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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!ams
From: ams@philabs.UUCP (Ali Shaik)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.india
Subject: On Horses, Jutkas, and other things
Message-ID: <596@philabs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Feb-86 16:43:57 EST
Article-I.D.: philabs.596
Posted: Mon Feb 17 16:43:57 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 20:01:57 EST
Reply-To: ams@philabs.UUCP (Ali Shaik)
Organization: Philips Labs, Briarcliff Manor, NY
Lines: 63

> >When I came to USA, about three years back, one of the americans
> >asked me, whether there are still horses used for travel on the roads in
> >Bombay and other cities!!! 

> <FLAME ON>
> Really? HORSES? Jesus Christ!! Did someone really ask you
> that?! I can't believe how ignorant
> some people can be! I mean to say, I have lived in Delhi

> movies are specially imported from some third-world country where
> they still use this incredibly outmoded form of transport. You

> When I would go out on one of our 8-lane super-highways in my
> Ferrari Testarosa my grandfather would tell me stories of the old times
> <FLAME OFF>
> Sanjaya Kumar
> Duke University


> afford have drive around a used car.  Very few own foreign made cars
> (you have to be one of the movie stars or a big time politician to have
> enough money to afford a Ferrari).  The flame on use of horse drawn
> vehicles was needless.  I have indeed used such horse drawn vehicles IN
> Delhi.  There are a couple of horse stables in the vicinity of Old
Delhi railway station.

> sundar r. iyengar		



	This is perhaps getting away from m'batten, but let me add
	my 2 paisa's worth:
	It seems to me that Sanjaya was using a kind of reverse-
	sarcasm, ie, saying that there really ARE horse 'jutkas'
	around in India. He did this by writing an exaggerated
	form of the opposite, ie Ferraris & 8-lane highways.
	This type of humor was used by someone else in all that
	stuff about Sudras, if I remember right.

	Anyway, my experience has been that sometimes Americans
	see some of the stereotypes, like the man sleeping
	on a bed of nails (Octopussy) (or was it Indiana Jones?)
	or the 'Indian Rope Trick'. Elephants and the Taj Mahal
	are also popular instances. Not to deny that these things do not
	exist in India, but I feel that the stereotypes are
	taken as representing a picture of India in general.

	Sometimes they will ask about something *really*
	negative about India (eg, the dowry or caste system, or
	poverty). Again I do know that these things exist, maybe
	to a significant extent. But then there certainly are
	much happier things about Desh. My (somewhat :-( tenuous)
	reply usually is something like: what would you say if
	someone came to the US, and made stereotypes out of the
	homeless people in New York City.

	Ali "Bangalore" Shaik ...ihnp4!philabs!ams

	Someone asked about the 'Bangalore'. Too many people from
	home, at the mention of my name, immediately ask: "Are
	you from Pakistan?" I find this vaguely annoying.
	Hence the B. I enjoy my sambar and curd-rice as much as
	anyone else, so there!