The number of Indians travelling abroad (not all being Indian tourists) has increased from about 4.5 million in 2000 (total departures, not unique travelers) to about 35 million approx, in 2025. If these 35 million were to form a country, 140 countries of the world would be smaller.
Effectively, the equivalent of Australia and New Zealand combined, pack their Pressure Cookers, Theplas and Avakaya pickles, and head to foreign lands every year.
On the other hand, our media, always a bit intrusive, digs up reports of a couple of Indian tourists behaving a bit free spirited – dancing at Tokyo Disneyland for example, or on Vietnam’s famed Train Street – and go bonkers.
Or about a list of ‘dos and don’ts’, specifically for Indian tourists, put up by a hotel in Switzerland. (Indian travelers on the other hand, being practical people, quickly note down new things to experiment with from these articles. Like say, ‘the kettle is only for boiling water, NOT for cooking fish.’)
Or even about a perplexed portly Aunty who could not fathom why the hotel that she was staying in was throwing a fit over her helping herself to the entire contents of the hotel room and shoving them into her suitcase (not the bath tub or ceiling fan though. That needed special tools).
This typical Indian tourist behaviour has seen some righteous indignation being expressed by the ‘old money’ and ‘Intellectual’ Indians. So much so that even the seasoned Mr Vir Sanghvi came up with this gem, “Indians are arrogant, but far from rich. People may tolerate a rich fool. But nobody likes a fool who doesn’t have much money.”
With apologies to all media people, I will merely quote my Uncle, Goldy, ‘Naansense!’.
TRP pressures have yielded a phenomenon where we find one isolated case of a Dimpy Aunty hoisting her darling Guddu onto the water drinking fountain platform to wash his bum, and we go berserk, leaving Dimpy Aunty a bit bewildered. She just cannot fathom what the hullabaloo is all about.
Or of Pammy Uncle (who only due to a minor misunderstanding mind you), wrapped 7 bananas and 11 boiled eggs at the breakfast buffet as emergency rations. (The misunderstanding arose from the simple fact that he had assumed the Rs four Lakhs he had paid for an ‘all inclusive’ trip, was indeed all inclusive.)
All that the media needs to do then is find one of those perpetually aggrieved locals and/or Mr Arnab Goswami, include videos of Dimpy/Pammy, (now looking an exquisite mix of indignation and bewilderment) from four unflattering angles and you jump to the top of the TRP race.
Social Media influencers do the rest by concluding that all 1.5 billion Indians (other than the 400 million influencers), are the same. But let me ask you. Who subjugated us for a couple of centuries? Who stole our recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala and made it their national dish? Do we Indians label all Britishers as counterfeiters and murderers? No! We curse our politicians, squabble with the RWA over parking and carry on. What then is the excitement over pifflings like a phone going ‘gutar gutar’ during a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at Royal Albert Hall for?
On the other hand, when foreigners do the same things, we go gaga, we exhilarate. The Indian Express, 10 June 2026, recently gushed about a video circulating online about a large group of foreigners dancing to the Bengali song ‘Tomar Ghore Bosot Kore’. The article called the event ‘A celebration of music and culture.’ And guess where the dancing happened? No, not at the Rabindranath Tagore Centre at Kolkata. Not even at the Durga Puja Pandal at Kamartuli Park. This took place at, hold your breath, the iconic Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam!
Now substitute the foreigners with 27 Bengali Indian tourist aunties in red and white sarees and gigantic bindis and what would we have? I don’t know about Mr Vir Sanghvi, but I guess most headlines would hyperventilate on the ‘intolerable visitor behaviour at iconic cultural sights’. “Experts” on National TV), such as the bewitchingly moustachioed retired Fauji (the ready availability of these worthies makes me feel that most sleep in the studios) may even spout gravely, eyebrows merging with his hairline, ‘we have lost it.’ The ruling party spokesperson of course would blame the Bangladeshis.
Then there is the factor of numbers. We are simply too many. If say one idiot in a hundred thousand Indians is unable to control his bladder and finds the boundary wall of the Tower of London (which holds the Kohinoor incidentally) an irresistibly inviting loo, it would translate to 350 idiots (35 million divided by 100000 for Math challenged) ready to give full time employment to social media professionals.
I would argue the opposite. Given the numbers, what is surprising is not that a few Indian tourists were snapped washing their underwear in the river Seine, or asking the Guard wearing that funny pompom for headgear at Buckingham Palace the way to the nearest Udipi restaurant, but how few do so. Amazingly few. I would even call this restraint admirable.
An average Indian tourist is obedient, obsequious even, who pays for over priced everything (all the while thinking wistfully about his friendly Kirana guy) and largely limits himself to taking photographs of his wife – either in awkward western dresses, or in sarees, sneakers and that quaint ‘monkey cap’.
I have a plausible theory. My theory is that ridiculing an Indian tourist is just another manifestation of the Thucydides trap that President Xi had warned America about. Now that Indians have started moving around and packing bananas and eggs in handkerchiefs, the established ‘rich fools’ are feeling their monopoly over boorish behaviour challenged by the emerging power. Western powers, I can only surmise, find the sudden blooming of tatte idlis in their midst disconcerting. Hence the backlash.
A day will come however, when the emerging power will get its due. The 35 million travelling abroad annually today equals 96000, or 80 infantry battalions per day. One should therefore not get too excited over a couple of them trying to ride an ostrich or feeding khakras to a rhinoceros. For the 35 million will surely become 70 million and then 150 million in the foreseeable future. What then is an occasional Dimpy Aunty or Pammy Uncle?
I say this, therefore, to the rest of the world – ‘Thoda adjust please. We are like that only.’
Incidentally I advise a group that has few hotels, to keep the breakfast as filling as possible and few items like fresh fruits , sandwiches and some tetra packs to be picked up by room guests! This single act gets you repeated rooms business, however, lifting items from the rooms happens by certain type of people, who assume they are paying tariff per day equivalent to a months rent! I see big group travel as the biggest nonsense, they are loud and troublesome! Chinese tourists are considered as most arrogant, Russians as misers etc , I suppose we have to manage our tags !
I have a plausible theory. My theory is that ridiculing an Indian tourist is just another manifestation of the Thucydides trap that President Xi had warned America about
Do….
Loved it man..dare I say Jai Hind. This was singularly masterful.