I was very sweet to Peter, from Bangalore just now. I used to get annoyed when my calls as a customer were answered by a desi voice affecting an accent and missing the nuances in my problem because of a lack of translation of context. but today I smiled, was patient with him, overlooked his difficulty in understanding my address, put myself in his shoes for a moment, put myself in Bangalore's traffic for a minute and gave him a concession for that. Indians deserve a break if they have to deal with other Indians every waking moment of their daily lives.

but no, I wasn't being nice. If you're leaving a place, or have left and don't plan on coming back, you can be honest and brutal with what you think of it and of them. but now I'll be at their mercy again. I have been disenfranchised.

is there a word, an emotion, that implies wanting to flee one's country because one cannot stand one's people.

there are two kinds of Indians in America. those who are just people, like people from any other country, and those who underline their Indian-ness.

I met a nine-yr-old American born of Indian parents, whose idea of American food was a Subway sandwich. she was ignorant even to the name 'Subway' while she tried explaining why she loved Indian food because the alternative - American food - was too bland for her. I asked her what American food she was talking about, "was it a pizza, a burger?". She was blank on that and her parent had to fill that in for me. I haven't been able to get that conversation out of my mind.