'Saans lene ke bhi paise lagte hai': NRI woman sparks debate on why meeting friends in India always comes with a bill

For most urban Indians, meeting friends is practically synonymous with ordering a coffee or booking a table at a restaurant – “Milna hai toh pehle decide karo coffee kahan peeni hai.”

This fairly common practice somehow upset an NRI woman visiting from Australia, who pointed out that this routine social habit is like an unavoidable “social tax” – taxis, drinks, cover charges, dining and incidentals just for sharing the same space as your friends – add up invisibly at the time, but once you look at the total, it hits like a ton of bricks.

This has sparked a debate on social media as to why metro cities make you a “customer before you can be just a person”.

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“Even breathing costs money”

In a viral Instagram Reel, Smidha, a desi expat from Australia, noticed that meeting friends in India always comes with a bill.

“I realized how much money I spent just hanging out (in India),” she said. “I was in Mumbai and generally wanted to explore the city and somehow every plan involved a cafe, restaurant or mall.

She said that before she moved to Australia, she never even noticed this cafe culture because it seemed normal to her like any Indian.

The contrast is more stark for Smidha because she experienced a culture with functional public infrastructure in Australia, where simply sitting in a park or wandering the beach was without a mandatory transaction.

“In Australia, you can meet a friend for a walk along the coast, sit for hours in a park or spend an afternoon in a public library without spending a dollar. You don’t need a receipt to justify your presence,” she said.

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But in India, Smidha said, “Milna hai to pehle decide karo coffee kahan peeni hai.” (Decide where to have coffee if you want to meet). “Somewhere along the way, many of our cities have become places where you have to be a customer before you’re just a person.”

“Saans lene ke bhi paise lagte hai,” she captioned her viral reel.

Later in the comments section, Smidha asked if consumerism is India’s problem or “we’ve just become so used to coffee shops and malls that we’ve forgotten how to socialize for free?”

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Netizens react

The viral post caught the attention of social media users who felt frustrated with socializing, which felt more like an expensive transaction than a meaningful connection.

“India is all about malls and shops… there are no community places left anywhere,” the user said. “Going out to eat or drink is kind of the only concept of socializing these days (in India),” another user added.

Another added: “Indian cities are not built for quality of life. They are built to mint money.”

“Summer heat, non-existent nature and public infrastructure in cities force us to limit ourselves to indoor spaces only!” said the user.

“Public space, infrastructure is such that only money can give you a space to sit with someone outside your home. India needs to work on it but wait, politicians have their farm and don’t care at all,” another user added.