Ask Blognigger: Is it the Curry??

Astute Reader Beavis writes:

Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 4:15 AM
Subject: certain smells
To: blogngr

yo bn

This is going to come off as extremely racist, but i swear i don't mean it that way. Whatever, I won't waste any more time with excuses.

Like you, I'm a software developer, but unlike you, I don't work with white googlers. The guys i work with are exclusively indian. I'm the only white guy on a team of eleven.

I don't mind them, they're pleasant enough and ok on smarts -- (seriously, and if you post this please keep me anonymous –- they are not as smart as white engineers, and everyone in the software industry knows it.) -- but there is one thing i cannot deal with. One on one, they're ok, but when you get a bunch of them together late night into one tight place like our qa lab... the smell is so bad I can't walk into their room.

Now, as a black guy, whose race, granted, isn't known for smelling like carnations: can you smell indian? have you? what does it smell like to you? what is that?? Is it the curry??

While we're on the topic, what do white people smell like to you? and what do other black people smell like to you? do you smell black people the way white people do?

thank god for you and your website so we can discuss the kind of stuff everyones really wondering.

-snip-


Hey Beavis,

Go fuck yourself! hahaha; I jest.

Listen, it's an interesting topic, but I can't really discuss it for too long without throwing up. Bear with me for a moment while I distract you with a relevant story:

A friend of mine is married to a flight attendant who works for Continental Airlines. We had dinner a couple months ago, and she told me a tale which caused me to lose my appetite and shit bricks. I'll give you the same background she gave me:

Continental now runs a twice daily flight from JFK to Delhi. Interesting point: Continental uses the same 4 planes for these flights - they've had to dedicate the planes exclusively for use on these routes. Know why?

You guess it yet? Or don't you wanna cause it makes you racist?

Indeed, you racist: The stench on the planes is so pungent that normal white customers can sense it with their normal white noses, and were the planes to be used for normal flights to Disney World and shit, the onboard whites would be likely to reach for a sledge hammer in midair and bash the windows out, preferring to be sucked out into the void at 30,000 feet than continue to expose themselves to the odorous assault of darkened Saag Panigger.

Quick analysis for the politically correct among us: say what you want about the cultural subjectivity of stench, but the fact remains: Having 300 sweaty Indians packed into a plane for 24 hours at a time makes a plane smell so permanently, so "distinctively," that Continental, fueled only by objectivist capitalism, was forced to shape its policy around this curious, culturally-subjective odor.

So the story itself goes like this: My friend's wife, the flight attendant, was stationed on one of these flights to India. Yes, yes, I'm sure the stench was unbearable, but pay attention: She was sitting in her little flight attendant's fold-out chair by the emergency exit, when an Indian woman poked her head through the little curtains hanging in the aisle. The Indian woman had a grimace on her face, and looked at the flight attendant as though something was not-quite-right. The flight attendant politely inquired as to the woman's needs, but the Indian woman seemed to just be ignoring her queries, never responding with a concrete answer of any kind. Instead, she squinted, she pursed her lips, shook her head from side to side, and continued to look uncomfortable. The flight attendant continued to iterate over the various goods and services she might provide (water? blanket? pillow? peanuts?) in order to ameliorate the Indian woman's mounting air of discomfort. The indian woman shook her head, rejecting each offer with decreasing gusto, until she finally zoned out altogether, leaving the flight attendant confused and slightly concerned.

Then all at once, the woman snapped out of it, and without a look, slipped back behind the curtains.

How bizarre, the flight attendant thought, and then sat back again to relax. All of the sudden, she became aware of an outlandish smell that cut through the ambient curryscent like a fart in a car. What the fuck... is that, she thought. She stood up, looked around, and moved slowly toward the curtain that the Indian woman had disappeared behind.

Squish; stepped right into it: A massive turd that the indian woman had squeezed out into the aisle. Right there. Ain't no metaphor– Indian woman took a dump right in the middle of the muthafuckin aisle. Liberals, please submit your descriptions of how the revoltingness of this is culturally subjective – leave 'em right there in the comments section so that the rest of us can laugh at you.

So, back to the heart of your question Beavis: YES, let's be frank: As all of us know, there are most certainly distinct racial scents that emanate from all of god's children. The conventional wisdom on the core food-groups of these 37 ethnic flavors tends to be the following:

Asians smell like pork
Indians smell like curry
Blacks smell like cow shit and sweat
Whites smell like money

No! Not money! Joke. The real conventional wisdom, as told to me by one of my Indian colleagues on a drunken New Year's Eve, is this: White people smell like..............MILK! I shit you not. Little Tandori bastard says yall muthafuckas smell like some 2% Dellwood with a big-ass missing teen picture on the back a the carton. You don't like his Amazon customer service? Take that ya little pink porky bastids! Niggas smell like some MILK, my priend. ho ho ho!

Now, as for my personal opinion - like everyone else, I've been in certain taxicabs that smell fuckin nasty and thick and yes: Indian (or was that Pakisani '92? excellent year) - but I can't say it smelled like Curry exactly. If it did, would you really ever eat curry again? It just smelled... Indian.

As for whether I can detect negrostench... well, I *can* kind of smell that black-person-sweat on other blacks: take my dark-as-Wesley cousins for example...muthafuckas definitely smell like some cow pie after a few rounds of 1-on-1 in they garage. However, take my opinion with a grain of salt: surely I can't be trusted as a representative sample of those much blacker than my little private-school ass. I'm sure Jessie and Al will tell you that blacks smell like nothing more than manly, bottleable, responsible musk.

Related observation: I have this gut feeling that the more "American" one becomes (or is that just "the-more-money-one-has") the less power one's native ethnic stench wields. For example, I assume you know the difference between FOB and ABCD Indians, right Beavis? Well I know some FLY ass indian bitches from Jersey and California - these girls are more American than my wife - if you eavesdropped on them having a phone conversation, you'd be sure it was Paris and Nicole talking about how to make themselves throw up by using a guy's cock. Anyway, they are DOPE girls, hot as shit - and you gonna tell me that if you took a 12 hour car ride with those girl's it'd start smelling like curry? FUCK you thinkin son - it wouldn't smell like nothin but perfume and pussy cause those girls are American heroes kid.

I'm quite American and I come from money despite my current destitute state, so I believe my native African stench has been tamed quite a bit. Plus havin a nice big helpin' a Thomas Jefferson's mudblood over the years can't hurt neither. (Plus it makes me a better writer!)

Goes for Asians too kid - you gonna tell me some DOPE ass San Francisco girl, who just happens to have slanty eyes but don't even know how to make a dumpling or use a hot towel - you think she smells like the Pr0k down there? The fuck outta here. You think Natalie Portman smells like MatzahCabbage?! The fuck outta here - those racial scents only really apply to fresh-off-the-boat niggas.

Except American white people: yall niggas still smell like milk tho ssssss-ssssss-sssssss-ssssss

Hope this helps,
Blognigger