While travelling to work in an auto rickshaw, the driver asked me, “Madam aap TV dekhte ho kya?” (Madam, do you watch TV?)
Wondering what would come next, I replied with a nod.

“Hamare desh mein agle saal khel hone vale hain, mehmaan ayenge magar mehmaano ke liye humne kya kiya? (We are going to have games in our country next year, guests will come but what have we done for our guests?),” he asked.

 With a very miserable expression he further said, “Padhe-likhe log bhi sadak pe kachra aur thook fekte hain.” (Even educated people spit and litter the streets)

 The auto driver is not the only one concerned about this issue.

Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram remarked recently that people should learn to behave like citizens of an international city.

“We want to encourage people to change their mindset,” he said.

 The Indian Olympic Association has expressed its concern over the logistical preparations for the event, but who is going to check on how the people behave?

Beggars in the national capital are also looking forward to the Games. A large number of tourists would be a windfall and beggars are leaving no stone unturned to be prepared.
An informal academy has been set up in New Delhi’s Rohini area where children are taught to beg in different foreign languages.

Countries like Germany and China had taken the initiative to train their citizens to behave properly when they hosted the football World Cup and the Olympics.

 Should India also start a similar training program or is it too late?

The Indian Tourism’s tagline reads - ‘Atithi Devo Bhavah’. (Our guest is blessed and our visitor is God)

Do you think people will adopt this tagline in the months to come? Are we really ready for a global event like the Games?

– 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.

More from GlobalPost:

India’s unfriendly skies

Can you outsource God?

The Mormons in India

A few days ago, a friend called to share plans for a week-long holiday. She had convinced her family to take the vacation in Kashmir, the perfect opportunity to escape the scorching heat of New Delhi.

It was a good time to visit the Valley. The uproar over the May 29 Shopian case — in which locals blamed the death and rape of two women on Indian security forces — had died down.

Or so it seemed.

Then my friend called again. She sounded glum and I soon knew why. The trip had been cancelled.

Her family had decided not to risk it. A curfew was in place in parts of Kashmir after security personnel in Baramulla were accused of harassing a woman.

Four protesters had died and scores injured in subsequent protests. Much of the Valley remained shut for a strike called by separatists. The streets were empty and there was little sign of tourists.

In the coming days, there is no doubt that Kashmiris will need to choose between protests and tourism — a major source of income.

Many of the Kashmiris I spoke to seemed upset that frequent protests and strikes were keeping tourists away.

“Earlier, we used to make frequent trips to tourist places like Gulmarg and Pahalgam, once in two days or even twice in one day but now we make one trip in 15 days,” said taxi operator Ghulam Rasool.

Rafique Quadri, a high-ranking state tourism official, said that regular clashes and curfews were affecting tourism in Kashmir.

Even Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has spoken out against the negative effects of such strikes and protests.

“Frequent strikes deprive thousands of people from earning their livelihood,” he told a meeting in Srinagar.

How important is it to Kashmiris for the world to catch a glimpse of what a Mughal emperor once called “Paradise on Earth”? What is their priority - azadi (freedom) or economic gain?

Goa, long a magnet for partying hippies, penurious college students and planeloads of foreign pensioners, now wants only “upmarket and responsible family tourists”, the Economic Times has quoted the state church as saying.

In a bid to restore some of the shine lost in the Scarlett Keeling case, the Goa church, which apparently plays a key role in the state’s politics, now wants to focus on family tourists who won’t bring further disrepute to the state that has had its name tarnished not just by the media glare on the booze and drug parties on its famous beaches, but also by violent protests against industrial development.

A family-focussed tourism policy will help attract more “upmarket, high spending” tourists, whose shorter visits will contribute more to the state, the Centre for Responsible Tourism was quoted as saying.

And just how will they ensure that a) you are upmarket and b) you are family? Will tourists now be required to carry bank and credit card statements alongwith their sunscreen and shades? Perhaps marriage certificates, as well, packed between the t-shirts?

Well done, Goa, for showing we’ve come a long way since clubs and restaurants barred entry to Indians and dogs.

Ironically, the government and corporates have, in recent years, encouraged middle-class Indians to travel more, with sops in the form of discount airlines and budget hotels. 

They have even made noises about the fortune waiting to be tapped at the bottom of the pyramid. That is all just talk, apparently.

But Goa - which launched a cheerful ad campaign recently urging everyone to “go Goa” - is not alone.

Years ago, when a fancy mall opened in south Mumbai, entry was restricted to those with credit cards. The mall defended its action on the grounds that hordes of gawkers were getting in the way of “genuine” shoppers. Newspapers raised a stink and the practice died a quiet death, much like the mall itself, eventually.

More recently, a leading newspaper did a random survey of some of Mumbai’s top restaurants and bars to check their bias for foreigners. The conclusion: most of them preferred foreigners because they believed they spent more money, tipped more generously and behaved better than Indians.

And apartment complexes blatantly ban single people, people with dogs, people who eat meat and people of different religious convictions from renting in their buildings.

There’s no holding back the glee when an Indian company buys yet another British firm, no mitigating the indignation when a British TV show contestant is accused of racist comments against an Indian.

Sadly, there’s not a whimper when it comes to our own biases, it seems.