So, you’ve got a job in India. Welcome. I like the fact that a stint in India is a valuable addition to your CV. I also appreciate that your salary enables you to live among India’s rich. I also understand that you’d like to stay in yuppie enclaves as you find yourself most comfortable there. But having done that, what sense does it make for you to complain that India’s rich yuppies behave like the rich yuppies back home? If you really want to “find” yourself, well, locate yourself elsewhere. There is a lot of India for your kids to experience, if you can sacrifice the comforts of an expatriate lifestyle.
Also, most Indians aim to live their lives. We aren’t particularly interested in being a country-sized museum of anthropology for you guys to visit for extended periods when you get bored of your suburban life.
Good one, Ravi.
I think there is an international expat culture, especially for those who are in the more lavish, free-flowing money side. With this kind of expat existence, it’s easy to live anywhere in the world and not really experience the culture of the country you’re living in- living with the locals, so to speak- because you’re not.
When I was deciding to study in India 10 years ago, it was this group think that forced me to go it totally on my own. Of course, living in India as a student is a different subculture- not really full of money or separate communities, etc, but I would have come in a group of Americans otherwise- which would have naturally kept me at a distance from the culture I so much wanted to learn.
So I became the first and to my understanding only American to matriculate and graduate from Madras Christian College. I was not the only American there the whole time, but for most of the time, wearing Indian clothes and eating Indian food (what else was in Tambaram 10 years ago?) all but maybe 5 days in my two year stay!