Hindu Terms

I love when I find someone who has a big problem with Hinduism using its terms. It seems that many Americans now don't know the origin of words like "karma." Below is a quote from a blog that I read occasionally. Its heavy evangelical Christian emphasis is usually too much for me, but there are some useful writing tip gems applicable outside the Christian writing market (why is there an entirely separate market just for Christian writing, anyway?)

Monday, February 28, 2011
Why Men Don't Read Romance

If you're a Christian man who reads Christian fiction, well, you're a dying breed. Call it payback for centuries of misogynist tyranny, but finally karma has caught up. Don't believe me? A stroll down the Religious Fiction aisle will cool your jets, bubba.

Novel Journey

An evangelical Christian believing in karma... hilarious.

Humor: Buddhist

A friend posted this hilarious video on Facebook. It is about Buddhism, but there is a lot of relevance to Hindus too!

Fun Song and Dance

If any of you are as nerdy as I am, then perhaps you have seen the web-based show The Guild. It's about a group of people who play an MMO-style game together.

This may not sound relevant, but one of the characters is Indian and as an promotion, they put out this hilarious Bollywood inspired ad.

Watch for one of the characters speaking fake Hindi. (If you aren't familiar with Hindi, he says "hey" a lot because the Hindi verb "to be" sounds like "hey").

Racial Differences (funny)

A friend sent me this hilarious article about racial groups.

Basically, someone took thousands of profiles from a dating site called OKCupid and separated them by gender and by race (what the people themselves classified their race to be). Then he analyzed all the parts about what the people like in order to find the top 50 things that people of that race and gender list as what they like. (It doesn't say, but I believe that these people are all in America).

Let's see what white women like v.s. what Indian women like. And which one am I closer to?

White Women
the red sox= Well, I'm from Boston and that's our team. I don't care about sports at all and would never mention it in an online dating profile, but if I'm going to root for any team it will be them.

jodi picoult= Yuk. I think her writing is terrible. I read one of her books and the plot had an enormous hole in it and was very disappointing.

boating= not interested

nascar= really, really not interested

mascara= it's useful sometimes, I guess. I already have very dark and thick eyelashes, so I don't worry about mascara much.

ireland= the land of my ancestors from one side of my family.

nicholas sparks= Yuk. Even worse writing than Picoult. Horrible, overblown romantic stuff

horseback riding= never done it

bonfires= never done it

flea markets= never been to one, though they sound fun

a country girl= not at all

nora ephron= I do like her writing and her movies. She did My Blue Heaven, which is fantastic

waitress= the profession or the movie? I've never been a waitress. The movie was okay

ray lamontagne= I don't know who this is

i'm blond= Nope, never have been

yankees= This is the team directly against my Red Sox team, so certainly not!

kenny chesney=heard of him, but never heard his music

decorating= LOVE

getting dressed up= LOVE (hello, gorgeous sari)

skiing= I did it once when I was a kid, didn't care for it

when harry met sally= cute movie

baths= not really, although I like them better than showers

my red hair= I do like my red hair. Thanks to henna I am delighting in having orange hair in front.

horses= I like animals in general, horses are nothing special to me

summertime= Sure, summer is fine.

wine= I don't drink any alcohol

dmb= don't know what this is

historical fiction= I've enjoyed it when I've tried it, though I'm more into literary fiction and classics

cookbooks= love them

flip-flops= indifferent to them

my girlfriends= having friends is nice

the time traveler's wife= Amazing book and I highly recommend it

country music= don't care for it

diet coke= I hate soda

dirty dancing= good movie, nice love story

coffee= I also hate coffee

thunderstorms= I like rain more than I like thunderstorms

midwest= I drove through the midwest once

tim mcgraw= heard of him, never heard his music

new recipes= Yeah, new recipes are always good

patricia cornwell= heard of her, never read any of her books

mom= I like my mom

carrie underwood= heard of her, never heard her music

nursing school= I'm not a nurse, so never been

eat pray love= LOVE, we've all ready established that

yoga= I like it okay, but I've talked about that before too

pilates= good exercise

my toes= Um, weird. I am fond of my feet. I don't know why. They are very small and I think they are pretty.

animal lover= I do love animals

baking=I do love cooking, though baking is something I'm not great at.

I'm giving myself a generous 19 out of 50.

Indian Women
bhangra= love it. I love the music and I love the dancing, but I'm not so good at the dancing. I enjoy watching it, though. My college had an amazing bhangra team

the namesake= amazing book and very good movie, I highly recommend them both

shantarama= I haven't read it

thousand splendid suns= haven't read yet

bollywood= love

residency= not a doctor, so I don't know about this one (see, right there you can tell I'm not an Indian, I've never even considered being a doctor)

the kite runner= it's on my list of books to read

jhumpa lahiri= Love. She is the author of the Namesake above. I've read all her work and I'm a huge fan.

interpreter= still only monolingual :(

indian food= love some of it. it is often too spicy for me, but I'm trying to build up my tolerance.

my passport= I'm fond of my passport, but I probably would not list it on a dating site.

my couch= I like my couch.

thai food= I really like pad thai, which I only just found out about this year. Haven't tried anything else.

slumdog millionaire= great movie

i heart a foodie= food is yummy

spices= like them

monsoon= never experienced one. Maybe it would cause me to change my mind about loving the rain?

wedding= LOVE weddings. I read about weddings a lot and really enjoy going to weddings and hearing about people's weddings.

bridget jones= love the movies, haven't read the books yet

vegetarian= yup.

frnds= Friends? I like them.

new yorker= shudder. No, I dislike New York.

my parents= Yup, I like them. Both of them.

neighborhoods= Sure, neighborhoods are nice

social justice= I believe in it

different cultures= Obviously :)

physician= nope

soca= I don't know what this means

when harry met sally= very enjoyable movie

be silly= Not so much. I get accused of being too serious a lot. I have a sense of humor, but it's kind of a subtle, wry, British sense of humor that I got from my dad (and I don't know where he got it, as he's from North Carolina).

norah jones= the couple songs of hers I've heard, I've liked

paradiso= I don't know what this is, but it sounds really familiar...is it a movie?

anna karenina= Haven't read it yet and I'm ashamed. My dad loves Russian authors and I've been meaning to read this one.

tapas= yummy

funny= see "be silly."

the alchemist= haven't read it, but it sounds good

dance floor= I do enjoy dancing, though I'm terrible at modern club dancing

my mom's= her house? It's fine.

exotic destinations= Sure.

the unbearable lightness of being= Love the title and have always meant to read it just for that

discovering new things= Yup. I love to learn and I'm always trying to learn new things all the time.

gandhi= I like him

dark chocolate= Yum.

analyst= ?

jane austen= Love

coffee= Don't like

vivacious= Um, I don't know if anyone would call me this

great conversation= I like to think so, as long as you enjoy philosophical meandering

salman rushdie= I like his writing

god of small things= it's on my bed side table, but I haven't read it yet.

And for this one, I get 30 out of 50.

Hmmmm. In either category it looks like I'm not really the statistical norm. Although, I get 11 more points in Indian than in white.

Comedy

I am running low on ideas, I feel like I'm repeating myself!

Chinmaya has let out for the summer and I have been so busy with work and school that I haven't been doing as much reading on religion as I usually do.

So, if you have any questions, thoughts, or ideas, do send them my way.

******************

A couple nights ago my boyfriend downloaded an Indian Comedy Tour from Netflix and it was a little disappointing. I only found one of the five comics funny and one of them was so-so.

Here is a clip where some of the best stuff from that show was blended together:


The only comic not represented on that was a girl named Dahlia McPhee who was half Indian and only told one Indian joke.

I went to YouTube because I figured that there must be some funny Indian comics. My boyfriend told me to look up Russel Peters. I don't know how he came to have that name, but he is Indian and he is very funny.

Here are a few clips:




(Although, I have to say that I love the Indian accents)










Anyway, there's lots more!

Time for some fun

Let's have a good laugh today.

I'll tell you how I came across these. I had to have my car inspected for moving to a new state and I didn't know that it won't pass with stickers on the windshield or windows. When I went to pick my car up, they had torn off the Om on my rear windshield and the Shiva on my side window. I was really sad.

But now that my car has been inspected, it never has to be again, and I started shopping to replace them.

I first put the stickers on about five years ago when I was living in California. I'll admit that I have a bit of a confrontational attitude sometimes. I put them up for basically the same reason I have trouble with Christmas. I feel the need to stand out and to force people to recognize that this is not a Christian nation. There were so many religious bumper stickers and I felt like I was somehow agreeing if I didn't show my side.

Right, we're here for fun today, off my soap box.

In the years since I went looking for Hindu bumper stickers, a lot more have come along. I was laughing out loud at some of these, so I wanted to share them. They are from CafePress.com.au







I don't know how many people could possibly match the following description, but I certainly do!


More silliness...


(The Hindi word for potato is aloo)

And a couple of adorable bibs (dhood is the Hindi word for milk)...

Speaking of bindis as a sign of marriage...

Something light-hearted and fun for a change!