Indian food at Cafeteria

This week we had Indian food available at our Company Cafeteria. I grabbed my lunch and asked the Manager how the Indian food was selling. He told me, that more Americans and lesser number of Indians these days are buying Indian food, and asked me what could be the reason behind that. I replied, "as most Indians are already used to this taste from back home, they lined up in droves initially out of curiosity. There was also this added feeling to fill themselves with their familiar food cooked inside their Company. Like most things in life, after the initial craving is gone, the novelty factor slowly wears off. This is exactly the case here". Seemed satisfied with my response, he smiled and walked away. But what I didn't tell him, is the other reason behind the waning trend. Unlike Americans, we NRIs are not big Spenders (The usual disclaimers apply), rather big Savers. The Indian dishes cost at least a couple of dollars more, which hugely impedes the DESIs (as Indo-Americans are often referred here), known to keep track of every penny spent from their pocket. If the price goes down a bit or someone else foots the bill, our folks can be champion eaters, immediately making a a beeline (same goes with liquor too). At the same time, we NRIs are poor tippers at restaurants, compared to the Americans who liberally open their purse with hefty tips. Americans love spending money, nearly 2/3rd of their gargantuan 16 trillion dollar economy is based on consumer spending. But the contribution of NRIs towards it via spending is minimal, especially those from my generation. Most of us grew up in middle class, in an environment where saving, not spending is important. Old habits, die hard. The mindset retained from childhood refuses to fade away. Indira Gandhi is a classic example how childhood psychology stays late into life. Her mother died young. Her father was mostly away busy in freedom movement, spending long stints in jail. She had a lone, insecure childhood. As a student she went in and out of Santiniketan, a Swiss school, Oxford and so on, insecure as ever. As a lonely teenager hungry for company, she readily fell in love with Feroz Gandhi who gave her attention and later married him. But like many crush based marriages, her marriage crashed. Perennially looking for that elusive emotional security, she got separated from her husband and moved into her father's den. Later she became the Prime Minister, yet her sense of insecurity was apparent, from the way she handled herself. She ruthlessly consolidated her power inside the Congress Party eliminating her rivals. When Allahabad High Court declared her election null and void she imposed Emergency and put the entire opposition behind bars. She would never allow someone from her party to complete a 5 year tenure as CM of a state, lest that person becomes a threat to her. These actions represent a classic insecure mindset, her stigma of childhood days forever stuck to her. I'm sure the world would have seen many such examples. Childhood psychology never dies with adulthood, carries itself till death. So also the spending habits.