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 Everyone
has dreams of achieving great things in life. Moving up the
social hierarchy is the natural order of things. There was a
generation of people who left their native shores to seek
better opportunities, to give their talent the space to flower
in a more conducive environment. Some of course, left just to
get away from all that was unclean, corrupt and regressive
about their homeland. They were searching for asylum of the
social kind.
These are the non-resident Indians (NRIs) who have spread
across the globe. They are evidence, if any was required, that
given the right circumstances, we can scale the highest peaks.
We only have to say Kalpana Chawla in New York and we will be
understood. The same goes for Manoj Shyamalan in Hollywood.
And Salman Rushdie and VS Naipaul in London. And Lord Swraj
Paul, Lakshmi Mittal and countless others who run successful
businesses, or are in positions of power today but are never
in the news.
They make us proud of being Indian and we bask in the
reflected glory.
They come down to India and the press gets
its fill of sound bytes about how much India means to them,
how the emotional tugs ensure that they teach their foreign
born children to speak Hindi or Punjabi or Bengali, make them
appreciate the good life they have as opposed to the poverty
back here. And now that Indian food is de rigeur the world
over, they can even begin to enjoy eating their dal sabzi, if
they didn’t already!
But like with everything else, there is a flip side to all
this longing for the Indian way of life. A couple of years
ago, I was at a friend’s home where I met her aunt and uncle
who’ve lived in the US for nearly 40 years. We got talking and
the man said he is a neurosurgeon and lives in Temple, a city
in Texas. His wife is a homemaker and has always been one
since she married at 16 and went to live abroad. One would
think that after marrying so young, this lady would miss India
and Gujarat (her native state) with some amount of regret.
Let’s face it, India begins to grow even on foreigners who are
born in far wealthier countries. The quirkiness, the
randomness, the beauty -- all appeal at some level.
But through the years, the lady had carefully nurtured a
dislike of everything Indian. She began her conversation with
me, a complete stranger to her until then, about how she was
visiting a friend for lunch and the friend told her that they
would have to have their lunch right away because the maid was
expected to turn up anytime to do the dishes. She was angry
that her friend chose to live her life on her maid’s terms! As
she put it, “Are we supposed to do things in our home
according to a maid’s schedule?” Of course you’re not. What
she didn’t think about was that her friend had probably made
the decision to serve lunch and get it out of the way. She
wasn’t trying to tell her how inflexible Indian maids are. But
that is what this lady chose to interpret.
Then, she set off on a long rant about how she had wanted to
do some shopping in Colaba but the hawkers on the Causeway
were so lazy that some of them had still not put out their
wares. Whew! Obviously, these guys must have been on their
best behaviour for her! She proceeded to complain about the
traffic, the rudeness, the lack of pride in what they do
(which coming from her sounded hollow). She didn’t have a nice
word to say about India or Indians.
I asked her if she had any Indian neighbours in the US. She
said, yes, they did, they lived across the street from her
home but they never went over to say hello or anything. Not
like in India, where according to her, everyone was always in
each other’s homes.
But when I asked her if she knew where President George Bush’s
ranch was and if Crawford was close to their home, she
promptly said: “Oh yes, we are neighbours you know, he’s just
20 miles away from us!” This pretentious woman couldn’t be
bothered about getting to know her neighbour from across the
street but was inferring the US president and her family were
close friends. Now that is an Indian trait that she surely
hadn’t forgotten – name-dropping and showing off.
 Having
left India at a young age, she has become completely seduced
by the American way of life. Nothing wrong with that but you
can imagine how much venom she must be spewing back in Texas
about India. I’ve known so many others who have lived as long
or far longer than her in the US, but come down to India with
grown up kids and happily stay with a brother or sister in a
two-bedroom apartment, all the while having to share one loo
and bathroom among six or more family members. Whereas, in the
US, I’m sure they are accustomed to having their own bedroom
with an attached bath.
I don’t think our way or their way of living is better; it is
not even a point of contention here -- it’s just different and
the way society has evolved. Here, we have always been
concerned about inter-personal relationships, where family,
relatives, friends, neighbours participate in the joys and
sorrows of our lives, unlike ion the Western societies which
are more individualistic. The families who stay in touch with
their roots are able to iincorporate that closeness and warmth
even while living thousands of miles away. That, I feel, is
essentially the best of both worlds. You get your space (that
much maligned term!) and you have a loving family which is a
great safety net.
So, I had every reason to pity this woman. She’s probably not
given her three children anything to cherish or hold on to.
She gloated to me about how her middle child, a daughter, was
living by herself and that she was truly independent -- unlike
me, because even though I was earning, I had to still live by
myself. Obviously, she didn't bother to find out that I help
with the bills at home unlike her daughter who chose to move
away rather than contribute to the existing household. Of
course, I could have told her that to her face, but again, it
was the Indian restraint and manners that saved her. I could
have been more crude and told her that her daughter chose to
move away because she couldn’t bring all those men or women
(if she was inclined that way) she wanted to sleep with, over
to her parents’ house. Yes, that is a big part of the reason
why they value their individuality so much and I’m sure she
was aware of that.
After all this, my friend told me that her uncle, who does not
share his wife’s rabid anti-India views, actually helped set
up their daughter by taking on the mortgage for the apartment
and the car (which is another necessity abroad). I’m not sure
what this proves. Of course the lady in question didn’t reveal
this. It means that the daughter lives by herself at
additional expense to the parents and she’s proud of it!
I then decided that I was not going to tolerate this kind of
extreme opinions from anyone and I came up with some succinct
thoughts on the subject, which I shall employ in future.
Here they are - The Dummies' guide to dealing with boorish NRIs:
- I know we have poverty, slums, congested trains, beggars on
the street and in some cases no streets to walk on in the city
of Mumbai. But I live in this city and I can afford to
complain and make some noise about it. You have come to visit
relatives on a 10-day trip, so learn to put up with it or get
back on the earliest flight to wherever you came from.
- Don’t trumpet your children’s great carpe diem (seize the
day) attitude because there is loads of that here too. It’s
not something only found in foreign locales. To make it in
India takes a peculiar kind of resistance and endurance which
your kids may not be able to tolerate. Also, parents in India
usually know whether their children are making bombs in their
bedrooms or carrying loaded automatic weapons to school,
unlike what is happening in the great USA. (This is for the
brags. Most people can tell genuine parental pride from the
make-believe.)
- We are not subservient to our parents and the society in
general, we just respect the order of things. We recognize
there is a certain scheme to all the madness. You flout the
rules and get your way because you live in the US or the UK
but you wouldn’t dare do it here. We dare to do it here in the
presence of the people we care about.
- We have accepted a lot from the West (and not just foreign
aid), which by the way has not come only from the pockets of
the NRIs. There are millions of Caucasians, Hispanics and
coloured people who also pay taxes. So don’t come down to
India and pretend you have done us a personal favour. We also
accepted MacDonald’s and MTV and a lot of crappy reality shows
that you thrive on, back in the US and the UK. Only MTV has
some redeeming qualities. If we can take your trash, then so
can you.
- Don’t let living abroad fool you. It only takes something
like 9/11 to occur and you suddenly realize you are actually
brown skinned, even though you have deluded yourself into
thinking you are whiter than the Caucasians. Then don’t expect
sympathy from the people back in India because we live through
our share of riots, earthquakes and strikes on a periodic
basis. So we understand the meaning of "live-and-let-live." I
know and get along with Muslims and am not living in some
Hindu or Muslim ghetto in a First World country. That kind of
insularity has made you feel superior. But when the going gets
tough, you will be first ones to come back to India.
- Whether you accept it or not, India’s culture overwhelms
everyone who comes in contact with it. Don’t undermine it
because you went to one place in an AC coach where the AC
didn’t work. There are bigger issues that India could use your
help with. If you don’t want to help then stay away but don’t
come here and add to the decibel levels.
Luckily, this loud woman is the only one in my experience who
bad-mouthed India and Indians. All the others I’ve known are
people I’m proud to associate with and are great
representatives of our country. Kudos to you guys. But let it
be known that just because some of us chose to stay back or
continue to want to do things for our country and not an
adopted homeland, that does not make us less adventurous and
lacking in entrepreneurial spirit or pride. It just means we
are who we are, here, in India. We don’t have to put on airs
to feel accepted and we don’t have to undermine our heritage
and culture to score brownie points. So take it or leave it.
BY MANALI ROHINESH
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