I’ve been wanting to write on this but never had the time to do it. Or should I say the courage to do it, coz I don’t know how “judging” people would react like how others did.

I am married to an Indian. For people who do not really know, they would just tag them as “bumbay“, the well-known “tindero ng kulambo (mosquito net vendor)” or “5-6″. Just for other’s info, not all Indians are from Punjab (a place where bumbays are from). It’s basically like a Bisaya (Cebuana) from Cebu, if compared to Philippines.

Anyway, back to the topic….

It’s never easy being with a different national particularly an Indian, I guess. I got interrogated by so many people like:

Q-#1. Wala bang amoy? I’d answer directly, “kung may amoy di siguro ako tagal, or sometimes I just answer in a sarcastic way “di ba sa Pinoy/Americans din merong may mga amoy?”.

Q-#2. Kaya mong kumain ng Curry? O bakit nakakalason ba yun? Or I’d say in fact marunong na nga akong magluto nun.

Q-#3. Eh di mag-iiba ka na din ng religion? Lucky me, he is a Catholic. A Roman Catholic. And so what if he’s not. Masama bang maglagay ng isang corner for Lakshmi and another corner for Jesus Christ?

Q-#4. If you end up together, where will you settle in? Pnas or India? Wherever he may be, I’m ready. That’s how it is. A wife should be with her husband, wherever it is, but of course I made some conditions hehehe! Okay! That’s another story!

Q-#5. What about your kids? Which school would you send them to? Huh? Huwaaaaaaat? Why do you wanna know? Are you going to pay for their tuitions? Grrrr!

That’s just 5 of those questions I had encountered. Honestly, do they matter? I mean the differences? For as long as you know you are happy with the person you love, I don’t think they matter.

We were together for 5 years before we decided to get married, not because of the differences, not because how people reacted on our relationship, not because we had problems in between. But just because we wanted to make sure that we are for each other.

We are now married for almost 3 years. Total of 8 years already. We are happy. He eats sinigang. I eat curry. He watches TFC. I watch Star Plus. He speaks Hindi. I speak Tagalog. At the end of the day, we both understand and speak English. So, what’s the big deal??!

The same goes to our daughter. There is no restriction on being an Indian and Filipino. She is both. She eats curry and sinigang. We talk to her in both our own dialects. In the long run, she has to learn anyway. She needs it when she goes “home”.

All in all? It’s not really hard… It’s just a matter of compromise. But I must admit, there are times na nakakapikon and nakakapagod mag-reason out even if you don’t have to.

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