Indian sweets and Japanese friends

Firstly, I happen not to be very keen in publishing all the details of my life on Internet, all the way that many people love to. However, this is something very amusing I have had. If you pay close attention to the whole conversation, you can have a nice peek into how a typical Japanese society works!

Well, it happened on last week, Friday evening, after I finished with my lab's presentation! Two of my Japanese friends and me with Rasgullas (both the red and white ones). If you don't know what the Rasgulla is, look at the picture attached. This is one of the most popular Indian sweets one can have there in India. Similar to other typical Indian sweets, this is also made up of milk, sugar, and rice (or wheat) flour, well dipped into high-concentration, high-viscous solution of sugar and water.

Anyway, enough of the background!! Now, lets move on to the real story. Lets call those Japanese friends J1 and J2, as their names and identity are not so relevant. They wanted to taste Indian sweets and this was the best opportunity for them to have it (curious minds, plz spare me with questions of how did I get my hands onto these Rasgullas in Japan).

hmmm, now the scene is that we all three are together with the Rasgullas. Lets eat. J1 chose the white one while J2 chose the red one to start with.

J1: (smelling before eating) hmm, looks like some perfume is mixed (yup, thats right. Haldiram Rasgullas - white ones - are scented -- a perfect demonstration of common-senselessness).

J2: hmmm, wow! OISHII (means delicious in Japanese). It looks like it is made up of Ginger! 

Ginger??!! Really!! I was so fucked up surprised! Anything but c'mon, ginger?!!

Literally after their first bites, both of them took a big gulp of green-tea (mild bitter taste).

J1 & J2: OISHII !!!

In the mean while, J1 seemed to have read the surprise on my face about them drinking green-tea with the sweets...tried to placate the situation...

J1: The sweets and the green-tea matches very well when consumed together!

I was surprised again, really?!!

Me: OK, let me try!

I tried to keep the situation normal with perhaps the most general statement in this whole wild world: hmm, interesting (ha !).

They continued their struggle to finish their 1st unlucky chosen ones with help of the green tea for 10 minutes.

Then, they decided to change their choices. Now, J1 had a red one while the J2 had a white one.

J1: hmm, this one is better than the last one!
Me: OK, eat this one only...
J2: .......
J1: ......
J2: .......
....
.....

They were still trying to keep up with their typical Japanese attitude of being polite. Meanwhile, I kept eating the Rasgullas with utter pleasure!!

Then, all of a sudden, J1 drops the less-than-half-eaten red Rasgulla, perhaps deliberately, followed by discarding that away. J2 was still struggling with the white one to finish that off.

The conversation continued on. By this time, their protection layers were torn apart and they were unable to keep up with their cool-looking Japanese attitude anymore. Their inner-selves had started to converse...

J1: In India, the curry is very hot?? I saw a shop where there were 20 levels of hotness for curries. Level-20 had the description stating that even Indian people will have difficulties in coping up with it.

Me: Really!! 20 types!!

J1: Yes! In India, the foods have well defined tastes. On one hand, very hot. On the other hand, very sweet.

I couldn't stop laughing...of course, inside only without showing even a trace of that upon my face. J1 continued on to placate the situation...

J1: It's very different than the Japanese foods that all look quite mixed. Neither very sweet nor very hot.


I was getting sort of little confused whether I should intervene or let them continue with their attempts of placation.  By the way, by this time, I had well realized that it's only me who will have to finish those round ones off of the box. Eventually, I decided to intervene...

Me: I think this was very sweet for you two?!

J1: Yes (with smiling face)....a little!

Me: I think all the Japanese would find these too sweet to eat?! I better refrain myself from gifting Indian sweets to Japanese people in future?!!


J1:May be...I'm not sure (smiling face continued on)..

J2: But may depend on the people as well. Many people may rather like it very much...

J1: Yes, that is more likely to be the case...

Me: OK (I couldn't come out with any better answer than this universal two-letter word).

Till now, I has finished all of those except a red one. I offered that to J1...

Me: (with a look at J1's still-trying-to-be-smiling face) Finish it off.

J1 gave a I-have-given-up look to me. But I insisted...

Me: Go ahead, finish it off.

J1: Sorry but I can't. It's too sweet for me. It's so sweet that my tongue has gotten burnt. (Giving an attempt to pass that burden to J2:) Well, you can take it with you and eat it at your home.

J2 trashes that suggestion off...

J2: Oh no! I love to but I have to go to a party right after this. So, I can't!

By now, I had realized that I better move on and put that little red one into my mouth. However, as I was using chopsticks, it mistakenly fell off on the table. Instead of discarding that off, I decided to wash that in the more-than-half-filled cup of the green tea. I did that and then consumed with uttermost of my delight!

In the meanwhile, they had given another attempt of placation...

J1: You are so good in using chopsticks. Do you use it in India too?!

I am damn sure that they know that no one uses chopsticks in India. Obviously, I amusingly denied that and kept on explaining that we use hands, spoon etc. depending on the situation (perhaps, 100+th time in Japan! ha! )

P.S.: All this conversation had originally taken place in Japanese.

The legalization of homosexuality

Well, a High Court in India has given orders to discriminalize the homosexuality. This has started a big debate in India.

There are people who support homosexuality and there are others who are against it. The people who support it go on to argue that they should also have rights to live like a normal human being. However, the people who oppose it, are arguing that this is against their culture, religion, the law of nature etc. I have also listened to an RSS-spokesman saying that if few people enjoy stealing, it doesn't mean that theft should be legalized.

The main issue here is whether homosexuality comes in a category similar to stealing? If it does, it should never be legalized. Otherwise, the homosexuals must be given all the rights what others enjoy.

In my opinion, even after keeping the religious and cultural views completely aside, the act of homosexuality is surely unnatural. It can be easily proven after thinking of the special ways our body parts are designed by nature based on the dedicated purposes assigned to these. If there is something in some particular way, it has a purpose and that design is best suited to achieve the purpose (if you are really skeptical about it, send me a private message).

Now, the next question arises: so what? If someone does something unnatural of his own, why do others have problem? Well, there IS a problem. The society gets contaminated. Homosexuals are actually indirectly influencing others to try this unnatural act. Mature people may not get influenced that much but the children actually may get. Even if they actually don't exercise it in practice, influencing others doing something unnatural is wrong in itself. The whole society gets contaminated because of the unnatural desires of few individuals. Therefore, this act must not be supported or legalized in any way. If the homosexuals want it citing their right of sexual orientation, well, they should make their own society completely separate from the rest of the people. They can do there whatever they want but they should not be allowed to contaminate others by their unnatural acts.

UPDATE:
I have followed discussion on forums about this topic. All of them are citing human-rights of the homosexuals and their freedom of sexual choice as a justification behind its legalization.

The opponents are sometimes citing the cultural and traditional aspects of society and the view that the majority sees it as unacceptable. However, that's not so much of a concern. The world is changing and so should the culture and traditions. If something is wrong in a particular culture, or some particular tradition is wrong, it should be changed. The world must progress to an absolute betterment in anyway by eliminating its wrong aspects. In conclusion, the argument that homosexuality should be banned because it's against a culture doesn't sound very persuading. Also, welfare of minorities(homosexuals) should not be left upon the mercy of the majority.

To make the decision, the whole thing comes down to whether the homosexuality is "right" or "wrong". If "right", doesn't matter how many people oppose it, doesn't matter how different it is than a custom or culture, it should be legalized. Otherwise, it should never be, even if it violates homosexuals' individual human-rights. It is because they live in a society and they just can't cite violations of their human-rights because a society doesn't allow them to exercise their "unnatural and wrong" acts, be it homosexuality or something else. If they absolutely feel that their life is their own anyway and they must continue their whatever ideas at whatever cost after citing references to their freedom of sexual choice, they should find a way that doesn't harm others. But if it does, they can't exercise their wrong ideas because it affects the whole society in a wrong way. Before asking for the legalization of homosexuality, they must think of this popular phrase: "Right to swing your hands cease to exist where my nose begins" :-)

If someone comes up with some solid and persuading argument in favor of the homosexuality, I'm surely willing to listen to them. But plz don't give the arguments of violation of human-rights and freedom of choice to justify it. I already have talked about it enough in this article.

マナー、どこまで必要のか。

発表所：日本語の授業 ─ 留学生センター 横浜国立大学「2009年5月20日」

マナーを全然しないで行動するのは、勿論、良くないのが、マナーがいつでもどこでも入ってくる時も危険があると思う。簡単に表面的に見ると、このことが少しおかしな考え方のように考えられるかもしれないが、人間と社会の関係を広く考えてみよう。

「人間は社会的な動物だ」と言うことが昔から言われているのが、このことわざの意味をよく考えると基本的に人間関係ですね。人間達の幸せがお互いの関係の上築いている。他のことの必要さは二の次です（人々の幸せさに関する調査などを見ると、このことが明らかになる）。例えば、車、エアコン、パソコンなどがなくても人々は友達や家族や隣人などと一緒に楽しく生活しているが、回りの人が全然いないで生まれてから死ぬまでずっと一人で生活することは考えられない。このことを深く考えるとマナーなどが入りすぎる時には幸せのために一番大切である祖互関係が崩れ、人間社会の意味がなくなり危険が出てくる。日本の自殺率が高いのはこの現象のせいだと思う。

人間関係のとおり、社会で起きる良いこと悪いこと、両方が最終的に人間達の幸せに貢献するから、いつでも小さな事件の時も「マナーがないなあ」と思う方々は社会の本当の意味を理解しながら少し我慢するはずだと思う。いつでもマナーを守ってもらいたいより包容力や有効な管理などがもっと大切だ。悪いことが多いすぎた場合は、勿論、マナーの教えを考えるべきだが小さなことを気にしない方が社会の幸せのため最もいいと思う。