Some pointers for survival.

I am going to write the South Indian girl's guide to living with a white boy (or girl? I don't know enough about living with white girls). Based purely on anecdotal evidence.

Here are a few things. 

1. They will try to put their big feet on everything- on tables you might eat off, on you, on the nice chair you do your best to keep clean. This might even be with shoes on. Or even worse their mum will do this. And to keep things pleasant you will have to swallow that shriek of outrage and gently maneuver them out of that position.Or suffer.

2. You will have to be polite when the mother of your relatively aware white boy wants to put on a safety pin in solidarity with People of Colour. I understand white people are anguished about Trump as well, and maybe everyone in your church is wearing a pin, but  church full of white people, with one token Indian named Bob is part of the problem. I will make this a while chapter- things the white mum or your white boy may say or do. How to navigate without losing your mind, the goodwill of this nice older lady, or making your white boy feel terrible for being the progeny of old white people. My take is he can't help it. Just as I cannot stop my nearly 70 yr old Indian father from saying racist things without meaning to. All I can hope for is that he doesn't vote for Modi again .

3. Food- there will be an entire chapter about food.
How to turn his endless bottles of salsa into the tamatar-pyaaz component of your sabji or chicken curry.
How not to turn purple when your nice Southern boy suggests putting a ham hock, or some sausage in with your lentils to give it some fat.
How not to cry inside when he takes your biryani, puts cheese on it, wraps it in a corn tortilla, and eats it with chipotle sauce.
How not to murder someone when they look at the paneer you made, all on your own, from glorious full fat milk, from American cows as big as Indian cars, and say "It's just like Tofu right?" NO IT BLOODY WELL ISN'T. Just like how not all white people are the same....
There will also be some ranting about pound cake and it's incomprehensible popularity.

4. You will have to train them into getting used to you stealing their towel occasionally. Actually I don't think a lot of other people do this. This is not a brown girl thing, it might just be me.
Also- housekeeping and gardening. I grew up with grandparents who were enthusiastic gardeners but I have never encountered anything like the suburban American's passion for lawn maintenance. Just seems mad. 

5. A relative that you encounter only at family gatherings, like Thanksgiving and Christmas which are coming up, might ask you if Indians pay income tax. Yes. And we have had the concept since before this country was called America. Next?

Suburban living

One of the houses down the road has sprouted a Trump yard sign in their lawn.

This is a thing Americans do. They are devoted to the growth and upkeep of grass- lawn care is rigidly enforced by most housing associations, and people will make snide remarks about your unkempt grass if you don't keep it perfectly manicured. I'm always trying to talk my white American husband into leaving our grass overgrown because who are these people to tell us how to keep our garden?? He has been too deeply programmed to feel shame over this, and cannot be talked into this tiny subversive act of letting our lawn be. I find it ridiculous that in this land where people are always banging on about freedom, social programming is so strong that the opprobrium one would face for long grass is greater than that directed at convicted rapists, or known paedophiles. 

Anyway- the Trump sign. I've walked past it every day for the last month or so, and usually our little beagle has pooped on the walk, so I'm often carrying a nicely tied plastic bag of shit. I want very much, every time I pass the sign, to leave the bag by the sign. I fear getting caught though, and I also fear that the residents of the house might bring out a gun.

Ab ki baar America yaar

So I find myself moving house one more time. I've not lived all over the world like some of my friends, but I feel like I do a fair bit of shifting house, and this time it is the furthest away from my old house that I have ever moved.

Here is a short list of all the places I have lived, which means all the places I have boxed up my books and clothes for, and unpacked them in.I don't know which is more tiresome. It is possible to procrastinate more about the packing, because you can only last so long without unpacking your undies, and once you've begun you might as well empty the suitcases and hide them till the next time.

1. Home (Blr)
2. Boarding School
3. Home (Blr)
4. Hostel (LSR)
5. Home of kindly granduncle who let me crash at his pad while prepping for finals
6. Home (Blr)
7. Home of a kindly uncle in Dwarka (D.U in it's infinite wisdom had begun classes but not allotted hostel seats)
8. Hostel (DU)
9. Home (Blr)
10. Delhi- Apartment in Alaknanda
11. Home of kindly friend who let me stay even though everything prompted either a rant about men or tears, sometimes both together 
12. Home (Blr)
13. Delhi- Room in N Campus
14. Delhi- Apartment in Jor Bagh
15. Home (Blr)
16. Geneva- Room in student housing
17. Geneva- Flat with 2 Francophones
18. Geneva- Flat with Spanish, Danish and French flatmates
19. Geneva- Flat with Dutch girl, then 2 Italian boys
20. Geneva- Flat with 2 Italians
21. Home (Blr)

22. Home- USA- in less than a week.

How scary, how tiring, how far, how fun. At least this time there will be two of us unpacking.