As hard core indians, you know you are culturally sound & biased when you enter a home with different culture, slightly unknown gods, altars with herbs and that gives you a chill in the spine.
We booked this overly famous bnb in portlan with the best ratings possible and amazing view. Everyone described it as a peaceful house with wonderful decor. Literally reviewers went overboard and crazy. So we booked and packed. Ooh one tip for all the indians, if an american describes something as cultural, it could be a very scary one for you. I mean who knew some houses should come with a warning for indians.
As we entered the house, house was like a herb on fire. Turns out it was just sage. See if it was an incense stick that smelled like cheap indian store one, we would't mind. In fact we might have even said what a holy scent. Guess what even camphor would have worked for us. Yes, that dreading strong scent too. But not this rosemary sage new world bath body remedy.
Okk its just the herb, move on crazies. Hmm then we see the altars with candles, demi tribal gods blessing kids, some native indian costume and worst of all nazi gas chamber replicate. There are animal skins used as rugs. Now I fully understand that this can be a whole different culture. So aware of it and acknowledging the effort of his religious practice, we check our bedroom. There is a whole red cloth like it was used in some cult ritual. There are 5 head costumes just on the closet top. At least, we get a closet.
Bam, the closet has mannequin heads hmm wonderful decor. Lets not even touch anything in this house. So what if pillows have mary and jesus. So what if there is one stand with some kind of killing practice. So what if there is a bedsheet with some ancient language hanging on you. Its just decor.
Then you check out kitchen. Hmmmm yeah there is a dead crow body stuffed used as a show piece. Weird drum that says clean water. Okk and just to make sure he's not eating people alive, when you check freezer yeah there is freshly packed home made meat.
Nope not okk for us. We indians were raised with gods looking like humans who looked peaceful or at least manageable. For us, this all means we are in some crazy black magic house where our blood will be taken at full moon by a strange group of obese cult followers.
As we lived there next two days, hate bnb cancellation policies, I was chanting om whole time around. We never used the living room and to make it worse, the place was always cold around kids photos like it had some souls trapped in it. The shoe closet was a major costume closet with more scary indian repellant stuff.
Oh god its so weird growing up believing you are not a culture freak and then you realize you do belong to your roots and other cultures make you super uncomfortable.
It might sound like an overwhelming description, this is what it felt like to us. Somehow , when you are raised to be a vegetarian, you can't step or sit on animal skin or even see them lying around. You do not understand the concept of candles and pikes and scary illustrations. You don't want to share refrigerator with half meat products.
For all we know, our gods might be mythological and these scary looking gods are the truly existing ones. We hope not. To this day, it is unacceptable to talk about that home when we are drunk or high. It invokes a real scare like someone trying to enter your realm . I couldn't sleep in that house or walk alone. Our faith and upbringing defines us. This was the solid proof.
If you are perfectly brought up american, I think you will love the place.
We booked this overly famous bnb in portlan with the best ratings possible and amazing view. Everyone described it as a peaceful house with wonderful decor. Literally reviewers went overboard and crazy. So we booked and packed. Ooh one tip for all the indians, if an american describes something as cultural, it could be a very scary one for you. I mean who knew some houses should come with a warning for indians.
As we entered the house, house was like a herb on fire. Turns out it was just sage. See if it was an incense stick that smelled like cheap indian store one, we would't mind. In fact we might have even said what a holy scent. Guess what even camphor would have worked for us. Yes, that dreading strong scent too. But not this rosemary sage new world bath body remedy.
Okk its just the herb, move on crazies. Hmm then we see the altars with candles, demi tribal gods blessing kids, some native indian costume and worst of all nazi gas chamber replicate. There are animal skins used as rugs. Now I fully understand that this can be a whole different culture. So aware of it and acknowledging the effort of his religious practice, we check our bedroom. There is a whole red cloth like it was used in some cult ritual. There are 5 head costumes just on the closet top. At least, we get a closet.
Bam, the closet has mannequin heads hmm wonderful decor. Lets not even touch anything in this house. So what if pillows have mary and jesus. So what if there is one stand with some kind of killing practice. So what if there is a bedsheet with some ancient language hanging on you. Its just decor.
Then you check out kitchen. Hmmmm yeah there is a dead crow body stuffed used as a show piece. Weird drum that says clean water. Okk and just to make sure he's not eating people alive, when you check freezer yeah there is freshly packed home made meat.
Nope not okk for us. We indians were raised with gods looking like humans who looked peaceful or at least manageable. For us, this all means we are in some crazy black magic house where our blood will be taken at full moon by a strange group of obese cult followers.
As we lived there next two days, hate bnb cancellation policies, I was chanting om whole time around. We never used the living room and to make it worse, the place was always cold around kids photos like it had some souls trapped in it. The shoe closet was a major costume closet with more scary indian repellant stuff.
Oh god its so weird growing up believing you are not a culture freak and then you realize you do belong to your roots and other cultures make you super uncomfortable.
It might sound like an overwhelming description, this is what it felt like to us. Somehow , when you are raised to be a vegetarian, you can't step or sit on animal skin or even see them lying around. You do not understand the concept of candles and pikes and scary illustrations. You don't want to share refrigerator with half meat products.
For all we know, our gods might be mythological and these scary looking gods are the truly existing ones. We hope not. To this day, it is unacceptable to talk about that home when we are drunk or high. It invokes a real scare like someone trying to enter your realm . I couldn't sleep in that house or walk alone. Our faith and upbringing defines us. This was the solid proof.
If you are perfectly brought up american, I think you will love the place.
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