@ndvme on IG said- ‘he’s gonna take the selfie, but he’s not happy about it. Nobody made him take the pic!’
Traveling while Black, Rule #10– Be prepared to be a spectacle
Thankfully though, unlike some of our experiences in Greece, our Indian brethren appear to be serving up genuine curiosity… the same kind we have for them. When we’re kicking down the terrifying street-sidewalk-raceway, dodging rickshaws and entire four person families atop one, single, solitary speeding moped, people look. Like, look-look. And they don’t look away when you lock eyes either, they just keep staring. And while it made me a bit uncomfortable at first, what I’ve found is that 99.9% of the time, if I smile, they smile back! #Voila #Maaaagic. As ‘small’ as this world is, it’s interesting to go to another country full of brown people and feel like an alien. We’re all curious about each other and nothing is more powerful than reaching out across the sometimes massive culture and language gaps to shake the hand of someone who is actually not so different than you after all. #WeAreAllSpectacles
Case in point, yesterday at the Bandra Bandstand, hubby and I were minding ours, strolling and people watching… probably talking ish too, the usual. The sun was being rude, so we decided to sit for a while and revel at the beauty of the beach-community bath-laundromat situation. It wasn’t five minutes later that a group of smiling, Hindi-speaking gentleman approached us, shook our hands, and gestured for a photo, like this one–
Cool, right? But you see homeboy in the pink shirt on the left? He was waiting to jump in, and so were the other 5 folks you can’t see off camera. I’m talking different poses, stand up, sit down, musical chairs, my arms around your shoulders, now your arms around his shoulders, singles, groups, peace signs, the whole 9. Finally, when the 8th group of excited peeps approached, Hubby jokingly said, ‘one picture, 5 rupees’. The language barrier didn’t prevent them from understanding the humor and they quickly assumed the position anyway. More pics. We were swamped. So we decided to get some pics of our own. We told a few parties about our hometown of Ferguson and managed to snap these gems-
People in India flip off cameras too! #WereNotSoDifferent
So yeah, the tide comes in and covers those rocks every evening… they party until Mother Nature shuts ish down. 
you betta henna that hair, gurr! 
beautiful!
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I’m giving away a $100 ROMWE giftcard and a year’s supply of Henna Sooq’s Red Raj Henna (12, 100g boxes)! All you have to do is comment on all the India related posts that have the ‘CurlyNikki WorldWide’ logo at the bottom. On Jan 5 (at 5pm EST), one lucky
commenter will be randomly chosen to receive the funds, and another will be randomly chosen to receive #AllTheHenna! Good luck!
