling totally exposed and FOOLISH .

    So I learned to answer quickly and succinctly (sometimes honestly, sometimes not) and then immediately ask them a question, rather than wait for their series of questions to end before I got my turn.

    The women in particular liked to inquire about my marital status and then offer unsolicited advice.

    I found the more formally “un-educated” the person was, the conversation would be more sincere, genuine, open and reciprocal. Some of the more “educated” people had a very “chalak” vibe – some were definetly looking to gather some info on you without any intention of revealing much at all about themselves. In fact, after I had answered a series of personal info to one man and I asked him the same questions, he retorted by saying, “according to shastra there are 9 things you should never discuss…”…. and they were all of the things he had asked me about!!!

    So he walked away with my entire “bio-data” and I was left with a shastric shlok — which I have since learned to use on everybody else.