I really do not know how to describe this. Should I describe this as, "An Encounter with another Indian" or "An Encounter with a Singaporean" ?
But I go too fast....
Singapore has this funda of food courts. Its a covered up area where there are tables to eat on and a lot of stalls selling all sorts of food and drink. Invariably there is a stall specializing in Indian food. There is a food court beside my office where I typically have breakfast and lunch.
I got friendly with the Indian stall guy as I invariably have my breakfast there. After a few weeks of innocuous Hi's, we two had long chat the other morning while I put away my Sambhar Dosa.
Five minutes into the conversation our man started denigrating India and Indians. We are still in the stone age. We have not progressed. We Indians (I mean me and my compatriots still unlucky enough to be in India) will never progress. .... blah ... blah....
Ten minutes of this tirade and my patience was at an end. I asked him when he had been to India last. He replied quite proudly that he was born in Singapore and has not visited India even once. I told him that probably it was not correct to voice such opinions then since he has not seen the amount of progress my country has made.
He comes back with this anecdote, "A few years ago, Atal Behari Vajpayee had come visiting and I had gone to his address. That fellow could not even stand and speak properly. Worst of all, his body-guards were carrying Smith and Wessons' pistols. What a country you have man! You are still in the stone age. Your prime minister is protected by such outdated guns!!!"
I can of course go and argue about the merits and demerits of Smith and Wesson's pistols but that would be missing the point. He was just trying to prove to me (or probably to himself as well) that he is better off selling dosas as a hawker in Singapore than in India. He did not forget to mention that his wife is dimly related to Finance Minister Chidambaram (That relationship begins and ends with both of them being Chettiars)
Denigrating your own country and culture and holding up something new-fangled happens all the time. And not only among Indians. I just gave up reading this book called, "The people's republic of Desire" by a lady called Annie Wang. She paints a pathetic picture of Chinese "noveau-riche peasant" women in Beijing and Shanghai who would do absolutely anything to get a Caucasian Husband/Boy-Friend and an American passport. She writes and I quote, "First-class girls marry the Americans; Second-class girls marry the Japanese; Third-class girls marry the Taiwanese or the Hong-Kongers; Fourth-class girls marry the mainlanders".
This reminds me of a similar sort of book written by a lady called Vinita Daswani called "For Matrimonial Purposes".
The common thread in these books are that the Chinese and Indians are treated as impudent upstarts who want to get into the rarefied Western culture and the authors have this holier-than-thou attitude simply because they were born or educated in the US.
Besides a rather cutting example is the movie called "Bride and Prejudice". Getting a US visa is considered the touchstone of having "arrived" in this world. Oh Woe!!!!
My only point is that how educated is this behavior. How can someone consider himself superior to another person simply because he holds a different coloured passport? Just that! Nothing else! Is there something wrong in the value systems that we have which makes us renounce everything that made us what we are as soon as we get our passport stamped in a certain way?
Anyway... enough of this tirade.
News from my side. Me busy "laying"-out my PLL and having major trouble with it. I wish I could call upon the help of Anantha or Rajesh like I un-thinkingly used to do at all hours of the day and night in my earlier job. Besides that, reading books and feverishly house-hunting. Played squash the other day with a college friend of mine and found it an enthralling sport. i hope to play that or Badminton regularly as soon as I get settled in my new house. Also found a nice pub the other day which plays a sort of live rock. Will write about that (hopefully) later.
