A couple of misconceptions

Quick. What percentage of Kerala do you think is Christian? When I posed this question to my Indian friends, the answers varied from 90% to as low as 50%. People had this image of the Malayali Christians in their minds and assumed that Kerala was full of Christians. In reality, Christians form less than 20% of the population of Kerala. They're only the third largest religion in the state. Hindus still make up the majority, at 56% and Muslims are second at 24% (figures from Wikipedia).

Similarly, what percentage of Chandigarh is Sikh? (Now, this is a bit of a trick question because for the longest time we all associated Chandigarh with Punjab where Sikhism is the dominant religion.) But in Chandigarh, Sikhs form less than 20% of the population. (Hindus forming the majority at 78%.) This was very apparent during my cab ride from the airport to my hotel. Very few turbans that distinguish the Sikhs. Now, granted, not all Sikhs sport the turban, but the image that people have of a city teeming with Sikhs is off the mark.

Interestingly enough, even Amritsar is a Hindu-majority city with about 80% Hindus. Man, where the Sikhs at? Probably in the villages. I look forward to making atleast one trip to a Punjabi village at some point during my stay here.