A word of advice to those intent on reading the words that follow. If you don’t have a sense of humour then jump off your window. If you live on the ground floor go to the nearest main road and jump in front of a bus (I would have said car, but buses ensure a higher mortality on the roads). My advice is genuine, as without a sense of humour you won’t get too far in life anyway.
Also if you take these words at face value then the faculty of your mind that is supposed to sieve the exaggeration out of these words (and grasp its truth) is not developed enough. If Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock ever start a school, enrol immediately.
The last thing that I would like to mention, I know how much everyone at LSE loves being political, be it nation-politics, gender-politics, political_for_the_heck_of_it –politics. My Indian brothers and sisters, if you wish to get political please head back home, the country could do better with you. Dear women, when describing the subject in question I have only referred to it as “he/him”. It is only because the situations in which I describe the subject are better picturised when viewed as a male. You are far too sophisticated to be caught in such situations. So do not mistake me for being a misogynist, I love you too dearly to even harbour such a thought.
Now that I have cleared the air, let’s proceed with my categorisation of the Indian at LSE or rather (more broadly) the Indian living in the west.
The Organic Indian
He is from the motherland, he carries with him bits of the diversity of 1.1 billion people…..sorry, 1.2 billion (we produced another 100 million over the new year). He is most probably on his first trip outside the motherland. He is conventional and carries certain archaic views without questioning them, for one reason alone….that they are archaic. Pasta, Shiraz and Bolognese are things he would never try as he imagines them to be kinds of grass fed to cows in the west (he is absolutely sure of his knowledge and never ventures to cross-check). He is unaffected by the politics involved in sensitive issues such as white superiority and racism and if ever is a victim of one of these, usually brushes it off his back with relative ease and moves on with his life, which is mostly revolved around his dal (curry), chawal (rice) and Bollywood. He is the one you will notice blowing his nose loudly in a bus, talking loudly to his mama (uncle) in Hindi and staring at the couple making out in the corner of the bus. If at all someone farts in the bus, and you see him looking very serious (trying to give the public the impression that he is thinking of a solution to the Kashmir crisis) then have no doubts, it is him. It is an obvious give-away, he would only think about Kashmir when he farts.
The Anti-Indian
This Indian has most probably run away from India in search of heaven, he probably used all his savings or probably stole his fathers’ to buy his ticket. He would have been told as a child that London and New York were other names for heaven. Even worse, realisation doesn’t dawn immediately upon his arrival. He is polytheistic; God for him is Ram, Krishna and the immigration officer. He wakes up in the night with nightmares of Indian family events where distant relatives rival each other in giving advice. He believes that in a foreign country he needs to make foreign friends. And you will classify as a foreign friend not based on your nationality but rather on your skin colour. So you could be a descendant of an exotic tribe from the Amazonian rainforests but if your skin colour matches his, you wouldn’t classify as a candidate for a foreign friend. If you were blonde, blue eyes, perfect. You fit the bill. On the bus he’d be the one seated next to a pretty white lady giving a passionate talk on India and everything that he ran away from. His exposition would most definitely be in an accent that is anything but Indian, it would be a unique mix of the American drawl of words and the British tune at the end of a sentence. If you see him trying to jump out of the bus through the emergency exit, he’s probably seen the Organic Indian.
The Confused-Indian
This Indian is mostly second or third generation Indian, born away from the motherland. His memory of India is the heat, all his un-cool relatives, the lack of air-conditioning in his parents’ ancestral house, the dust, the mosquitoes who always seemed to like the taste of his blood over the others. He probably had a very troubled vacation whenever it was spent in India. But more importantly, his confusion is in not being able to marry his social background with his cultural background. His bling would be the symbol Om and his Sub would have more peppers than his British mates. So he grows up in a foreign country learning foreign social customs but at the same time carries upon his frail shoulders the burden of his culture, which at times is at odds with each other. Thereby in regular life his approach to his Indianness is like an ostrich. If he sees the Organic Indian or the Anti Indian he would immediately bury his head in the ground. He would be very comfortable in the company of fellow ostriches, the head burying practice is perfected as a group behaviour. On the bus he’d be watching the Organic Indian sneeze with a frown, worried that the anti-sneeze police would arrest him on grounds of suspicion.
The Born-Again Indian
This Indian is also second or third generation, similar in that sense to the confused Indian. But his approach to his Indianness is further up in the evolutionary ladder. He takes conscious pride in his Indian roots and more often than not ends up reading a lot more about specific aspects or customs in Indian culture. In an argument with the organic Indian he could put the organic Indian off , just by being more knowledgeable about certain Indian subjects. He was probably bitten by Indian mosquitoes too during his vacations, but wouldn’t kill the mosquito like the rest of the Indians would. He would let the mosquito continue to suck his blood because he wouldn’t want to miss out on any learning which involves cultural roots even if the teacher is a mosquito. On the bus he would be reading India: A wounded civilization by V.S.Naipaul, and at times he would catch himself thinking that he is just like Naipaul. The Organic Indian would be looking at the book with detached interest as he digs his nose, the born-again Indian would catch him in the act and look on with amusement.
The Cosmo Indian
He is the sociologist’s dread, he doesn’t fit conventional categorisation. He is a mix of all and at times none of the above. He could be the most boring one on the bus, or the most lively one. If he farted on the bus, he’d ape the organic Indian but think of the Palestine conflict instead. When he’s around the Organic Indians he’s screaming Bharat Mata Ki Jay (Victory to India), when he’s with the Confused Indians at a pub he’s rooting for Beckham. At times he’s caught in between them, and mostly screams gibberish, like Arsenal Ki Jay. He’s Gyanendra Gajamurthi to the Anti-Indian and just Gudge to the born-again Indian. He thinks he’s the coolest as he believes he’s keeping every group happy, but gets his rump kicked once in awhile as his rope runs short. He’s the Anti-Indian when running behind a white girl, he’s the Organic Indian when he’s drunk in Edinburgh, he’s the confused Indian when his Indian girlfriend dumps him and he’s the born-again Indian at ISKCON chanting Hare Rama Hare Krishna.
That describes the Indian community quite broadly, with a good dose of the usual bickerings and quibbles that are characteristic of families generally. The interactions between these groups are not ideal, but on that occasional day when the sun comes up in the British sky and Paris Hilton doesn’t release a sex-tape, if you are lucky enough you could see a moment when life forces them to build bridges to understand each other better.
