Blame it on our DNA!!

A recent trip to Sri Lanka turned out to be a revelation for my wife in some respects, but there was a stand-out discovery.  Being a stickler for cleanliness everywhere, she squealed in delight and wonderment over the phone that `Sri Lankans are so clean and they keep public places spick-and-span'.  I have been through this routine so many times in different contexts and as a well-prepped and disciplined trooper, braced myself for what was coming.  The inevitable followup question, justifiably tinged with sadness and embarrassment, was `why cant we Indians do the same'?  Some patriotic Indians, bristling with injured pride, justify many unpleasant things in our country, citing its size.  `Come on, Sri Lanka is so tiny' would have been a typical response from such quarters - an attempt to simultaneously defend the indefensible and deny credit where it belongs.  As if a reasonably small unit, a lane with 10 houses in an Indian town or city, is unfailingly the glistening example of cleanliness, always.  The truth is that collectively we are so bereft of shame and so woefully short on pride in our surroundings that we willingly settle for our messed-up immediate neighbourhoods and this translates to even small areas being filled-to-the brim with garbage and filth dumped indiscriminately by residents.  Not talking of any slum here but of well-to-do middle class localities. If people carved out their own small spaces and diligently took care of cleanliness, any country, however big, can be clean; that is a no-brainer.  Let us admit it - we just dont have it in us to do this and that is the honest truth.  Why?  We are like that only!  Let us blame it on our DNA.  Would that explain why the shopping/eating areas owned and frequented primarily by Indians in Serangoon Road, Singapore and Edison, New Jersey, USA are dirtier?

One does not have to go too far to identify at least one major national characteristic which contributes significantly to the above state of affairs - our tendency to brazenly abandon individual responsibility completely and hope that `the authorities' will do `something' to fix the problem.  This, even when such authorities have seldom exhibited the desire or the willingness to show signs of stirring out of their permanent slumber and, to boot, when the problem is usually created wantonly by citizens going out of the way to be irresponsible.  As, when they willfully scatter garbage from their own houses on the roads or footpaths, just so that their interiors can be clean! When this garbage mound expands in size and threatens their own front door, people do mount a reluctant assault to push it back a wee bit. Then, with contented resignation, they rapidly relapse into their misplaced optimism in the ability of the authorities to perform, despite knowing that nothing is going to happen.  A lot of our public ills can be cured somewhat if only citizens contribute in small, meaningful ways, pro-active or reactive.  If we think about it, we are all ever so willing to bitch continuously about something and wait for some alien  to work an improbable miracle instead of taking a tiny individual or collective initiative for the first curative step.

The other predominant negative attribute that is a character flaw in Indians is that infinite capacity to roundly criticise everyone in and out of sight for some fault or lapse, which we ourselves are squarely guilty of.  Take, for example, the swelling number of cars on the roads; many people blame the car manufacturing companies and the government, with seriously righteous indignation, for flooding the place with new cars, when the infrastructure to support those is conspicuously absent.  The funny part is that most of these offended people can count at least two large cars and two SUVs in their stables, for various family members or pets and to suit different travel requirements!!  Another variant is when these enlightened people passionately damn others for being the sole occupant of a car on the road.  Without pausing to consider where others' journeys originated or ended to facilitate sharing rides, these critics go crimson in faces demanding why people cannot car-pool!  All this, while each such critic is sitting cozily in a five-seater car by himself/herself, driven by a chauffeur.  They forget that the driver does not meaningfully augment the count of occupants in cars and they are guilty of the same sin they are condemning others for or worse, because of the larger cars they use. 

Being sensitive about others, especially in public spaces and empathy stemming therefrom are qualities in which we have a chasm-like deficit. Think of all those people who thrive on high-decibel conversations in restaurants, as if their sole objective is to broadcast meaningless details of their lives to as many patrons as possible, regardless of the reaction of the audience; of those who conduct a robust and loud analysis of a movie even as they watch it, punctuated by deliberate and raucous laughter with the overt intent to disrupt and annoy - unmindful of the clucks and subtle admonishments of those sitting around them; or those who pull out their mobile phones with exceptional alacrity to have some inane conversation loudly, even as the movie screen beseeches the audience to switch off their mobiles and be considerate to others, as if that particular appeal was the stimulant they were waiting for.  We have been mute and helpless witnesses to and victims of such behaviour for years, hoping in vain that things would eventually improve in the distant future, while simultaneously suspecting that nothing will change.

It is galling that this inability to empathize pervades even 'service' industries.  Recently, sitting in USA,  I found out that my overseas travel insurance had to be extended for three days as I postponed my return flight.  I spent about 6 hours over the next two days on phone, trying to get through to the listed numbers - about ten of them, very helpfully plastered all over the brochure given to me - managing only to singe both my ears from the heat generated by my own phone in the process.  I had little else to show for my troubles, so sent email requests to three different addresses, followed up increasingly nasty reminders. Drawing not one but multiple blanks, I roped in my wife at this end to mount complementary efforts in India by calling the local numbers of the provider to escalate, since the expiry of my policy was imminent.  It was amazing that not one call or email elicited any response (the agents of the same company called me a dozen times in a day, to ensure that I purchased the same policy from them before leaving).  Call number 67 in our collective effort finally got us to some cog in the wheel, who sent me a form to sign which I did in two minutes flat and sent back.  By this time the policy had expired and I was desperate, since medical-insuranceless-existence in USA can be diabolically nightmarish, as you can vouch.  What if I needed some medical attention when the policy remained comfortably comatose, despite my best efforts? Mercifully I, almost sick from tension, returned to India without any hiccup , with my request for extension still dormant.  And pronto, I got a call from the provider, asking if I wanted extension for the policy - I am sure they just wanted to pocket that premium if possible. Finally I got hold of a senior officer of the provider through another friend and gave a lashing, berating him for his company's lack of empathy.  He coolly told me `Sir, we would have covered any medical emergency, taking into consideration your application for extension.  You should not have worried'.  It is all well for him to say that, knowing fully well that no claim would be forthcoming but I got put through a wringer for a few days - all because people just could not think of the state of the other guy!  I am sure this happens to everyone frequently.

You can add to this list and go on endlessly - the ability to talk tirelessly and listen much less or not at all (watch the TV news anchored by some of the best names in the industry!); being satisfied with mediocrity, when a little push would have yielded better results (as testified by unsightly holes drilled into the wall for some cable); the constant endeavour to leave a place, any place, messier than when we moved in (remember all the paper tumblers, polythene wrappers and pop corn strewn generously on and around the Gold Class seats in the multiplex?);  or when workmen summoned to repair something in your home complete the job and depart, leaving all the debris + some of the accumulated dust and dirt from their overalls as a bonus, for you to clean up?); an inborn proficiency in criticising people without too much provocation while never offering a word of appreciation when confronted by a good deed (sounds familiar?).

That reminds me - it is not that there is nothing redeeming about us Indians.  Plenty, I should say.  But then, I would rather reserve those positives for another exclusive piece.  I would like to assure all those hypersensitive, patriotic Indians that (a) `we' in the above paras includes `I', so this author is as guilty as anyone else (b) I do not derive any orgasmic pleasure from relentless self-flagellation and (c)  I don't want to be accused of being a harsh lout of a critic, who cannot see a virtue even if it rubs its nose with mine.  Till then!!