1,001 Things I Love About India (continued)

18) Do It Yourself Dinner: Coming up soon is the Muslim holiday of Eid, which is kind of a self-participatory Thanksgiving and Christmas put together. The whole family gets together and goes out to buy a goat, just as if it were a Christmas tree. Then, on Eid, the goat is eaten, just like Thanksgiving. The self-participation part is that until Eid morning the goat is alive, munching on leaves and trash in your yard, at which time you slit its throat yourself and then haul it down to the butcher. I think we should adopt this tradition at home and all start beheading our own Thanksgiving turkeys. Now who's hungry?

19) Look Who's Riding Shotgun! The Eid/goat thing is so awesome that it gets two spots on the list. In order to bring your goat home, you need some form of transportation. Most Indians don't have their own car, and certainly can't afford to rent one just for one day a year, so the simple solution is public transportation. Seeing a person in the back of taxi with his goat on the way home is a sight not to be missed, and is topped only by the sight of multiple people AND multiple goats riding in an auto-rickshaw. The record so far is three adults and three goats in an auto-rickshaw, which, lest we forget, is designed to carry two people.

20) Losing Laura in a Crowd: Laura, with her dark hair and vaguely central Asian features, recently bought several salwaar kameez, which is a very common outfit for Indian women consisting of loose pants, a knee-length loose cotton shirt, and a shawl which is worn backwards, called a dupatta. Now, if we are walking down the perpetually-crowded Mumbai streets and I look away for a moment I completely loose track of her. From the front, she could certainly pass for Indian (as long as she didn't open her mouth), but from the back she is completely indistinguishable from the masses. Needless to say, she is quite proud of herself.