The Annoying(?) habits of Indians: Article 1 - "Talking"
"I still remember those 8-hours passenger train journies to my maternal grandmother's house. I miss how we used to share our food, do informal chit-chats, and play cards with co-passengers. Not even once we realized how those eight hours used to pass without mobiles, movies, and headphones. Today, I find half an hour with an Uberpool co-passenger a burden if my cellphone battery goes down" And it happened again. Like always, it popped up in one of my WhatsApp groups. Like always, "they" wrote an article cursing Indians, our culture, and our lifestyles. Like always, I chose to drink my anger and stay silent. Sipping the steaming morning tea, I was scrolling up the discussion in the group when I noticed the picture message that sparked this heated discussion - A message summarizing the "Questionable habits" of Indian tourists. "They" have also written a covering article to elaborate the pictureWhen I first read the article, I felt bad too. While the people in my WhatsApp group were justifying the points highlighted through their foreign travel experiences, I felt a strong urge to relate them with my experiences too. I can confidently (and sadly) say that the points "they" made in the article were all true, but the conclusion they drew was half-baked... and insulting. "They" were right to point out that we Indians do all those "annoying" things like eating too much during happy hours, drinking too much on flights, and talking to each other in flights and trains. They have created another tiny spark to make us believe that "Indians are uncultured".
Finding shortcomings in Indians is a trend these days. Why shouldn't it be? It allows the "author" to flaunt the visa stamps on her passport, to prove that she has achieved the "Nirvana" every second or third Indian Millenial crave for, and that she now has the authority to "teach" the other uncultured Indians about being well-behaved. Loads of similar articles from various "travel is my life" authors can be found where they curse India and try to train Indian about how to behave properly taking lessons from various foreign cultures.
But why does this happen? Why most of the Indians behave so "uncultured"? Does the country known for its ancient wisdom and culture teaches nothing to its citizens?
Throughout this article series "Travelosophy", I'll try to decipher that Question Mark (?) sign in the title. I'll try to put forward my views based on my life's experiences. In this first article, let's talk about "Talking".
"They" claim that Indians talk too much. From the flights and trains to the breakfast and dinner tables, our talks never end. From one country to the other and from one topic to another, our talks never end. But why do we talk so much? Why can't we be silent... like Europeans... or Americans?
I feel that the reason lies in our history. Right from the inception, we Indians have lived in communities. Big joint families used to be our strengths... and the entire village used to be our family. Instead of spending time alone with a glass of scotch with some jazz playing on gramophones, we loved to sit beneath the banyan trees with our neighbors and do all sorts of chit chat. We never needed cats and dogs to kill our loneliness. We never needed professionals and lawyers to solve our family matters; our elders used to do that for us (for free!). We love to talk. It doesn't matter whether the person in front is a stranger; we know the art of breaking the ice and making the strangers comfortable (something that is taught in so-called "Personality Development" classes in exchange of a huge sum of money!).
A couple of months ago, my parents visited me in Bangalore. When they left after four weeks, we had built good "family-type relations" with four of our neighbors with whom we never talked earlier. The people at the nearby temple knew my toddler son, and the nearby grocery shopkeeper knew when to refill our lentils and atta supplies. It is all because of those "irritating" talking habits of my parents (and people from their generation)... isn't it? My parents don't need Facebook and Whatsapp; they meet their friends and spend almost every evening with them. I am pretty sure that it is true for the majority of people from their generation.
The art of talking is our cultural asset which we (The Indian Millenials) have inherited from our elders, but have abandoned it while becoming "well-trained" and "well-behaved" based on the criteria set up by people who don't even understand the greatness of Indian culture. We have fallen prey to the cultures that teach us to be disciplined, silent, and (ultimately) boring. Despite being born and brought up in a rich, friendly, and jovial culture, we now somehow feel a glass wall surrounding us... stopping us to socialize with people around us. We're so badly tied up in the boundaries of discipline that we can not visualize what we are losing as part of this "training". Although we stay in high-rise apartments with hundreds of people around us, we need apps like "Meetup" and "Tinder" to socialize... isn't that a sign of our diminishing social comfort? The art of portraying ourselves as "cultured" has taken a huge toll out of our social life and has added a lot of frustration and loneliness to it. We can spend 24 hours on a flight beside someone and yet manage to escape even a teeny tiny conversation with one. We choose to escape face to face conversations... and find anyone who does that irritating. We can proudly claim our certificates of being "well-behaved" from them.
I still remember those 8-hours passenger train journies to my maternal grandmother's house during our summer vacations. I miss how we used to share our food, do informal chit-chats, and play cards with co-passengers. Not even once we realized how those eight hours used to pass without mobiles, movies, and headphones. Today, I find half an hour with an Uberpool co-passenger a burden if my cellphone battery goes down.
Am I trying to justify those annoying habits through this article? NO! Those habits of talking "too much" are annoying to the surrounding silent people... just like any other foreign habit which doesn't fit in the surrounding culture. And we Indians, just like any other sane person, take a little time to adjust to a new culture. But that doesn't give "them" the right to judge us as uncultured. We never judge them for being insanely silent and frustratingly lonely. (Trust me, after spending two weeks in Europe, I prayed to the god to put me back in India. The silence there was haunting.) Traveling to different places and respecting different cultures is good. Bringing those cultures back to the home country and judging the countrymen (based on same foreign criteria) as "uncultured" is unacceptable.
So keep traveling, keep writing, and keep sharing. But STOP JUDGING!
In the next article, I'll take up on the next "annoying" habit of Indians. Hope you enjoyed the reading. P.S.: My book, The Whispering Dwapara, is first of its kind book that opens a whole new dimension of Mythological Science Fiction for the readers. Featured among Amazon India's Top 30 Bestsellers, this book takes readers to a world where the chants of Sacred Mantras will mingle with Acoustics and Applied Physics, the Maharathi warriors will fight alongside Indian Army Soldiers, and Ancient Daivi Astras will join hands with modern Sonic Weapons... against one common enemy of Humanity.
Finding shortcomings in Indians is a trend these days. Why shouldn't it be? It allows the "author" to flaunt the visa stamps on her passport, to prove that she has achieved the "Nirvana" every second or third Indian Millenial crave for, and that she now has the authority to "teach" the other uncultured Indians about being well-behaved. Loads of similar articles from various "travel is my life" authors can be found where they curse India and try to train Indian about how to behave properly taking lessons from various foreign cultures.
But why does this happen? Why most of the Indians behave so "uncultured"? Does the country known for its ancient wisdom and culture teaches nothing to its citizens?
Throughout this article series "Travelosophy", I'll try to decipher that Question Mark (?) sign in the title. I'll try to put forward my views based on my life's experiences. In this first article, let's talk about "Talking".
"They" claim that Indians talk too much. From the flights and trains to the breakfast and dinner tables, our talks never end. From one country to the other and from one topic to another, our talks never end. But why do we talk so much? Why can't we be silent... like Europeans... or Americans?
I feel that the reason lies in our history. Right from the inception, we Indians have lived in communities. Big joint families used to be our strengths... and the entire village used to be our family. Instead of spending time alone with a glass of scotch with some jazz playing on gramophones, we loved to sit beneath the banyan trees with our neighbors and do all sorts of chit chat. We never needed cats and dogs to kill our loneliness. We never needed professionals and lawyers to solve our family matters; our elders used to do that for us (for free!). We love to talk. It doesn't matter whether the person in front is a stranger; we know the art of breaking the ice and making the strangers comfortable (something that is taught in so-called "Personality Development" classes in exchange of a huge sum of money!).
A couple of months ago, my parents visited me in Bangalore. When they left after four weeks, we had built good "family-type relations" with four of our neighbors with whom we never talked earlier. The people at the nearby temple knew my toddler son, and the nearby grocery shopkeeper knew when to refill our lentils and atta supplies. It is all because of those "irritating" talking habits of my parents (and people from their generation)... isn't it? My parents don't need Facebook and Whatsapp; they meet their friends and spend almost every evening with them. I am pretty sure that it is true for the majority of people from their generation.
The art of talking is our cultural asset which we (The Indian Millenials) have inherited from our elders, but have abandoned it while becoming "well-trained" and "well-behaved" based on the criteria set up by people who don't even understand the greatness of Indian culture. We have fallen prey to the cultures that teach us to be disciplined, silent, and (ultimately) boring. Despite being born and brought up in a rich, friendly, and jovial culture, we now somehow feel a glass wall surrounding us... stopping us to socialize with people around us. We're so badly tied up in the boundaries of discipline that we can not visualize what we are losing as part of this "training". Although we stay in high-rise apartments with hundreds of people around us, we need apps like "Meetup" and "Tinder" to socialize... isn't that a sign of our diminishing social comfort? The art of portraying ourselves as "cultured" has taken a huge toll out of our social life and has added a lot of frustration and loneliness to it. We can spend 24 hours on a flight beside someone and yet manage to escape even a teeny tiny conversation with one. We choose to escape face to face conversations... and find anyone who does that irritating. We can proudly claim our certificates of being "well-behaved" from them.
I still remember those 8-hours passenger train journies to my maternal grandmother's house during our summer vacations. I miss how we used to share our food, do informal chit-chats, and play cards with co-passengers. Not even once we realized how those eight hours used to pass without mobiles, movies, and headphones. Today, I find half an hour with an Uberpool co-passenger a burden if my cellphone battery goes down.
Am I trying to justify those annoying habits through this article? NO! Those habits of talking "too much" are annoying to the surrounding silent people... just like any other foreign habit which doesn't fit in the surrounding culture. And we Indians, just like any other sane person, take a little time to adjust to a new culture. But that doesn't give "them" the right to judge us as uncultured. We never judge them for being insanely silent and frustratingly lonely. (Trust me, after spending two weeks in Europe, I prayed to the god to put me back in India. The silence there was haunting.) Traveling to different places and respecting different cultures is good. Bringing those cultures back to the home country and judging the countrymen (based on same foreign criteria) as "uncultured" is unacceptable.
So keep traveling, keep writing, and keep sharing. But STOP JUDGING!
In the next article, I'll take up on the next "annoying" habit of Indians. Hope you enjoyed the reading. P.S.: My book, The Whispering Dwapara, is first of its kind book that opens a whole new dimension of Mythological Science Fiction for the readers. Featured among Amazon India's Top 30 Bestsellers, this book takes readers to a world where the chants of Sacred Mantras will mingle with Acoustics and Applied Physics, the Maharathi warriors will fight alongside Indian Army Soldiers, and Ancient Daivi Astras will join hands with modern Sonic Weapons... against one common enemy of Humanity.
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