Is there ice in your freezer?

Now when I say NRI, it should, by definition, mean any Indian born person who’s lived anywhere outside the country for a certain period of time – presumably most of their life. Somehow even this gets distorted in Manipal. One of my friends, a Californian, confessed that it’s just North Americans that come to mind when she hears the term NRI. Wait, allowances have to be made for Canadians right? Their friendly neighbours up north? You wish. My Canadian friends bear the brunt of endless jokes about their home. It ranges from “Canada? Nope, the place doesn’t give out tourist brochures. You don’t need it anyway. It’s the cheapest holiday possible. Just stick your head in the nearest freezer!”

to

“Border Patrol? Why would Canada need that? No American in their right mind would cross the border in that direction. A fence is enough, to keep the Canadians from crossing over to the USA.”

to

“Hey, my drink’s not cold enough. Looks like they forgot to add the ice.

listen, would you mind blowing into this glass of water? Thanks a ton.”

Ha Ha. I’ve got to give the Maple Leaf Army credit though. They fight bravely. They’re just incredibly outnumbered by their bigger, more ostentatious neighbours.

What about the rest of us? No one’s spared. The Middle East? We’re incredibly fuel efficient; it’s no wonder we’ve got such incredible oil reserves etc. etc. Who wouldn’t, if they rode camels everywhere?

“Hey, are they house trained? Do they sleep with you in your tents?”

A couple of my classmates are from Saudi Arabia. One of them, one of the nicest and politest guys you would ever meet, is familiarly known as the ‘terrorist’. Yeah right. The guy couldn’t terrorise a cockroach. However, none of that matters. Every time a class gets too boring, he’s bombarded with smses to carry out a covert operation and obliterate one of the departments. If he’d actually responded to all those calls, he’d have created a trench so deep in the Physio department we’d have reached the core of the earth by now.

Mauritians. We’ve never gotten round to making fun of them for any substantial reasons. For now, their accent is keeping people completely and relentlessly occupied. I love their French-tinged accent, but most people don’t even begin to understand it, and as a result, if you want to sound Mauritian, apparently all you have to do is ‘talk really really quickly and fling your voice about to hit the extremes of every octave you can think of.’

Somehow none of this really offends anyone. Everything’s in good fun and there’s nothing better than an avalanche of ice cubes or a crazy camel race to lift your spirits when you’re feeling down. After all, we ‘ave to understand that eet ees in the true spirit of fun, n’est-ce pas?