Did you hear about the Indian who ate too much curry? He fell into a korma.
Indian jokes aren’t quite as prevalent (outside India) as Irish jokes or Polish jokes or blonde jokes but they exist and they’re all as funny as that one a few lines up. Actually, that’s an Indian Dad joke.
Notwithstanding the just demonstrated joke standard, Indians do laugh. A lot. Especially when their cricket team is stitching up an opposition which just happens to be Australia at the moment. There is nothing worse than negotiating with a room full on Indians at the same time as their team is murdering yours. I’ve been there. It was inevitable as I’ve been to India around 90 times. I used to keep a travel log recording all of my overseas business trips and was up to 78 in 2003 when I stopped counting. Consequently, I’ve seen a lot of the place – good and bad. A lot of my future stories will feature various aspects of the place so I thought I’d start with all the good things I can think of. Here we go:
• The waiters are more polite than they are in France.
• In hotel construction more time and effort is spent on the bar than any other room in the building.
• Women and girls adorn their long hair with flowers.
• The beer is getting colder.
• Waiters show you the label on a beer bottle before they pour it for you.
• Ambassador cars are cute relics of motoring’s past and are safer than armoured personnel carriers.
• There are no high speed car accidents but unfortunately the roads make up for this.
• There are fewer plane crashes than there are in the USA.
• India produces a lot of Miss Worlds and Miss Universes.
• If there’s a cricket test match occurring anywhere in the world it will be on TV.
• The food is great.
• Breakfasts are fantastic.
• Beer goes great with Indian food.
• I heard a man in an Indian bar say “Beer drinkers make great lovers”.
• On my first trip there were two TV channels. Now there are about 2,000.
• There are more newspapers than TV channels.
• Newspapers tell their version of the truth without fear….
• On my first trip there were two beers. Now there are a few more.
• Notice how I haven’t mentioned the wine.
• After all of those trips I now enjoy arriving in India more than I used to enjoy leaving
• Sexist comment alert!!!! Trigger warning!!!! (this is an example of a sarcastic put-down of political correctness) On some airlines, Indian flight attendants are extremely good looking. The females that is. I’m not qualified to comment on the males.
• The Taj Mahal.
• The child bride likes India and wants to revisit which is more than I can say for some countries we won’t mention here (yet).
• Communications used to be crap which was kind of nice if you wanted to disappear for a week or so and blame the phones.
• There are lots of new airports. The stories I could tell…..
• Here’s one of them. Getting through immigration (either way) used to be the slowest in the world except for Iran where immigration’s computer actually was a large filing cabinet (going back a bit admittedly). It’s now improved in India. I haven’t been to Iran for a while.
• The cashews are bigger than anywhere else in the world.
• Everything is cheaper except real estate and anything associated with a decent hotel room.
• You can always get a lift home on New Year’s Eve.
• Mobile phone usage used to be less ostentatious and inclusive (if you get my drift) than in Hong Kong. Alas…..
• Elephants.
• The three women in C.A.T.S. (you’ll have to look it up) were cuter than Charlie’s Angels.
• Indians are friends for life, even if you don’t like them.