Comment by fareesh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fareesh | Hacker News Reader

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I think it's important to point out that India is very culturally diverse. I have lived in Mumbai for 22 years, and Canada for 8 years. I have said "thank you" to people all my life. I do it consciously and sincerely - cashiers, rickshaw drivers, waiters, friends, peers, everybody. I don't think I've ever offended anybody - at least not that I know of.

With regard to family - neither of my parents' respective families are overtly religious, and neither of them have Hindu or Muslim ancestries. We say thank you to one another all the time. In fact, I can't relate to what the author is saying at all! In the spirit of sharing/learning about new cultures, here's hoping that the 7% of us (7 million people) aren't painted with this broad brush.

I read that article and kept thinking it didn't sound like my family or friends at all. We are Pakistanis & Indians, American born, immigrants, and some back in motherland. Almost everyone I know from Indian/Pakistani culture always says "thank you".

So yes it must be cultural difference in certain part of India, it certainly doesn't represent the most of Indians I know.

Who is this 7 million people?

Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and "Others" - since my cultural background is a combination of some of those, I'm fairly confident that the author's perspective does not reflect my community, and likely some of the other minority communities, of which India has 7 million people.

And even Hindus.

I grew up in North India and I was taught to say thank you to friends and even to family members e.g., say thank you after being offered snacks (what would be called hors d'oeuvres in the west), offered a chapati or additional daal or sabji during meals, etc.

I did not say thank you to bus or cab drivers, but often did say thank you to shopkeepers.

Yes - just to clarify, my intent was to merely hypothesize at the idea that perhaps people ought to proceed with caution whenever some sort of behavior is categorized/stereotyped as "Indian", since in the case of India, even a minority is a very significant number of people.

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