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  1. Friction In The PIND!

    • Bobby Friction
    • 23 Mar 08, 03:26 PM

    Phewww..back to work on air on tuesday but need to paste this pic up, as after the Delhi metro system the 'other' side of India slapped me full on in the face. But more of that in a moment..

    This trip to India has been a 'family' affair unlike my yearly trips to DJ - so no 5 Star hotels, No Bollywood shenanigans, No watching 1000 drunk Punjabis dance as I DJ, or no exploration of India's thriving electronic & guitar underground. Its been a 'show the relatives the new wife situation' and has meant chai, samosa, butter chicken and lots of me going slowly mad.

    friction_pind.jpg


    The positive of this though is my cousins and 'real' indians I meet on family trips are always my bell-weathers on how India's doing. Its all very cool staying in a nice hotel and thinking you've seen the real India but years of spending time with family just 'chilling' & 'living' with them give you a sense of what day to day life is like on the sub-continent and what drives them as well as their beliefs. The view from my family in the cities is the same its been for 5-6 years now - that being thats for all its multiple faults & deep problems India is slowly on its way up and is heading for a slightly better tomorrow.

    BUT the revelation this trip has been the PIND!!! Yes yes my family are city-walleh and I had never been to the Pind but now that ive been to a pind deeper in the punjab than anyhwhere I've been before I am officially 'In Love'.

    I dont have time to go into specifics now but i can tell you the folowing observations I made from a city-centric-brit-asian-bobby-friction perspective.

    1. All the boys in the pind DONT follow Bolly heros like they do in the cities - they all look lke JAzzy B!!!! (right down to the bleached spikey hair and big khanda necklaces

    2. Religion is EVERYWHERE

    3. The local temple is EVERYTHING

    4. The place might stink of cow dung and and most people cant speak english but their houses are bigger than city houses and they all have better cars, jeeps, motorbikes than city types

    5. Bhangra is EVERYTHING (Indian bhangra with deep lyrics that is - not many Brit-Asians are known here like they are in the Punjabi cities)

    6. Its CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP here like India in the old days - Delhi getting as expensive as Paris I tells thee!!

    7. People in Punjab are as freaked about loss of their 'culture' as some white people in Britain are. (because of inward indian immigration from other states)

    8. Australia is the new promised land becoming the the place everyone wants to go - not the US, UK or Canada.

    9. Cows are cool.

    10. I saw a cow jump 2 bycycles and 2 'manjhay' (beds) in a rural sports competition - Now thats far cooler than anything Ive seen in New York or San Francisco!

    Anyway - here's me gone native.....see ya next week

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  1. 1.

    Hey Bobby, loved your blog, absolutely smashed it right on the money with this one. My family are also from the city (Hyderabad to be exact) Now considering the development of South India is a lot different than that of the North where you were. Some of the same sentiments truly exist. Religion still remains everything, whether be it a mosque, gurdwara, or temple. and I also found that the houses in the rural areas are pretty big. And yes, the cities, especially hyderabad, and delhi when i visited are mad expensive now, and can be comparable to any western city. The most intriguing thing i found about your article, is the fear of the community losing their culture, based on domestic immigration. Many Hyderabadis in the city and the surrounding areas, are seeing large scale immigration from the North and other areas, and many feel that authentic hyderabadi culture will be diluted. I guess in the next decade or 2 it will be easy to find south indian dosa shops just as easily in Amritsar as you would find in Madras.
    The best of course is spending time with the family and enjoying the simpleness that India has to offer, even in lieu of all its crazy development. Sometimes i feel India is trying to walk before it can crawl. Excellent blog bro.
    cheers
    Nizam

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  2. 2.
    • At 11:17 PM on 29 Mar 2008,
    • Ahsan wrote:

    haha smashing blog! loved every bit of it especially the cow jumping the munji!

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  3. 3.
    • At 12:21 PM on 31 Mar 2008,
    • Madhu wrote:

    Hi Bobby,

    I have just myself come back from India only last night. I was in Jallandher on my way to Phaghwara via the various pinds and i was sure i saw you in a 4 by 4.

    Wanted to say hello but my sis was not convinced that you could possible be driving through the pinds.

    How cool is that? - There is not many men in the pinds of India that look like you!!

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  4. 4.
    • At 05:35 PM on 31 Mar 2008,
    • Rani wrote:

    Haha great blog Bobby! Absolutely love that picture f you, how about you try riding a bike to work back here in England!! Not quite the same novelty I guess!

    The pinds are completely different, and I think sometimes people who go back to visit family, not only in the Punjab but other area of the Indian subcontinent too miss the reality of what is happening back there, because they don't take into account what is happening to the common folk. The people in villages won't turn their back on progression but when we look at new cities springing up and becoming more westernised, we see progression. We often miss villagers who are exposed to polluted water supplies who are suffering from this progression!

    I hope you can raise some awareness on these kind of issues too!

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  5. 5.
    • At 04:22 PM on 04 Apr 2008,
    • remi wrote:

    all
    righ
    your
    blog
    is
    very
    bad

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