The NRI Oath

 

 

I never thought much about NRIs when I was kid, my only experience with them were the Bollywood caricatures like the helpless cousin who needs saving by the street-smartness of the hero or the cartoonish villains in Vishawatama who were plotting something nefarious against my motherland along with some vague ‘Videshi Taakatein’ and lately the spoiled, out of touch with his/her Indian-ness, cigarette smoking, hard drinking, partying brat like in Namaste London or Pardes who needed to be remedied by the hero. My first tryst with an actual NRI was when my uncle returned from Nigeria, which I know now isn’t the hottest of the destinations but still it was pretty exotic to us. He used to buy all us cousins video game cartridges and ice cream and used to have imported whiskey for my dad. He got a bath tub built, got an AC and joked about putting a music system with a speaker in each room when all as had in our homes were those BPL 2-in-1 cassette players. In short he was doing everything right by the…… <drumroll> …… NRI Oath. Something that I didn’t know existed but I had to take myself one after moving to Spain for work. A binding oath they make us swear if we are ever outside India or its territorial waters for more than 182 days in a financial year.

The NRI Oath or just ‘The Oath’ is stricter that Nights watch vows, more sacred than any pinky promise and more lasting than the Wolfpack promise the four guys made on the top of the Caesars Palace hotel on that fateful night in Las Vegas. The Oath compels us (NRIs) to -

Be more Indian outside India then we were ever inside it. In India we always used 26^th January as the day to sleep late and run over to Big Bazaar for discounted shopping. However outside India we need to have get together parties, go to flag hoisting and send each other messages congratulating each other on the Republic day even though we still do not understand its significance. Out here we have to force our children to learn Bharatnatyam and memorize Veds, go extra-ethnic-wear on Diwali and start blog on traditional Indian dishes. We also have to watch documentaries on ancient Indic civilizations and recommend reading ‘A Search in Secret India’ to each other. So in short, none of the things we bothered doing while we were in India, before the Oath compelled us to.

After spending two weeks living in a new country, we have to become an expert on it. We need to have them all figured out and be happy to disburse that advice that to any other NRI who has come to the country one day after us. Ask us (or don’t ask us) and we have the low down for each country – Americans are just stupid consumerists, Germans are cold hearted bastards, Spanish are lazy and Canadians need to develop more industry. All this gyan comes streaming down from people who cannot even speak the local language (except if it’s English) and will be hard pressed to tell you the name of the elected official of their city/state. There is no getting around the obligation of that solemn vow you took.

We need to blame all of our problems in a different country on racism. Got entry refused to a club because you were 7 badly dressed guys? The bouncer has to be racist. A restaurant didn’t let you use the restroom for free? The waitress needs to be proclaimed racist. The bus driver didn’t answer you properly because he did not speak English? Take down his badge number and put it on Facebook how you had a harrowing experience because of racism. But remember to hold on to your wallet tightly if there is Black guy behind you in the subway and never enter those Latino ghettos because that’s where all the drug dealers live. We act like that not because we are idiots, pseudo-racists or never learned to deal with foreigners because we don’t have any in India, it is because and only because of the coercion of the NRI Oath.

Whenever we are in a formal Indian gathering or in an Indian community group on social media, we try to outdo each other on praising India. We say things like India has the oldest civilization, the zero and plastic surgery was invented in India. We had buttons and space ships in the ancient India (serious theory, google Vimanas + Ancient Aliens). We are the biggest democracy and have the second largest army. In fact we all love India so much that none of us want to go back. People back in India are clamoring to get visas to developed countries (and when we use this phrase it automatically means that India is not), people who have visas are trying to get permanent residencies and people who are permanent residents are trying to get their country’s passport. But yet, our country is the greatest, we just don’t want to spoil such a great place by our humble presence. This is the first doctrine of the Oath, love your country, be jingoistic about it, send money to even terrorist organizations in it (Khalistan separation for example, read the Wikipedia Article) but try extra hard to get the citizenship of another country.

We are pro-immigration only till the point that we are through the door. The NRIs who got US citizenship are against people getting more Green Cards and the people who have Green Cards are worried about Indians getting too many H1-B visas because is ruining the job market. The people who have Australia PRs are against more people getting Visa 186. And no NRI in Europe wants to have the Syrian immigrants to be admitted. The real talk between the enlightened, globe-trotting, politically conscious desis in US is always about H1b, premium processing, RFE, Visa denials and nothing else. However, if you ever talk about how Trump coming in as President has reduced onsite opportunities in India and you can see the crowd go wild about how disgusting that it and how immigration is beneficial for every country. All because of the Oath, all because the Oath.

We like to bash Bollywood movies every chance we get. How the song-dance routine is so cheesy, how they don’t have a proper plot and how they are not trying to tackle bold subjects. We always laugh at Salman movies and always make absolutely clear to everyone we meet that we are not amongst those Indians who like his movies. We go on and on about how progressive French cinema is and or actually West End is where the true actors are but the moment the next SRK movie releases we are all ready to drive 100 KMs to see it. Because this what the Oath obliges us to do it.

 

 

 

 

It is absolutely needed for us to buy a 2^nd hand or 3^rd hand Mercedes or Audi as soon as we arrive, because it is much cheaper to buy them there. From there onwards the regulations state that it is needed to get our money’s worth out it as quickly as possible with Facebook and WhatsApp DPs pictures having captions like ‘The man and the machine’, ‘The beauty’ etc. as soon as possible. Before the maintenance and fuel bills start hitting you and you realize that there is a reason the Americans and Europeans buy Toyota Camrys and VW Polos. A special by law also indicates that if you are renting the car between four people then, firstly it has to be a BMW X5 or Jaguar F type convertible and secondly and most importantly all four people need to have a picture taken with them sitting in the driver’s seat. There was an amendment after the Y2K that simply getting a photo taken standing near someone else’s Porsche or Hummer is no longer allowed.

Every time anybody acts in an even the slightest non inclusive manner, we are needed to criticize that. It is required that we hate the fact when the Spaniards switch to Spanish at lunch time in the office even we are sitting with them. We hate ever more when we see the Germans want to have some private conversation in German in a business meeting when we are there. We especially hate it when the English use Cockney slang even in a joke because it just is difficult to understand even though it is English. But the moment one Tamil guys meeting another Tamil guys in a Diwali mela, let’s just say that it not their problem if the rest of the India cannot speak Tamil. And it is absolutely needed to abuse other non-Indians in Hindi in front of them or pass lecherous comments about women, totally oblivious of the fact that 93% of all communication is non-verbal. We are not in the slightest bit having-double-standards-linguicist-twats, it is just the rudiment of the Oath.

 

 

We save all our holidays and money for our annual trip to India, but we do nothing but crib throughout it. “Oh my god this country has so much pollution. Oh my god look at the traffic. Oh my god this country is so dirty. I hate the fact that I have to meet so many relatives here.” We pound our fellow countrymen over the head so much that they know that the next sentence out of our mouth is going to start with “You know in the US/UK/Germany we …..”. Nobody of us talks about the longing for family and familiarity, the alienation, the anxiety, the constant feeling that we are doing something wrong, is everyone secretly and inwardly laughing at us, thinking of us less developed. And none of us especially talks about how much we look forward to this India trip. It is not because we like to be so irritatingly predictive and predictively irritating, it is because the nature of the Oath is so.