alternarrative

This passage in Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss made me chuckle:

     ”It is strange the tutor is Nepali,” the cook remarked to Sai when he had left. A bit later he said, “I thought he would be Bengali.”
     ”Hm?” asked Sai. How had she looked? she was thinking. How had she appeared to the tutor? The tutor himself had the aspect, she thought, of intense intelligence. His eyes were serious, his voice deep, but then his lips were too plump to have such a serious expression, and his hair was curly and stood up in a way that made him look comic. This seriousness combined with the comic she found compelling.
     ”Bengalis,” said the cook, “are very intelligent.”
     ”Don’t be silly,” said Sai. “Although they certainly would agree.”
     ”It’s the fish,” said the cook. “Coastal people are more intelligent than inland people.”
     ”Who says?”
     ”Everyone knows,” said the cook. “Coastal people eat fish and see how much cleverer they are, Bengalis, Malayalis, Tamils. Inland they eat too much grain, and it slows the digestion — especially millet — forms a big heavy ball. The blood goes to the stomach and not to the head. Nepalis make good soldiers, coolies, but they are not so bright at their studies. Not their fault, poor things.”
     ”Go and eat some fish yourself,” Sai said. “One stupid thing after another from your mouth.” (pp. 81-82)

Stereotypes! I don’t know if I should blame my parents for trying to make me believe that eating fish makes people smart! I had to face much rebuke all my life for hating fish (the way they cook it in the motherland) — for which I apparently didn’t deserve to call myself Bengali!