My National Pride
Of being an Indian is hurt many times. I consider myself a hardcore traveller.backpacker type classified . More I travel,more embarrassed I become.
Consider this: While conducting a workshop for a leading corporate on Cross culture sensitivity, a man designated General Manager, says loudly,” Why we need to be polite? I am there to buy machines, giving them business. Let them dance on my tunes.”
Why can’t you be polite to a vendor? My question is not answered. As Indian, I would look at it as buying power decides who rules but is it necesaary to show crassly?
Why would not my national pride get hurt when I board a flight from London and British airways ensures that ,the exit from where flight departs for India has more number of staff deployed, while planning my Austria trip I saw do’s and don’ts of Austria. For Indians the norms are behaving on stair cases, be not too loud at public place, dress smart at music do’s. I am ashamed to see the way we are measured.
And please , those who believe ,our country has tought too many things to west,let me clarify.Golden past and tarnished image of present are two different things.
October 7th, 2009 at 5:53 am
I am surprised to hear about the general manager incident. I don’t know why being polite is such a hassle for someone. I hate such people and I equally hate emails which glorifies facts such as India has invented zero etc. or India was the richest nation in the world few hundred years back etc. etc. Guys, wake up where are you right now?
October 7th, 2009 at 11:02 am
This makes up an interesting read. While the comment of GM are not appreciated but the general comments of the author on gloomy India are contestable.
I personally think that Its great to be stupid and foolishly Indian then to follow strict orders as that of west.
One simple instance here is – take a look at waiters in the west – they look almost like robots with no souls. They are so servile and customers treat them almost as ants.
Contrast this with our Dhaba’s waiter – the guy has the audacity to shout back at you if you are unnecessarily create a fuzz. Although as a customer I feel bad, but as a human I feel happy that he has his own say – he is still a human not reduced to an object just because he is poor.
I think if we take a holistic view, we would understand the goods of being Indian and bads of being too nice as westeners – and ofcourse Vice-Versa !
But subjects like these call for a more holistic view than considering few isolated events.