In my experience, real things from regular Indian folks do too. Much of Indian culture is simply unbelievable :)

like? :) can you give examples? :)

Like the whole 'dunk Ganesha' thing, for one. Teams of young men group together and compete between groups to buy/build/decorate the grandest elephant man to dunk in local ponds and rivers. Thats surreal.

yeah, that is great fun. sometimes those are huuuuuuuuge, would take months to make and paint, only to be dunk in the sea. apart from polluting the water, its great fun.

Haha, I know I love it! But its very bizarre to an outsider stuck in a traffic jam because of the big elephants.

Yes I agree. A whole lot of rituals would seem funny/bizarre to westeners. An american friend of mine found "arranged" marriages very very strange, he couldn't comprehend it at all. But it has been working very well for centuries in India.

Similarly, when I came to US, I was shocked at the size of shopping malls, had never seen such mega malls in India (India does have big malls, but nothing compared to the ones in US). Also I found the pointless lawsuits very amusing (like the guy who sued his drycleaners for some 50 mil USD).

Well, I guess these differences is what makes life interesting :-)

Indeed :)