"I am not endowed with psychic powers" Sarcasm is always my choice of weapon.

"I am waiting at the checkout counter and there's this guy standing next to me in line" My brother has picked up the American way of talking about past events in present tense."Suddenly he taps me on the shoulder and asks me if I am an Indian. I say yes and can you guess what weird question he asks me?"

"Pray tell me, O Wise One!" I was struggling to get through to the next customer representative and so was not in the best of my tempers.

"He asked me if India has to take permission from queen of England before she, I mean India can do anything!!" My brother was so amused that he reverted back to past tense correctly.

And I was so surprised at this weird question that I hung up the phone accidentally.

"What? You have got to be kidding!"

"No, no. I am telling you the truth. I was naturally annoyed at this question and could have taken an offence but I could see that the guy meant no harm so I told him that we fought our way to freedom ages back and that India is not answerable to England more than any other country in the world is."

Staying in US, I have had my fair share of such myths and misconceptions about India. But this one takes the cake.

For a long time, my boss was under the wrong impression that Hindi is the religion that majority of Indians practice and Hindu is India's national language. Owing to a large number of consultants of Indian origin in that company, there was a miniature India there. There were Bengalis, Punjabis, Maharashtrians, South Indians and Gujaratis. My boss stared at me in disbelief one day when I told him that if all of us Indians started talking in our own mother tongues, we won't be able to understand each other at all - save for a few multilingual souls among us.

"But I am telling the truth. That is why we have our national language..." I tried to explain.

"Hindu" said my boss brightly!!

Indian clothing is source of continual fascination among non-Indians. I discovered another angle to it when I wore a Salwar-Kameez at the office on one festive occasion at the insistence of my colleagues. The dress was examined by every non-Indian lady in the office.

"Is this saree?" asked one of them.

"Good Heavens, no!! It is called Salwar-Kameez" then I confided to her that I have not yet attained the expertise in wrapping myself in a saree.

"This pattern is very beautiful. Does this mean anything?" another one exclaimed.

"Mean anything?" I asked, a little puzzled.

"You know, some kind of mystical message"

I desisted from telling her that never before in my life have I seen an every day garment - Indian or non-Indian - with a mystical message. Imagine the secret of universe spelt out in a Denim jacket and you will get my point.

Lunchtime used to be a question-answer session for me till all my colleague's curiosities about Indian food got satisfied. It is very difficult to explain to a non-Indian why Hindus won't generally eat beef. A general dialogue would run something like this:

"Can you eat pork?"

"Yes, I can. But I cannot think of eating pork personally so I don't".

"I heard you can't eat beef"

"I am a Hindu and my religion forbids me from eating cow meat because we deem cows as sacred." I gave the standard answer.

"But why cow of all the animals?"

"It is because of the religious belief that God dwells in cows"

"But why only in cows?"

I confess at this point that my religious knowledge is simply unable to provide an answer to this question and that I would ask my mom about it when I call her on the weekend.

"Tell me one thing, do you consider only Indian cows as sacred or even American cows are sacred for you?"

"I guess the sacred feature would extend to all sub-species of Cow family." I say in technical parlance. "But why do you ask that question?"

"Oh you know, there is this Indian guy in my brother's office. He told me that he can eat beef because the meat is of the American cows."

Hey, I don't have anything against beef-eating Hindus. Practicing religious doctrines is a highly personal issue. But it is important to remember that using loopholes in these doctrines to mend them to suit your lifestyle is a double-edged sword.

One thing is certain though - whatever their misconceptions, questions and doubts, I have never come across anyone who meant any harm or any offence … they just want to know more about India. Most of the times their image of India is strangely frozen in time - in the ages when the snake-charmers used to hold people spellbound with their magical power over snakes, when the fire eating holy men used to roam the streets and when the elephants were chief modes of transportation. It is difficult to separate facts from fiction and myths. India has a glorious past but we cannot rest on past laurels in this modern era. The world must know what present day India is like.

That is why I explain the meaning of the word "TajMahal" to my colleagues and talk about the International Fleet Review - held by Indian Navy recently in Bombay - in the same breath.