How To Answer The Usual Questions Asked Of Indians

To help the new wave of incoming students from India, here are the proper answers to awkward questions asked everyday:

Q. What does that red dot on women's forehead mean?
A. Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife's red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target....
Q. You're from India? I have read so much about the country. All the wonderful places, the forests, the snake charmers, the elephants. Do you still use elephants for transportation?
A. Absolutely. In fact we used to have our own elephant in our house. But later, we started participating in elephant-ride sharing schemes with our neighbors, to save the air. You see elephants have an "emissions" problem.....
Q. Does India have cars?
A. No. We ride elephants to work. The government is trying to encourage ride-sharing schemes.
Q. Does India have TV?
A. No. We only have cable.
Q. Are all Indians vegetarian?
A. Yes. Even tigers are vegetarian in India.
Q. How come you speak English so well?
A. You see when the British were ruling India, they employed Indians as servants. It took too long for the Indians to learn English. So the British isolated an "English-language" gene and infused their servants' babies with it and since then all babies born are born speaking English.
Q. Are you a Hindi?
A. Yes. I am spoken everyday in Northern India.
Q. Do you speak Hindu?
A. Yes, I also speak Jewish, Islam and Christianity.
Q. Is it true that everyone there is very corrupt?
A. Yes, in fact, I had to bribe my parents so that they would let me go to school.
Q. India is very hot, isn't it?
A. It is so hot there that all the water boils spontaneously. That is why tea is such a popular drink in India.
Q. Are there any business companies in India?
A. No. All Indians live on the Gandhian principles of self-sufficiency. We all make our own clothes and grow our own food. That is why you see all these thin skinny Indians -- it is is a lot of hard work.
Q. Indians cannot beef, huh?
A. Cows provide milk which is a very essential part of Indian diet. So eating cows is forbidden. However in order to decrease the population of the country, the government is trying to encourage everyone to eat human meat.
Q. India is such a religious place. Do you meditate regularly?
A. Yes, sometimes I meditate for weeks without food and drink. But it is difficult to keep my job, because I have to miss work when I meditate like that. But the bosses there do the same thing. That is why things are so inefficient there.
Q. I saw on TV that people there walk on burning coals. Why do they do that?
A. We don't have shoes. So we burn the bottom of our feet to make it hard so that we can walk.
Q. Why do you sometimes wear Indian clothes to work?
A. I prefer it to coming naked.

Believe it or not, the following announcements actually appeared in various church bulletins.

Don't let worry kill you -- let the church help.

Thursday night - Potluck supper. Prayer and medication to follow.

Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and community.

For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

The rosebud on the alter this morning is to announce the birth of David Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev. and Mrs. Julius Belzer.

This afternoon there will be a meeting in the South and North ends of the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.

Tuesday at 4:00 PM there will be an ice cream social. All ladies giving milk will please come early.

Wednesday the ladies liturgy will meet. Mrs. Johnson will sing "Put me in my little bed" accompanied by the pastor.

Thursday at 5:00 PM there will be a meeting of the Little Mothers Club. All ladies wishing to be "Little Mothers" will meet with the Pastor in his study.

This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come foreward and lay an egg on the alter.

The service will close with "Little Drops of Water." One of the ladies will start quietly and the rest of the congregation will join in.

Next Sunday a special collection will be taken to defray the cost of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet will come foreward and do so.

The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They can be seen in the church basement Saturday.

A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT EASTER

When is Easter Sunday

• 2012  8th April
• 2013 30th March
• 2014 20th April

Easter Sunday celebrates the day when Jesus Christ was resurrected.  On Good Friday, Christ was crucified and then buried.  But on the third day, he rose from the dead.  Thus Easter Sunday is the most important date in the Christian calendar, far more important than even Christmas day - Jesus' birth.
Fewer than one person in a thousand could tell you how the date for Easter Sunday is determined and thus explain precisely why Easter falls on a different date each year.  While many people will tell you the moon was a factor, few realize that the vernal equinox plays a crucial role in the calculation.
This simplistic calculation for 'When is Easter' works for most years:
1) Start your calculation from the Vernal Equinox, which is usually on March 21st.
2) Consult a diary to determine the next full moon.  Easter falls on the following Sunday.
-------------------------------------------------------------
As mentioned earlier, Easter Sunday is set by the 1st full moon after the Spring Equinox (which is March 20).  Here's the interesting info.  2008 was the earliest Easter any of us will ever see the rest of our lives! And only the most elderly of our population have ever seen it this early (95 years old or above!). And none of us have ever, or will ever, see it a day earlier! Here's the facts:
1) The next time Easter will be as early as March 23 will be the year 2228 (200+ years from now). The last time it was this early was 1913 (so if you're 95 or older, you are the only ones that were around for that!).
2) The next time it will be a day earlier, March 22, will be in the year 2285 (275+ years from now). The last time it was on March 22 was 1818. So, no one alive today has or will ever see it any earlier than March 23rd 2008.

-------------------------------------------------------------

• Palm Sunday is always on the Sunday before Easter.
• Good Friday is two days before Easter (Christ arose on the third day).
• Mothering Sunday (UK) 3 weeks before Easter
• Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of lent is 46 days before Easter.  The calculation of 40 days for lent discounts Sundays, thus explaining the discrepancy between 46 and 40.  There is also 'Shrove Tuesday' otherwise known as 'Pancake Day'.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In times gone by, Easter bonnets [spring bonnets] were commonplace.  People liked to dress up in their finest clothes for the festival.  Women would consider it a matter of pride to buy a new bonnet for Easter, the frillier and more luxurious the better.
This appears to be in many ways a reaction to the ending of the Christian period of Lent.  During Lent, many Christians deny themselves luxuries.  So when Lent ended, going out and buying an Easter bonnet was an enjoyable way to greet Easter.  Spring time in general represents an end of the deprivations and restrictions of winter.
Easter bonnets were also worn in the Easter parades that used to be more common than they are today.
The heyday of bonnet wearing in the US was probably the 1930s. In his song "Easter Parade," Irving Berlin includes the following lines:
'In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it,
You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade.
I'll be all in clover and when they look you over,
I'll be the proudest fellow in the Easter Parade.
On the avenue, Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us,
And you'll find that you're in the rotogravure*.
Oh, I could write a sonnet about your Easter bonnet,
And of the girl I'm taking to the Easter Parade.'
The song also went on to be featured in the 1948 movie "Easter Parade". In recent years the custom of wearing Easter bonnets has rather declined.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Fortunately these extra nuances only come into play every 20 years or so.
For 2000 years it is the Church that calculates when Easter falls.  They are the sole arbiters of this date. Their calculations fix the Vernal Equinox at March 21st, even if astronomically, it falls on March 20th.  Moreover, the ecclesiastical full moon is always 14 days from the ecclesiastical new moon.  This may vary by one day from the astronomical full moon.
There are two more variables.  The international date line may potentially cause the full moon to fall on different days in different parts of the world.  Finally some Eastern Churches use the Julian calendar instead of the more modern Julian calendar, this factor produces the biggest practical difference in the determination of Easter.
------------------------------------------------------------- 

Easter Jokes

Three Signs the Easter Bunny is Nuts

1.     What is the bunny trying to say when he is leaping about?  Hoppy Easter!

2.     Rabbits that marched in a long sweltering Easter parade aren't called hot, cross bunnies for nothing.

3.     The Easter bunny's colourful eggs are now filled with Prozac. 

 

Sunday School 1

Mrs Lewis, a Sunday school teacher asked her little children one Easter Sunday, as they were on the way to the church service, 'And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?'

Rebecca, a bright little girl piped up, 'Because people are sleeping?' 

Sunday School 2

It was Palm Sunday but because of a sore throat, 5-year-old Bobby stayed home from church with a baby-sitter.  When the family returned home, they were carrying several palm fronds. Bobby asked them what they were for.

'People held them over Jesus' head as he walked by,' his father told him.

'Wouldn't you know it,' Bobby fumed, 'the one Sunday I don't go and he shows up.' 

 The Lion and the Missionary

A Christian missionary, Jemima, was walking in Africa on Easter Saturday when she heard the ominous padding of a lion behind her.

'Oh Lord,' prayed Jemima, the missionary, 'Grant in Thy goodness that the lion walking behind me is a good Christian lion.'

And then, in the silence that followed, Jemima heard the lion praying too, 'Oh Lord,' he prayed, 'I thank Thee for the food which I am about to receive this Easter time.'

How Different Religions Cope with Adversity

 

When the Methodist minister falls down the stairs, he picks himself up and says, 'That was an experience, how do I learn from it?'

When the Catholic priest falls down the stairs, he picks himself up and says, 'I must have done something really bad to deserve that.'

When the Presbyterian minister falls down the stairs, he picks himself up and says, 'That was inevitable, I'm glad it's over.'

When the Baptist minister falls down the stairs, he picks himself up and says, 'Which one of my deacons pushed me?'

Divine Intervention?

One Easter afternoon Jasper, a little boy, was playing outdoors. He used his mother's broom as a horse and had a wonderful time until it was getting dark.

He left the broom on the back porch. His mother was cleaning up the kitchen when she realized that her broom was missing. She asked Jasper about the broom and he told her where it was.

She then asked him to please go get it.  Jasper informed his mother that he was afraid of the dark and didn't want to go out to get the broom.

His mother smiled and said, 'The Lord is out there too, don't be afraid.'

Jasper then opened the back door a little and said, 'Lord, since you're out there, please pass me the broom.'

Egg Laying Ceremony for Easter Sunday

• Church notices:  This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs Cusworth to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
• This Monday we will be holding a 'Bean Supper' in the church hall.  Music will follow..................
• What do you call a chocolate bunny that was out in the sun too long?
  A runny bunny.

Easter in General

Easter spells out beauty, the rare beauty of new life.   S.D. Gordon

He who wants Lent to seem short should contract a debt to be repaid at Easter.  Italian Proverb

Easter tells us that life is to be interpreted not simply in terms of things but in terms of ideals.  Charles M. Crowe

Easter, so longed for, is gone in a day.  James Howell

Easter Bunny's Funnies

Q: What do you call a bunny with a large brain?
A: An egghead.

Q: Why did the Easter egg hide?
A: He was a little chicken!

Q: What do you call ten rabbits marching backwards?
A: A receding hareline.

Q: Why did the magician have to cancel his show?
A: He'd just washed his hare and couldn't do a thing with it.

Q: What do you call a duck who plays basketball?
A: A slam duck.

Q. What do Easter Bunny helpers get for making a basket?
A. Two points, just like anyone else on the team.

Q. What's invisible and smells like carrots?
A. The Ether Bunny

Q: What's the difference between a bunny and a lumberjack?
A: One chews and hops, the other hews and chops.

Q: What did the rabbit say to the carrot?
A: It's been nice gnawing at you.

Q: Why did the rabbit cross the road?
A: Because it was the chicken's day off.

 

Reasons to Celebrate Easter

1. You decide that any Holiday which starts with a "Good Friday" can't be all bad.
2. You look really, really good in yellow.
3. You love to bite the heads off chocolate bunnies.
4. You have this bunny suit you love to wear, but are too insecure to wear it without a reason.
5. You absolutely love the movie, "The Ten Commandments".

Funny Easter

• ·        "My mom used to say that Greek Easter was later because then you get stuff cheaper."  Amy Sedaris
• ·        "I'm a little hoarse tonight. I've been living in Chicago for the past two months, and you know how it is, yelling for help on the way home every night. Things are so tough in Chicago that at Easter time, for bunnies the little kids use porcupines."  Fred Allen
• ·    "A strangely reflective, even melancholy day. Is that because, unlike our cousins in the northern hemisphere, Easter is not associated with the energy and vitality of spring but with the more subdued spirit of autumn."  Hugh Mackay
• ·        "Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there."  Clarence W. Hall
• ·        "There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE."  Linda Grayson, "The Pickwick Papers"
• ·       "All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt!"  Lucy Van Pelt, "Peanuts"
• ·        Good Idea: Finding Easter eggs on Easter Sunday.
• Bad Idea: Finding Easter eggs at Thanksgiving.

• If you get melted chocolate all over your hands, you're eating it too slowly.
• Chocolate covered raisins, cherries, orange slices and strawberries all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want.
• Diet tip: Eat an Easter egg before each meal.
  It'll take the edge off your appetite, and that way you'll eat less.
• If you can't eat all your chocolate, it will keep in the freezer. But if you can't eat all your chocolate, what's wrong with you?
• If calories are an issue, store your chocolate on top of the fridge.  Calories are afraid of heights, and they will jump out of the chocolate to protect themselves.
• Money talks. Chocolate sings.
• Chocolate has many preservatives.  Preservatives make you look younger.
• The problem: How to get two pounds of chocolate eggs home from the store in a hot car.
  The solution: Eat the eggs in the car park.
• Why is there no such organization as Chocoholics Anonymous?
  Because no one wants to quit.