Few days ago, I bumped into the real estate agent/broker who arranged for my previous apartment in Mumbai. As is customary of Indian hospitality, he asked me how I had been doing, how work was going and all sorts of mundane questions. A big grin stretched across his face as I told him I was getting used to the daily train commute.
His words, I believe, were: "All the pushing and shoving, no? That is India. I love my India".
On a little investigation, I found out that the douche bag cruises around in a Maruti Suzuki and has probably stepped onto a Mumbai suburban train maybe twice in his lifetime. He has no clue what it is like to put up with the pushing and shoving on a daily basis. But what bugged me more is that he identified the "pushing & shoving" as representative of India and said that he "loved this India".
I would like to point out that I am an Indian citizen myself. Though I only started living in India 'for real' since August 2008, I have always identified myself as Indian among friends and acquaintances. Being one among millions who commute via the Mumbai Suburban train on a daily basis, I refuse to identify the experience as being representative of India and definitely have found no reason whatsoever to be proud of it.
This leaves me in great distress coz if the majority of Mumbaikars - including those who commute daily via the local train are at odds with me then maybe I am not fit to be an Indian! It might be that I have wrongly identified myself as an Indian all along. And if I am not an Indian now, what really is my identity?
Having been brought up and educated in Nepal, there is a part of me that wants to get that Nepali citizenship and settle down there. But the patriarchal laws favoring the father of a family prevent me from obtaining a Nepali citizenship as my dad is an Indian citizen and it is my mother who bears a Nepali citizenship. Also, the current lack of law & order and economic opportunities do not make Nepal attractive as a career growth center. On top of these, a terrorist runs the country.
Besides Nepal and India, I have never really thought of any other country as being my homeland/motherland/native place (whatever one wants to call it). So on a moral level, as of this past week, I have no country and no national identity.
Another thing I'd like to make clear is that, I can't comprehend the concept of national pride. I have met many people in various nations who are unconditionally proud of their country. Nepalese who are proud of Nepal no matter what atrocities the Maoists, police and politicians commit. Indians who are proud of India no matter how frequent communal and religious riots tarnish the country's name. Americans who are proud of America no matter how many innocent Iraqis and Afghans die from American cluster bombs. And the list goes on. When I think of all these, I really do not want to be associated with any nation (besides maybe Antarctica though my knowledge of penguins is restricted to March of the Penguins and Happy Feet).
I would like to be proud of India for the recent economic developments it has made and identfy myself as part of the rapidly developing India. However, many in India argue that these developments take away from the Indian-ness. My father is one such person who still thinks government jobs where the employee is provided almost lifetime guarantee of job safety and a pension on retirement is how India should be. He rues the recent surge in entrepreneurial business houses. A similar attitude is projected by my uncle who has lived in Mumbai all his life. He still sees businessmen as evil and corrupt - the way Bollywood movies portrayed top management individuals in the 70s, 80s and a good part of 90s (think Prem Chopra for those well versed with Bollywood).
Removing myself from this 'older' conservative crowd, I was leaning towards saying that I want to identify myself with the young India perceived to be more open-minded. But then among a lot of 20-somethings with graduate degrees I have sensed a strong feeling of scorn and jealousy towards the developed western world. The fact that I spent time in the US & UK and my accent has hints of Americana is enough for them to direct contempt at me. More than just a couple of times, in my presence, a group of such young adults started talking about me in Hindi, not knowing that I could understand them prefectly well.
To paraphrase some of the things that they said:
"He must have enough money to take us all to Zenzi* tonight".
"He has just come from America. He probably thinks we are tribal cavemen or something like that. Let's take him to Silver Coin** and show him how posh we are".
"He probably sees us equal to dirt on the ground. I am not gonna help him with anything. Let him suffer and find out about the Indian way".
"He must be earning a lot from his foreign firm. Our Indian firms pay well too these days and we know India way better. He is just a servant to the foreign firms but we serve our country by working for an Indian firm. He is taking India's money and sending it to other countries. His job should be given to an Indian person. We even look smarter than these people, so we must be way smarter for real".
Even my landlord once commented: "You should just buy a big flat screen TV, a home theater system for the apartment. You have come from the US. You should be living in style." I told him that I was going to move next year somewhere closer to work. Very shamelessly he said: "OK. You can leave those here and move. Your company must be paying you enough so that you can buy it again. You probably get better things in the US."
I almost imploded when a storekeeper commented: "In India we comb back our hair and do not wear shorts in public". (I have curly hair that I let fall on my face and for the most part I like wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops outside of work.) Nowhere in the Indian constitution is there any mention of a national dress code.
Telling these people I am an Indian citizen is absolutely useless. In their minds, I am a foreigner with loads of money and sucking more money out of the Indian economy.
When I first arrived in the US and introduced myself as an Indian citizen to others, most of them acted awkwardly coz they had never met an actual Indian, just Indian-Americans. They might have also said some pretty scathing, derogatory things about me behind my back. I will never know coz they did not do it in front of me. Comparing the two experiences, I concur that people all over the world suck equally. And once again, I really do not want to be associated with any nation.
So yes I have an identity crisis. And it is bothering me. But then I have given up on finding a national identity for me. I am rather working on not being bothered by this at all. And as silly as it sounds, it is quite difficult - especially when I think of my Indian passport and Indian birth certificate, when I fill up a form and it asks me for my ethnicity and nationality, when I think of meeting new people who could ask me where I am from and other such not-so-minor things.
*Zenzi is a trendy, upsace club in Bandra, Mumbai.
** Silver Coin is an upsace restaurant in Borivli, Mumbai.
PS: Amidst all these, I came across an uplifting news about an 18 year old Indian national from my alma mater working on an Obama Campaign in tiny Saratoga Springs. Hopefully she does not go through a simlar crisis as I.
His words, I believe, were: "All the pushing and shoving, no? That is India. I love my India".
On a little investigation, I found out that the douche bag cruises around in a Maruti Suzuki and has probably stepped onto a Mumbai suburban train maybe twice in his lifetime. He has no clue what it is like to put up with the pushing and shoving on a daily basis. But what bugged me more is that he identified the "pushing & shoving" as representative of India and said that he "loved this India".
I would like to point out that I am an Indian citizen myself. Though I only started living in India 'for real' since August 2008, I have always identified myself as Indian among friends and acquaintances. Being one among millions who commute via the Mumbai Suburban train on a daily basis, I refuse to identify the experience as being representative of India and definitely have found no reason whatsoever to be proud of it.
This leaves me in great distress coz if the majority of Mumbaikars - including those who commute daily via the local train are at odds with me then maybe I am not fit to be an Indian! It might be that I have wrongly identified myself as an Indian all along. And if I am not an Indian now, what really is my identity?
Having been brought up and educated in Nepal, there is a part of me that wants to get that Nepali citizenship and settle down there. But the patriarchal laws favoring the father of a family prevent me from obtaining a Nepali citizenship as my dad is an Indian citizen and it is my mother who bears a Nepali citizenship. Also, the current lack of law & order and economic opportunities do not make Nepal attractive as a career growth center. On top of these, a terrorist runs the country.
Besides Nepal and India, I have never really thought of any other country as being my homeland/motherland/native place (whatever one wants to call it). So on a moral level, as of this past week, I have no country and no national identity.
Another thing I'd like to make clear is that, I can't comprehend the concept of national pride. I have met many people in various nations who are unconditionally proud of their country. Nepalese who are proud of Nepal no matter what atrocities the Maoists, police and politicians commit. Indians who are proud of India no matter how frequent communal and religious riots tarnish the country's name. Americans who are proud of America no matter how many innocent Iraqis and Afghans die from American cluster bombs. And the list goes on. When I think of all these, I really do not want to be associated with any nation (besides maybe Antarctica though my knowledge of penguins is restricted to March of the Penguins and Happy Feet).
I would like to be proud of India for the recent economic developments it has made and identfy myself as part of the rapidly developing India. However, many in India argue that these developments take away from the Indian-ness. My father is one such person who still thinks government jobs where the employee is provided almost lifetime guarantee of job safety and a pension on retirement is how India should be. He rues the recent surge in entrepreneurial business houses. A similar attitude is projected by my uncle who has lived in Mumbai all his life. He still sees businessmen as evil and corrupt - the way Bollywood movies portrayed top management individuals in the 70s, 80s and a good part of 90s (think Prem Chopra for those well versed with Bollywood).
Removing myself from this 'older' conservative crowd, I was leaning towards saying that I want to identify myself with the young India perceived to be more open-minded. But then among a lot of 20-somethings with graduate degrees I have sensed a strong feeling of scorn and jealousy towards the developed western world. The fact that I spent time in the US & UK and my accent has hints of Americana is enough for them to direct contempt at me. More than just a couple of times, in my presence, a group of such young adults started talking about me in Hindi, not knowing that I could understand them prefectly well.
To paraphrase some of the things that they said:
"He must have enough money to take us all to Zenzi* tonight".
"He has just come from America. He probably thinks we are tribal cavemen or something like that. Let's take him to Silver Coin** and show him how posh we are".
"He probably sees us equal to dirt on the ground. I am not gonna help him with anything. Let him suffer and find out about the Indian way".
"He must be earning a lot from his foreign firm. Our Indian firms pay well too these days and we know India way better. He is just a servant to the foreign firms but we serve our country by working for an Indian firm. He is taking India's money and sending it to other countries. His job should be given to an Indian person. We even look smarter than these people, so we must be way smarter for real".
Even my landlord once commented: "You should just buy a big flat screen TV, a home theater system for the apartment. You have come from the US. You should be living in style." I told him that I was going to move next year somewhere closer to work. Very shamelessly he said: "OK. You can leave those here and move. Your company must be paying you enough so that you can buy it again. You probably get better things in the US."
I almost imploded when a storekeeper commented: "In India we comb back our hair and do not wear shorts in public". (I have curly hair that I let fall on my face and for the most part I like wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops outside of work.) Nowhere in the Indian constitution is there any mention of a national dress code.
Telling these people I am an Indian citizen is absolutely useless. In their minds, I am a foreigner with loads of money and sucking more money out of the Indian economy.
When I first arrived in the US and introduced myself as an Indian citizen to others, most of them acted awkwardly coz they had never met an actual Indian, just Indian-Americans. They might have also said some pretty scathing, derogatory things about me behind my back. I will never know coz they did not do it in front of me. Comparing the two experiences, I concur that people all over the world suck equally. And once again, I really do not want to be associated with any nation.
So yes I have an identity crisis. And it is bothering me. But then I have given up on finding a national identity for me. I am rather working on not being bothered by this at all. And as silly as it sounds, it is quite difficult - especially when I think of my Indian passport and Indian birth certificate, when I fill up a form and it asks me for my ethnicity and nationality, when I think of meeting new people who could ask me where I am from and other such not-so-minor things.
*Zenzi is a trendy, upsace club in Bandra, Mumbai.
** Silver Coin is an upsace restaurant in Borivli, Mumbai.
PS: Amidst all these, I came across an uplifting news about an 18 year old Indian national from my alma mater working on an Obama Campaign in tiny Saratoga Springs. Hopefully she does not go through a simlar crisis as I.
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