"Must be an Indian"

An emptied beer bottle lying on a footpath; an empty shopping cart left carelessly in the middle of the road instead of one of the designated return locations; a honk from one of the cars.

Let's say you chance upon one of such things when you are with your countrymen, there is always an annoyed, "Who the fuck did this?" followed by a blurt, "Must be an Indian."

I can't even smirk anymore at such truisms that people dish out.
***

Of the very few conversations that I get to engage in, most are with one of my roommates. Invariably the chat gets into how "India does not have a future". The roommate always has the same simple point: "The problem is population. The solution is a major catastrophe in which a huge section of the population gets vanished." Initially, I told him once or twice - "If that happens, probably you and I are the first ones to die." But very soon I realised he was dead serious about his solution: "I don't mind dying if that improves the country."