Welcome back to This is India! I always have funny/weird stories about India to share with friends or family when I talk to them. This is just meant to be an honest portrayal about my life in India through short anecdotes. I also share here what I’ve been up to online outside Hippie in Heels.

What I was up to other than here:

  • I just got back to Ohio from my 9 day trip in Florida. It was a blast but “being a kid again” is exhausting lol. We visited so many theme parks, Disney parks, zoos, waterparks, and since it was my first week back in America after a year I ate a lot of course. Now I have some work to catch up on before I go to Vegas on Tuesday!
  • My grandma is in town! She is watching Boy Meets World with me as we speak.
  • Since I ate so much in Florida, I wanted to be healthy this week before Vegas. We had chicken fried steak last night (which is delicious but the gravy is really unhealthy. I ate a ton of it but thought oh I should force myself to eat the green beans too since they are good for you. I said mom these are actually pretty good! She said “yeah, that’s because I put so much bacon grease in them.” So, yeah dieting in Ohio is going to be impossible! lol
  • Ben hasn’t lost his mind in the Goa monsoon yet. He’s been “gardening” and playing with the animals (and sending me videos of them).

Now your story,

I was saying before that sometimes I just don’t “India” things anymore, after all I’ve been living here over 3 years and a lot of it is too normal to me now.

We were at the petrol pump and this bus was getting filled up before our turn. I noticed the chili and lime hanging, which is very common. But then I noticed the little black monster which I have usually seen hanging by people’s houses (and wrote about in a past This is India I’ll link to below).

this is india 108

this is india 108

Superstition is so common in India and truly believed by many. You’ll see the lime and chili on a string hanging from almost all buses and big trucks, and even small cars.

The monster is usually to keep bad spirits away. They put them when they build houses as they believe the house could be haunted if they don’t.

Read about the giant dummies they hang outside houses here.

I wrote about some superstitions here.

I was telling Ben why I was taking the photo and he’s like you don’t have to look at what’s on their car- look at what’s on our own car!

this is india 108

These were on the car from the cars’ technical owner and it would certainly be bad luck to take them off. One is Ganesh (on the right) and most cars have a chosen Goa on them. The stuffed animal is also really common.

My driver Babu has a stuffed cow hanging from his car review mirror.

Our other car, the Omni van has an orange Ganesh and a photo of Sai Baba we’ve always kept in it.

This is India!

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