Cribbing about India

I bumped into a coconut the other day. This person had moved to the US some years ago and was visiting home. After some small talk about what we do and who have been in touch with, she launched into the mandatory diatribe about how expensive India has become and how nothing works as it should.

Those of us who have chosen to live in India get hot under the collar when we are subjected to these rants. Interestingly, these complaints about India bother us more when the complainer is an NRI. If we are amongst resident Indians, say watching a news item on the TV in the office cafeteria, we cluck our tongues as we sympathize with each other's point of view.

I find I also listen with thoughtful attention when a foreigner narrates an incident about India. A client visitor was telling me about his experience with Indian Customs officers at Mumbai airport because he was carrying a few gifts for our office staff. Others have narrated stories about their attempt to travel by train. These are not exactly in the tone we use when we speak about the Swiss Bahn.

Why is it then, that I find myself unable to tolerate barbs about India from visiting NRIs? The reason, I think, is multi-faceted. The first facet is a function of locus-standi of the complainant. When resident Indians complain about India, we share camaraderie, we are in effect commiserating with each other for we are in it together. When foreigners narrate incidents, often their tone is just that - narrative, not judgemental. They are presenting a point of view on a situation that is very different from our own. I find that I am interested, curious even, to see an Indian situation from a foreign point of view. Often, these visitors point something out that we haven't even noticed; for us, things have always been that way.

When visiting NRIs complain about India, it feels like a complaint. Worse, it takes on a holier-than-thou stance that is sufficient to bother most self-respecting people. I have been asking myself why this should bother me so much. The reason is that these people who have moved to other, admittedly, more developed places, have had no hand in making those places the paradise that they make them out to be. As humans, most of us have a built-in willingness to learn from those who we deem worthy of learning from. If Lee Kuan Yew were to visit India and point out issues, he would perhaps have some degree of moral right to do so, for he has had a hand at fixing similar problems in a nation that started out from a starting point worse than India's.

Conversely, us humans, with our strong egos, we have a very low tolerance for people giving advice or voicing their opinions, when in our mind they have no moral authority to give that gyan.