Saturday, April 21, 2007

Me and my giant tongue

This morning I woke up to the lovely sounds of our dog barking, whiney, high-pitched Hindi music blasting on my neighbors' radio and the general cacophony of sounds that resonates all across the city. One of my housemates had sent our chokidar (I guess you could equate that with a butler in America....but it's not so snobbish-sounding as that. He's our doorman and helps keep our house in order and tends our garden, etc) to get some bread for us.

So, our chokidar came back with hot, fresh naan (bread) for breakfast. A lot of times it's circular but this time he had gotten this long, flat bread. It's kind of oval shaped and narrows on the ends. I was feeling a bit cheeky so stuck one end in my mouth like it was a giant tongue while we were all sitting down to eat breakfast. Then I yelled out "eat, eat" in the local language which I guess when I have a giant piece of naan in my mouth sounds a lot like the word "uncle" in Dari, which is the term of respect for men like the chokidar.

So, the chokidar comes running back into the room and here I am with a giant, slobbery piece of bread hanging out of my mouth. He gave us a look of confusion and quietly slipped out of the room. Oh mercy. What do these people think of me? And will I ever learn to grow up and not make a fool of myself?

1 comment:

The Hungry Academic said...

Do you remember your grandmother going down Killer Hill just a few years ago? Giggling and yelling? I don't think we grow out of doing silly things in our family....it is almost a prerequisite! Love you....and your giant tongue!

Mom