Segmentation, anyone?

He sits next to me, on an economy seat in an overcrowded and delayed Air India flight. Of course, I am the only person among the Indian students on exchange to have booked AI, tempted as I was by the non-stop Paris - Bombay direct, non-existent luggage limits and the Indian food. He is dressed in a leather jacket; more of the style older men would wear. I guess he is Punjabi and around 15 years of age, which he confirms later.

We start chatting within the next five minutes, mainly because he wants the window seat. He keeps looking around, in a very pointed way. I wonder with amusement if he is searching for a glimpse of the air hostesses. Will be quite an irony that, considering we are departing from Paris, the land of hot babes and he is waiting for the bulky, surly AI hostess. But as soon as the drinks were served, he gulps it down in one shot...making me realize that he is actually so hungry and thirsty.

Didi, are you also going to India after a long time, he asks in Hindi with such a strong Punjabi accent that I don't get it the first time. Yeah, my parents are in Bombay, I tell him. He is all intrigued and wants to know which film stars have I met. I tell him a few celebs I have barely seen and he is all excited. He has watched all the latest movies, Singh is King is more his type of movie….he tells me he doesn’t like Dostana too much. He asks me about my favorite Bollywood stars and I mumble names like Tabu…he has no idea. John Abraham is his absolute favorite, he says with finality. Sab lakiyaan uspe marti hai, muje bhi waise body build karna hai, he says with visible envy. He likes Katrina Kaif very much, he whispers after ensuring his mom isn’t listening.

He tells me he lives in Berlin where his family runs a pizza place. They migrated a few years back to Germany and now they are close to getting a citizenship. He points out his parents and younger sister, sitting in the nearby seats. His mom eyes me with concern but visibly relaxes when I say Namaste. They visit India in January every year, it seems. His father used to work at a restaurant in Chandigarh. When his uncle who settled in Berlin wanted a helping hand with his pizza place, he called him. The family, spotting an opportunity immediately moved. He goes to a school there and helps out with the restaurant work in his spare time. Our place is pretty affordable, he tells me. He rattles the dishes and their prices. Pizza for only five euros, nowhere else will you get that, he declares with confidence. He talks about his clientele of Pakistani and Indian cab drivers. I tease him a little about sounding like a junior businessman himself and he shyly smiles and stops.

He wants to know all about Mumbai and Paris. What are the cool places to visit, where to eat, what to buy…he wants to know everything. I ask him in surprise if he hasn’t seen Paris. They came on a connecting flight and have been in the airport since morning. The food in the airport is so expensive, they didn’t actually have anything since the morning flight, he confides. But India is going to be good, he grins. For the next one month, they will live in relatives’ places in Punjab, have hot parathas lovingly served for every meal by fawning relatives hoping they will get invited to Germany when this family expands its business. They will roam around all day and watch movies, he says. His cousins will love to hang out with him…they adore him, he says incredulously.

And it is very different in Berlin, I sense. He gets teased for his skin colour, doesn't have many friends since he can’t follow English or German too well. He scrapes through in school, all because he doesn’t understand a word of what the teacher says, he complains. He wants to drop out soon, but his father insists he complete schooling. He was thinking of streaking his hair blue but his mom wouldn’t agree. Didi, have you had alcohol, he wants to know. Will you get me a glass, I want to taste scotch, he says shrewdly. I wonder if it is teenage curiosity or simply wanting to show off to his younger cousins that he is cool.

I guess he belongs to a class of immigrants Jhumpa Lahiri or Pico Iyer will not write about. They have no fancy PhDs in Ivy League universities; his folks have moved to make a living, plain and simple. They are the people who search for foreign bridegrooms for their daughters so their son can tag along…the ones who pay ridiculous amounts and get cheated on visas. And I observe the details I missed earlier…how everything he is wearing is brand new, his mother is wearing her best saree, his younger sister dolled up in a pink Barbie frock…clearly, they are flaunting all they have. Maybe it is necessary when you have left all your family and friends behind and moved to a foreign land with freezing cold and a crazy language to eke a living. And this one month of January is when they truly live, not survive like they do in Berlin. Actually live, when they will be treated like royalty from across the seas, taken good care of and will sleep in the best beds.

And coming to the point of this post, I was watching Dil Bole Hadippa today. And figured, it is for people like him that Yash Raj makes his movies. The ones which ridiculously praise Punjab and Punjabis, where the heros are adored, heroines are pretty and life is good and happy. We can crib all we want, but the movies are not for people like us in urban cities with our love for Tarantino and Matrix fundae. Yash Raj is laughing his way to the bank with the euros these guys earn so hard and part so willingly to watch their dreams unfold on the big screen.