Wednesday, February 2, 2011

He Is Indian and She Is White

My supposedly Indian husband is not recognized as such by many people.

Once in a restaurant I was pretending that io sono italiana, but, unfortunately, either my poor Italian or my blond hair, led the Italian waiter to think that I was lying. So he turned to Anil and asked him - in Italian, of course - if I were really an Italian... :-)

Also my father initially thought (with some help from my side) that Anil is Puerto Rican. And during our recent trip to Peru most local people thought that he was either Colombian (which totally does not make sense as he does not speak Spanish, so they should have figured it out) or Brazilian.

Even in India not everybody was convinced that Anil is indeed Indian. When we were buying tickets for various tourists attractions, most sellers tried to charge him the "foreigners' fee" (Usually, foreign tourists need to pay at least 10 times as much as locals. Yet another reason that I can not wait till I get my PIO card.)

Moreover, when Anil and I were traveling together there, he was multiple times asked by passers-by if he was Indian. And when he replied that he was, they were super-excited to share the news with others and shout around: "He is Indian, and she is white!" :-)