Niroo and Kapil - India

thanx banzai........

KEY TO THEIR EXIT (interviewed by boon chan, media correspondent)

The Amazing Race Asia 3 had moved to Taipei. But it was not just the language barrier which tripped up the team from India.

There was also a stubborn car key that remained stuck in the ignition, which resulted in elimination for the father-and-son team of actor Niranjan "Niroo" Asrarni, 53 and human resource executive Kapil Asrani, 25, in the fourth episode of the reality show last Thursday night.

The duo was the second team from India to be shown the exit after cousins Neena Rai, a 24-year-old model, and real estate consultant Amit Rai, 27, tumbled out in the first episode. Six teams remain from the starting line-up of 10.

Over the telephone from Mumbai, Niroo told Life! on Saturday :"In India, we are not used to driving automatic vehicles and we were really struggling.

"If the key was not coming out, we could not park the vehicle and lock it and go anywhere."

As a result, they were delayed for over two hours. Then language barrier did not help either.

Kapil said :" Half of them get scared by the English language and the other half get scared when they see foreign people. I approached a person in the middle of the night and asked 'Dude, do you know where Sheng Keng is?" aand the guy got so scared he just ran off."

They were the last team to face the roadblock, a task which only one member of the team may perform. Kapil was supposed to finish a large bowl of stinky tofu, a local delicacy, but opted to skip it and take a four-hour penalty instead.

"There were huge piles of tissue paper around those tables left by previous teams and I thought this is not going to be nice. We never expected any food to smell so bad." he said.

Niroo added :"It's was a very very dirty smell. Drainage water smells better."

The penalty made no difference as they were the last team to arrive at the pitstop and were eliminated.

While they bickered during the race, Kapil said :" We have learnt a lot about each other, even more than we thought we could.

"One thing I learnt about my father is that we can get overly anxious in situations where you need to keep cool and what I learnt about myself is that I have an extreme amount of patience."

Kapil is the only son of Niroo and his wife, Jaya Asrani, 53, who is an actress.

During the previous week's roadblock challenge in Vietnam invovling arranging coins in a specific order, Niroo was upset that no one had helped him.

"We have always been helpful but nobody whelped us when we wanted help and that I did not like," he lamented.

So given a chance, is there anything they would have done differently?

Niroo said he was 'absolutely' happy with their performance as a team.

As for Kapil :" The only thing would be to enjoy the race a little more. We were enjoying it, but were also quite focused on trying to win a leg for ourselves. If we do it again, I would want to enjoy the moment more."
bchan@sph.com.sg

(sources taken from The Straits Time, Monday, 6/10/2008)

where u got this article.....

From Singapore newspaper, The Straits Time...

I just didn't see them winning the race, to be honest.
They were ok though.

Here is a very witty Kapil sharing his intelligence:

Meet Kapil Asrani from The Amazing Race Asia 3 - a colleague of my sister.

Kima: So who did you like the most during the race?
Kapil: Tish. It has to be Tish. She’s extremely sweet and genuine.

Kima: What did you learn from this race?
Kapil: Number 1. If you don’t know where to go, don’t panic.
Number 2. Cockroaches look & feel even worse the morning after you’ve eaten them!



Kima: What is the one thing you have noticed in all the contestants?
Kapil: That everybody has their own unique weak point.


Kima: ok, let’s get down to racial topics now (smiles). What is the one thing you have noticed when it comes to racial identity?

Kapil:
(smiles) Well, for starters, even though I was mentally prepared about
the whole racial diversity and stuff, it still sounds odd sometimes
when I hear the other contestants curse about the local language of a
particular country and how they don’t understand the culture etc. Even
though I tried to be as politically correct as possible, it was
difficult putting on a straight face.


Were the reception and hospitality you received from the locals nice?

The locals were welcoming, but definitely, there was a preference that was displayed by everyone towards
1. People with similar features
2. (this is a big one) women!


What do you think could be the reason for this?

Nobody
was extremely nasty with us because we’re Indians, in fact some were
quite fascinated because we didn’t look like your normal American
backpackers, but to be fair, they didn’t know what to expect. Oh hell,
we scared them to death too. East Asian countries all have very soft
spoken people, and we definitely startled them with our loud behaviour.
In any case, what counts is the welcome given to us, which was good,
but others on the race had it a little easier.


Did people stare at you like how people over here stare at foreigners?

Oh
yes, especially in Vietnam, we noticed a lot of stares, but Thailand,
Taiwan etc. were extremely discreet and seemed comfortable with all
kinds of people. But again, the polite behaviour stayed till the time
we didn’t initiate contact. Once we tried to talk, some people found it
funny and laughed at our face, while the others were so scared! But
yes, the way we stare at foreigners in India is way above the degree of
attention we got there.


Did you feel comfortable being with people of different races?

It
was extremely difficult for us to bridge the gap created by the
difference in cultures of our country & East Asia. But the people
on the The Amazing Race were so cool, that everyone there accepted us
irrespective of these differences. Everybody was so warm, welcoming and
most importantly, genuine. That is something we really miss even among
Indians. They speak and act with their heart, and nobody is afraid of
the truth. Love & hate are both taken sportingly. Definitely, even
though breaking in was difficult, we were quite comfortable once
accepted.


What do you think is the main cause of this race groupism and divide we see in Asian countries?

Teams
on the race from Malaysia, Singapore, Hongkong, Thailand, the
Phillipines etc. were all on a similar plane, and even shared similar
interests. They traveled so much within their sector that everyone knew
each others’ cities, cultures etc. It’s only that their life is a far
cry from ours. I think this divide is self created by the Indian sub
continent & our rigid cultures. While they travel to each others’
countries, we fight with five of our seven neighbouring states. While
they claim land from the sea, we take ten years to make a sea link.
While they accept gays & swingers, we are yet to acknowledge the
existence of a voluntary sex worker (they are rescued!!). No wonder
they’ve moved on to better stuff, and we’re caught with religion and
politics!


Thank you so much for your time Kapil. If you had the chance to take part in this race again, would you?

Absofreakinglutely! Of course I would!

SOURCE: http://mizohican.blogspot.com/2008/11/chp-211-celebrating-indias-diversity.html

thanks jon........