Mappillai by Carlo Pizzati

Author:Carlo Pizzati
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster India
Published: 2018-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Speaking to my mother-in-law, I was told of an important shift emerging within this community. While until 20 years ago diplomats, executives and managers sent to India from Europe, Asia, Australia or the US felt a duty to participate actively with donations and time devoted to associations of volunteers, religious or secular, the new generations of expats seem much more immune from temptation towards charitable activities.

It is as if these Westerners, Koreans or Japanese nouveau riche (hey, better nouveau riche that not riche at all, as Imelda Marcos once famously said) have already migrated here with a human aridity caused by having to survive their own economic crisis—so much so that they don’t feel a duty to collectively succour ‘the poor Indians.’

They ask themselves this: if India has the funds to send 104 satellites into space and enough money to invest in atomic weapons or to send a couple of supersonic BrahMos Cruise missiles at Mach 3 speed for 400 km in the sky, why should foreigners be burdened with the cost of helping the Indian downtrodden?

Previously, when expats often hailed from decadent noble or old-money families, there was maybe a sense of guilt or moral duty, corroborated at times by a socialist equalizing dictum or a Christian calling.

These new expats, children of the Third Way, a mixture of free market liberalism and a limited welfare state, are more often than not survivors themselves; self-made people arriving from a more modernized West with maybe less nepotism and familism. (I underline that ‘maybe’ twice.)

As the popular Roman saying goes: ‘Talk to the impoverished rich man, but keep away from the rich who was poor.’

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