A thought: If we Indians happened to be white in skin colour, like the firangs, and if someone saw one of us walking down the street, would he be able to guess our nationality? Would he be able to tell whether we are Indian, or American or European? Probably not. And why? Because today, where everything from clothing to behaviour is being homogenized, where everyone talks the same language, wears the same clothes, similar to everyone else even in mannerisms, it’s only our skin colour that establishes our uniqueness.
Because we are the urban Indians. And like the Americans living on the other side of the globe, we talk in English and think in English, wear t-shirts and jeans when casual and suits and ties when formal, have coffee rather than tea. All whitewashed. If one thinks about it, food preferences are perhaps the only thing that have still not changed; although we love burgers and pizzas and pastas, most would maintain that rice and dal is what is best for everyday consumption.
It is fascinating to see the gradual shift in Indian lifestyle in the years after independence. The British Raj insured that Indians would never again be comfortable with their own identity; the five-cubit-tall sahib would forever hold a psychological edge over the third-world, backward Indian. Even before the British left us, this inferiority complex had settled itself in the Indian psyche. To emulate the foreigner in everything he did, to talk, dress and behave like him, indeed to be him, has always been the Indian’s ulterior, if not declared, goal. Of course, this phenomenon, this aspiration to become someone else is not just restricted to our country, but to many others which have been subjected to colonial rule.
But curiously, this desire to ‘be’ English has faded away gradually. To be replaced by an affinity for everything American. And the sort of maniacal attachment the young urban Indians have for it is rather interesting, when not annoying. One look around and it’s easy to recognize how much American preferences have permeated into our own lives. The introduction and subsequent success of fast food joints, the coming up of brands like Levi Strauss and Dockers, the market for American films (or rather, ‘movies’, which are always, by some unwritten law, better than the material we produce here), the stupendous speed at which coffee joints have opened (and tea centres have disappeared), the inception of words like ‘stuff’ and ‘bucks’ in everyday conversation, our carelessness in spelling ‘colour’ as ‘color’ and ‘centre’ as ‘center’ etc etc. The Indian obsession for education in the ‘States’ tops it all. American college t-shirts are so popular and common now that the last time I visited Sarojni Nagar in Delhi, I even saw a roadside shop selling fake cheap red sweatshirts with ‘UCLA’ printed on them.
Of course, for most parts, this inclination towards American attitudes is but natural. What Big Mac does, the Toms, Dicks and Harrys do it too. The Americans are, after all (and I borrow a phrase rather famous in diplomatic circles), ‘the shaper of global sentiment’. But even if you leave this very human tendency aside, they deserve most of what they have managed to do. American universities are some of the best in the world, Levi Strauss is the last word in casual wear, McDonalds does deserve its status for the sheer quality of the food it has to offer. And till the day Indian brands come up with the same standards, the above are bound to stay on top.
But sometimes, it all becomes too much to take. They can’t be the world’s best in every single darn thing they do, can they? Sometimes, if not quite often, this phenomenon becomes rather nauseating to assimilate. Sometimes, if not quite often, one is bound to feel that that our little tendency here is only an inch short of blind aping. Sometimes, if not quite often, one is sure to think that if this continues to be the case, the Indian in us will slowly fade away, making us what an American Macaulay would love to see us as – Indians only by birth, but Americans in behaviour, lifestyle and education.
Of course, one might ask – Is that a problem we need to address? For me, it is. And yes, there are some solutions too that come to my mind. But leave all that for some other post, at some later date.
6 comments:
There's a paradox here dood...
u agree that the Americans are the best, yet you have a problem with their english...
And while blind ape-ing of their culture isn't acceptable, does it not make sense for us to be comfortable with their language and way of life?
Its not about becoming what we are not, but adapting to accomodate the realities. As Teabag said, we are the victims of our own identities..
piper, most of what you say is probably true.. but times they are a changing..our generation is no more blindly aping. in fact there seems to be a new found confidence and pride in our indianness..
Also, you cant say we're longing to be like the americans. The Brits left their footprints, so did the mughals in the north and the french in the south. and India is an awesome assimilator. that doesnt reduce our own identity. we're just going global not american.the world is as enamoured by India as we are by them. thats the way the cookie crumbles..
alien: I agree with you. In fact, I would say that the paradox is not a small one at all. I admit that I, myself, am the 'victim of my own identity'.
There's no problem with being comfortable with their way of life, but very often, the above also includes us not being comfortable with our own.
Maybe I haven't made myself totally clear in this post. One of these days, I'll try again :)
Zinque: Good point. But when you talk about the Brits, the Mughals or the French, you must remember that they have all been our masters and co-inhabitants for some period in time. Nothing likewise is true for the Americans. And that's why the attachment is rather curious.
But yes, the cookie is crumbling.
He bhagwan....I mean OH MY GOD !!
How could you?
How could you think of such stuff !!
American accent mein parhiyega...
Thum ye shab kyaa lekhtaa ae. Thumaari phaash kharne khou khuch aur nai kya? :P
Aur agar american style se itni nafrat hai to american beer kyun itni pasand hai?? Desi tharra kyun nahi peete? ;) :P
Batao batao...?? :P
Alright! I think this deserves a good reply and I would have loved to write one. But, the somebody else has already done it for me and I would rather just take this piece and copy paste it here. You have a point and this piece has a point to! Think of a response in another post.
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Watching Americans try to make themselves frugal is like watching Mongolians try to make Bordeaux wine.
Thrift does not come naturally to a country that turned layaway, zero-interest home loans and pre-approved credit cards into a mode of living. And so as they trudge through a cruel holiday season, Americans are cutting back, but hesitatingly and maladroitly.
They are standing in line by the thousands at Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, pushing and pulling, and on one occasion trampling an obstructive employee to death with their frantic, frugal feet.
They are embracing the alien idea of sacrifice. Mothers are forgoing personal shopping to spend on the family, and, according to Consumer Reports, pet owners are depriving themselves before shortchanging their pets.
Fourteen percent of Americans are making gifts, not buying them, that magazine reported. Twelve percent are plotting to pass on to others the gifts others give them. Many plan to tip less, scale back charity and go shopping accompanied by that leafy commodity so foreign to Americans: cash.
And then it hit me. The jostling in line, the stampeding, the motherly sacrifice, the homemade presents, the regifting, the thick wads of rubber-banded cash: America is becoming India!
India is to frugality as Bethlehem is to Jesus. But in recent years, the megacorporations of the West, not content to foment irresponsibility at home, sent pinstriped missionaries here to nudge genetically predisposed savers to spend.
Citibank sprinkled a borrowing-wary nation with small loans for motorcycles: Live a little! Visa peddled plastic to lovers of gold: Let your hair down!
Millions of Indians converted, but millions of others ignored them - and, for the West, luckily so. As rich countries enter a new era of scarcity, the best practices of the gurus of frugality can serve as a textbook for frugality's new pupils.
The first tip of the Indian frugalist is to wear your money. One rarely misplaces funds when they are kept in gold and hooked through your nose or strung around your neck. Some Indian women wear saris woven with gold thread. The danger of nudity discourages whimsical spending.
The truly frugal segment friends and associates into two camps: those who merit their money and those who don't.
Cellphone calls may cost a cent a minute in India, but why call people who only rate a text? Why text when you can make a "missed call"? Millions of Indians dial and quickly hang up, hoping for the other person to call back and foot the bill.
Your upholstery is not for everyone. Sofas fray and stain; there is, in the final analysis, a cost per posterior. So cover your sofa with bed sheets and remove them for only the best behinds.
So, too, with crockery: Buy a set of expensive plates and keep it in a case where your friends can see them while they eat from the cheap plates you actually set before them.
When eating out, order soups fractionally: a certain number of soups split by a certain number of people. Start with "one into two," the realm of Indian beginners, then graduate in time to "three into five" and "six into seven."
For entrees, count the diners at the table, subtract one and order that many dishes - which, for a table of four, saves 25 percent over the one-person-one-dish norm.
Of course, if you can, avoid restaurants altogether. Weddings are big here, and Indians who keep an ear to the ground can eat free every night. Wedding crashers are not a movie in India; they are a way of life, and I'm told it takes three successful blend-ins before guests begin to take your presence for granted and invite you to their own weddings.
In India, nothing cannot be recycled. Wedding gifts, birthday gifts, anniversary gifts, gifts for Hindu festival of Diwali: forwardable are they all. Presents are opened carefully so that the wrapping paper can wrap again. Plastic shopping sacks are reincarnated as garbage bags. Used, licked stamps are enlisted for further tours when the post office fails to mark them.
And what cannot be reused whole can often be recycled for parts. In Dharavi, the Mumbai slum, workers in dingy rooms sort the jettisoned - plastic spoons, watches, mobile phones.
Every shard of every ware has a value. Each piece is disassembled, then the pieces are melted, reassembled and sold - all for a profit, not as a tax-guzzling government program.
Within the household, Indian frugalists think strategically, like MBA's. They do not let their children study art history. Children are equities, and good investors build a diverse portfolio by rearing one police officer, one software coder, one retail clerk. They sequence their educations such that the eventual profits from each child subsidize the schooling of the next one.
Every MBA graduate knows about "value investing." But only Indian homemakers apply the principle to peas. That's right: Buy peas in winter, when they are plentiful and cheap. Freeze. Defrost and cook in the summer, when prices spike.
Indian companies think like Indian consumers. On business trips, men must sometimes share beds with other men, and women with other women.
I know of a drug company whose managers could fly to meetings in another city but were mandated to take the cheaper, sputtering train back home.
With all their thrifty proclivities, it was inevitable that Indians would one day make the world's cheapest car. But Tata Motors, based in Mumbai, did not revolutionize the car so much as squeeze $10 savings hundreds of times over.
It took out one of the windshield wipers, used glue instead of nuts and bolts in places and stripped out air-conditioning despite the blazing 120-degree Fahrenheit (49 Celsius) summer heat.
And yet my favorite choice was the analog, rather than more accurate digital, speedometer. It was not a huge savings, and a speedometer's accuracy can determine life and death. So I put it to Ashok Taneja, a Tata supplier, some months ago: Why scrimp on something so vital?
"So what if I'm going at 65 or 75?" he said.
I assumed, and hoped, he was speaking of kilometers per hour, not of the duration of a frugally lived life.
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We can't be Americans. We can just ape them!
It is fascinating to read this from the middle of the U.S. where we live.
Most Americans live a frugal life. The ones who live a credit card fueled life of extravagance get to be in the news.
I, for one, am grateful that India's people speak English. It helps bring the world together.
Americans, by the thousands, go to restaurants to eat Indian food. We love your foods as much as you love McDonald's.
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