Sunday, July 3, 2011

Indian mentality observations

During my brief visit to India after 2.5 yrs, here are a few  of observations I made here.
1. Indians are very indifferent to others. Today it was raining heavily. India has a lot of two wheelers. Poor folks were getting drenched in rain. If it was me,  I would let them go first if I am in a car and be careful when I am passing them so as not to spill the water on them. But I see four wheelers folks just running over and honking at the two wheelers folks to move away. I thought that was really callous of those folks.
2. Each Indian thinks he is always correct. Everyone will comment on the way someone is coming in the wrong direction in traffic but when the time comes they would not hesitate to do the same thing. Its also the same when it comes to corruption. They would make a long speech on how bad the state of the country is, and how bad corruption is. Yet, when faced with a situation where they have to pay a fine, they would try to bribe the officer and avoid the fine. In some sense, it works out win-win. less for the finee and more for the officer.
3. Indians speak out of their line. My brother was getting married and we were preparing boards. The printer completely printed the names wrong. When I went to ask about the same, the guy who actually printed the board was not there. Some other employee said "Sir, its not a big mistake. Anyway who cares about the board at the wedding."  At this I got a little angry and asked him if he would be ok if his name is printed wrongly in the wedding card. And he thought I was attacking him. I told him, you are just speaking out of line. First, you should not ever say that names dont matter. Second, you were not the one who printed the names, you could just keep your mouth shut. I see this trend everywhere, Indians answering questions that they dont have any authority. You can tune to any channel after a crisis in India and hear the politicians speak way out of their line. Health minister accusing terrorists cells just after an attack. Isnt it home ministers duty to send out a message if at all? Why is health minister speaking? and that too with no proof?
4. Indians pay no attention to spellings. I wish I could show you a visual proof. But you would laugh your ass off looking at them.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Indians from India have qualities that can be both great and terribly ignorant. There are changes happening, but they are slow. When a lot of them immigrate to North America, it is their children that suffer the most. The parents are always right, even when they are wrong.

Anonymous said...

I dont agree with your post at all. You are generalizing far too much. I am an Indian and I will dissect each of your points above:

1. Indians are callous: Yes a lot of them are. But so are people in every other country. Then again a lot of them are not. For example, if I am driving and if its raining heavily I would let the guy on a two wheeler go first. If I was overtaking a two wheeler I will slow down, so I dont spray water on pedestrians or people on two wheelers. I have been in the US a lot of times and whenever I rent a car down there, I struggle to drive because I am driving a left hand drive on the right side of the road, exactly opposite to that of India. Therefore I tend to slow down every now and then and that annoys people and they start honking and flashing their lights. So are Americans callous and impatient? No I dont think so. A lot of them slow down and wait for me to speed up or move to another lane. Recently hundreds of people in Bangalore have started being part of this community organization called "The Ugly Indian". They are all professionals who clean up roads and open dumpsters with their bare hands, in order for people to have cleaner roads and such. Therefore not all of them are callous. Some are. Everyone is human.

2. Each Indian thinks he is always correct: This is laughable. There are 1.5 billion Indians. Did you go meet each of them and come to that conclusion? You believe you are right when you make this statement. I think you are generalizing far too much and you harbor hatred for Indians at the core. And I think I am right to think that. Dont we all have the right to think that each one of us is right? You say we bribe people and complain about it. Ive seen people from all countries bribe people. Who told you Indians like bribing people? People do it because it is in the system. Do you see Indians bribing officers in the US for example?

3. Indians speak out of their line: I have friends from India, Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand. Each one of them has at some point or the other has spoken out of line at certain times. Does it mean that the entire population is like that?

4. I am an Indian. I think my spelling is just fine.

In short, your observations dont apply to "Indians". They apply to a few Indians, just like they apply to people of any culture or country. Secondly, you might wanna open your mind a bit because you come across as biased and possibly racist or even if not racist, you seem to harbor resentment towards India and its people. You probably lost your job to one of them.

suresh said...

For some reason I never got an email saying some one posted a comment on this. I would've responded earlier, otherwise.

Anonymous 1: I agree with you, there are changes happening at snail pace. I didnt understand your second point though, ppl immigrating to NA.

Anonymous 2: I am Indian too. It seems like I rubbed you in a wrong way. My post was just my observations I made when I was to India. I see you are a good Samaritan and I hope everyone becomes like you. I appreciate the time you took write such a long comment. Oh btw, it was out of line to say I lost a job to an Indian. I didnt. I've my job and a very stable one. I would not agree with your comment saying bribing is in the system though. If you dont commit a mistake knowingly (I've seen this right infront of my own eyes, ppl not having any respect for the law) and then bribe out of it, it is outright wrong. Dont complain saying it is in the system. It is in the mentality. That is my point.

sorcerer said...

Indians who have are born to immigrant parents tend to think they understand india because they are here for a little time, indians themselves don't know what it is to be an indian, Indian people are very diverse and it is very difficult to even start to comprehend that fact. And about speaking way out of line I think everyone is entitled to their opinions no matter who they are and what little knowledge they have on the subject, you needn't have a phd in philosophy to talk about it, that is a very western way of looking at it, and Indians who have been brought up there think it is even more their duty to have this mentality because they have confused identities. George Bush didn't know a rat's ass about India or its current prime minister during his presidential campaign and as a result I will not generalize that americans are generally ignorant people, but I am sure that atleast half the people in India at any given time will know a little about who the president of USA would be, even in a rural area. People's sensibilities are very akin to their cultural stimuli that they would have garnered through out their entire lives, and your article is really stupid and even more that you actually write a blog about it ? indian mentality observations ? have you done a research in anthropology to talk about this ? are you talking out of line ? I mean you may not appreciate some things in life but things like this are much more complicated atleast for you to comprehend so in future it would be advisable to become more sensitive and not write vague articles on the internet about a community of 1 billion with a multitude of cultural and ethnic mixtures that have come together over a period outside of any known western civilization and that still keeps intact in essence some of its nature.
People flout rules in every third world country, even in china, with laws more stricter than in India. So a few people bribing doesn't mean it is a mentality issue. Money was not in the nature of things that indians had at the top of their heads historically, guests were welcome into any city or home without having the need to pay for food or stay, that is a western thing. Almost all the addboards that you saw locally that you think indians had made spelling mistakes out of were mostly made by indians who were not literate in english, so it's really a lame thing to say indians have poor spellings, I hope you are 10 or 12 years old, if you are I am sorry I have written too much at your age I can understand but if you are naything more than 17, you are outright dumb. What is outright wrong ? If flouting a few rules is outright wrong, I hope you didn't download a few songs or movies of the internet, I hope you are that person which every government will appreciate having under their control. good luck !

sorcerer said...

I'm sorry it's a dumb blog and I wasted my time. Really sorry.

Amit said...

it's a moran dude how could you define india in 2.5 years you know we indian have the power of respect our parents and we have the power of dignity.

Piali98 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Piali98 said...

you must be mental,where are you from?may your a half Indian whose lived all his life abroad.i mean i have never seen a psycho like you,such an useless article,your article completely spoiled my mood,while i was working on my project.if the SOPA bills passed, i would say this article should the first thing to be censored.

G Mahesh Kumar said...

DSK.. you are super cool! i echo your words

Anjul said...

I think you need to check up with good physcologiest, and please check before appoinment doctor should not be indian i dont think so you are totaly wrong,but in my perception which point you mentioned they are humen tendancy, we can not bind it any culture or specific nations boundries, and look at yourself before wasting your time in such a crape.

Anjul said...

I think you need to check up with good physcologiest, and please check before appoinment doctor should not be indian i dont think so you are totaly wrong,but in my perception which point you mentioned they are humen tendancy, we can not bind it any culture or specific nations boundries, and look at yourself before wasting your time in such a crape.

Unknown said...

Partially agree and disagree with all the arguers!
But this whole argument keeps reminding me of the discussion I had with another Indian- "Many Indians lack unity, and don't stand up together for their identity and country"
AGAIN, I am NOT generalizing, but that is true!
We do lack unity and don't really care to make a change. Life is so rushed and competitive that one doesn't have the time to think beyond "self". Not generalizing!
I am proud to be an Indian and I am very proud of the culture we have. People abroad too respect Indians. I know there are many out there who can understand what I am saying.

Suraj B. Solanki said...

yes it is exctly ri8.u khow they live for their ego;their wrong principles.they r too much restricted.they have show off attitude of good personality.actually there is nothing like that in them.

Suraj B. Solanki said...

people would behave to others such as they have bought them.they won't even try to khow others.for them herd follow is best strategy.they would call mad to one who is rational