Country characters (part 2)

Haha, these indian people are characters of a kind, always full of surprises (not always the best ones but whatever).

I stayed in a hotel in a little town called Wai a few weeks ago. But it was a bit of a trouble to communicate with the staff, their English is very limited and my Marathi is very very very limited.
Indian people are not in the habit of smiling, especially to people they don’t know, even if they’ve seen them 10 times before or live in the same building. So I soon stopped trying to get smiles back from the staff as all I got back was a empty expression on their faces, dans le genre “On n’a pas gardé les vaches ensemble à ce que je sache (ou les moutons en l’occurrence)!”
So that day I ordered food, pointing out the different items on the menu card to the boy. After a while the dhal arrived on the table with the chapattis and the vegetables. Given that I was the only person eating there at that time, that boy just kept watching me… (how fascinating, “this white woman can’t even eat properly with her hands...”) When I lifted my head up he asked me with a gesture if I wanted the rest of the menu now, so I said “Bhat”, which means rice, and there, o surprise, a sudden gigantic smile illuminated his face… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I had just said one word!!

Moral of the story : next time somebody looks at you with an empty expression after you just smiled at him/her, just try mooing “Bhaaat” at him/her…