Things which confuse me about India...the "'Why oh why' post

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I have affectionately named such things 'Indiaisms' and trust me there are a fair few! So in no particular order;
- For those of you who thought socks and sandals was pretty much the biggest fashion error that could be made I present to you...socks and flip flops! Yes believe it or not this shocking combination is a common sight. Why oh why though? If it is cool enough for socks it's too cool for flip flops! They even make socks with a segregated big toe section to enable such an abuse of clothing to happen, and they are invariably a kind of beigey orange colour also...hideous!

- Indian dress is beautiful...even when the designs on the salwar kameezs look like they're from your grandmothers 50's curtains, something about the colours or sunlight means they still look really quite nice. So 'Why oh why' do they wear the most disgusting synthetic knitwear over the top?! The hideousness of such jumpers at time beggers belief...I console myself the every Indian person must just be colour blind and have an inexplicable penchant of synthetic fibres....shudder!
Those are two things that have confused me since we first came out as obvciously it is now too hot for socks of jumpers(...praise the lord) but I still thought they deserved a mention.

- In India whereas female friends have very little physical contact in public absolutely nothing is thought of male friends being physically attached to each other. This means I regularly see guys with their arms round each other, holding hands, sitting on each other's knees and even sat between each others legs. Of course the strong minded opinionated side to me thinks, thats really good that men here are allowed to show they emotions for other males and aren't restricted by the immaturity of a homophobic society. On the other hand, being brought up in England where that certainly doesn't happen, it still seems a little wierd whenever you see it. I don't think it would be so weird if the same guys weren't also the leary ones who stare at us and try to chat us up. When this happens my reaction invariably goes through they same three stages;
1) It's not going to happen mate,
2) Have you had a look at yourself recently? You're sporting a curtains hairstyle held in place with wet look gel
3) Even if I did find the nineties man look irrestistable, the fact that you're are sat on the knee of another guy and it looks like you're whispering sweet nothings to him, is a little offputting.
So suffice to say, I think I'll be single when I come back.

- My favorite Indiaism (being as anally retentive about the use of English as I am) is the widespread misuse of English on signs which actually makes them very amusing. I could do a very good line in proof reading all English but I wouldn't want to as it would seriously diminish the charm of this country which I'm beginning to really love. Perhaps the best so far was on a hotel menu in Manali where the subheading for the hot drinks section was "From the hot cattle" Made all the more amusing in a country where the cow is a sacred animal
(...or that might just be me who is laughing)

There are many more which I come across on a regular basis such as "English Wine and Beer shop" which certainly won't be selling English wine and I'm pretty sure it won't be selling bottles of Old Speckled Hen. This post however would probably get boring for you if I wrote them all down so I'll resist the urge to tell you all India's little quirks.

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