I myself am not a patriot, and I would be the last person to kill someone, who lives across LoC, just because his national flag is designed differently. This particular incident happened when I attended a flag hoisting ceremony on 15th August last year in my niece’s school. She studies in a Montessori school, based in Chennai. One of her classmates happens to be an 8-year-old American. I saw her being accompanied by her mom, and more than anyone else her mom was very excited about the Indian flag being pinned rightly on her daughter’s black frock. She would very well have skipped the function as she had enough reason to do so - she belonged to a different nationality altogether. But still she attended it just to show her level of participation and acceptance of a different culture. Unlike Indians who crave to go to the West to make some extra dollars, and after going there behave more Indians than the Indians in India.
I had an office colleague, who would never listen to Indian music at office. Whenever I crossed his desk, I could hear some foreign music being played on his speakers. A year back he went to the US, and he buzzed me recently to ask whether I listened to the latest Indian Album that was released. I was a bit taken aback with his new behaviour. I am still finding an answer to this question about – why did this bugger behave like a Westerner when he was in India, and why is he behaving like an Indian when he is in the West? May be because our acceptance level is a very bit low!
When I saw Ms A (will name that Western lady ‘A’, whose daughter is my niece’s classmate), I had this curiosity running in my mind. Why is she in India? What is she doing in India? And what work would her hubby be doing? I guessed that probably her husband is working in some kind of IT companies or probably is a social worker.
By chance - a couple of month back my sister became friends with Ms A, and they started interacting with each other regularly. It was then we came to know that – Ms A’s husband is working in the US Army, and she is in India with her daughter for the last 3 years! And what was she doing in India?!! She is learning – AYURVEDA!!!
Even I got introduced to her recently, and I was ashamed to see her being all ga ga about Ayurveda, when I have many Indian born friends who live or visit the US who keep criticizing astrology & ayurveda – saying there is no logic in that. Moreover I didn’t know how to react when she happily showed me few stones used in Ayurveda therapies being imported from the US – which are readily available in any of river shores in India!