Monday, February 22, 2016

Notes from Colombo: Who spoils the image of Indians abroad?

A lot of middle class Indians complain that their working class brethren spoil the image of Indians in foreign countries. From my own personal experiences, it's the rich and upper middle class folk from India who need a behavioural adjustment.

On Saturday, I went to a popular cinema hall to watch the excellent Hindi film Neerja.  During the interval, there was a bit of commotion in the hall. A Sri Lankan man stepped on the foot of a woman while walking to his seat.

This lady, who was very light-skinned and spoke with what is called a "covent school" accent, was quite rude with the man and asked him to cross through another row. When he responded to her, she mocked his English and said he "should learn proper English first and then talk." My initial impression was that this was a local Burgher woman.

The Sri Lankan men were there to watch the film and not get into a language argument with that woman.

A couple of minutes later, I heard her telling some others in Hindi to cross through another row. She clearly had a Delhi accent. She then told her friend in Hindi about how little common sense these Sinhalese had!!! I felt like going up to her and asking her to go back to whichever hellhole she came from. The fact that she was mentioning Gurgaon a few times in her conversation with her friend suggested that she was from the National Capital Region.

Then the interval was over and my attention was back on the film.



1 comment:

  1. These "kya yaar" types are really not representative of Indian women or Indians. I'm from Delhi and know that Delhiites are good people but some of the uppity types look down upon the rest of the country. All they need is a good whipping. The Lankans should have given her back with interest.

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