Indians and Thank-yous
A viewpoint take on the ever-presenting problem of Indians and Thank-yous.
“I love your sweater, Mr. X”
“Why thank you, Mrs. Y . Yours is lovely too”
“I love your sweater Mr. X”
“Yeah, quite expensive this one, cost me ……, bought it from Kashmir……”
I don’t know what are the names of these gentlemen, but I can assure you the second one is from India, not through the Kashmir reference but through the lack of thank you in his comment. You would know this too, if you are an Indian, that Indians in all their sweet oriental loveliness and graciousness always do forget to say “Thank You”. I had seldom seen an Indian saying “Thank you” in his own place, mind you I am talking about those “Desi” Indians of 80's and 90’s not about these kids of today who change their nationality with every Netflix series they watch.
One would, and I too went through that stage, of thinking that it is because they have an elevated sense of importance, a kind of arrogance, impoliteness, shyness, but no these aren’t the reasons, as per how I view it. After all, these are Indians, when do Indians have such arrogance and such shyness, they are frank and lovely and innocent, to begin with. So what does this peculiar habit ascribe to, what does this point to.
I will give my reason for this habit, that maybe wrong or inaccurate, but I think this is because of the motto of the Indian Heritage, a great sentence in the Maha Upanishads- “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” which means the world is one family. Indians take pride in this saying and most of them follow this saying without even trying to or consciously knowing it, they consider everyone to help them by default, they consider everyone their family and this is the reason they don’t say Thank You’s. As they say “there is no sorry and thank you between family and friends”. Indians hold on to this principle a bit tighter than others.
But still, there is a question lurking around i.e. why do they start saying thank-yous when they visit places or they are new at places. Now some things should remain mysteries.
Any other theories? Post them in response. Thank You :-)
