Being part of a species that's just 1% of the population

I recently took an MBTI test online. For those of you dumb freaks who don't know what that is..its a personality test based on Jung and Myers and Briggs and categorizes personalities into 16 types. Whew I managed to say that in a single sentence! Anyway, I finally know why I am the way I am. I'm an INTJ aka Introvert-Intuitive-Thinking-Judging person. The funny thing is I always felt like the odd person out, like I stand out in a crowd. Its like being head and shoulders above everyone else and being able to see things no one else can...that to the logical INTJ (who I didn't know I was at the time) is so absurd coz its so clear. In college I was labeled as arrogant (that was the word that defined me according to some morons who didn't even know me) and to me it made no sense coz I wasn't arrogant at all, if anything I was the opposite. Even as a little child I was always daydreaming. I would get lost in my own thoughts and ideas. I was always theorizing and coming up with concepts. I had my own methods and would usually stick to them. Everything always had to make sense to me. My social manners were awful and I still dread going into places FULL of new people. I hate making small talk. I'd much rather talk stuff that has value or meaning and is not a waste of time. Dont get me mistaken, I do love the company of people I'm comfortable with. My husband is an ENFP who is the quintessential people-person. I would envy him his perfect social skills and the friends he would make of even strangers. I did learn a lot of stuff from him but being the true ENFP he is, he NEVER finishes any of his projects and is a bit of a scatterbrain. INTJs CANNOT tolerate incompetence and inefficiency so there were some tough times in this marriage let me tell you! But in certain situations I would tell him this or this is going to happen, and it did just as I'd predicted. I thought I was psychic or something, but now I see its just plain logic and coz I can see the big picture faster and easier than anyone else. People do think I'm ruthless, cold, heartless, but I just know what has to be done and to me its better to get going on that than to get upset or emotional about it.

Shantaram, a fantastic read

I’m reading Shantaram by Gregory Roberts at the moment. Its really a fascinating book. Having lived in India for almost 16 years I know about Bombay the colorful and cruel city, the no-nonsense attitude of its people, and the way people seem to survive there by barely a thread. But seeing Bombay through a foreigner’s eyes, a foreigner who knew more about this Indian city than me a citizen of this country, was really an eyeopener in many ways. The author lived in a slum in Colaba for some time, something we so called sophisticated metro Indians would never deign to do, albeit his circumstances rendering him so helpless he was forced to live there. Another thing is, after all the negative press Indian cities, their poor infrastructure, and the vast divide between the rich and the poor has been getting in the western media, it was so refreshing to read about the love this so-called foreigner has for Indian people. He so clearly understood why things are the way they are instead of holding his nose at the stench and pooh-poohing at the seeming inefficiency. It’s so easy to be critical but when you delve deeper you find survival is the name of the game. Yes things have improved in India since the author’s experiences, but many things are still the same. I’ve lived outside this country for 16 years and in many ways my perspective on things is different from those born and living here. After living in countries where Indians have been looked upon as Third World citizens and having experienced discrimination in its worst form in so-called civilized developed nations, I came to the country I hardly knew, the country that I couldn’t call home in the beginning at all, and slowly over the years my fondness and love for my nation has grown. I’m so proud of my people who will do anything, go anywhere, and sacrifice everything to make the future brighter for their kids, I’m so proud of the enterprising and innovative Indian businessman, I’m so proud of our professionals who through their hard work have made India Shine, I’m so proud of our farmers who in spite of the vagaries of nature go day after day to their fields and patiently nurture their crops so today food insufficiency is a thing of the past. I’m so proud of this nation where you can be free to be whoever you want to be, where you can be free to express yourself, free to make something of yourself, free to dance on the streets in a baraat, free to worship whichever god you want to. India to me embodies freedom of the human spirit.