thanks to the gujjus!

i'm going to try my best to not be my patently rude self and to try be as nice as possible in this post :-)

have you ever tried to imagine the world without the 'gujjus' in it? (a gujju is the shorter version of gujarati who is a person who hails from the state of gujarat in india) i tried, and i suffered something close to a panic attack! imagine a world without gujju food!

it is said that mallus (malayalees, people from the state of kerala) are spread all around the globe, but i think gujjus beat them hollow. there's a joke which says that if you land on the moon you would most probably find a mallu tea-shop. but what they don't tell you is that it is a gujju who rented out the space to the mallu, lent him the money to set up the shop and also sold him the tea bought from another mallu's tea estate!

here are my top 10 contributions by gujjus to society at large :
1. gandhiji (mahatma gandhi; or 'bapu' of gandhigiri fame, for those of you who might have forgotten!)
2. the ambanis
3. gujju food - undiyo, shrikhand, chhundo, dhokla, thepla, etc. (have you ever met a gujju on a journey without packed food? their food parcel is usually the biggest piece of luggage they would be carrying!)
4. dimple kapadia
5. the stock brokers in mumbai
6. creating a huge demand for vegetarian food in most parts of the country especially at most of the popular tourist places! (i would credit them for the the 'only veggie' pizza hut in mumbai too!)
7. dandiya nights
8. amul (the mallus might protest and say that it was kurien who was instrumental in the amul movement! but do you think he could have managed anything close to this in kerala?)
9. backless cholis.
10. freddie mercury of queen fame(his parents were parsis from gujarat)

do you have any additions to this list? i'm sure the others would like to know.