The TRUTH about Indians as told by a foreigner

I didn't come to Mumbai to live amongst a bunch of foreigners you know I came to Mumbai to live with Indians this is Glenn a globally award winning theater director from Australia he moved to India 9 years ago and now resides in Mumbai we took a walk across his non-touristic neighborhood and he shared with me why it's extremely safe for foreigners how to inspire a beggar boy to love theater and why Indians are the most successful immigrants in the US I'm Marx an entrepreneur and YouTuber let's go so this is my strip so this area you've been living for how long uh one year there are not many foreigners Foreigner faces here it's very local no I've in my last year here I've probably seen three and I've always said to them you lost you know why are you here it's not a tourist destination but in a way I well in one aspect I wish it was because this is real Mumbai what's the chance I get my camera stolen like that just walking the streets like someone just grab it and run away Street crime is very rare here very very rare I mean I even had an occasion where um my first time ever in India and we had a brand new camera and we left it in the Rickshaw and went into the theater um and then we remembered we came out and the RoR driver had been waiting for 2 hours for us oh my God to give us back our camera you know wow um that's so s it's pretty much um common knowledge that street crime is very rare here I mean if you're sitting in a really public Cafe and you leave your camera right on the edge near the street of course someone may take it like anywhere in the world but um is seen as something incredibly bad here yeah um thank goodness it's not a place where people walk around say good morning good morning but I I maintain that it's one of my little know I'm going to I'm not going to let go of that I mean I I really enjoy communicating with people so I tend to say good morning to everyone who I recognize in fact this Watchman now says good morning to me usually first oh okay before I say good morning to him yeah this guy but it took me like a good three months to get him to say good morning back again it's understandable it's a city of 27 million people you can't say good morning to everyone good morning good good uhet Superstar my friend from Singapore it's such a strong mix here of um Hindu and Muslim and Catholics and everything else in between and so no one is really that fussed who you are um there's some areas that I've lived in where I've literally had people from other apartments knocking on my door and saying who are you are you a Christian I had one landlord because I was a foreigner accusing me of um being a drug dealer and wanted to look in my wardrobe but here I mean there's just such a you know it's such a multicultural City but this is one of the epicenter of multiculturalism you know you've got everything in this little area and that's what I love it's it's um it's eclectic you can have there's a chai Waller that will do it you know with more common and there's a there's another child W that will do it with more you know sugar and that's because they're from different areas of the country and they they make chai differently so you know it's it's very very mixed here which is one of the main things I love again in in some areas I could be walking down the street and total strangers will come up and say selfie selfie M you know because they want to take a photo with a foreigner I'm not a very good tourist I don't like I I like I like the fact that I'm one person amongst 27 million people and I can sort of disappear in that and places like vova once people get used to the fact that there's a white person living in the area um you know it's just yeah it's just Glenn he buys our Goods he eats at our restaurant he buys my chai and it's just like anybody else I mean of course there's the fascination of learning about other cultures and they ask me as many questions as I ask them it's a very friendly area it's fantastic and I mean I mean even here with these two seats uh the other day I was waiting for some takeaway and um the guy sitting there said Hi how are you and I went hi I ended up talking for like 20 minutes you know about um everything you know and he said I'm here all the time come and say hello and that's what I love is that now I know you know that there's somebody another person to communicate with my name is sanj hi sanj how are you so Dali is coming up so there's a lot more beggers on the street oh a lot more this young boy 17 or 18 was trying to sell me postcards and I'd been here a couple of years and I don't want postcards I don't want he kept saying buy my postcard buy my postcard buy my postcard no no no no no and then he said buy my banana I said beg you pardon he said bu my buy my banana and I said do you have a condom on you and he went no I said right sit down and I rolled him a cigarette said you do not go up to middle-aged white men offering your banana and you don't have a condom on you I said no way you got to think of your health and blah blah blah blah he's like yes sir yes sir yes sir yes sir I said have you ever been to the theater and he said no no what you natak drama and um he said no no no no no I said okay I'm going to put two tickets at the door cuz I've got a show opening tomorrow night I think it was was and you can come do not be late bring a friend and come and watch the theater and it was a 1960s polish play about totalitarianism oh absurdest okay I thought it'll be really interesting to see what this guy thinks and he came and he arrived and I sat up the back and held his in his friends hand cuz they were quite nervous at being there and I let them take photos to it all you know blah blah blah and afterwards I said what did you think and he said it's changed my life wow it was probably one of the best pieces of audience feedback I'd ever received in my life that this young guy who was prepared to sell himself let alone just postcards was then sitting in a theater watching a 1960s polish play about totalitarianism and his comment being it changed my life and I kept in touch with him and I would meet up with him for coffee every year and it's only been the last couple of years I've lost touch but he's moved back to his um home Village he now sells jeans and he's married with a baby and all that kind of stuff and it's um I mean not that my meeting with him changed his life completely but I'm really happy that I witnessed that little journey of his and I felt quite um as a foreigner I felt quite good about saying to him respect your health you know and don't just sell your banana cuz there are plenty of middle-aged white men who would come here with a lot of money who would abuse that you know so it's not about it's not just about the locals fault it's about well this is what the West does as well you know it uses abuses this kind of situation so be careful I mean Australians were horrendous in Bley you know the way they just used Indonesia and B particular as as a place to get drunk to get stoned and to have a lot of sex you know with with people that they could buy you know and you're moving into a community that needs the money yeah you know so there's a LoveHate relationship with the Foreigner there of you know we love you because of of your money we hate you because of what you're doing to our community or or to my son or to my daughter or you know whatever and um it's it's um it's horrendous to see that absolutely horrendous so this is one of the sort of major fishing villages do you buy fish there yeah we do my partner's been making a documentary about uh post 377 being turned over like the the de decriminalization of gay sex and they've been asking a lot of people from different various um levels of society what they think about homosexuality and what found is that um the people that are living in villages like this and who are selling the fish on the street had less problem than the more educated oh why and it was uh their thing was well if you're happy you're happy what right do they have to deny someone's happiness and most of the Prejudice you know certainly against lgbtq plus is um is British born or Western born I mean before the West came here there they you know it was just well it's fine generally I mean even historically if you go like thousands of years back yeah India I think India was like pretty open like and they weren't calling it gay or straight they were just calling it another you know that there's there's another way to to to live so it was the West that brought all the Prejudice in I mean 377 was a a British sanctioned um section in in the law it's quite interesting in this Village there's a lot of um Young s and artists cuz it's quite affordable in here I'm kind of curious like what's the percentage of like successful cases like people come to Mumbai for film industry and then actually make it uh it would very very very low like everywhere you know thousands I mean the difference being here is that you can get off a bus and say I'm an actor um cuz it's so unregulated whereas somewhere in Australia I mean it's very very difficult to even get an agent if you're not trained but yeah the percentage of people who whatever making it means that make it is very very low I mean my idea of making it is being a working artist not necessarily a star you know and it's certainly something I I try to tell my students you know aim to be a working artist you've probably got more of a chance if you're aiming to be a star you have very very limited opportunity to become famous Fame is a byproduct I've read that indans the the most successful immigrants in the US the most the most educated because like all the te jobs a lot of like this tech companies they have like Google management a lot of Indians and Google management oh look I mean from my experience Indian people are a sponge for knowledge they're really good Learners very clever very clever people and I think it's partly cuz I mean the language thing of having so many languages and language is quite mathematical you know so it's um they grow up knowing and I guess also like casting culture like hardworking yeah they they want to make it life yep yeah well you don't work you don't eat some people reacted quite a bit in the comments yeah when you mentioned about like uh Black Market how you said the economy would not survive without the black market that's some people say oh it's like a bit of exaggeration it depends how people are living I suppose I mean if you if you were living in areas like this then you access things like black market Services quite a lot you know if you're living in an area where you know you can call Nature's Basket you know the most expensive supermarket and just get everything delivered then you're probably not tapping into it so look I mean yes the black market exists and you know eight out of 10 Indians will say yes it does but I think what those people um misunderstood was they they were thinking I was calling this the black market and this is not the black market this is very legitimate these people pay their taxes like all of us do you know this is um our fruit and veg how fresh are them very fresh well it depends on what day some days there's the crap you know and they've got a delivery coming uh but um it's generally pretty fresh I mean it's interesting because in in Western supermarkets you know there's fruit and veggies so treated that everything looks perfect you know here you're going to buy a potato with a bit of a black spot you know or a carrot that's a bit weird looking gosh Mumbai is one of the most wellfed places I've ever been in there is food everywhere food absolutely everywhere there's a bakery around the corner if I want a chicken pie but it always seems silly to spend too much money on eating out when you can eat in like Street stores etc for very very inex expensive and the food's fantastic have you ever had a food poisoning the only time I've had food poisoning was I had Subway I Hade a Subway sandwich and I got really sick okay apart from that I've never been unwell from food and I eat everything you know I mean I eat everything from the streets what's that H sugar cane sugar cane uh dough sugar cane um better it's funny though there's some areas where you can't find a sugarcan w and then there's other areas like this where there's two or three sugar canes like high energy drink it's naturum sugars it's it's wonderful and for a thirst quencher if you're really thirsty have a sugar cane waterwise it's safe like ice and water it's um yeah yeah my first three years I'd have no ice but now Cheers Cheers it's very good you when you first come to India to Mumbai was it like shocking for you like so so many people in the streets like so many cars and stuff I certainly noticed it but it never I never felt scared or worried I wouldn't say I was ever shocked I think because I'm a little bit older I was quite able to you know recognize okay this isn't Australia this isn't my home this isn't anything I know um and to accept it it was an adventure that's for sure I mean even going out and buying eggs oh my God where do I get eggs from the learning process was huge of just daily things that we take for granted but that was you know part of the reason why I wanted to be here I wanted to be I wanted to be out of my comfort zone I wanted to um be reminded that it's quite a big world and Australia isn't the only way that people are living so it's done its job that's for sure oh you are so sweet thanks for watching the next video yeah right here this one thank you again and see you there

Channel: Max Chernov

Views: 774,326

Keywords: max chernov, india foreigners, india foreigners reaction, india foreigners vlog, india life, india life vlog, indian lifestyle, india travel, india travel guide, foreigners in india, foreigners in indian food, mumbai vlog, mumbai food, mumbai, things to do in mumbai, foreigners in mumbai, expat life in india, india vlog, foreigner in india, is india safe, foreigner, expat life, living abroad, australian in india, india travel vlog, mumbai india, mumbai street food

Id: hVCaUomYOzI

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2024