Trends

The Attitude Of Indians—From A Thankless, Low-Trust Society To Insanely Weird Humans—How We Are On The Way To A Trillion-Dollar Economy!

Will you believe me if I say India is one of the weirdest countries in the world? Some may say yes, and some may say no. However, if you are saying no, spend a few minutes reading the post below, and you will convert your answer into yes.

Let’s deep dive to unleash the splendid, magnificent, insane habits of Indians!

Everyone is in a hurry, but no one reaches anywhere on time—because we Indians are poor at time management, and so are our Railways and Airlines.

To justify the above statement, whatever you take, either train or plane will result in equal answers. Have you ever seen that the majority of people on the platforms are in a hurry to catch the train? However, the majority of them do not reach their positions on time. Why? Because of The Great Indian Railways. 

Indian Railways

The matter of delay is so frustrating that the BJP Minister herself criticised the union government, leaving the common man per se. In 2018, taking a dig at BJP’s long overdue promise of “Acche Din”, senior BJP leader from Amritsar and former Punjab health minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla questioned PM the then Railway Minister Piyush Goyal over the deteriorating condition of the Indian Railways.

If you want to know about a similar incident at present, recall how last month, in November 2024, a BJP leader and former IPS officer took to X and raised concerns over the delay of the Rajdhani Express from Hazrat Nizamuddin to Bengaluru, which was scheduled to depart at 9 PM on Saturday but eventually left at 5.30 AM on Sunday. 

It’s been a decade of the Modi Government. Since 2015, there has been a marked increase in capital investment – from INR 12,895 crore in 2008-09 to INR 33,931 crores in 2015-16 on new lines, gauge conversion, doubling, electrification and track renewal. The people from expert column are also of the view that railways are spending enough on infrastructure upgradation & augmentation in the last few years.

However, in a 2022 CAG’s compliance audit report, it has been observed that despite significant investments of INR 2.5 lakh crore during 2008-19, there hasn’t been a notable change in the punctuality of trains. The audit revelaed a meagre 0.18% improvement in punctuality and 0.61% in the average speed of Express trains, and the punctuality of Mail/Express trains has declined from 79% in 2012-13 to 69.23% in 2018-19!

In the case of airlines, the situation is equally comparable. Delays beyond two hours are disproportionate and highly irritating for passengers, who value their time and have paid greatly for flight services.

  • In May 2024, 46902 passengers of IndiGo saw delays of over two hours. Last year this number was 51,865. 
  • In May 2024, Air India saw 50,605 domestic passengers irritated by delays of over two hours.
  • SpiceJet saw 26,184 passengers impacted by delays beyond two hours.
  • Akasa Air have 3715 passengers who were impacted.

An article published in January 2024 titled ‘Consumer not the king: Why airlines have so many disgruntled passengers‘ highlights the ongoing challenges faced by the Indian aviation industry, including delays, cancellations, poor service, and harassment. As per a survey by community social media platform LocalCircles, as many as 9 in 10 respondents claimed that India’s airlines have been compromising on comfort and cutting corners over the past 24 months.

So, in any case, if, by any way, we Indians leave the habit of getting late and be on time, then also no one will reach their destinations on time, and that’s how we are going to be a trillion economy by the end of the decade!

Going by the other side of the time game,  do you know what IST is? You will say ‘Indian Standard Time’, right? But will you believe me if I say it is ‘Indian Stretchable Time’? Why?

Generally, if you arrive on time, you will be marked as punctual. However, In India, if you arrive on time, you will be tagged as a ‘free person’. Try to reach the office on time, and instead of appreciating you, your boss will indirectly taunt you by saying, ‘Oh, it looks like you didn’t sleep last night’.

Or try to reach any wedding party on time, at 7 or 8 PM, as mentioned on the invitation card, and you will see there is no one in the hall; sometimes the bride and groom themselves are not present. Not even the meal counters got started. Imagine what the invitation card says- ‘Raat 8 baje se, aapke aagman tak‘ aka ‘Party starts at 8 till your arrival’. Hence, if you reach Indian weddings on time, you are probably free (Pun Intended)!

Leave the reach time; even if you leave at the correct time, then you are also free. Recall the 2018 advertisement featuring Chhichhore actor Naveen Polishetty’s Rant on Why Staying Extra Hours in the Office isn’t Achievement is Going Viral! The advertisement beautifully mentions that leaving the office on time is considered ‘either you are not doing your work, or you are leaving at half day’! So IST is not Indian Standard Time; it is Indian Stretchable Time, and if it is the former one also, then it has an inherent property of being stretched!

The rules on Indian roads- are there any?

Have you seen and gotten irritated how, in India, the person coming from the wrong side of the road will flash a high beam at you to get out of their way? Utterly Disgusting! Well, what can you expect from Indian roads anymore if the person coming from the wrong end kills another and then gets bail in a few hours?

The news is not of many years ago; it is just of September 2024, when a 23-year-old man died after his bike had a head-on collision with an SUV being driven on the wrong side on Golf Course Road in DLF 2, Gurgaon. The SUV driver was detained and later released on bail. Earlier reports claimed the SUV driver was a repeat offender with multiple challans in the past for driving on the wrong side. Also, the SUV had a BJP candidate’s campaign sticker on it. Probably now you know how, why he got bail, and probably is not going to jail anymore, even after ending a life.

So probably, if one can drive on the wrong side, kill someone, and still get the bail knowing that he is a repeated offender, then probably you can bear the brunt of the guy who is coming from the wrong side and still flashing a high beam, probably because they forgot the attitude of civic sense while driving on Indian roads.

Train or Lift- guys will get in before the occupants can exit. 

Another example is where our civic sense dies, or probably better, we call our common sense dies. Take the train or your society’s or mall’s lift; the people’s entry into the lift is earlier than the exit. Maybe we badly calculate the equation of space that we can only take someone’s when we allow them to leave. So next time, allow your common sense to work and enter the train or lift only when you see the earlier occupants exit, or atleast give them the space to exit!

The Great Indian weddings- an event much larger than life itself, only on the pretext of maintaining ‘the reputation in the society’.

In general, a wedding is a union of two people who vow to live by each other’s side till the end of life. But In India, a wedding is itself greater than life! How, why? The Indian wedding industry derives immense economic activity and is valued at US $130 billion. According to a July 2024 report by Jefferies, Indians spend an average of Rs 12.52 lakh on their wedding, which is twice the expenditure on education (pre-primary to graduation- 18 years). 

Moreover, according to a recent report from last month, the average wedding budget in India in 2024 is Rs 37 lakh, with 9% spent over Rs 1 crore and another 9% spent between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore. Meanwhile, 40% managed their celebrations within Rs 15 lakh, followed by 23% who spent Rs 25 lakh to Rs 50 lakh and 19% in the Rs 15 lakh to Rs 25 lakh range. Destination weddings emerged as a significant trend, with average budgets climbing to Rs 51 lakh. 

In India, most households allocate the biggest budgets towards the purchase of houses and weddings of their children,” Shashank Gupta, founder and director at wedding planning firm TailorMade Experiences, said.

All of these sound good till the point you learn that every 1 in 2 graduates is unemployable. This is quite concerning for a developing country like India, where building knowledge and skills should be the priority, with a young demographic population. After all, these fancy weddings last only a day, but quality education creates a future that can last a lifetime. How many Indians are wise enough to think rationally like that? After all, display at weddings is more important than logical education, which itself is a debatable topic. 

The Honking culture of India.

Sound travels faster than Light. When the traffic light turns green, it reaches the last car first, and they will honk to let the first car know. In India, we believe that if we honk more, the traffic signal will turn green faster. No, it’s not just a mere observation, but an irritating attempt by citizens that has attracted enough criticisms and actions by the authorities.

If at all we leave the general, justified reasons for honking (like taxi drivers offering their services, alerting the pedestrians and protecting of self and others), many honk every minute just out of habit. Part of this boils down to the stress of driving in India. Mumbai and Bangalore rank as the world’s 5th- and 10th-most congested cities. Mumbai drivers wait in traffic for a cumulative annual equivalent of over eight days. There’s a perception that without honking, a driver won’t be able to wade through the mess, which is why Indians pay more for louder horns. 

While reasonable people can disagree about the validity of these different excuses, there’s no arguing about the impact on India’s urban quality of life. Authorities claim that the sound, on average, reaches 100 decibels, equivalent to a leaf blower, but in some cases 125 decibels, louder than a rock concert. So, we Indians take pride in honking, unfortunately!

There is another aspect of traffic rules. In other countries, when they see orange light, yellow light, or red light, they probably stop. In India, we race the accelerator if we see the reds, yellows and oranges. Oh! Recall the earlier statement about us always being in a hurry. Probably that had made wirings in Indian brains in such a way that if we say other than red in signals, we speed up. Weird, but existing proudly!

We Indians do not follow elevator etiquette. Why? We think repeatedly pressing the lift button makes it come faster. 

Well, we Indians are used to fast work, fast results, fast approaches and fast decisions; hence, we are habituated to fast movements in life, too. I have also invariably observed that some people have the tendency to press the elevator button many times as if the elevator would come down non stop. Everyone must know that even automatic elevators are programmed to stop at particular floors, and they won’t go up or return, skipping the floors.

In that case, pressing the button was unwarranted. Once the elevator comes, there would be a literal push from behind or even overtaking us to enter the lift cabin as if this is going to be the last service of the lift. Really educated people are doing this, and they do not have patience. Elders used to wait for their turn, but young ones were the most irritating lot, and they tried to enter the elevator using their own muscle power and means. 

So yes, we do not follow elevator etiquette and press the lift button repeatedly on the pretext of imagining coming earlier than we take a break!

We removed the luggage from an overhead bin and awkwardly stood in the galley for ten minutes in an attempt to get out of the aircraft fast, thus delaying deplaning!

Trust me when I say this, but kids in India are better trained to stand in queue and move at their turn, rather than the adults. Whether it is train or flight, as soon as we learn that the destination is arriving, we bounce up from our places, start shifting the luggages from the overhead gallery and automatically stand by making a queue, which eventually delays the processes. 

If it is just a random station where the train will wait for just a minute, then this phenomena can be understood till a large extent, but in case of junctions, where the train wait for 5 minutes or more, or at end stops, where the train journey halts, and in cases of flights, this kind of behaviour is utterly weird, laughable and irritating.

Do you know our OG graffiti artists? They look like Pan masala chewers.

In India, we do not need painters to paint the outer walls of homes or shops. The random pan masala spitters could be found on every other society road. The recent news published a handful of days ago, titled ‘Viral image of billboard defaced with paan spits leaves internet furious: This is disgusting‘ shows a billboard featuring a woman was defaced with paan stains, sparking outrage on social media over public disrespect and cleanliness issues in India.

The issue is so serious that Indian Railways spends around ₹1,200 crore and a lot of water annually to clean the stains and marks caused by spitting on its premises, especially by pan and tobacco users. It seems that Indians love to tear up their lack of respect for public spaces, or they love to play with the casual disregard for decency!

We believe saying no is rude, but not doing it after saying yes is okay.

Indian culture is characterised as a high-context civilisation that depends heavily on nonverbal and implicit cues. We have hierarchy everywhere, from families to the workplace. And one thing we’ve been told repeatedly: “Your superior is always correct.” It is very discouraging to debate with the authorities. Someone who expresses concerns, no matter how politely, is viewed as a confrontational and disobedient member.

Age and seniority take precedence over logic in a hierarchical society like ours. Hence, saying NO is never an option for us. But as time passes by, and people have started prioritising things, they have learnt that it is ok to not do something that goes out of limitations or not do things if time doesn’t allow, which is great.

But as the adage goes, half knowledge is harmful, and the same is the case with half learning. People have learnt to respect their own times and boundaries, but they forget to learn to say NO. We believe that let’s say yes now, or else people will not feel good if we say no. However, at the same time, we think that just because we have said yes, it doesn’t matter whether we can complete our promise. This is weird! Either we complete the task, or just say no, but saying yes just on the pretext of pleasing people and then disappointing them with not doing the work is insane!

The address needs an address- The tale of great Indian addresses.

The way we Indians write and say addresses is another intricate puzzle. 10 Downing Street in London is the official residence and office of the PM of the United Kingdom. But what if you were an ordinary citizen of India? Your residential address could be 54/98, 14thB Cross, 2nd Main, Garden Area, JP Nagar 6th Phase. Landmark- Behind Sparsh Supermarket. And trust me when I say, in the majority of cases, the person searching for the address will focus on the landmark first and then the actual address! 

In India every building is opposite a showroom, next to a temple, near a telephone exchange and yet are more difficult to locate! Since there is a lack of structured addresses in India, landmarks become significant in pinpointing the correct home. These landmarks can be anything, ranging from a well-known school, temple to a popular restaurant, bus stop, someone’s kirana store or even a great banyan tree or a pipal ka ped! 

An individual’s address is more than just their place of residence. It is an identity. In a YouTube interview, a filmmaker stated: “Tell me your street name, and I will tell you your caste.” Even now, the caste and religion of the people who live in India’s smallest towns divide them significantly. It is not uncommon for prominent individuals in a community to become recognised as landmarks in their own right.

In some cases, even a vintage Royal Enfields parked outside a home, which has been there for a decade as a showpiece and unused item of the home, can serve as a distinctive identifier. If you still do not believe in my words, ever dare to ask a delivery executive from a courier company, and they will tell you their irritating tale of navigating Indian addresses. 

Vegetables we eat are sold literally on the road, while shoes are sold in air-conditioned shops. 

We Indians are so entangled in the materialistic world that everything that is secondary to living will be placed on priority lists, and everything that is primary to living is placed in the rear seat. Take this example- the basic fuel in the human body is food. In India, in the majority of the cases, vegetables that we eat are literally sold on streets, roads, and open spaces, and shoes, apparel, etc, are sold in AC cabins.

Moreover, all of us, whether we belong to the lower class, middle class or upper bracket, everyone will show our bargaining skills with a vegetable vendor who is sitting on the road despite the scorching heat, thunder rains and chilly winters but will pay as demanded when we are going to footwear shopping, apparel shopping, restaurants, electronics shopping or even gold because that shows our status! Weird! 

Ironically, we will spend 5000 on purchasing a nice outfit, but we will not spend 5000 on nutritional food that will give us a healthy and fit body to fit in that expensive outfit! 

We are scared to take supplements and protein powders because of their harmful effects on the body, but we are not scared to smoke and eat unhygienic food from roadside street vendors! And that’s disgusting.

Rivers are our worship places, yet we believe in polluting them.

India is probably the only country where we throw everything related to worship on the river to maintain its purity, pollute it, destroy it, damage it and then pray for us health and wealth. From degraded leftover flowers and fruits to gigantic idols, we immerse everything in the water, pollute them with harsh chemicals and then expect the municipal authorities to implement water cleansing systems near our societies so that they can purify the waters coming from these rivers so that they are fit for drinking and using. If anyone tells us to stop doing these, then we will say if industrial waste could be dumped into the river, then why not human waste? After all, they are sacred!

The Indian way of space optimisation.

In the crowded streets of urban India, a strange occurrence has become an everyday part of the driving experience. It’s a phenomenon that may be both interesting and annoying, depending on one’s viewpoint. We’re talking about how drivers, especially those on two-wheelers and autorickshaws, prefer to take up every possible inch of road space. The situation is all too familiar. A car comes to a stop at a traffic light, keeping a safe distance of roughly one car length from the vehicle in front. This is the worldwide acknowledged standard for ensuring a safe stopping distance and preventing accidents. However, in India, this area is frequently viewed as an opportunity to exploit.

Before the car’s driver can respond, a swarm of two-wheelers and auto-rickshaws would rush in to take up the empty area. One autorickshaw and four motorcycles may jam through the gap, often crashing into the side mirror or scraping against the paint of the car. This is one instance that aptly reflects the urban Indian mentality: where space becomes an asset that has to be exploited in all directions. This behaviour may appear chaotic and anarchic to outsiders, but it is essentially an expression of the Indian notion of “jugaad,” or the capacity to make do with inadequate resources. 

The Indian Power of Blind Faith vs Skeptical Enquiry.

That makes all sense in India where there’s always a blur and crossover between spirituality and superstition. One is rarely astonished at how readily most Indians accept the extraordinary as mundane. A recent instance that can be witnessed where devotees in a temple are gulping down droplets of water thinking to be ‘charnamrit’ coming from the feet of God, when indeed it was the water from the AC duct! Yes you have read that right —AC water as Charnamrit!!!

However, people are more skeptical about everyday concerns. For example, if someone told you that the paint on a wall was wet, you’d probably be sceptical. To back up your claim, you may even test the paint with your finger.

The behavioural dichotomy is remarkable. On the one hand, people are prepared to believe incredible claims of supernatural happenings without examination. On the other hand, they are far more sceptical about common statements that can be easily confirmed.

The Culture of Jugaad: India’s Love Affair with Shortcuts

In India, the term Jugaad is something that has been part of our DNA. Jugaad, or “finding a creative solution to a problem,” is synonymous with shortcuts and fast remedies. Such an attitude, which puts priority on intelligence and resourcefulness rather than hard effort and devotion, has become the defining characteristic of the Indian ethos. Indians are pushed since very early ages to look for shortcuts and fast fixes in order to achieve their goals. Whether it is passing a test, creating a product, or building money, the focus is always on finding the easiest and quickest way to get there. It is often interpreted as a mark of intelligence and ingenuity rather than laziness or lack of commitment.

In the education world, this concept of jugaad can be the rote learning of the Indian education system , like if you do not understand the question, it’s ok, just ‘ratta maar lo’ and you will pass the examination. When you grow up and come into the corporate world, this jugaad can be seen in the form of corruption!

The Paradox of Bureaucratic Efficiency

Physics says that ‘Increasing the weight in any fixed friction environment will always decrease the speed with a given applied force’. However, in India, we have reversed the laws of physics; how competent (and corrupt) we are! In the hallowed halls of government offices, a phenomenon has long puzzled physicists and bureaucrats alike. It appears that when a file is assigned a higher “weight” or priority, instead of slowing down the processing time, it actually speeds it up.

Still, if you do not understand the ‘weight’ of Indian government offices, just look at the government officer and put your hard-earned money on the file. And within seconds or minutes, your file, which has this splendid ‘weight’ of your money, will make your process smoother, gauging every bureaucratic hurdle which otherwise would have been present if you had not given ‘weight’ over your file. 

Conclusion.

We have traversed far from the idealism of etiquette etc. due to mushroom growth in the population. When even basic survival is at stake, how can people be expected to have patience and time to learn and practice etiquette?

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button