Indians everywhere

My wife and I have been ensconced in London for the last one month bonding with our 3 years old grandson.He and I have been discussing various important issues in life.He in his pure Brit accent and I in my multi-city Indian style.But with all that,we do share a liking for one item which he must have inherited from my genes:curd rice.

I have come across people of Indian origin  living in places far away in the midst of alien culture.It is not just the IT professionals and people who went for their higher studies, but ones from all walks of life.All with just one aim,how to create a better life for themselves and their family.Tales of Indian labourers being taken to Malaysia,Fiji,South Africa and the Caribbean in the early 20th century are quite well- known but you will  find our countrymen in other parts of the world,too.

Last year when my wife and I were in Hong Kong,the doorman at our  hotel was a young Sikh from Moga in Punjab.His father- in-law had moved to mainland China 40 years back and wanted a son-in-law from his own community.Now this doorman and his wife work in the same hotel and speak in Punjabi with one another.At home their children speak only Mandarin and wonder why their parents speak in such a 'difficult' language.

In Mauritius we found that some parts of the capital seem to be transplanted from the villages of Bihar.Most of the staff in our hotel spoke Bhojpuri albeit with a bit of a French accent.Many people from there regularly visit India to trace their roots.One of my Bangalore golfing friend's relative ran away from Palghat in the 30s and ended up as a priest at an Indian temple there and married a local girl.So now my friend is on a mission to trace out his overseas relatives.

My colleagues and I were in Shanghai some years ago and were soon struggling with the food. To our dismay the local restaurants had no clue what Gobi Manchurian was! By accident we traced out  a modest Chettinad restaurant. It was like manna from heaven drinking hot garlic rasam.

In 2011 we had gone on a trip to Great Yarmouth in Norfolk in the UK.My daughter-in-law had made the hotel booking on the internet.It was a pretty well known one with a typical British name.When we went to register on our arrival we were surprised to find that it was owned by a Punjabi family that ran a popular chain of Chinese restaurants in Delhi.Further,the steward was a Malayali boy who originally came to Britain to study nursing.

One of the interesting offshoots of this migration is the phonetic adaptation of Indian names. So we have Naidoo,Ramgoolam,Coomarasamy,etc.Imagine, if I had been one of those immigrants my name would have been spelt Narine!

Influence peddlers

One of the problems most of us have is that we do not consider a direct method of achieving our goal. Instead, we look at taking an intermediary’s help to solve our problem. Recently, I had to get a long-pending file to be moved at one of the government departments. I was told it would be more effective if I went through ‘contacts’. Obviously,that would come with a price tag.

In the USA they have legitimatized this process by accepting the concept of “Lobbying”. In fact there is a lot of money to be made, hence we have many out-of-office  American politicians also getting on to the bandwagon.

I have been exposed to the concept of ‘contacts’ over several decades but it varied from city to city. Delhi is the ultimate city for this activity thanks to it being the seat of government. Everybody and his uncle claims to have influence with the powers to be. Even for the Republic Day parade, contacts are invoked to get a pass for stands closest to the saluting base. However, the ultimate recognition is when one gets invited to soirees at foreign embassies. One story my mother would relate was the time my father was invited for dinner at the American Embassy and she got to shake hands with the 6ft 8 in tall Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith.

Newspapers are full of stories of how senior bureaucrats and politicians refuse to vacate their sprawling bungalows in Lutyens Delhi.The fact is that there is a lot of 'effort' that needs to be put in to even get the allotment at that prime location in the first place

Hyderabad has a different ‘contact’ culture altogether. There it is either the politicians or the big business families. For some unknown reason I was thought to be influential within my organization so I  used to get calls from even Ministers requesting for jobs for their relatives. I asked one of my colleagues how one gets perceived as being influential. He gave a simple explanation. If I was standing next to my Chairman in our head office portico and I said something and he laughed, it was immediately construed that I was close to him. It is immaterial that the conversation may have been only regarding the quality of food in the cafeteria.

Bangalore has more an ‘I couldn’t care less’ culture. Thanks to the large migrant techie population, the need for any influence peddling becomes redundant except when some land sharks need rules changed for their pecuniary benefit. However, once a year there is a mad scramble to invoke past relationships and favours done. This is when signatures have to be collected for club membership application forms.

Now that I have retired I am off the radar for anyone wanting any help. Putting it another way,I think people know that there is no point in approaching me as I am no longer a ‘contact’.