My friend who has just landed in the US wanted to get his first taste of America at a strip club on the first weekend there. However his veteran roommates there advised him against it.”Go on a weekday”, they told him “There is no entry fee”.
Back when I was in Sydney, a guy friend, V, wanted to rush to the nearest medical center to get the free vacinnation for cervical cancer.”It is free,” he said “so lets get it”. The poor guy was disapointed to learn that it was some government program exclusively for Australian citizens. And then, only as an after thought, he asked me where cervical cancer attacks.
Welcome to the world of Desinomics.
A world where a dollar saved is 50 rupees earned.( or Rs.45 or less on a bad day). Of course the rule is universally applicable. works the same for Euro, Pound, anything. A world where a suitcase packed with Maggi Noodles can see you through hunger pangs for three months. A world where swallowing saliva till you reach home rather than buying a bottle of water saves as much as a pack of Tropicana Juice back in India.A world where friendship ( actually fellow countrymanship ) means sharing…just about everything.
Of course, I am no stranger to that world. I shared a two bedroom apartment in Sydney with five others. A sixth person sometimes joined for a couple of weeks. Every person , of course meant dollars saved, and with lightning fast divisions and conversion calculations, it all translated into more rupees in the bank back in India. So I grit my teeth and put up with fear factor level bunk beds and 5.30 am bathroom schedules in winter. There were several moments I remembered Oliver Twist at dinnertime.
Sitting back here in India now, I am both amused and ashamed thinking about that dollar saving spree, but earning in foreign currency the first time, the exchange rates seemed more important than stretcing my limbs luxuoriously in the morning. The next time though I was a little less Scroogey. I realised that all those dollars-converted into rupees were just not worth putting myself through such wartime living conditions. Of course, I did carry a load of Maggi Noodles and ginger garlic paste. But I also had an actual bed to sleep on and a bathroom that I could visit any time I wanted. At the end of the day, that was the only thing that actually mattered.
K,a friend came back from a haircut looking like he had enlisted in the army. Of course he went for the haircut only after people began wondering if he was trying out a 70s hippie look. But when he did go, he came back proud with the fact that he had gotten value for each cent spent and that he would not need to spend 15 dollars for atleast another six months. Not to mention the dollops of shampoo that he would be saving on. My roommate and I were no different. We tried our hands with each other’s eyebrows to save 10 dollars each. We ended up with mismatched caterpillars over our eyes.
A more enterprising colleague on a short term visit brought dozens of bars of Mysore sandal soap to do business with a local Indian store there. He probably made a easy quick buck, no taxes, no duties and no guilty conscience either. It was not a hawala scam anyway, just a few bars of soap.
Yet another one made additional trips through the train station just to collect extra freebies that the Indian students working parttime were handing out. He came to work often with cans of soft drinks or packets of breakfast cereal samples. They saw him through the day and saved God knows how many dollars.
There is this constant comment on the rediff message boards, in good humor though, a guy asking advice about how many kilos of rice and medimix soap he would be allowed to carry to the US and whether he could work at a gas station by night while working as a software professional by day. A true reflection on the mindset of Indians travelling abroad.
But then, maybe, if the Americans had taken a tip or two from us Indians, the world would not be reeling under this Great Recission of 09. Is it time to nominate the entire community of Indians travelling abroad for the next Nobel Prize in Economics?
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