What’s in a name anyway?

Apparently, there is a need for a new acronym – NGI: the New Global Indian. Perhaps the NRI (Non Resident Indian) label has worn off, after almost two decades of well-advertised clichés of the yuppy Indian coming “home” to show off the latest gadgets and titles, and recently manicured foreign accent. But let me be honest here; our team inherited this title, we did not invent it. In fact, much of this title is perplexing. Is there an “old” global Indian that we can speak of? And when we say “global,” are we talking about people who have an outlook that has been shaped from years of arm-chair reading of international affairs or maybe something as simple as someone who is turned on by sushi as much as idli-dosa? There are of course other less economical and more elite ways of earning this title, having lived in different parts of the world, coming back regularly with their potpourri of anecdotes on British bar talk to the New York subway life. In fact, this title is much like the “expat” title, where although there are several Indians who travel and live abroad, we distinguish the “immigrant” from the “expat” by sheer class and education. So evidently, the New Global Indian is not the Kerala housemaid who has moved to Dubai to support her family but the doctor who has set up his pediatric office in Menlo Park, California, with his kids skyping regularly with their dada and dadi in Gurgaon.

So granted, we’ve talking of a certain class of people and although the liberal guilt should kick in when addressing this niche populace, we should, for all realistic purposes, be accustomed to it. After all, it’s a national hobby to segment ones demographic. There are many ways of slicing the pie, from Khushwant Singh jokes, Bollywood vs Tollywood people, Banglorians vs Mumbaities to the Infosys gang versus the rest of the world. So why not actually have a blog that addresses those Indians who have traveled and/or lived/worked abroad, who continue to be tied to India and, for all purposes, do not qualify to be within the current plethora of clichés. And in this vein, why not leverage on our common cultural capital of what being Indian is supposed to be like and then, through our multiple and often contesting experiences, make you slightly uncomfortable with such notions. This weekly blog hopes to serve this need.