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Why it makes sense that the British royal family has Indian blood
The British Royal family has Asian blood, a researcher discovered last week
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he British Royal family has Asian blood, a researcher discovered last week. One of their direct descendants was from Gujarat in India, a DNA expert at the University of Edinburgh found.
But of course! With their big noses and huge number of members, it now seems obvious that Queen Elizabeth's family has upper-class Indian blood. How could we have missed the clues?
1) Their weddings are massive and interminable. 2) Curry has been declared the national dish of Britain. 3) Their family life is like a Bollywood soap opera, parties alternating with melodrama. 4) I bet passionate greenie Prince Charles dances around trees when no one is looking. 5) They live in over-decorated palaces.
There's more. 6) None of them have real jobs. 7) Despite living in the 21st century, they still think living in a huge house with a massive number of servants is okay. 8) The young ones are terrible at studying, but still get into fancy private schools. 9) The men wear fancier clothes than the women and like high collars. 10) The older ones want to return to the days when all marriages were arranged.
And talking of the generation gap, more details are emerging about the court ruling in China that children must visit parents. If your folks are 60 or more, judges think you should visit them every eight weeks.
This is a lot to ask in a country where buying a ticket to ride involves days of queuing, bribery, corruption and possibly a murder or two ' and that's just to get on the school bus. So I was not surprised to read that businesses have sprung up to do the visiting on people's behalf.
I looked them up on the Internet. One group of professional visitors on the Taobao website offered to visit your parents if you give them 100 yuan (US$16.50) an hour plus some info: 'You have to tell us topics they like, so we can start a good chat.' I guarantee the number one topic is going to be: 'What useless deadbeat scum my children are.' No doubt the stand-ins will agree enthusiastically.
It would be much better to pay extra and hire someone with drama skills to pretend to BE the actual offspring. Of course, the hired hand would have to think on his or her feet.
Mom: 'You look different, my child. Didn't you used to be a girl?'
Fake child: 'Er, yeah, but I felt like a change, you know how it is.'
Mom: 'Anyway, I'll cook your favorite food, farmer pie made with minced cow lips and shredded farmhand underpants.'
Fake child: 'Er, yum-yum! Can't wait.'
Family life in Asia is often complicated, we should remember. For example, factory worker Bhagwati Lal married two women at the same time, the PTI reported recently. The two brides, both coincidentally called Rekha, didn't mind, according to villagers in Jaipur. Where's the logic? This is a bit like saying: 'One teaspoon of salt on my food is good, so two teaspoons must be better.'
It isn't. I bet Lal is miserable already. This will go into my files under the title: 'Things That Seemed Like Good Ideas at the Time.'
Balancing two women at once is tough. Ask Prince Charles.
The writer is a columnist and journalist.
