Things a Catholic in India is tired of hearing

Though India has a sizable number of people belonging to different religions, Roman Catholics still remain a minority among the various other minor communities like Jews, Parsis or Sikhs. It is quite a challenge to answer the questions that people have about your way of life and the myriad generalizations that accompany them.

Here is a list of things that being raised as a Roman Catholic in India I have been subjected to (some are drawn from friends' experiences) :

1. Do you eat bread /pork for breakfast everyday?  The Catholics in India have been referred time and again as PAO (which is a slang term). It is generally thought that the only item that we eat is bread(pao) with different kinds of meat.                                                                            FACT - No. Catholics do not necessarily eat meat especially pork all the time. We do consume vegetables on a daily basis and yes, we do patronize chapatis and rotis hugely as part of our daily diet and it doesn't make me any less Catholic.                                                                                                                   
   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
2. You must be from Goa if you are Catholic.                                                                           FACT :No not all Catholics come from Goa. In fact Christianity was introduced to India through the southern state of Kerala by St. Thomas and the state has a sizable Catholic population.                                                                                                                                                      
   
                                                                                                                                                                                               
3. You must be a drunkard.                                                                                                            FACT :Not all Catholics are drunkards a trait which has been popularized by Bollywood to the extent that it is thought that we are introduced to alcohol in our cradles. It is a personal choice for everyone as much as it for people belonging to any other religion.                                                                                
   
                                                                                                                                                                                          
4. You must be from a convent school.                                                                                     FACT :Though convent schools are regarded as the highest form of education, there are many schools which provide the same quality education and many of us have been educated there.                                                                                                                                                  
   
5. English is your mother tongue.                                                                                                 FACT : No. English can't be our mother tongue because we like any other Indian belong to this country and have picked one of the many languages of this country.                                                                   
   
6. You must be watching only Hollywood movies and listening to English songs.                                                                                                                           FACT :We like many other Indians watch Bollywood movies and can sing Hindi songs like anyone else.                                                                                                                                                                                           
7. Friends wishing you on Good Friday and asking you "what is good about Good Friday?"                                                                                                        FACT : Let me break it up for you. Good Friday is named so as it is observed as a day of fasting and penance and hence, the name which is translated as holy.                                                              
8. You must we wearing only dresses and jeans and not any Indian wear (read sari and salwar kameez)                                                                                                 FACT : My mother has been wearing a sari ever since I have seen her and is not very comfortable in Western wear. I do possess many pairs of salwar kameez and make no qualms about wearing them (though comfort comes first and I would pick a pair of jeans and a t shirt over anything else in the world)                                                                                                                                            
   
9. You have to be good at football and not any other sport.                                                           FACT :We like and enjoy cricket as much as a game of tennis or football or snooker for that matter. Sports is again a personal choice and in a cricket crazy country like India there are many of us who would rather cheer for Sachin Tendulkar than for Cristiano Ronaldo.                                                                                                                                                    
   
10. You must be good at singing and playing at least one musical instrument (read guitar) .                                                                                                                    FACT : Most of us do sing in the church as a form of prayer and not because we are inherently good at it. Some of us may pick up learning an instrument in the church as we are interested in it and not because we are a prodigy of Beethoven.                                                                                                                
    

I am sure there must be many other stereotypes we are subjected to, which I may have not touched upon. Feel free to comment and let me know of any other generalizations that I may have missed out.