Get poor quick!
Over the weekend I was again chatted up by excessively-friendly brown people at suburban malls. Once was in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and the the other at a mall in Cambridge, MA, both pretty white towns. These desis weren’t aunties needing help with an escalator; they weren’t asking for directions; they weren’t engaging in genuine, friendly conversation, like running into a brown person at a café bored with his laptop and taking a break. Instead, they were chatting up and sizing up.
Once my bullshit detector trips, I try and zero in on exactly what they want. One was a bodyshopping headhunter, the other was multilevel marketing for skin care and energy drinks. It makes sense given the prevalence of Amway among desis. Their game is to hang out at malls and zero in on lonely brown people.
The funny thing is, I’ve become much less tolerant of ambiguous social chatter after spending a year in Bombay. In a city with few minorities, you might take note of a fellow desi; in a teeming city like Bombay, the connection needs to be far more specific. Yes. I’m saying it. Desis in America are brown-goggling like it’s five minutes before last call. And it leaves them vulnerable to getting ripped off by white-collar pimps.
on Monday, February 25th, 2008, 7:49 pm in Musings › 
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not to get off topic, are you live-blogging the debate tonight?
It hurts when I laugh.
After being accosted a dozen times in the NY/NJ/MD/DC/CA malls by Brown people selling Amway-like
products, I can identify. What’s the deal with FOBs and Amway?
It’s always been a FOB asking me if I want extra an income.
Man, we used to have a list of “Pathetic Amway pickup lines” …. !!!! they were hillarious.
Exactly. I am far more discriminating (being an FOB) when “trusting” others, mainly other desis, just because of all the bad “Amway” taste in my mouth. In India you would never even smile at a stranger, let alone chat with him.
Amazing. I might well be the last desi left who hasn’t ever been solicited by Amway types - or any other pyramid schemes either. I’ve only ever heard of it on blogs and chat groups - mostly 1st gen - never in real life. It seems like I’m missing an important part of the desi experience. Like, my own experience might be inauthentic or something!
I’ve been accosted half-dozen times at malls, bookstores, almost every public place. The first question out of their mouth is: “Are you Indian?”. Saying yes invites a sale pitch, ending with your phone number. It reached the point that I tell them I’m from Mexico, and, if they still insist, give them the wrong phone number: usually a phone sex line. They usually get the hint after that.
Chachaji: get brown fast. Go to CambridgeSide Galleria.
Niraj: Why do you have a phone sex line at hand? So to speak.
“No, I am from Pakistan” .. also works. (There are very few Pakistani brothers peddling Amway).
introduce yourself as ali/aisha ponzi, then launch into a “benefits of global currency arbitrage” speech. then chase them through the mall with promises of obscene returns
I have my reasons. :-)
Pretty common in the DC area, especially the IKEA in Woodbridge VA — watch out! Twice I’ve been approached by a friendly desi guy (with wife and baby in two) and the standard opening line was: “Don’t I know you from somewhere? I think we’ve met before… blah blah.” You know they’re doing the multilevel marketing game when they won’t reveal what “online business” they are in exactly. ;-)
km,
I have also met such people at Ikea in Philadelphia, NJ and Long Island. Although I have also met them on the Path Train Station at exchange place.
RC:
I don’t think that’s the case in most Indian cities. People are quick to strike a conversation, be it in a bus, a train or at a line at the railway ticket counter.
Infact some total strangers will ask you questions that would be deemed ‘private’ in US context. They’ll ask about what you study, what you plan to do after your studies, what company does your father work for, why are you buying a ticket to go to Delhi, do you have a girl friend etc etc. At the same time, they’ll be willing to discuss anything and everything with a total stranger.
Of course all this is more common when strangers are put together in a confined area (bus, train, a ticket line etc) and not roaming about in the streets.
Yup. I’ve had that happen to me a couple times: once at the Raleys and then just a couple months ago at Borders Books. The first was some sort of banking scheme, and the next was an “online marketing business.” They are so transparent…no other desi ever comes up and talks to me! The lady at Borders raved about my purse as her wedge into my space.
it doesn’t happen nearly enough to me. am i not sending the right i-might-be-interested-in-pyramid-schemes signals??
Do you look brown? Maybe this is a racial-passing test :)
What is most embarassing is when someone you do know becomes a Amway cultie, and they already have your phone number. Ay! Caramba!