As soon as an NRI (Non Resident Indian) lands and gets his bottled water, he scans everything with a mind uncluttered with things such as humility and balanced judgement. He scans every corner for dirt. If he doesn’t find any, he is disappointed. If he finds some he is ecstatic. In his mind it justifies his decision to leave the country. He is elated to find a dirty bathroom for the same reason.
He is scared of everything and concerned about anything. He is scared of water causing disease, food causing disease, person next to him causing disease, luggage cart causing disease, coughing dude causing disease, non coughing dude causing disease, a terrorist attack, poor driving safety records and his own family members.
He scans policemen for size of their guns (to make sure they are capable of dealing with a terrorist attack), crispness of their uniforms and their fitness levels. If they fail NRI’s “high standards” it reinforces the stereotype of India being a dangerous country. He starts complaining of slowness of custom officials, not having enough baggage carts, people not following lines, smells and heat though his parents are waiting patiently in worse heat outside.
He immediately takes out his camera and starts taking pictures of bad traffic and cows on road. These are immediately posted on FB with “can you believe this”. He is almost happy to find children begging as it allows him to judge even more. Women beggars make him feel even better.
When it suits his NRI conscience he is able to look over everything. He is perfectly happy if a servant twice his age brings him a cup of tea or a very lowly paid driver by western standards drives him around. He is perfectly happy to haggle for 15 rupees because “it’s not about money, but about principles”. He appreciates the type of fine restaurants where an average Indian cannot afford to eat. In fact he is happy that they can’t or otherwise it would be too crowded.
godumusings 