I love my India

This list was brewing in  my head since Independence Day, nearly a month ago... here it is, though overdue and ill timed!

I love being an Indian in India because...

1. We don’t need an excuse to celebrate – we can choose from 258 festivals each year, one for each god we worship and love.

2. When we run out of gods, we have festivals to celebrate harvest, spring, monsoon, colour, lights, etc.

3. If that doesn’t satisfy us, we can choose to celebrate the birthdays of freedom fighters and regional icons

4. We can choose from 300 different items for breakfast, not one of which includes bread or body parts of animals

5. We can have pizza with chettinad chicken or kadai paneer topping and save ourselves the guilt of having sold our souls to the west.

6. We have a unique name for every relationship in our extended family as opposed to the ubiquitous uncle / aunty. Only complete strangers are addressed uncle/aunty here.

7. We can live -in with our parents even after the age of 35, and not be branded dysfunctional

8. We can pass the onus of finding a spouse onto parents and extended family, and not spend every weekend prowling the marketplace for a suitable date and hoping it turns into something of consequence

9. We can always blame the parents if the marriage doesn’t work (most often it works or we make it work!)

10. We don't need to take our children to zoos or farms to see cows, goats, horses and monkeys (Sometimes even leopards can be spotted in our backyards).

11. The vegetable vendor comes home, so do the fruit seller, milkman, tailor and the friendly neighbourhood chemist if we make a call.

12. We don’t need to be Oprahs to ride in the back seat of our own car or to afford an impressive array of domestic staff that includes a cleaner, dishwasher, chef and butler (all rolled in one at that)

13. We have Hinglish, we have Gobi Manchurian, we have Paan, we have Vegetarian Hamburgers and Chicken steaks

14. We can call Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bachchan and A R Rehman our very own

15. We make 5 times as many movies as Hollywood in 15 different languages and unapologetically surrender our brains to them for a good 3 hours every Friday evening.

And finally

16. We have something in common with every fifth person in this world – he/she is also Indian.