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Bye Bye NRI
17 Feb 2008, 0028 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta
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It’s all over for the NRIs, folks; long live the RNIs! If you are not familiar with the latter acronym, better get up to speed, because it could apply to you. It stands for Resident Non-Indians, a term manufactured by the now deposed and embittered NRIs to describe those they say are residents of India only in name, but who don’t show the slightest sign of being Indian — which to nostalgia-stricken NRIs means listening to Mohd Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar of circa 1970 while driving to work on the Beltway; not the Bollywood Rap the RNI types are soaking up while stuck in traffic jams in India.

The tidings about the demise of the NRI cachet and the rise of the RNI legend was brought recently to America, the largest hangout for NRIs, by a crestfallen member of the long-hyped tribe. He had returned from India rather shell-shocked. It’s not just that the dollar had sunk below Rs 40 and touts at Taj Mahal were using greenbacks to blow their kids’ noses, he sniffed; it was the way he was treated at home.

When he sat down for breakfast expecting to be served pohua and idli, he was fed Post’s Banana Nut Crunch. Olive oil had replaced asli ghee in the making of parathas. When they went out to dinner — Tex-Mex, no less — friends whipped out their wallets faster than Clint Eastwood drew his six-shooter in For a Few Dollars More, and didn’t allow him to pay. His Amex card returned to the US unmolested.

There’s just no respect anymore for NRIs, he moaned. What happened to the good old days when nephews and nieces begged him for Levi’s and Nikes, for Chanel No 1 and Poison? Why, as recently as a couple of years ago, snotty little brats were pleading with him for playstations and iPods.

But now all these were available in India, as were the latest laptops and cellphones. Having gone from Non-Returning Indian to a Non-Resident Indian, he had now been demoted to Not Required Indian.

So, here’s the scoop. Apparently, our bharat mahaan is rolling in so much lolly, and such is the attention being lavished on it by the world, that NRIs are being told to take their depreciating dollar and dafa ho jao. Dirhams and euros are still okay, but the dollar is definitely in the doghouse. Heck, even the Taj — the hotel, not the monument — is reportedly telling folks they would rather be paid in pesos.

People, it’s Pox Americana time, and the American NRI is bearing the brunt.

As a long-suffering itinerant who straddles the world of NRIs, RNIs, IRNs etc, i can attest to the hardship the poor NRI is going through with my $0.02 of insight, the equivalent naya paisa being too unaffordable. It’s a terrible chore these days to shop in the US for the family in India. For one, there is hardly anything that is ‘Made in USA’; and what is available is already outdated in India.

The horrible moment of truth laughed me in the face when i handed out a nice T-shirt i had bought for a brat, only to be thanked with "Chee! It’s Made-in-Bangladesh." The sneakers, it turned out, were made in Thailand, and the baseball cap in Vietnam. The nadir came when the gang espied my cellphone, a model that was apparently discarded in India in the 20th century.

So, where does that leave the NRI? Word is that they are pressing for a change in nomenclature. They’d now like to be known as INRs — Indian Non-Residents.