[Johari Window] Gjju-Mallu Comparison

As they say always aim for the Q1. But to have the best of both worlds, you need to have a healthy 80-20 mix!

Mallu Christian Weddings in Gujarat

It is Mallus this time with gujjus as the chicken leg-piece! Read on before taking out the daggers! 

This post has been in the Draft state for sometime now. So to end the agony of this post languishing in the confines of Draft status I am moving it to Published state. Hopefully it will feel better there.

Mallu christian weddings in Gujarat are generally a dull affair and self takes extreme measures in avoiding them. However, during the childhood stage of existence, parents exercised their veto powers against every motion of avoiding these weddings. So having gone to a handful of them, have come out with the some of the prominent features of the wedding!

Gold 

The wedding reception can also be termed as a Gold Show. Ladies across all age will be heavily armed with gold all around them. The challenge for the bride is to have the heaviest artillery of gold on her. The order of magnitude by which bride should outstrip the other ladies in terms of weight of gold is comparable with Sachin's runs against WI batsmen (the current crop). This will ensure the other ladies will talk in hushed awe tones about the gold. Else the groom will be titled "Pavam*" and the bride will be termed as bringing ill-luck to the family. Alright, I exaggerated there a bit, but it is on the similar lines.

Queue

The next persistent characteristic is the queue. It never shortens and you stay rooted to the same spot although the number of people ahead of you increases in an exponential manner. Have heard that this is a typical  characteristic of every wedding happening in the Indian sub-continent. Maybe it is to do with our caring nature. We just cannot fathom that a person known to us is standing so back in queue when we ourselves are soon going to gorge on the delicious looking chicken biryani. More on chicken biryani later in the post. We really want to help the poor relative / friend who is standing way behind and help him get the food almost at the same time when we get it. However this kind of care is only limited to weddings and the care vanishes soon after the wedding.

Food Counter

This is the most happening place at the reception. Mothers, grandmas, wives will scream, steal, and beg for the elusive chicken leg-piece. The perfect almost queen-like women of all ages with their stiff upper lips suddenly turn into blood lusting vampires the moment they near the food counter. Believe, the strong aroma of the biryani rice activates the release of soon-to-be-named hormone which causes them to turn into vampires just like the sight of moon turn people into werewolf. The unbearable heat, the smelly arm-pits, the jostling, screaming - nothing deters the mallus from getting their prized chicken leg-piece. It is the cherry on the cake and nobody can take away their right to this chicken leg-piece!

Chicken Biryani

Yes it is always the chicken biryani. This fascination with chicken biryani never ends. People crib about the biryani when it is not there and when it is there. Like a true cricket fan who carries all stats and match incidents in his memory, people will remember the texture, flavour, type of rice, the softness of chicken, etc they have eaten so far in their lives at wedding receptions in their convoluted mallu brain. The memory remains. Whatever the marrying parties do to make their  biryani best, their biryani will never be able to match the best biryani that each of the mallu present at the wedding ever had.

Gujjus

After last post, I did not want anymore posts on them after my friend threatened with dire consequences. But then he usually does. So here I go again. Gujjus in Mallu weddings are the most clueless people in the wedding. They won't understand all the hoopla happening on the chicken biryani counter as most of them won't eat chicken. Of course some of them will be salivating after  smelling the chicken but this being a public occasion and the chances of mamas, mamis, phoi et all lurking around the corner, they just give the chicken a slip. Some respite for the chicken from the blood-thirsty mallus. Additionally, Gujjus will move in groups i.e. Neighborhood group, office group or college group. They are very easier to spot as they will be the most clueless group around with question marks on each of their foreheads. They only understand two things in the entire wedding. First is the bride and groom and second is the veg good counter. They religiously attend to these two places and go home.The problem is with the hordes of Mallus around and a smattering of Malayalam happening everywhere, they suddenly forget they are still in Gujarat. Poor souls get disoriented. But they do go back with a huge smile on their faces and their orientation corrected for Gujju food is specially served at a zero queue veg counter.

* Pavam - means innocent or in this case naive. The groom gets sympathies if he gets the title of Pavam

PS: Never planned to mention chicken so many times. It just happened and so the disclaimer. No chicken was killed in writing this post.:)

Gujjus DeClassified!

Caution: This post consist of sensitive information about a certain community of people most of whom occupy the western side of the country called India and in the most developed country of the world. However, if you are part of this community and your jaggery mixed blood boils, on reading criticism about your community, then the sugar in your jaggery filled blood will break-down to glucose. So cheers to your good health! 

Being spent all my childhood in Gujarat, when you go out you feel most gujjus are stereotyped in most cases. So to ensure stereotyping is being done correctly, I have mentioned some of the famous and not-so famous stereotypes here!

Jack-Ass Gujju
Shimmering shirt with an equal shimmering trousers / jeans to match, gelled hair, a gold chain and multiple phones with multiple sim-cards. He is the Gujju Casanova who does not mind an occasional drink of scotch. The selection of scotch is only for display purposes. Personally he wouldn't mind the taste of cheapest alcohol available in the market. As he is the Casanova, he is bound to be surrounded by some of the smartest gujju girls around. (more on gujju girls sometime later.) For the Casanovas, every situation in life would be a larger than life scenario keeping the surrounding gujju gals wide-eyed.

Bhakt Gujju

Strictly follows religion, does not eat meat, if highly conservative type then would not eat garlic, etc. Take them to a non-veg restaurant and you would enjoy the animated discussion they have with waiter as they will be sorting out which food item they can eat. At the end of it our friend will have something that will go with Paneer.

Dhaiyo Gujju

He is a variant slight variant of Conservative Gujju. This person does all the above activities, but prods him on a bit with chicken and a small drink, he will give in. But  beef and mutton remain in the Restricted category. A strict no-no. Taking him to a restaurant is like challenging your persuasion skills. You know he deep inside he yearns for the meat. Yet when asked the answer always stays no. Make him say yes and you won't need to read You can sell which is as fruitless as Bhajji trying to spin the ball.

Kalakkaar Gujju

"Jevo desh evo vesh" is their motto in life. (it translates to "When in Rome, do as Romans do.") They are the meat-eating Gujjus seen outside Gujarat. Within the border of Gujarat they will hold the lofty values of conservative gujju aloft but take them out of Gujarat and they turn back on those same values. We should never be harsh on these poor creatures. For them, their conscience bites when they have meat or alcohol. To soothe their bruised conscience, they placate themselves with this motto.

Kanjoos Gujju

They are the smartest people on earth and sometimes not so too. They have complex algorithm wired or hard-coded in their brain that does a cost-benefit analysis for any situation within a fraction of seconds. Although the return on your investments for this fraction of seconds might be a rupee or two, but it still its worth. Moreover, the result from this analysis is worth in gold. They can give the McKinseys, KPMGs and  Deloittes  a run for their money with their insights and analysis.

Jalebi Gujju

They are the gujju who love their fafdas jalebis, khakhras, khamans the best. You will always find them eating something. In Gujarat's dry climate you could see them sweat out oil from their chubby skin pores. But this is not their specialty. Their specialty is their confidence in knowing everything. Ask them the most difficult questions that humankind faces and they will come with prompt answers which probably only Google can beat. The flip-side is that most of the times they are incorrect. For visitors in Gujarat this is a bit disconcerting flip-side as the most reliable answer they thought they got would be the most off the mark.

Jalsa Gujju

Joi de vivre is their motto. They never say no to the sins of the world. They live to enjoy but they never take off the eye of the ball called life. However, occasionally they do take their eye off and they fall with a thud which is more comical than tragic. They first try to hide and then try to shrug it off but seeing its futility they laugh it off making it a memory. Caution need to be exercised as in company of them, you may also fall off but might not be able to laugh it off.

You may see a combination of these characters in various gujjus around you. Do not get surprised. Like the Gujju Thali in marriages, which has the aalu floating with the chunda, the gujjus also come in various flavors of the above characteristics. Do enlighten with the other stereotypes that I have missed out and leaving with a hot cutting chai that every gujju loves to serve and drink!

PS: Here the term Gujju does not apply only whose mother tongue is Gujarati. It also includes the vast majority who has been brought up in Gujarat including self.

Maacha called, OBL and other Bakwaas!

Couple of days back my friend - Maachi (a.k.a Maacha) pinged me up on my Gtalk. True to his gujju nature, he never calls on mobile and believes in giving missed calls and true to my pseudo-gujju nature, I also do the same. So was happy a bit that he at least has an internet connection these days.

But he was disturbed a bit. So after intense prodding he opened up and the ensuing conversation followed:

Maacha - I had a dream in which Osama appeared and said something…

Me - what?

Maacha - Yes. OBL wanted me to send some message.

Me – What did you reply?

Maacha – aama hu kyathi aayo? (how did I get involved in this?

Me – For the first time in life, even I didn’t understand how you got involved..

Maacha - He replied some virgin up there gave him my name.

Me - What? When did you send a virgin up there?

Maacha - Even I became tensed. I told I only remain friends with my gfs.Also I cannot send anybody. It is I who get sent to Bihar, Ethiopia, and all other god-forsaken places.



Me - What did OBL say?

Maacha - he says it seems one of my virgin gfs remained virgin because I refused to marry her.

Me - Dude, how many virgins you sent up there?

Maacha – According to OBL, all 72 are my former gfs.

Me (ROFL) - So you mean to say OBL’s 72 virgins are all gujjus?

Maacha - Don’t laugh. He was very angry with me as none of them were beautiful.

Me (consoling) - No Maachi. Gujju girls are beautiful and who said your gfs are not beautiful? (A true friend here! :P )



Maacha - He was also angry that none of them were from his caste. Worse still, he did not know which caste he belonged to nor his rashi.

Me - Don’t think OBL believe in caste systems.

Maacha - Well, he doesn’t but all my gujju gfs seems to have made OBL aware that he also has a caste. And they won’t marry him until him until he finds his correct caste.

Me - but why does he needs to marry them?

Maacha - My 72 gfs said that when their maasa, mausi, mama, mami, nana, nani, bhaiya, bhabhi (relatives), and all others come up there what will they say? Then OBL will have to elope and find a new hiding place. And from where he is now, he has very few left.

Me - I see. It is difficult to be the most-wanted man in both the lives.

Maacha – So now he thinks that to learn more about his caste, he needs to do some good deed which is the first step for him to discover his caste and this good deed is the message.



Me - What is it about?

Maacha - Well, it is guideline sort of thing for the Next Most Wanted Man.

Me - So why are you telling it to me?

Maacha - Dishit, I know you blog and I want you to post this.



Me - Dude - Are you crazy? Next thing I know, there will be bloody navy seals jumping out around my building, taking a head-shot and I will be dead without even a single tweet about it on twitter.

Maacha – Well if you don’t I will be blown out from Ahmedabad forever.

Me – That makes sense. Btw, this is the classic deadlock which we love to discover but not resolve. :P

Maacha – I have a solution.

Me – aaha (a small smirk appeared before it soon disappeared)

Maacha – Maanas ne olakhtha sikho. (Learn to understand a person)

Me – Always have at least in your case. But tell me about your solution.



Maacha - Osama showed me a video which he recently made up there. Poor soul he still believes he is living in the $1mn house in Pakistan. So he is sending the tape which says his message will be spread not through his followers but some innocent gujju. You are not a gujju so you are safe, the message will be spread and it will save my life from OxAMAs.

Me – I knew your solution will always be far away from any thing called logic. However, for you I will do it albeit for a small charge. Since you are a gujju and claim to not eat non-vegan food, and many other You-Know-What things, I would only ask you to give me call.

Maacha - Sure.

Me - Not missed call. (That was the maximum I ever can get out from him. I have principles of not doing anything for free. My reputation of being an pseudo-gujju will be in tatters, if I do not get any profit out of this transaction.)

Maacha - chokas! (sure)

The message - coming up in the next post! Stay tuned!


PS: To the real Maacha - after reading this do not exlclaim - aama hu kyathi aayo? :)
P.PS: All the above conversation happened in the urban version of gujarati. So any errors in translation is purely an error.
P.P.PS: No OBL was killed when writing this post.