#62: Fighting at Indian Parties

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and fighting when young Indians get together at an Indian-majority party (sporting the ubiquitous party-top/patterned shirt). It seems rather strange, given that the previous generation of Indians preferred to resolve their conflicts through gossip (airing other kids' inferior SAT scores, Yasmin's movie, etc.) and/or exclusion. In contrast, this generation's conflict-resolution preferences are far more aggressive. Furthermore, these fights only occur at large Indian gatherings, and never at ethnically-diverse parties where a subgroup of Indians happen to be.

So how do such conflicts start? This would best be illustrated through a completely fictional example.

Let's take a fictional guy. Ameet*. Let's say he's from, oh, Gujarat, and grew up in, let's say, Schaumburg, IL. Ameet ends up at a Big Ten school, where he meets a girl he likes: Anjali. Anjali likes him at first, but ultimately drops him into the dreaded friendzone. Naturally, Ameet is crushed.

Ameet then does some soul-searching to possibly figure out why the object of his affection does not reciprocate his feelings. He erroneously concludes that his diminuitive stature must be the reason. Ameet's bitterness envelops him, and he spirals into a full-fledged Napoleon Complex.

Now, since he has to settle with being friends with Anjali, he decides that if he can't have her romantically, no one can. So at the next party (which inexplicably takes place in a barn), when prospective suitors come her way, he'll push them away, talking about, "No, she's like my sister, dogg; you can't dance with her." Sometimes, they'll ignore him and continue to woo Anjali. This enrages Ameet. He then proceeds to round up his friends of similar maturity and hairstyle (perhaps they too have had the same experience with Anjali) and attack the suitor. This occurs a few more times at future parties and with other prospective suitors.

The fights don't last long, but the damage is done. Anjali no longer likes Ameet, but stays friends with him out of guilt. Ameet has fully descended into the Dark Side, and is now primarily known campus-wide (perhaps Big Ten-wide) as Petite Ameet - the guy with the Napoleon Complex that always starts fights at parties with his "Desi Champ" friends. A crying shame.

And so every Indian Party has a Petite Ameet-type tragic hero. Their reasons for rousing rabble are resultant of varying insecurities, but the results are the same: unnecessary fights, generally over women they cannot have, but feel compelled to "protect". It is simply a sad state of affairs.

Beware of Petite Ameets.

*The characters and events depicted in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Except the pictures - they're real dudes.