by Pratyusha Trivedi

If you go to India, specifically New Delhi, but as an “international Indian”, here’s what you might feel. You will land at the airport, and immediately the rush will start. You will see people shoving to get their bags from the overhead compartment, shoving to make their way to the front of the plane. You will step back. You will wait patiently. Because though you may look like them, you are not them. You give way to people because you are different. Better. More civilized. The accent that softens your consonants proves it. The way you’ve learned to queue in orderly lines proves it. Your passport proves it. Once you exit the plane, the chaos doesn’t stop. People around you push through immigration lines, elbowing and pressing forward, but you, though you are Indian, can take the separate line. The OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) line. You can escape the line that local Indians have to go through (which, for some reason, is always the longest). You think: shouldn’t locals get priority? But you realize you don’t care. You don’t have to go through that horrid line. It is none of your concern. Your OCI is a magic key. Your OCI lets you be Indian, but not Indian. Indian, but better. Indian, but exempt.

The moment you step outside of the airport, Delhi’s uncomfortable heat will slap you. Your sweatpants and jacket will immediately stick to your skin, and you will immediately start to sweat. Since you are an International Indian, you don’t have to haggle with Uber drivers you cannot trust. You don’t have to hail a cab from the multistorey car park. Your dad has booked you a private car. Your driver will carry all your bags (times like this make you appreciate India). You can live like a king here, for you are an international Indian, the highest status of them all. You don’t say it, but you feel superior, and you appreciate how different you feel. The car (which, even though it is a private hire, looks the same as all the Ubers in India) is a little bit dirty. You notice the leather has an off-putting yellow hue, probably from years of sun bleach. You notice the cheap film on the windows is tearing off. You notice the car mat is filled with grime. You sit still in the car, trying not to move as much as possible, because if you do move, the dirt may get onto you. You clench your toes inside your sneakers and hold yourself still while your parents chat easily with the driver. You can only pick up a few words here and there from their conversation. You can speak and understand Hindi, but they are speaking in a way you can only understand if you are local. You are not. This is your parents’ home, not yours.

You reach your uncle’s house. The whole family is there to greet you. Your mom’s sisters, brothers, kids, grandkids, everyone. It’s as if your arrival in India marks something special. It’s as if you’re an animal in a zoo, and they’re excited to see how you, an international Indian, operate. They squeeze your cheeks, and you try to pull away as fast as possible. They ask you questions about your life, and you give short one-word answers (partly because you think they can’t understand your sophisticated English and partly because you don’t want to talk to them). You sit in a corner, politely laughing or smiling when someone looks at you. You are not glad to see your relatives, you want to go home (not India). Finally, you leave your uncle’s house and go to the temple (a non-negotiable when you visit India). You have to walk barefoot, and there is a long line to visit the murti (statue of god). Thousands of people have walked these floors barefoot. You walk on the side of your feet, because walking flat-footed will absorb too much of the dirt on the floor. The dirt of other Indian feet. There are two lines to get to see the god. You see the regular line and the VIP line. You wonder why there is a VIP line in a place of worship. Why must you pay extra to see god quickly? You think: that has to go against some principles of what god will preach. But then you realize you don’t care, and as an International Indian with money, and as an International Indian who really doesn’t care about god at all, you tell your dad to pay for the VIP line, if it means this experience will be over quickly. You enter the VIP line, and it smells. It smells like India. You have tried your whole life not to smell like that, and you hope being around these Indians (local Indians) doesn’t make the smell rub off on you. You think about the nice shower you will take when you get back home (not India). Then the VIP gate opens, and everyone surges forward. You rush. You run. You push. Because everyone else is rushing, running, and pushing. Devotion shouldn’t look like this. Shouldn’t feel like this. Shouldn’t be this frantic, but you sprint because everyone else is sprinting, and for a second, you are the same as local Indians. You are no different from them, sprinting through this temple. But then you realize you are different. You are thinking about why devotion equals disaster in India. Local Indians are not. You are glad you have these thoughts. You are glad that you can separate from the mindset of a “local Indian.”

Then your phone buzzes. A text from your friend back home(Not India).”Omg, an Indian scammer just slid into my DM, and suddenly the pedestal you put yourself on vanishes. You are the type of Indian that the words “Indian Scammer” refer to. Here, in India, standing in your VIP line, you might not be that Indian, but back home (not India), that Indian is you. You are angry and, looking around this temple, you feel sorry. Sorry that the people in this country are reduced to stereotypes before they’re even given a chance. Sorry that they carry the weight of a billion prejudices. Sorry that they are stereotyped by you. By you, who are Indian. By you, who should know better. By you, who are just as complicit as everyone else. You are not any different from them, even if you may want to be. At the end of the day, the DNA that runs in your blood runs in theirs. At the end of the day, the “Indian Scammers” look like your uncles, your cousins, and, to some extent, you. But you’ve tried so hard to distance yourself. Built walls. Adopted accents. So you won’t say anything to your friend, because saying something is to admit that you are that type of Indian. And no matter how sorry you feel, you need to keep your distance.

You live hating India, but wanting to defend it if someone else degrades it. You hate that you can’t eat street-side chow mein or lassi, or samosas without your stomach rebelling. You hate that you judge them. You hate that you feel superior. You hate that you use them as a contrast to make yourself feel elevated. You hate that you walk through temples on the sides of your feet. You hate that you are complicit in your own erasure. You hate that you only care when the stereotypes fall onto you. You hate that you know all this and still do nothing. But you know. You know that you also like it. Because who are you to change the stereotypes that the world has built about India?. You are just one person. What difference can you make? All you can do is save yourself. Label yourself an “international Indian.” Suppress the anger, and keep your distance. You know you are wrong, but what can you do? You know you are wrong, but you can’t and won’t change.