1. As if suffering from acute dehydration, he constantly swills from a mineral water bottle.
2. He uses words like leverage, alignment, strategic, synergy, macro picture, framework, data-driven, ping, offline, validate, awesome. All this while recounting a visit to the nearby amusement park with his 7-year-old.
3. Perks up and practises 'effective listening' the minute there is any reference to real estate. This is almost always followed by the inevitable question. "Is there any land available in Mysore or Gorakhpur?'' depending on his geographic affinity.
4. It's a sure giveaway when he dwells on subjects that no longer captivate the average Indian: traffic congestion, pollution and, oh yeah, India's corrupt politicians.
5. He keeps looking into his fancy handheld as if it is a divine compass guiding him through India's sweaty pell-mell.
6. He sports the latest model New Balance sneakers, freshly imported from dust-free San Jose. This would be most likely be generously given away to a cousin or a friend when grime and soot begin to give it that unmistakably desi look.
7. If he has a 'sensibility' and has spent his early days in Mysore or Bangalore, his conversation invariably drifts to his abiding passion: old Kannada songs and movies discovered after painstakingly trawling the Internet. He then holds forth with the zest of a historian.
8. He suspiciously eyes every morsel of food that comes his way and insists on "pickin' up data'' on the source of each ingredient that goes into the food.
9. The accent betrays the mindset: it oscillates from the West Coast to Rajajinagar and rests tentatively somewhere in between.
10. Deeply disapproving of the way his relatives "oppress" the servant at the family home, he makes a great show of pointedly adding please and thank you to every sentence he addresses to them.
11. He has a deathgrip on his laptop bag and never puts it down for fear it will get stolen. Even accompanies him to the restroom.
12. He drives a car with a conspicuously large American university sticker emblazoned across the rear windshield.
13. His drawing room boasts a stone idol of Ganesha lying down with a laptop perched on his belly—of the kind churned out by Mahabalipuram sculptors strictly for export to Silicon Valley.
