The Indian expat in Britain

I have been meeting up with various Indian people in the UK since coming back to live in England. By Indian I mean Indian visitor or expat, not British Asian (or British Indian,  as some prefer to be called, referring to British citizens of Indian heritage either born here or who started arriving in the 1950s.) Indeed about 20 years ago most British people’s only exposure to Indians in the UK was  the immigrants who moved here en masse in the 50s, 60s and 70s and their offspring and their offspring’s offspring. Now with the wealth and skills set increasing in India, more Indians are coming to Britain to study Masters and MBAs and many of those are managing to find work and get employed here afterwards. Others are coming directly on highly skilled migrant work visas to work in sectors like IT with companies such as Infosys, Aviva on 2-3 year contracts. Many are already here as doctors and priests. This MBA/IT/highly-skilled set makes up a new genre of Indian you will find in British cities and towns, quite different to their counterpart, the British Asian. It’s funny because, having lived in Mumbai for more than 3 years, I can spot an Indian expat a mile off. They are distinctly quite different, in their accent, dress and behaviour, to a British Asian/Indian. 

Meeting them is interesting for me. I'm curious to see, having been an expat, how well they adapt to the UK, or not; whether they integrate or not and watch the little faux pax or gaffes they unknowingly make that arise from cultural misunderstandings. I know I made many similar gaffes and faux pax in India. I also know, having lived overseas, that it is important to overlook those faux pax as they only arise from being raised in a different culture and society. They are never intentionally offensive. When I was in Mumbai I also made blunders, but, sadly, whereas some people overlooked them, others did not.

In Mumbai, some Indians were welcoming of expats and others were not. I know that some Indians made me feel really different. They did not include me in things, would not confide in me or gossip with me or would say really strange things to me.  As a British woman I also had to fight stereotypes in India. I remember one Indian woman saying to me, “You know how all western women write about sex in their blogs and Indian woman bloggers don’t well..” I was furious. Since when did all western women write about sex in their blogs!! (I know I have touched on relationships, but still…) On another occasion an Indian woman said, “You know how all French people are manic depressives, well it’s because they are spoilt and have not had to endure the hardships Indians have, well….” Such sweeping generalisations spring from ignorance and I generally ignored the remarks. Similarly there was an element of Indians who had a post-colonial hangover. If I dared to criticise India, the response would be “So you want to rule us again?”  Or “Why do you think your culture is superior to ours?” I didn’t. I may have been merely mentioning something or other that could be improved in India (like the fact drivers don’t stop at zebra crossings. They don’t in Rome either and I get equally annoyed there.) I can think of plenty of things that can be improved in England too. I don’t see why I have to continually praise a place. And I don’t. Some of the most interesting discussions with one’s friends can come from debating how to improve or solve social issues. If there were no social issues to solve, what would we discuss? Men and make-up? There was also a resistance among some Indians towards expats getting jobs in Mumbai. If you explained to them that the Indian diaspora was massive and millions of Indians had jobs overseas it made no difference. They were not overseas and didn’t care. Of course outside this stereotyping and prejudice were many very decent, intelligent, bright, spiritual, welcoming Indians who I thoroughly enjoyed meeting.

Expats take to India differently. There are some that ‘go native’ so to speak, refuse to mix with other expats, eat only at street food stalls and so on…There are others who refuse to mix with Indians , slag off India and are only seen at five star hotel brunches. I liked to be somewhere between the two extremes, with half Indian and half expat friends, semi integrated but making the occasional gaffe. One area I did struggle with was using the words, Sir or Madam. This to an English person is completely alien. To my knowledge, the UK, Sir is only used in the British Army and possibly when a commoner meets Royalty. Otherwise it might be used by a waitress in a very posh five star hotel in London to a customer. No one uses this as a form of respect for elders or people more experienced/powerful than you, as they do in India. I also could not bring myself to use the word thrice instead of three times or ride a moped without a helmet. 

But now I am the local in my own country and seeing how the Indian expats get on intrigues me. I was out with an Indian friend the other day at the cinema. After buying the tickets he asked the ticket booth man if he had any change. When the man refused my friend blew his top at him.  I was shocked as it is not acceptable to be that rude to someone selling tickets at a cinema. Then outside a Big Issue seller came to speak to me when I was with my friend and my friend said in a loud voice, “How dare you interrupt our conversation?” I was taken aback as, again, in England we would never speak so rudely to a Big Issue seller either. We know they are homeless and selling the Big Issue to make ends meet. But I guess my Indian friend treated him as though he was a rickshaw driver, day labourer or beggar who had come up and barged into our conversation, something unthinkable in India. They know their place in Indian society and probably would not dare. But England is far more egalitarian. The person selling Big Issue might be homeless today, but yesterday he may have been in a good job. The ticket booth man is probably studying a Masters or working as an actor. In India sadly the treatment of rickshaw drivers, waiters, maids and the like is not always the same as here and sometimes they are treated with immense disrsepect. I didn’t say anything at the time but decided if I met this Indian friend again and got to know him better I would mention it.

Another funny incident happened when I was with an Indian friend going out for a meal and I asked him what cuisine he wanted. “Something spicy” he said. This will pose problems in England where most food is not spicy and we eat a lot of French and Italian cuisine. I explained that left us with Bangladeshi or Mexican cuisine and there wasn’t a Mexican restaurant in the town where we were. He finally caved in and we went to a French restaurant. He was unable to comprehend the French menu. (The menus are always in French in French restaurant in the UK to add to the experience. For Brits they are pretty easy to decipher as we are used to it.) “What is canard?” he asked. “What is poulet?” He asked. Of course he spoke about 7 languages but French was not one of them. For the Brits French is pretty easy. Then the food came and whilst I raved about the food, he seemed unimpressed, probably similar to how I had reacted when an Indian once friend took me to a Rajasthani traditional restaurant in Gujarat where I couldn't get to grips with the unusual food at all. I exclaimed, “Isn’t French food just the best!” tucking into a rare steak with frites. “You know French food is the most gourmet in the world and yet I barely came across a single French restaurant in India,” I remarked. “There is a reason for that,” my Indian friend, who did not eat beef, said dryly.

Meanwhile the British friend I was with kept calling him middle-class. He was saying it to compliment him on how well-brought up and well-spoken he was, but the Indian kept merely smiling; this was the other meaning of the Indian smile and I knew it. I finally explained to my British friend that being called middle class in India isn’t  seen as a great compliment– it’s basically seen there as what we describe as lower class here – you need to say upper middle class to refer to what my friend was trying to communicate…Middle-class in England  conjures up Wimbledon, Henley, private education, four bedroomed-detached house, professional occupation, tennis, rugby, Berkshire etc…But in India it refers  to the  masses, not the upper echelons of  society. It conjures up a very simple home and life in India. So this was another cross-cultural miscommunication, I figured. When I explained it to both of them, the Indian stopped the ear-to-ear grin and his shoulders seemed to relax. He admitted he had been baffled by the constant comment he was middle-class. “I  just could not understand why you kept on telling me I was middle-class,” he said.

As we left the French restaurant we walked past a group of English woman. It was a cold night and they were all, without fail, in mini dresses or mini-skirts, which hung almost below their knicker lines, they had completely bare legs and stilettos. Some had tattoos; others had cigarettes dropping out of their mouths. Most were heavily made up. There were 100s of them all appearing from nowhere, heading for the local dodgy nightclub of the Home Counties town we were in. I was rather embarrassed by this sight and explained to my Indian friend that not all British woman dressed or behaved like this.  I hadn’t seen anything like it myself for years. My female friends and I were more likely to be seen in a country pub in designer jeans and a T shirt than anywhere like this and we never dressed like that in the evenings.  These women all looked like they had one intention in mind, and it is a sentence that is three words long. The Indian friend had no idea that what he had seen and experienced did not represent British women or indeed British society.  If anything, it represented a segment of British society - one that would not be found at Cheltenham Ladies College or in the King’s Road, London or in a British law firm.  “There is a different kind of English woman,” I started to explain as best I could. “Not all British women dress like this.  I am different, for starters,” I said proud of my designer jeans and black top I was in, my stock ‘night out’ outfit, in fact.  “Oh you mean the plain Jane!” he said confidently, in a thick Indian accent. I swallowed my anger, as did the British guy who was with me. I realised the Indian expat had no clue what the connotations of the phrase Plain Jane were.  I have been called many things to date, but not till now, anyway plain. Anyway I forgave him, as you have to, if you want to befriend a foreigner in your homeland. It reminded me of when an Indian in Mumbai had said I looked well fed. I couldn’t have been more offended but he had said it with a big grin as though he was complimenting me and this Indian in England who said I was a plain Jane was also grinning from ear to ear.  I fathomed that expats will make faux pax and social blunders in the mind of the locals, wherever they are, but ignoring them is the best thing to do. Apart from the plain Jane remark, we had had a great evening. The same with the guy I had gone to the cinema with. On both occasions we had discussed politics, culture, and society and exchanged ideas. In fact, the Indian expats had even been so kind as to decipher aspects of Indian society I had not been able to understand. What was the point of holding a social gaffe against them?

I guess what I have learnt from all this is -  you have to be elastic – you have to be able to give and stretch your boundaries of acceptance  and what is normal far more with a foreigners, than with the locals, and don’t expect them to integrate fully (why should they?) but the rewards will be worth it. You will get things from friendships with foreigners you can’t get from friendships with locals, so please be open-minded.

Britain Glorious Britain

(....were it not for the whining Brits)

Cardinal Walter Kaspar may have remarked that Heathrow made him think of England as a Third World Country, ahead of Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain. "England today is a secularised and pluralist country. When you land at Heathrow airport, you sometimes think you've landed in a Third World country," he was quoted as saying to a German magazine before the Pope’s grand arrival. Then mysteriously following the controversy in Britain that followed his insult, the senior papal advisor pulled out of the Pope’s trip, citing illness. (!)

Well, I could not disagree with what he said more.

A typical English high street

England is certainly First World.  When I landed at Heathrow, after three years in India, I marvelled at the modernity, cleanliness and organisation of the airport. Everything looked new and everything worked. I felt immensely relieved to be holding a British passport and able to walk through immigration without a queue, heightened by the fact I had had a priority pass, having (accidentally) flown business class. Hundreds of foreigners meanwhile queued at the long line of immigration officer desks. I had always been one of that lot whenever I had landed in India or the USA. But not so anymore! Yippee.

 I was glad I had not lost my British citizenship from living in India (imagine if that had happened?!) Now I was so excited to be home, even if the sky was grey. My parents were waiting at the arrivals section for me, having driven up from Somerset to greet me. As always when they met me off flights from India, my mum was carrying a thick coat, and this time, a pair of shoes. “Mum, we have shoes in India. We are not all ascetics. Did you think I was going to land barefoot?” I asked sarcastically. We put my stuff in the car and I entertained them all the way home about my nightmares leaving, how I had to give away most of my stuff, and discard it at the airport, the cats, the 11^th hour upgrade to business class, and so on.

As usual my parents didn’t really have many or any questions about India, but that was to be expected: they rarely had questions about anywhere I travelled (as a general rule British people are spectacularly uninterested in wherever you travel and it’s a social taboo to bore them with the details, and certainly not to even start on photos). 

So, I gazed at the uncrowded roads, that only had cars speeding down on (not rickshaws, mopeds, motorbikes and cabs crashing into one another), the clean perfectly drawn white lines on the edges of each grey tarmac lane, the lack of people wandering or sitting on the streets - and it didn’t bore me. For once, I liked England; for once I liked the peacefulness and organised state of things.

Another typical scene

A typical empty street (outside London)

 The chaos of India had entranced me at first. I think most tourists are bewitched upon seeing flower and fish sellers sat on the pavement, child beggars tearing at their trousers and homeless people living in tents on the pavement. Forget the fact it is an indication of poverty, tourists find it fascinating and even take pictures of it on digital cameras. These are the scenes, often described as “colourful” by novice writers. I too was seduced it all at first, but it eventually, that lost its appeal after three years. Until then England had lost its appeal and I had found India fascinating. Now I found England fascinating. Maybe I was looking at England through an Indian person's eyes. I found the English pavement and tarmac interesting; the way people crossed the road in England interesting; the plethora of dyed hair on women intrigued me; so did puffin crossings. You see, maybe that is what being an expat does - it makes you appreciate your own country more. After some time in India, despite initially seeking adventure, excitement  and chaos, I started to want quietness and normality. India had, at the end, started to feel like a dream. Back sat in my bedroom in Somerset felt like reality again. Or maybe comparing my 250 square foot flat in Mumbai to Somerset was not a correct comparison. A studio flat in Brixton may have been a better one. Maybe then my Indian eyes would have preferred Bandra.

For now, having lived in India for 3 years, I was really appreciating  the peace and organisation of England (for the first time!) I no longer needed to go to bhangra nights and study Hindi, to get a virtual link to the country I had fallen in love with as a 19-year-old backpacker. I was finally able to feel English and be English. I could now imagine going to Henley Regatta once more, or playing tennis, picking blackberries, or eating strawberries and cream.

India had cured me. Of something.

(Herein lies a reason why India is considered spiritual. It teaches us foreigners lessons, lessons we didn’t even know we needed to learn.)

The good old English pub and familiar Tudor buildings

I no longer hated typical English pubs. How long would this fascination with my birth place last, I wondered.

I could sense my Dad was nervous as to how long I might stay in his house, where he had a computer that was ‘his’, an armchair in the sitting room that was ‘his’ and a life, set up with hobbies and classes at specific times, in a set routine, that was ‘his.’

The next few days were very busy as my parents were celebrating their Ruby wedding anniversary soon after I arrived – one of the reasons I had flown back at that time. I had always thought that it was only in India that people could afford caterers. To me, the general rule had always been that whatever there was a servant or labourer for in India, in England it was done DIY. No one has a cook, driver or a maid in England, for example (save the Queen). And generally at dinner parties and house parties, we cater ourselves.

But my Mum  proved me wrong on the occasion of her 40^th wedding anniversary and hired a catering company, at massive cost (which I later discovered, was at my expense too.). So, in the week leading up to the big 100-guest event, we had a large marquee van arrive to put up the marquee, caterers, florists, you name it. It was like a scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

I was especially pleased when I noticed that the men putting up the marquee were all young and good-looking. I remembered that rule, which is in The Rules, which states you should always look your best, even at Tesco. So, I took off my pyjamas and put on some make-up and made them cups of tea every hour.

The marquee

The marquee

 Then next came the wine delivery van. I have never ever unloaded and carried so many boxes of wine in my life. The van man sad he had never had such a large order before either.  Boxes and boxes of 12 bottle crates of red and white wine filled up our kitchen. Lifting them compensated for me not doing arm weights in the gym for two weeks.

My Dad suddenly panicked we did not have enough fridges to cool the white wine in. (We have three American sized fridges and one wine fridge.)

My Dad then investigated hiring a fridge. Cost: 500 pounds per day.

“In India they just put them in wheelie bins of ice,” I said helpfully.

I informed him he had over-ordered on the wine, as our house looked like a wine warehouse. He nodded, but it was too late. I remembered that golden rule for a successful party: get the guests drunk. So, I guessed, we always had that option to fall back on.

A few days before the Big Day, I decided that since so many good-looking marquee men were around, since I was in my 30s and unmarried, and since my Mum had been harassing me to do it for ages, it was time to get my hair highlighted. This was something I had resisted my whole life, proud of having “natural blond hair like the woman in the Timotei Ad.”

But now all my friends who had highlighted or dyed blond hair (equals most of my friends) were married. I was not.  There was a missing link, a disconnect. Perhaps, I figured, older and wiser, perhaps it was time I did dye it. After all my eyebrows and arm hair were blond, so it would look pretty natural anyway wouldn’t it? My mum agreed to pay the 100 pounds cost as she had been asking me to do it for 10 years, and I had till now, refused.

The catering company came on the party day and overtook our kitchen. I was busy helping with the seating plan (doing emergency changes as the disorganised people dropped out last minute) and it was all ‘go’.

My Dad then kindly informed me this was my “surrogate wedding.” By that he meant that since I had not got married, my mum and he had decided to splash the money they had been saving for my wedding, on their ruby wedding party – and that they did. We had champagne and canapés in the garden, followed by a sit down meal and speeches in the marquee. Hence, it was done at my expenseJ

The fact I had flown back two non pedigree Indian cats to Britain was one of the main topics of conversation at the event…The news even split the guests. While some found it cute, and gazed at the cat pix on my mobile phones, others said: “Do not tell me how much it cost you as I will find it a disgusting waste of money!”



The Indian non pedigree cat



In the evening we had a barn dance.

The barn dance

In case you don’t know what a barn dance is, it is a ritual, popular in the countryside of Britain, alongside green wellies and Barbours, whereby a caller shrieks into a microphone, while a band plays country music in the background, and people, of all ages, dance with different partners (not their own) a kind of folk dance.  Although it originates in America, it is to me, quintessentially British.

The following day we had a barbecue and salads on the lawn.

Life in England was fun. Real fun.  And in the countryside it was truly fabulous. This was not a Third World Country, no way – Mr Kaspar, I thought, as I drank sparkling wine and ate grilled Salmon kebabs, with chicken and hamburgers in a white marquee.

Of course, not everyone agreed. Or at least, my Dad and other men engaged in talk of the ‘recession’.

“I just can’t see this country ever getting out of debt. It’s too far in,” one said. “Yes, it’s the worst it’s ever been. It’s a disaster,” another said.

 “What is wrong with you?” I would say. “This country is amazing and has everything, everything you can dream of. There is nowhere like it in the world,” But they couldn’t see that. They had not lived overseas like me. They could not see that Britain was in far better shape than in 2007 when I left. It was like someone becoming fat in three years, and noone noticing apart from the person that had been away. I could see that a fight was on my hands to prove to the British that they were not in recession. 

A typical street in the UK

Oh, why are the English so gloomy and negative? The Indians, on the contrary, are far more positive and happy.

Anyway the party was a success. The best part being that no one (including my sister) noticed that I had highlighted my hair….They all presumed that was how it had become in the heat of sunny India. Ha Ha.

It had been worth it, not just for that, but in a few days time, the marquee men were to be returning to pull down the marquee.