When the internet speaks about differences between the west and the east, the conversation devolves into Individualism vs Collectivism. I want to step aside from that and talk about us urban Indians vs the west.
We watch western shows, think western thoughts, and live western lives in little pockets of the first world that we have created in our country [1]. So, when we think of west vs east, we don’t consider ourselves in the east, not entirely. Most of our thoughts lean west [2]. Yet, notice the language of those who move.
Their sentences reveal more agency. Where they would have said “we redecorated and spent a lot of money on it”, they now say “we invested a lot of time and money in this place”. Their qualifiers fall away. Their questions become direct. Their blog titles no longer begin with “Musings” or “Ramblings”. Their writing moves from self-conscious to assured.
Yes, there is a status shift. It could be brought on by a combination of factors. A better job, a prestigious institution, an illuminated social circle, a sense of achievement. But the change in the way one speaks, and writes, these windows to one’s mind - this change reveals something else entirely. Some idea of the self expands. Perhaps all status change brings about an expansion of the self. Moving to the west is but one such elevator. There are so many that one could get on.
People who had their status elevated at home do not absorb a different way of speaking (predominantly - though we all know one or two who are afflicted by grandiosity) - they may have other ways of revealing their new position (consciously/verbally or otherwise), but their use of language remains consistent.
When you move, you absorb a new culture. You absorb a new way of speaking. We cannot say it is solely western language that changes you. All we can claim is that your language is changed and through that lens, evaluate what else has changed in your mind. First there is the directness. In India, hedging when talking to someone is politeness. Everywhere, it is an act of lowering one’s status. The western language is unhedged. Is the direct language of the west seeping into one’s sense of self, bringing about a directness in everything one does [3]?
I am not referring to the code-switching one does. I am referring to a substantial change in one’s world view and one’s view of the self. It’s not something in the water in the west, because it persists if you move back. My suspicion is that it is culture that changes you - expands your sense of self. That understanding percolates into language. And you retain that. It is fascinating that even in the hyperconnected digital age where so much of culture is online, where you live seems to matter so much in your perception of self.
Is there a corollary happening in India? If self-assurance is a result of assimilation into a place where everyone simply takes up more space, is there a depreciation of the self in a place like India that one has to be aware of? To pull that thread further, is there a self-shrinking, that one needs to work against?
You are changed when you go there, from having been there, without having to think about it. You matter more. Peak environmental design. Wouldn’t it be nice if we mattered more right here, without having to move, and more deliciously, without having to think about it?
[1] - My own residential society is a first-world colony in a third-world nation. The reason I live here is so that I can walk my dog at night without fear. I can wear shorts without receiving stares. There are no broken footpaths, there is no traffic noise. There are noises and conditions I yet can’t escape (I am cocooned in drilling noise as I write), but it is a different nation from outside the gate, where the decibel levels hardly fall below 70 dB, where you’ll trip on the footpath if you are not careful. Neither human nor thought can wander on that path, it is packed with people ant-lining their way to-and-from jobs, construction workers buying bananas for lunch, delivery drivers hijacking footpaths. It is a tightrope of existence for the uninitiated. Residential societies are just one example of this type of pocket.
[2] - even the dissenters who consider themselves east-leaning will concede that they needed some unlearning to get there.
[3] - i.e., is it just language that affects their self-perception?