I’ve never been to India, but I’ve met India through its people. Their stories, humor, and warmth have taught me lessons no plane ticket ever could. This post is for my dearest Indian friends, the ones I’ve been lucky enough to meet, and the ones I’ve yet to cross paths with.
Breaking the stereotypes
Before moving to Europe, I didn’t know much about India. My ideas were limited to stereotypes: cows wandering the streets, curry (a smell I once claimed to hate!), and the assumption that “Indian” was the same as “Hindu.” Later, I picked up more “sophisticated” stereotypes: Indians worked endlessly but weren’t very proactive, were hard to communicate with, and were pressured into arranged marriages. To me, India sounded like a difficult place to be born.
But living abroad changes you. One by one, my Indian colleagues challenged those assumptions. Some ate beef. Curry turned out to be delicious (it’s now a regular on my menu). One colleague was a brilliant communicator; another was a comedian who could light up a room. It turned out India was nothing like the version I had imagined.
What I learned about marriage
Anyway, one day, I learned a valuable lesson from one of those Indian colleagues who explained to me firsthand how his own arranged marriage worked. Shocking for me! It was far from my own expectations and biases! This person explained to me that entering an arranged marriage is not as bad as it sounds for “westerners”. First of all, their family takes care of finding someone who is not only socially similar to them but also someone with whom they are more likely to get along, reducing the chances of disagreements on key matters such as finances and family goals. These Indian families are actually having the difficult conversations with the couple before it’s too late, potentially saving them years of misery and bad surprises. There are exceptions, of course, but how many of us, actually free to choose our own partner, do better without any help? Divorce rates can give us a hint 😉
Not only that, Indians face marriage with a lot of common sense and a sense of responsibility rarely found. “When you enter an arranged marriage, you don’t have any expectations. This is a good foundation for love to germinate. We both start our lives together learning to know each other without pretending to change each other, while we both have a clear shared responsibility to make this work. At the end of the day, you end up respecting and loving the person making the journey with you every day,” my Indian colleague explained. I thought he was totally right and admired how many Indians are simply more inclined to work through issues and are more dedicated to each other than us. This is, of course, not to say that everyone was made to marry, but I find it fascinating when someone shows me the other side of the story, when I can transform a negative bias into something powerful that I didn’t consider before. We’re all teachers and learners 🙂
The power of community
The second lesson I want to share comes from one of my younger Indian colleagues at work, who I had the fortune to meet both professionally and personally. One day, she explained to me that her parents are Indian immigrants in the United States, but keep a close relationship with India, their roots, and their community in general. This sounded like a very generic statement to me. At the end of the day, most immigrants try to maintain some connection with their home countries, and I’m no exception. So I asked what this meant specifically, since she had brought it up. As a great scientist, she explained it with numbers. Turns out her parents had many close friends, around 300 to be more precise. I couldn’t believe this. I always go by the “handful of friends” and assumed this is a reality for all of us. I’m starting to question this, and I believe Indians have a lot to teach us when it comes to building a community and having meaningful connections. My colleague explained that her parents achieved this number of friends by being proactive about it, and caring deeply and sincerely about others. For instance, they would go to a Walmart supermarket, and if they heard someone speaking their language, they would immediately approach them to introduce themselves and set up a meetup for later. At some point, when my colleague moved to Europe from the United States, her father personally connected with the owner of one of the local Indian restaurants in town in search of support to accommodate his daughter in the new city. His premise? “They’re Indians like us, why wouldn’t they help?” How much better place would this world be if we all operated by this motto?
My takeaway
All these experiences shared by my Indian friends and colleagues show me that there are better ways of finding purpose and happiness in life. We can start by reducing our expectations of others, of life itself, and of ourselves. And then, we can gradually begin to care more about other human beings who wish, dream, feel, and fear just like us. Having empathy can help us build a community, and a strong community makes us happier. This is something I never learned should be a priority in life, and I believe it is our shared responsibility as humans (not Indians, Westerners, or any other attempt at categorization) to take these lessons to the next level. We need to stop thinking of ourselves as individuals separated from each other and start building together.
P.s. This post was not written with the help of any GenAI tool 🙂 This is my honest, personal writing on a topic that’s becoming more and more important to me: connecting with others to find purpose.
With love ❤️
Random Lessons 