I don't know if you guys knew this, but I'm kind of famous. No it's not my snarky blog that's rocketed me to fame, although I am up to 18 followers now, only half of which are related to me. It's my glow in the dark skin tone. Where we live there are hardly any other foreigners so just being white makes us instant celebrities. Our group’s been in the local newspaper twice. No we didn’t do anything amazing. Just showed up, but apparently in Vizag white people showing up somewhere is definitely newsworthy.
Kids love shaking our hands and I even got asked for my autograph once. The most common thing though is people asking to take pictures with us. This happens everywhere we go. They always say “one snap!” and then 15 photographs later we finally escape. I don’t really understand the appeal but they get a kick out of it. The craziest was the day we all wore saris and then went out for dinner. We were seated by a window and people would walk by 2 or 3 times, shamelessly staring to get a look at the Americans in saris. A little bit like being in a zoo. After dinner we were eating icecream when a guy came up to us as asked for a picture and he actually told us why he wanted one. He said that a lot of Indians try and be Western but we were Americans representing Indian culture. We thought that was cool so we said yes, next thing we know 20 people pull out their picture phones and it’s just a free for all. It was nuts!
We always get asked what country we're from and our names. We were surprisingly honest at first, but after a month of celebrity-dom we’ve started having a little fun. My group decided we should each pick a celebrity alter ego. So far we’ve got Nicky Minaj, Ke$ha, Zac Efron, and Lady Gaga. I think we decided I was Miley Cyrus on account of my Hannah Montana bangs. My roommate kate and I started doing a new thing where we pick a famous couple to be. Last week we were Sonny and Cher. It was awesome.
I have to say, fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Some days it would be nice to just sit on the beach without getting mobbed. No wonder Brittany Spear’s is so messed up. Just kidding! It’s not bad, I’m just not big on the whole special treatment thing. As a middle child of five, I was born with the ability to slide under the radar. Apparently India is immune to my gift of going incognito. I’d love to blend in, especially being an anthropology student, but it’s all part of the experience. When I get home it’ll be nice to just be a face in the crowd again. In the meantime I’ll just try and enjoy my 15 minutes (3 months) of fame.
Kids climbing the fence to get a good look at us.
Love the Pizza Hut picture. Too cute! Oh Hannah, I like you!
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