I have fond memories of my aunts making dried fish curry (my dad is from a part of Bangladesh that makes this: http://bengalicuisine.net/2010/lotiya-shutki). It's delicious, but you can smell it cooking in an apartment building from outside.
> Its funny, the conviction that over a billion people of a different country/culture would see the world like you would.
I think there is a tendency for people, often westerners but also Indian elites (and the author of this article is definitely one of those), to romanticize aspects of life there that I don't think ordinary people will be sad to see go.