– Jason Overdorf writes for the GlobalPost, where this article first appeared. –

The instant that the fasten seat belts light went out aboard Cathay Pacific’s inaugural Delhi-Bangkok flight this summer, a chorus of metallic dongs erupted like a romper roomful of Ritalin-deprived 5-year-olds turned loose on an arsenal of xylophones.

The passengers were attacking their call buttons.

In seconds, flight attendants were up and running. By the time they began dishing out the special meals, tempers were beginning to fray.

“Whiskey!” demanded an old man with a white beard when the young Chinese flight attendant tried to put a meal in front of him.

“Sir, we are not serving drinks now,” the flight attendant replied politely. (Dong! Dong-dong! Do-Dong, dongdong!)

In the next row, another man, younger but no less eloquent, reached up to press his call button, and the flustered attendant caved and uncapped the Scotch.

“Arre, such a small peg she’s given you,” the old man’s companion protested.

Dong!

Once the world loved to hate the Ugly American — fat, loud-mouthed and blissfully superior in his utter cultural ignorance. But since the economic crisis put the kibosh on American and European travel budgets, there’s a new kid in town. India’s rampaging outbound travel market has thrown a much-needed lifeline to the tourism industry in Southeast Asia, Europe and farther afield.

For those schlepping bags and serving drinks, though, the Ugly Indian can be so demanding that the lifeline sometimes looks like it has a noose at the end of it.

“It’s a cultural thing,” said Pankaj Gupta, part-owner of Outbound Travels, a New Delhi-based travel agency. “In India, we have servants to do everything in everybody’s houses mostly, so people are just sort of used to getting stuff delivered to them.”

Culture conflict has already resulted in several public relations debacles. In May, for instance, a group of Indian passengers caused a minor sensation in the local press when they leveled allegations of racism against Air France — saying that when their flight was delayed for 28 hours in Paris other passengers were transported to hotels, but the Indians were made to wait in the lounge. (The distinction was not made based on race, but on possession of a valid Schengen visa, the airline maintains).

In a similar incident in 2006, 12 Indian passengers accused Northwest Airlines of racism when they were offloaded and detained in Amsterdam for what flight attendants called “suspicious behavior.”

“Imagine arresting 12 guys just because they were changing seats and talking on their cellphones when the plane was taking off,” wrote Indian humorist Jug Suraiya in his Times of India column. “Everyone does that in India all the time, and no one gets arrested.”

But just as the American tourist’s penchant for plaid never stopped France from chasing his dollars, the Indian tourist’s insatiable thirst for Scotch hasn’t made his rupees any less attractive. Tourism boards from a laundry list of countries have flooded Indian cities with delegations — or simply set up shop here. Airlines and hotels abroad have wooed Indian travel companies with bargain basement rates, and pulled out all stops to compete — throwing open their kitchens to traveling Indian chefs, topping up their in-flight entertainment libraries with Bollywood movies, and fighting tooth and nail for the right to host stars like Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan for the Indian International Film Awards.

The reason is simple. Despite the downturn, India’s travel market is still growing. According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, more than 800,000 Indians are expected to visit Singapore this year, more than 669,000 Indians are expected to visit the U.S. and more than 625,000 are expected to visit Malaysia. Moreover, PATA expects the number of Indian visitors to Singapore, Malaysia and the U.S. to continue to grow rapidly through 2011.

“Since the economic crisis began, there has been a reduction in travel, but the reduction in travel by Indians has been very low compared to any other country,” said Gupta. “Indians are still traveling a lot. Maybe some people have downgraded, by say, instead of going to the U.S. traveling closer to home, but they’re still traveling abroad.”

Many of these Indian travelers, of course, are erudite, suave, charming, or simply humble and polite — it’s just that nobody remembers them. For every passenger aboard Cathay’s Delhi-Bangkok run with his finger on the call button, there were three or four who were fast asleep, mummified in blankets, or peacefully guffawing at the mindless in-flight movies.

Most problems result from simple misunderstandings, explained Thomas Thottathil, spokesman for Cox & Kings, one of India’s largest tour companies. “We sensitize our customers, our tour guides, and we also explain to our suppliers overseas — the hotels or whatever — that Indian travelers have their own needs, their own particular habits.” Because of that effort, Thottathil said his firm has not faced anything more serious than the occasional complaint that a hotel didn’t provide dinner after 9:30 p.m.

Thottathil may well be onto something. A quick lesson about Indians’ love of thrift, for instance, might ease international tensions in the air. What’s the multicultural secret to a tranquil flight, you ask?

Five dollar whiskeys.

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If the early comments on the Great Debate are anything to go by, it seems there is still a lot of goodwill towards Elattuvalapil Sreedharan.

The man behind the Delhi metro, seen as one of India’s most successful infrastructure projects, resigned on Sunday after part of a rail bridge in the capital collapsed and killed six people.

Sreedharan had enjoyed a towering profile as a civil engineer who got things done — and quickly. In the words of his spokesman, Sreedharan “can walk into the prime minister’s office. He has a reputation that he carries.”

Business students from as far away as Harvard have studied the metro’s success.

In contrast to the delays, cost-overruns and red tape that have plagued projects for decades, the subway’s first phase finished on budget and nearly three years ahead of schedule, with 99.5 percent of trains running on time.

All eyes were on the second phase, which is due for completion when the city hosts the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

But the deaths have raised questions whether the quick building came at the expense of human lives.

When he submitted his resignation, the 77-year-old Sreedharan won praise for accepting “moral responsibility” for the accident.

I interviewed Sreedharan recently, and his words now seem almost prophetic. His drive for speed was clear.

In his office, as in many others in his organisation, hangs a clock counting down the days to the next deadline.

“For us, time is money,” he told me. “We can’t allow one day to waste.”

But Sreedharan also outlined his well-known spiritual bent which he encourages his employees to follow. He fits yoga and meditation around his workday.

Behind his desk, reads a sign quoting Sanskrit scriptures: “Whatever to be done I do, but in reality, I do not do anything.”

He emphasised the importance of integrity, which he said made the government trust his organisation enough to let go of most of the decision-making.

“People should be prepared to take decisions and not pass on the buck,” he said. “We should be able to trust people in power, which means people in power should have a proven integrity.”

Delhi’s chief minister Sheila Dikshit has since persuaded Sreedharan to withdraw his resignation. Many want him to keep his job, saying the project is better off with him on board.

An editorial in the Indian Express said the resignation was “decidedly not what the Metro project needs.”

“This, in a sense, is a test case for infrastructure policy: will it continue to revolve around individuals and their differing degrees of commitment to these projects, or can we ensure that these crucial projects, which undergird our economic future, roll out successfully with stronger institutional checks and progress reviews?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has recruited Nandan Nilekani, the engineer-entrepreneur who co-founded Infosys Technologies and helped propel India’s rise as an IT giant, to head a government authority on national ID cards.

Singh said India needed experts like Nilekani from outside the political system. Singh may feel the same about Sreedharan.

As Dikshit said: “The metro and the country needs him, because he has done good work not only in Delhi, he has done it all over India.”

A mob vandalized a police station in west Delhi this week after a woman accused five policemen of raping her in a police station.

This is not the first time enforcers of the law have been accused of rape.

In 2005, a 16-year-old girl was raped by a drunk constable in south Mumbai in the infamous Marine Drive rape case.

A year later, another police constable was accused of raping a slum dweller in Karnal.

Data from the National Crimes Record Bureau shows courts tried 132 policemen for custodial rape in 2002 but only four were convicted.

Does this mean women who seek the help of the law are better off not reporting crimes committed against them?

Some amendments were made to the Code of Criminal Procedure Act in 2005 to prevent incidents of custodial rape.

For example, the Act prohibits the arrest of women after sunset and before sunrise except in exceptional circumstances.

But how many women know about their rights? And are steps like this enough?

ALSO READ: Surviving as a woman in urban India

As I stood waiting for an auto rickshaw near India Gate in New Delhi last December, three big cars slowed down within a quarter of an hour to check me out. They waited for a few minutes and then drove away without anyone getting out.

Many of my friends have experienced much the same thing — especially in India’s capital, a woman walking in the street is too often seen as fair game if a man isn’t with her.

When I came home, I checked myself in the mirror to see what it was about my appearance that caught their eye.

Bespectacled, with no make-up, dressed in loose fitting jeans and a baggy sweater, I could not figure out why. I asked my husband, “Who do I look like?”

He laughed and said, “In Delhi you just have to be a woman, how you look doesn’t matter”.

I have been traveling by myself on Delhi’s public transport since my college days. Bus conductors have tried to brush against my fingers while giving me a ticket, and well-dressed, middle-aged men have whispered in my ear to ask for my phone number.

These experiences have changed the way I behave on the streets of a city I otherwise love. I avoid looking auto rickshaw drivers in the eye just in case they get the wrong idea and I’m always on my guard against gropers while walking, especially in markets.

I avoid driving alone after eight-thirty to avoid male drivers following me, or worse. A media colleague working at one of India’s national TV channels was killed last year while driving by herself late at night. At the time, the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, said the girl should not have been so adventurous as to travel at three in the morning. She later said her remark had been blown out of proportion.

A friend told me she complained to police when someone tried to snatch her bag in the market. Instead of investigating the case, the duty officer started questioning her about just what exactly she thought she was doing out at eight-thirty in the evening.

When I look back at the families I knew growing up, I can begin to see why some men seem to think the way they do. As an only child, I had a pampered upbringing. But when I was invited to other families for lunch or dinner, if the dining room was too small to fit all the guests, the men would always be served first and given the best portion of the food.

If a family could not afford to send all their children to private schools, it was invariably the girls who gave way and went to a government school instead. One of my friends, when he was a teenage boy, could go on dates without having to explain himself. But all hell would break loose if his sister had a similar adventure.

When the friend of mine was looking for a suitable husband, her parents introduced her to a lot of people. She told me about one conversation she remembers: the first thing the man asked her was, “do you smoke, do you drink?”

When she asked why, he said “you can’t take such girls to your mother.” He himself did enjoy a tipple, and needless to say she didn’t marry him.

ALSO READ: Domestic abuse plagues India’s upper crust

I was stuck in a traffic jam on one of New Delhi’s busiest roads, taking in the sights and smells of vehicles idling in all directions, when my cab driver turned to me and asked — “Are you going to buy the Tata Nano?”

It’s a question thrown at me several times over the past few months and each time the answer has been “No”.

Tata Motors is launching the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, on March 23. Bookings open in the second week of April and the 100,000-rupee car is slated to hit Indian roads before July.

As D-day draws near, excitement is palpable among India’s middle-class. Dealers are reporting thousands of enquires daily. After all, buying a car is part of the great Indian dream and the ultimate goal for many a teenager.

With the Nano, it’s now slightly easier to turn that dream into reality. Many of the men and women zipping around on scooters and motorcycles would be eager to upgrade to a four-wheeler.

Those who travel by bus or autorickshaw would also be tempted to go in for a change. And don’t forget the rich — they wouldn’t mind having an extra car just to collect the groceries.

As for me, even my “No” sometimes veers towards a “Maybe”.

But my curiosity has been piqued by my driver’s question and I ask him if he has any plans of bringing home the Nano.

“I can buy it for sure but where am I going to drive it?” he said, pointing to the chaos around us.

I agree. I can hardly see the road. New Delhi is already bursting at its seams with cars big and small — and it’s a problem that’s fast spreading to other Indian cities.

And if, as I suspect, the coming months see long lines outside Tata Nano showrooms, I hope the wannabe owners of the “people’s car” will ask for a road-to-drive-on guarantee.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is here but do we see a pall of gloom with the BSE Sensex crashing more than 50 percent since January 2008?

Things have come to such a pass that some people have simply stopped looking at their portfolios. They think it’s too late now to cut losses.

“I have now lost faith in long-term investment, I wish I had booked profits in January when my portfolio had doubled,” says my friend Vikrant, who works for a leading business newspaper in New Delhi.

The tumble over the past 8-9 months had forced Vikrant to postpone plans to buy a new car, and when he finally bought one, he preferred a loan from his father rather than a bank loan at 14 per cent.

When I joined college, many had warned me to stay away from the stock market calling it a dangerous place, thanks to the scams by Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parekh.

I agreed then, although more out of respect, and I was more than willing to dump such talk along with my boring History textbooks.

But the events of 2008, with the credit contagion spreading to stock markets across the globe, have made me sit up and take notice.

January 2008 when the BSE Sensex scaled a peak of 21K seems a distant mirage. Just as the investors and the Indian media were eyeing 25,000 as the next target, the benchmark index has plunged to sub-9000 levels in less than 10 months (197 trading sessions to be precise) — something many of us never imagined. At least I didn’t.

“It is extremely risky to work in this sector now, the company is losing business everyday as investors are panicking,” said a sales specialist at a Delhi stock brokerage who did not want to be identified.

He is looking for a new job, this time in a different sector, after seeing the firm’s cost-cutting initiative render his colleague jobless.

But is the crash affecting life beyond the Sensex?

During the weekend, local shopping malls and markets which are usually chock-a-block with customers completing their Diwali shopping have seen less business as the urban Indian is spending less.

“The middle-class consumer is in a bad shape; nobody is in a festive mood to celebrate and buy gifts,” said Deepak Gupta, a gift shop owner in Delhi.

Gupta says he has lost around 60 percent of his Diwali business this year due to the market crash.

For his part, Gupta, has switched from costlier dry fruits to a comparatively cheaper option of a regular pack of sweets as gifts to friends.

The Bombay stock exchange opens for an hour every Diwali. Records show that the Sensex has slipped only once (2007) in the last three years during this special session.

Given the current negative sentiment in the markets, I wonder how our benchmark index will behave on Diwali.

With each passing day it’s getting tougher to guess the bottom, and for those who have heavily invested, the phrase ’stock market’ is no less than a nightmare.

But what we should do?

We always knew losses are a part of this game, and hence, we can only be patient and learn from our mistakes.

Remember, there is hardly anyone the market has spared, and maybe you can try to take a break from checking your portfolios during this festive season.

If you are invested or are currently buying in this market, this tip from investment guru Warren Buffet might come in handy — “I never attempt to make money on the stock market. I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”

I just hope things get better in the next five years. Actually, I can only hope. What about you?

On June 29 of this year, hundreds of gays, lesbians and transsexuals danced and sang on the streets of three Indian cities, hoisting the rainbow flag on the country’s first nationally coordinated gay pride day.

Though they waved slogans such as “gay and loving it”, many still wore masks – afraid to openly campaign against the dreaded Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which has banned “unnatural” sex since colonial times.

So where do the protesters find themselves nearly four months later, as gay activists battle a (divided) government to scrap the law, taking the case to the Delhi High Court?

The charges leveled by the government against homosexuals appear to be stacking up. Local media has quoted additional solicitor general P P Malhotra as saying homosexuality is a “social vice”, borne of a “perverse mind”.

It has been called the worst form of indecency, while an MP from an independent party called it an “evil” that has been imported into India from the western world and would change the face of India.

Worse, the government says homosexuality is “a disease” – the spreader of killer HIV/AIDS even as it infects the morality of its victims. Malhotra on Monday painted a gloomy picture indeed of what would happen if Indian homosexuals had their way: “AIDS is already spreading in the country and if gay sex is legalized then people on the street would start indulging in such practices saying that the High Court has given approval for it.”

It would, in the words of Home Minister Shivraj Patil, “open the floodgates for delinquent behaviour” for those same people who danced on the streets of Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore four months ago.

No longer fearing prison, they would flaunt their vice openly on the streets, as police and decent families stand by, powerless to stop them. If, by the government’s own estimate, just 0.3% of Indians are homosexual, that still leaves around three million people to go on the rampage.

So far, though, the High Court has not been impressed. It has dismissed the government’s evidence when it drew on religious texts, including the bible, to attack homosexuality. On Monday the High Court challenged the Centre to prove how homosexuality was a disease, and earlier cheekily asked whether straight sex should also be banned, given it also spreads AIDS.

The cabinet itself is divided: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh found himself asking two members of his cabinet to make up their very public tiff on the issue. Health Minister Ramadoss has been a strong spokesman for the gay campaign, arguing that pushing homosexuality underground has made it harder, not easier, to stop the spread of AIDS.

The question is, if the law is repealed, will homosexuals feel truly free in India, and how much of a backlash will there be against them? Given the social stigma, those who flaunted their pride secretly in June, might still find it hard to out themselves to friends and family, even if the law says they can.

Riding home in the air-conditioned comfort of a gleaming red bus, I find it hard to believe I am travelling in New Delhi.

Squeaky-clean seats, no crowds jostling for room, automatic doors and huge windows offering panoramic views of the bustling streets — it’s a far cry from the torture I have endured in the past.

Buses in India’s capital are not known for being commuter-friendly. The state-owned ones are mostly rickety slowcoaches while the privately operated Blue Line buses zigzag their way through traffic, dangerously negotiating bends and racing each other in a bid to pick up passengers.

Their abysmal safety record led to calls for banning the “killer buses” but with the city dependent on CNG-fuelled public transport to counter the rising number of petrol- and diesel-powered cars, an alternative was needed and fast.

With a state-of-the-art subway already in place and expanding, a revamped public bus transport system could further showcase the city’s potential as it gears up to host the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Swanky new low-floor buses were introduced in phases over the past year. Only around 500 of these non-AC (green) and AC (red) buses ply on Delhi’s roads right now — not enough for a population of 14 million. But more will be added in the coming months.

For many of Delhi’s long-suffering commuters who spend precious minutes haggling with autorickshaw drivers, it’s cheaper and convenient to hop on to one of the AC buses, which usually charge double fare compared to the rest of the non-AC fleet.

It’s also a good idea considering the city’s roads are crawling with cars and newer vehicles are adding to the mess (cheaper cars like the Tata Nano will only make it worse).

To encourage people to take buses more often, authorities are experimenting with the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor — with dedicated lanes for buses, cars and two-wheelers. A pilot project in south Delhi has met with limited success, with daily traffic snarls reported by irate car drivers.

I am not sure how the government will solve the traffic problem but if you are ever stuck in Delhi on a hot summer day, I suggest you take a ride on the gleaming red bus.

That’s one joyride you won’t regret.

Security was tight at the entrance to Gate No. 7 of the Jama Masjid in Old Delhi, a 17th century mosque built by Mughal kings, and the venue on Tuesday for a gathering of Muslim leaders from across the country to debate the persecution of Muslims.

Police shooed away fruit vendors and cycle rickshaws spilling over from the crowded market nearby, while others stood around the metal detectors at the entrance while their colleagues cased out the giant white shamiana inside with sniffer dogs under the slowly revolving ceiling fans.

 A full half hour after the scheduled time, when only the first few rows of seats were occupied, Maulana Naksh Bandi of the Jama Masjid began the proceedings, inviting various leaders to the dais, and declaring in Urdu: “there is no law, there is no justice for us. It is the rule of the jungle.”

Pausing to take a call on his mobile, and to recognise leaders who slowly filed in, some helped by their assistants, the Maulana said that staying silent would only lead to a more terrible future for Muslims in the country.

Bombings by suspected Islamist militants have killed hundreds of people in recent months, and Muslim leaders accuse the police of indiscriminate arrests of young Muslim men who have been labelled as terrorists and paraded before the media.

Next came Maulana Syed Ahmed Bukhari, influential leader of the Jama Masjid mosque, the largest in north India, who said Muslims needed to draw up a blueprint to deal with the circumstances, with even such practical solutions as legal help
for those being held by the police.

His speech, also in Urdu, was by turn fiery and angry, and at all times impassioned, its rhythym broken only by latecomers whom he acknowledged, and frequent shouts of “Allah-O-Akbar” (God is Great) among the audience who now filled all the seats.

I was struck by the anger felt among the listeners, the quieter ones of whom nodded in assent and said “beshak” (certainly); it was another sign of how communal politics was growing in India and of how Muslims are fighting to be heard.

As the sun travelled higher, glasses of cold water were passed around, but there was no cooling the Maulana, who accused the major political parties of trying to curry favour with the Muslims ahead of the 2009 election.

But Muslim leaders including the Maulana were equally political, said Seema Desai, an analyst at consultancy Eurasia Group in London: “Muslim leaders will be heard more than might have been the case in the run up to the national elections,” she said.

“But as long as Indian political parties think along communal lines its hard to see how long lasting solutions will be found.”   
     

I will have to respect the Indian Standard Time for once.

I was to meet a friend at five in the evening on the day of the serial bombings in New Delhi. But the meeting got delayed — she could not leave office on time and my office elevator kept me waiting for twenty minutes.

We were chatting about good times together in college, how classmates have done well by themselves and making plans to catch up with other friends at the café inside a popular bookshop when the bomb at Barakhamba Road went off.

I had only read reports of how bombs exploded near cafes as people sat there sipping coffee discussing mundane things in life or shopped for household goods or just walked by. Never had I imagined that one day I would find myself in such a situation.

Within moments of the explosion, I saw people crowding the area, police men trying to control the situation and cameras furiously clicking away. The window panes of the cafe were shattered by the impact of the explosion and given that it was a low intensity bomb all of us in the place were safe.

I guess it was sheer luck that saved both of us — I take an auto rickshaw every day from the spot where the bomb exploded. Had we met a little early, or a little late, we might have been caught up too.

I assured family and friends about my safety and headed back to the office. It was the call of duty.

I chose the back alley while the sirens wailed and people jostled at the blast site. As a journalist I helped put out the story on the blast, which is fast becoming the norm in the country — scenes of destruction, loss of lives, grieving relatives and sense of helplessness.

I have been thinking ever since — as a human being and as a journalist — what should have been my priority. To help people who were injured or to report about the blood and pain?

I discussed my dilemma with my mother-in-law and she said I should have lent a hand. It could have been a friend or a family lying on the road crying for help. But I chose otherwise.

I put into practice the training I had received as a reporter — to tell the world about how the series of bombs went off in quick succession killing, maiming and scarring innocent people for life.

Ever since I have been asking myself — what if a friend was involved? What if someone even remotely known to me had been looking out for help that day?