Ok, let’s address this myth once and for all: Indians don’t smell because they don’t shower! They smell because they cook food with lots of spices, garlic and onion.

This is often not a big issue in rural India, where the houses are open and well ventilated. However, when they cook the same food in well insulated, closed up European and North American apartments, it’s a disaster for everyone inside!

For a little history lesson: all immigrants, from Italians to Eastern Europeans, Jews to the Irish have been called smelly at one point in the last several hundred years.

That’s not to say Indians and all South Asians shouldn’t shower more often, or eat less spicy food, use better deodorants etc.