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Ash and I celebrated an early Thanksgiving this past weekend. Celebrating Thanksgiving is as simple as hogging traditional American dinners consisting of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, French bean casserole, and a plethora of pies. We had a typical international student thanksgiving dinner at a local Baptist Student ministry. Although it was advertised for $2, no one seemed to ask us for any money when we landed up. Surprisingly, we were the only desis in the ministry located near a desi ghetto on Northgate. Maybe the other desis went to the other church where you didn’t have to pay anything at all. So here we were surrounded in sea of Chinese graduate students hogging turkey and mashed potatoes.
The ministry students were greeting everyone enthusiastically, sometimes a little too enthusiastically. I have attended such dinners previously and do not think they are out on a proselytizing mission on that particular night, although I was handed a Jesus tape as a farewell
gift. I never saw it and by the end of the month had taped it over with Nip/Tuck. So, I didn’t find Jesus that year. The conversations at the dinner tables usually occupied by American families or students who either falsely claim to have no idea of foreign culture or are simply
too ignorant to have ever taken the effort to find out. But it makes for some interesting exchanges and I can bluff my interpretations of Indian culture. Yeah! We use elephants for transport until last year when the government banned them for emission problems. No problem; now we have eco-farting elephants. Or throw them off with some little-known baseball or football trivia especially when they have least expected you to have heard of the game let alone seen one.
This year was different. The two American students were more interested in chatting up with each other rather than strike up a conversation with us. Maybe next year we will meet their kids. I didn’t mind one bit. I was busy stuffing myself with delicious stuffing covered with gravy. I wish I could go for more but later on realized that this stuff was slow acting and tends to occupy all nooks and crannies in your belly once ingested. The Tryptophanase creeps up on you ever so slowly embracing you in the sweet comforts of a euphoric stupor. I wonder if the pilgrim ever got high on turkey. Although this is not funny when you have planned on writing a 20 page research paper over the weekend and all you can think of is warm snuggly confines of your bed.
The other Thanksgiving dinner (yup, I had two in as many days) was a more formal affair. It was hosted by one of my professors in her wonderfully quaint hundred-year old house. Any structure more than 40 years old is a historic structure in America but this place was really lived up to its label and to top it off, we got a personalized tour through the restoration-in-progress. Five cats and couple of dozen candles cast a warm and inviting glow all over. The food was delectably different from the church food (duh!) and I again couldn’t help myself to having an extra helping. Informal conversations on weather, pets, and cultural oddities with 20-odd guests made it a pleasant evening. The Tryptophanase put paid to any hopes of working any more on that paper and we instead checked out the midnight show of the Harry’ Goblet
of Fire. Nope, guys Hermoine hasn’t gotten further on her way to “hotchickhood” (a Gawker term). Maybe they should wait a little longer to shoot the next editions.
by Patrix | on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 3:00 am | 
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