Here are some tips for Nick Jonas to survive the Great Indian Family

By Arré Bench

Yesterday, the last two pages of the Bombay Times officially announced Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas’ engagement, and it’s all so cute, omfg we’re all dead now!! So far Nick Jonas might have been known to teenagers as “singer of song Jealous”, but now that he’s getting married to the Bollywood/Hollywood crossover superstar Priyanka Chopra, he is about to become the white brother-in-law India has always wanted.

What’ll he wear at Amitabh Bachchan’s Holi party? Will he make a sudden appearance in a Bollywood movie as “white person who betrays our jawans”? Will we give him a cutesy Indian name like Nickbhai Jonas? The possibilities are endless for both the 25-year-old Disney star, and our fanatic fandom.

Actually endless is a bit of an overstatement – Nick probably should not continue making music at this point, unless he’s willing to be the guy who yells, “WHAT!”, or “Who’s that sexy madam?” in an item number starring his fiancee. But he should be fine for now, provided he follows the simple rules we’ve set for white foreigners.

Be amazed, be very amazed

Nickbhai, the first thing you do when you come to India, is visit every single monument you can find on Google Maps. Whisper “wow” outside the Taj Mahal with hand on heart, be so full of awe at the Qutab Minar that your eyes well up with tears, put on a robe and throw a plastic bag of old garlands into the Ganga, really immerse yourself in the whole experience. If you are suddenly interviewed outside any of these structures, make sure to mention how the smell reminds you of innocent days, or something about how the spicy food makes you cry, but you’d still eat it every day.

Once you’ve established yourself as a celebrity, you’ll want to shed a bit of your foreigner status, and appeal to the masses.

Attend (gatecrash) a wedding

Well you’re already one step ahead of us there, considering you’ve already attended the reception of an Ambani progeny, but gatecrashing a famous person’s wedding is by far the easiest way to get your face in the papers. For extra measure you could do a sangeet dance to “Desi Girl”, or get drunk and yell at a starlet, or go the old-fashioned way and take a selfie with every single attendee. By the age of 30, people will get so used to seeing your face, you’ll be invited to private Diwali parties for an undisclosed fee. Success!

Play cricket… well

This is the only way to truly make your way into our hearts and settle there. Hit Siddharth Malhotra for a six on the last ball of a celebrity cricket tournament and it is almost guaranteed you’ll be in the news forever. Granted they’ll talk about it even if you get out on the first ball, but you’ll have a much better story to tell when Kapil Sharma invites you to his show.

Get yourself a baba

Once you’ve established yourself as a celebrity, you’ll want to shed a bit of your foreigner status, and appeal to the masses. You could start by adopting a baba, preferably one that doesn’t advocate castration, and attend very public seminars, where you meet God. Buy saffron robes, drink saffron tea, and write a book with a saffron pen, and you’ll soon find yourself going from simply “White person famous” to “Superstar Rajinikanth famous” very quickly.

This list is by no means comprehensive – we haven’t even begun talking about the number of yoga poses you can appropriate – but this should be a good starting point. Play your cards well, and you will be cast in Student of the Year 7.


This article was originally published on Arré.

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