I am Firangi, but an Indian at heart. I am an Indian, but an Italian at heart. I am International, totally phoren at heart!

Wrote this for my friend Muzayun a long time back as a guest author on her blog. Recently she decided to clean up her blog to make it more acceptable, and this was first amongst the many things that got dumped. I spent quite sometime writing this, so am publishing it again nevertheless.

"I am an Italian by soul". And I am not the only one who strongly believes in that. Silvi and Helena have reaffirmed my belief by subscribing to this fact, without any provocation. And Sid is a witness to it, check with him if anyone has any doubts. Now there are different theories about what part of Italy do I belong to. My favorite crush Michelangelo (Torino) believes I am from Napoli, and his wonderful curls convince me of that. However, others feel that I am more Milano. Sid is different, he thinks I am from a region called cold Bihar. I hate that.

Personally I also believe that I am Iranian, my family and close relatives tell me so. The fact that I look like one also convinces me of that.

The ghodawala also feels that I am not Indian. When I travel with Sid, people ask him for driving license as proof and me for my passport. But I like it. Though we make for an odd combination, a phoren mem back-packing with a desi bihari. My disastrous luck! Where are you Michelangelo?

When I visit Diu, people look at me and stare. The fools haven't seen many with Multinational personalities like mine. I bask in the glory of my Internationalhood!

But my passport is Indian. So I am making distinct efforts to learn the local lingo, starting with the desi gaalis. Though they sounded disgusting in the past, am getting used to them now. Local and low-level friends like Sid come handy!

My sisters are Indian and pro-India. This statement becomes highly relevant when it comes to my home, which is badly hit by violence and destruction, apart from the fast spreading anti-state sentiment.

My daughter, Snehal, is also very Indian. And her last name is Joshi. We all call it coincidence, rather a nice coincidence. She sings beautifully, and I like whatever she sings. Her songs are distinctly Indian. Now I am thoroughly confused!

Many of my REC friends are based in Europe, but they also hold Indian passport. God I am so so confused now!!! Oh, but Filipe, Helena, Silvi, Jan and many many more are not Indian. Thank god my International credentials are still intact.

And every time I try speaking in the local language (including Kashmiri), people look at me with open mouth and appreciate the efforts I have taken to learn an Indian language, after all not all phoren mems take the effort to mix so nicely with the locals. When I tell them that I was born here, and learned the language in school they are less than impressed.

I ignore all of this. I know who I am - 

"I am Firangi, but an Indian at heart. I am an Indian, but an Italian at heart. I am International, totally phoren at heart!"

Salty Dead Fish and Pizza

This time last year I was craving for salt like a mad man. Doctors had advised loads of glucose, but all I wanted was salt. It was rather odd, because I have a BIG sweet tooth. I used to actually dream about eating salty sea fish for my meals almost every day. As my skin turned yellower, the craving for the salty fish meal also grew exponentially! Watching 'Travel and Living' all day long gave some exceptional visuals to my imaginations. My substitute to salty sea fish was 'salty' tadka arhar dal!

My Salty fish fantasy finally came true at an awesome open air restaurant in Torino with cool breeze soothing my very tired body, when based on Muzayun's recommendations I decided to take a bite from the very salty 'Tuna Pizza'. Her very audible and orgasmic 'OOHs and AAHs' convinced me that it would be almost a sacrilege to leave Italy without eating this 'Tuna Pizza'. It was for the first time in the last decade and half that a salty and very very tasty dead fish had come so close to my mouth. My desperate taste buds were all up waiting for the salty fish to touch them and give them instant International Nirvana/ Moksha.

The silence that followed (not literally of course) their contact was almost like an unexpected anti-climax to an exceptional build-up of desires and expectations. The buds recoiled, my mouth closed and my hands reached out for the very tasty and fine red wine for a soothing BIG gulp. A certain Ms Muzayun Mukhtar was still making her orgasmic 'OOHs and AAHs' with every bite!

Suddenly my 'Travel & Living says all Salty Sea fish tastes yum' dream came crashing down. And it was heart breaking too but returning to my simple, authentic and very tasty 'Margarita' was rather easy. However, my disappointment continued - no matter how much I tried, my tasty 'Margarita' could just not inspire me to make even an occasional orgasmic 'OOH and AAH' that a certain Ms Muzayun Mukhtar was still making!