My top 10 Indian ‘customs’

These are not necessarily actual Indian customs, just ones that I have experienced whilst in India.

1. If it is your birthday you must feed everyone cake and in return they will smear cake all over your face.
2. You must not touch books or paper with your feet.
3. Some people refuse to eat meat on Tuesdays.
4. If a song starts playing you must stop what you are doing and sing along whilst performing the entire dance routine (you must know full dance routines to all songs)
5.  If food is offered to you, you must take it and eat it, no matter how full you are.
6. You are not complete without an Indian name, mine being Jaswinder Kumar Singh.
7. You must touch the feet of your elders to show respect (a difficult one to understand for those of us with foot phobias...).
8. As a woman, it is not safe to travel without a man with you (compromises had to be made between the Indians and the 7 strong minded British female volunteers).
9. If you meet a friend of the opposite sex in the street, you must refrain from hugging (no matter how pleased you are to see each other) and shake hands.
10. If you forget anyone’s name there are 4 names you can fall back on: Bhaiya=man/boy older than yourself, Didi=woman/girl older than yourself, Uncle=older man, Auntie=older woman and Chotu=Children.