It is common in India to see paan residue being spit all over the place or people throwing out their garbage in the open. Of course – one cannot do such things in the US, at least not in places where there are enough American around. But leave us alone in the secure company of other Indians and our civic sense takes a free fall. When everyone around us is a desi then why bother with niceties like keeping the area clean. Glaring and blaring example is Devon Avenue in Chicago.
Here are some more examples of how we lack even the basic civic courtesies. I rent DVDs from Netflix – but invariably, DVDs of Hindi movies even new ones are dirty or scratched; sometimes on the verge of being unplayable. Why? Because when we get them we probably think that it is just a rental DVD and do not take good care of it.
When I rent a tape of Hindi movie from the local grocery store, tapes are never ever rewound. They are always at the end of the movie.
You might say that these are small things and I am nit picking – but these small things show our national character which simply speaking is just pathetic.