Culture Chaos

Life in the west definitely promises a higher standard of living than back home, but some luxuries that are so readily available in India, are unheard of in this part of the world. The one luxury that I miss the most is having a house-help or a 'Bai' to help around home and that's the topic of today's podcast.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Often for us immigrants and expats, the experience of living in a country abroad varies drastically from the experience of friends and families visiting the same country as a tourist. In this episode, I talk about how living in a country and seeing the same country as a tourist can be two completely different experiences!  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

One of the challenges of living in advanced North American countries is understanding how to navigate around the complex health care norms and finding ones way to an actual doctor's clinic. It is especially difficult when you go from extremely convenient and logically sound systems in a country like India to a place where getting an actual appointment to see a real doctor, without being sent home a bill of a couple of thousand dollars is a challenge in itself. In this episode, I talk about health care in first world countries might be umm... a health hazard.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

What is more potent? The concentrated version of something that is really tough to gulp down, or a watered-down milder version of it, which might be better suited especially for the first encounter with this spirit called "culture"? Todays episode looks at how immigrants have succeeded at creating milder, watered down versions of their cultures for the masses, and how this has helped immigrant cultures gain more acceptance after moving into different parts of the world.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

For the longest time, Bhagyashree from Maine Pyar Kiya was the poster child for the ideal woman in India. Over the years that has changed but the expectations from women continue blocking the path for a desi woman to be able to make her own life choices. In such a scenario, with ever evolving standards against which women are evaluated, what is feminism and where exactly do we draw the line in trying to balance the Beyonce and the Bhagyashee within us? That's the topic of this podcast! Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

As a desi abroad, if there was one thing you could do for your country today, try doing some very much needed PR and image management for your Country. I seriously feel the need to do it now more than ever before and this podcast talks about why all of us should really give this a thought. Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Being really impressed by the small talk and exchanging pleasantries with strangers every morning, I initially thought that making a connection with people in the west would come as naturally as it did with folks back home in India, but it's not quite the same. Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

One of the things people either applaud or mock about me is how after having lived in the west for almost a decade, have a not picked up an "American Accent". In this episode, I talk about my appreciation for the Indian english accent and for the way we have learned to speak english in our country and share my philosophy for why I will never really let go off it, as it is a big factor in representing who I really am! Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Every desi living abroad develops his own weekend traditions. Traditions that reconnect him to his roots, traditions that bring alive his memories. This episode is an ode to all those weekend traditions and an appeal to all us to continue building them for the future generations to come.   Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

This father's day, an ode to our dads who play so many roles and transition with us at every stage of our lives with one an only one goal - to make us feel proud of ourselves. The sense of security that a father brings in his child's life stays with the child for their entire lives and thats the topic of my podcast today.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Contrary to the offerings of a superior standard of living and convenience of life, sometimes in the west, getting access to some basics like repairs for the smallest to the most complex of equipments is almost impossible to find. If you have missed the access to cheap repairs in the west and eventually emerged as a jugaadu genuis yourself, than this episode is for you!  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Last February, the fatal attack Srinivas Kuchibhotla in Kansas sent shivers up the spine of every desi in the west. This was one of the many racial attacks on brown men  in the past few years. Whether it is because we work on volatile temporary visas or it is because we have non violent attitudes, desis for the longest time have not addressed how big an issue racism is in the land of the American dream. We all know it is a problem but we all let it go. Do you think its time we stop letting in go and come together to reclaim our safety?  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Seeing their children fly thousands of miles away from them and moving abroad is probably one of the most difficult things our mothers have to go through when we move out of our homes. This episode is dedicated to all the desi mothers who go above and beyond themselves to help us settle down in our lives abroad and answer every query and question we have , at any hour of the day or night. Even if it is, like in the movie queen - Hing ko english mein kya kehte hai?  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Image courtesy wikimedia commons

"Its not the differences that divide us, but it is the ability to celebrate those differences" This week's podcast is an ode to the culturally rich and diverse traditions that us desis belong to and how this rich tradition makes us open minded to new experiencing and absorbing new cultures in the world. Being in the west for over 5 years now, it is only us immigrants that put in all the efforts to assimilate and despite all these efforts, we still struggle with resistance from the locals because they are afraid of differences.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Image courtesy of Mirta Toledo via wikimedia commons

It amazes me how some things that are considered quintessentially Indian in the west, are almost impossible to find in India. In the migration that took place over generations and in the slow transition from east to west, somewhere our cuisine transitioned to the concept of "curry in a hurry". In this episode I share some of my musings about what exactly is true Indian cuisine in the west, or is there any? Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Photo courtesy of Thomas Steiner via Wikimedia Commons

If you've heard stories from immigrants who left their home countries a few decades ago, the one thing they all have in common are tales of how they all started with less than 20 dollars when they landed at the airport and how they built their lives from scratch. This podcast is an ode to the immigrants who made it then and the immigrants who are trying to make it today. The struggles might be different but struggles there are! What we all have in common is the fight, the fight to survive and the fight to make it!  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening!

Whether it is the Maaza ad with Katrina having her "moment" with mangoes, or it is frooti being the drink of choice for all kids, we as a country are obsessed with mangoes. Now a days, even though Indian stories abroad have started carrying the Indian variety of mangoes, there is really no experience like the mango season back home. This episode is an ode to my love for this king of fruits.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Picture courtesy of Gnt at English Wikipedia via Wikimedia commons

Whether it is yoga or ayurveda, indian cultural influences in the west have gone way beyond a fad and are starting to become a way of life for people. As the so called flag bearers to our culture, are we prepared to represent all these concepts? Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Image courtesy of Jules via Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/stone-soup/

For every kid born in the 80s and 90s, somethings formed a quintessential part of our childhood and teenage. Whether it was Tang drink post school or it was Nivea cold cream during the winters. Whats common among them all? They all happened to be imported, just like almost every commercial product that us desis were obsessed with.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Cover image courtesy of Alpha Stock Images - http://alphastockimages.com/ via creative commons

Long courtships between engagements and weddings are becoming more and more common as people are choosing to get married to NRIs and move between countries for after marriage. Even though long distance relationships are a lot easier thanks to technology, they are still cases where the physical distance is thousands of miles. In this episode, I take a slightly humorous and ironical look at long distance NRI relationships.  Check out more episodes from Culture Chaos where I share stories of my experiences trying to navigate life away from India. You can write to me at culture_chaos@yahoo.com or leave your feedback/review on iTunes. Thank you for listening! Cover picture courtesy of “Distance makes the heart grow fonder.” – Thomas Haynes Bayly brightdrops.com/long-distance-relationship-quotes