5. Differences in American and Indian Attitude towards Strangers

A friend from Sikar asked me about differences between Americans and Indians. I pondered on this question for quite some time. I recalled instances of being with American friends and American strangers. I recalled the way Americans talked to me and talked to other strangers. I juxtaposed those interactions I have had with my Indian friends and Indian strangers. It was then that I realized the most obvious difference between American and Indian attitude towards strangers.

 

5.1 American’s Attitude

Americans did not try to judge me. They did not try to categorize me into a group and reduce my behavior as a member of that group. They accepted whatever I told them at its face value. They did not try to check the veracity of my claims. I remember the first time I was standing outside a volleyball court in the United States and was eager to play. I was new to the country and did not know how to ask to join them. But I did not have to ask. They asked me to join them after I was there for a minute or so. If they were going out for lunch, they asked me to join them. If I declined the invitation the first time, they asked me the next time they were going out. They did not get offended when I declined the invitation. In other words, Americans I knew (and I have a pretty big friend circle) accepted me the way I was.

 5.2 Indian’s Attitude

I contrasted this with the way I was treated by other Indians. Most Indians thought of my religion, my caste, my region first. They thought of something that made me different from them. I was judged being good or bad in something based on an earlier impression of someone they had met from my caste, my region, or my religion. I was never, in the first glance, judged as an individual on my own merit. If I gave an opinion on something, no one really cared until they knew I was an IITian or that I was an engineer in the United States. 

The opinion didn’t matter as much as who expressed the opinion. I recall numerous instances of trying to join some Indians playing a game. I usually got ignored when I requested to join them. When asking to play volleyball the so called star player would tell me something about volleyball before I would be given a chance. I would be made aware of the team hierarchy before allowed to join the team. When in the court they would keep playing between themselves, as if I didn’t exist. Next time when you see the same players playing, I would not feel like joining them in the game.

I am not trying to convey that all Americans have better attitude towards strangers than all Indians. I have met white supremacists in the bars. Luckily they are lesser in number. Majority of Americans I have met do not judge people based on looks or ethnic background. Most of them accept people who are not like them. Unfortunately, in a country, which is melting pot of different cultures, different ethnicities, different tribes, different religions, and different languages; we haven’t learnt to live without prejudice.

 I wonder when would be the time for Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of India to be realized. The country seems to be sinking deeper into caste, religion, regional, and language differences quagmire. I fervently wish, as Ravindranath Tagore did, that our country would be the place:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake. 

Let us strive to be Indians first and anything else later. Jai Hind. (Written by Maneesh Mahlawat. The author can be contacted on mahlawat@nav-prerna-school.com)