The deviant Indian

"Oh you have a guy house-mate? Never mind then", Poonam replies instantly to Rakhee who has a place to sub-lease. Rakhee hangs up staring at the phone, this is probably the fifth caller with a similar reaction. "It is not like people make-out with their flat-mates!" She thinks. Firstly finding the apartment and then room mates, that is only the beginning of hassles in America. But for friends, one would be a living
dead - body. Soon she calls her friend with whom she shares her sorrows. "Venky", She yells, "Why the fuck is it so difficult yaar, it is not like you are sharing a room, it is just a flat-mate for God's sake!" Venky from Chennai is very empathetic,"I understand, I would be really okay with it except for sharing a bathroom with a guy." Rakhee wonders, "Really?" So she asks him, "Why, what do guys do differently in a bathroom?" Venky's trained Engineering mind understands that logic but he says, "Guys and girls don't stay together for a reason. I mean, I can't leave my stuff around." Rakhee cuts him, "But that's what your room is for, and even if you do, don't both sexes have enough knowledge already of each other's under garments? What is new in that?" The very open-minded Venky is now too shy to reply, so he hangs up wondering what this girl is made of.

Rakhee is now shattered,"Venky is my friend, isn't he? But he didn't offer me his place to stay when I had no where to go". Her 'sex' seemed more of a priority than being a friend. Basically, she doesn't really have friends here. This fact dawns on her. She does not belong to the majority.

What is this whole thing about being uncomfortable around the other sex? The Indian community here prides itself on maintaining its 'morality' which even surpasses 'humanity'. What makes the reactions of "Poonams" and "Venkys" 'normal'? It would be alright if they were sexually active but then sharing a room with the other sex might actually hint at their 'activities' that they try to hide, so they avoid it, is it? It is thanks to the abundance of their kind that Indian 'culture' gets marketed as a morally parochial culture. Somehow as soon as these kinds step foot in America they instantly uphold the 'right-wing' India, trying to cut the wings of many libertarian Indians. These libertarians are not a myth, they exist in umpteen 'Rakhees', just that the majority from India consider them deviant.