By Ranjona Banerji

Copyright deccanchronicle

Picture the scene. A street in some picturesque European town. People chatting, drinking wine or coffee, eating, shopping, milling around. Suddenly, a long sharp sweet note from a flute rises and falls. Other instruments join in. People look around, and watch as musicians fill the street and the windows above. Strains of Mozart rise to a crescendo, matched by the awe and wonder of the people who realise they are part of a flash mob.This to many is a sign of shared civilisation. Shared beauty and experience, a drop of joy in a mundane world.Here’s another scene. La Tomatina or the tomato festival in Spain where people throw tomatoes at each other in the streets of Bunol. It used to be a free-for-all with no limits on participants. Now it’s a ticketed event limited to 20,000 people. Suddenly, a group of Indians break into a happy Garba dance, weaving through the crowds in streets red with tomato pulp.This impromptu dance is not seen as a sign of joy and an expression of culture by some Indians. It is seen as a brash imposition of an alien culture, too much chilli in this tomato soup. I do not know how the other participants view the dance. But I have heard that foreigners will pay money to be part of a big fat Indian Bollywood wedding.The Internet is flooded with videos and images of Indians “misbehaving”, in India and in other lands. Some of the comments are full of pride and others are full of anger and shame. Both for the same behaviour.Have we become worse in the way we behave, both within and outside India? Are we more entitled, less aware of those around us, less considerate, more brash?Or are we falling prey to a reverse racism, where we are so desperate for Western or white acceptance that we are unable to celebrate our own joy?I cannot lie. The loud, obnoxious, entitled behaviour of some Indians, in India and elsewhere, can be unbearable. The most annoying to me is the totally inexplicable and dangerous need to jump out of your seat before a plane lands, just to get your cases out of the holds. You ignore the crew begging you to sit down. You ignore warnings that it is dangerous. You are lost in some world where if you do not stand up now, you may never leave the plane. Never mind the danger you place yourself and others in. After this mad rush, you jam yourselves into a queue in the aisle of the plane for 10 minutes, while it lands, taxis, docks, doors open and so on.Several explanations exist for this behaviour. And some justifications. There is possibly a mass fear that if you do not jump up and stand in a line with your bags in hand before the plane lands, you may never get off. It is also possible that everyone one of those 200 people has an emergency that requires they get out of the plane immediately. Some look at criticism of this behaviour as a class thing – that people who once travelled by train, now travel by air and if you don’t like how they behave you are a classist git and twit.However, it is also true that the people who behave like this are of all social classes.So, is it entitlement of a new India? This reasoning began when talented cricketers emerged out of small-town India and it seemed to some city folk that they were far too boisterous in their celebrations because small town folk are like that. Other said that it was classist to think like that, because the rules of small-town India were now the rules of India itself. A certain amount of political misbehaviour also uses this excuse.Yet, how real is this reasoning? It is, for the most part, the middle classes of India that behave with the most entitlement. Whether it’s with how they drive or show off or ignore and flout local customs whether in India or abroad. Perhaps I should separate loud noises from all arguments because being noisy appears to be a trait that is integral to our psyche. We have to scream top volume whenever we can and very often when we should not.Indian tourists are increasingly unwelcome in different places, because of the lack of respect for others. Goa and Uttarakhand are fed up with tourist behaviour, even if they need the money from tourism. Thailand is similarly wary of large groups of Indians and this makes life difficult for Indians who try to follow local rules and customs. Much of the internal anger comes from law-abiding Indians, which is a small but vocal category.However, I am torn between all the arguments, for and against. I do not for instance agree that poor and small-town Indians behave badly as a matter of course, because they do not understand Western societal standards. I do not agree that poor and small-town Indians behave badly at all. The worst behaviour comes from the middle classes, from people with new money and from some sort of natural exuberance at being able to do all these things denied to them before.The worst vulgarity happens when the rich celebrate – massive weddings, massive fireworks displays at Diwali and so on. The relentless Bollywoodisation of Indian popular culture …