Being an immunosuppressed Indian in India

We Indians take a lot of pride in our immunity levels. We are brought up with the motto - 'lakkad hazam, pathhar hazam' (literally translated - wood digested, stones digested). We grow up relishing street food, drinking stuff at these road side eateries - quality of which cannot be guaranteed, eating off utensils that are not washed under the most hygienic conditions (although these things are slowly changing). All this makes us fit and strong!

It's a common joke that street food replicated at home, under more hygienic conditions is not as tasty.
It is not uncommon to find colleagues at work sniffing away, working with a bad bout of cold/flu like symptoms.

And here I am, an Indian with a suppressed immunity. So what's it like?

• I'm perhaps perceived as a snob and/or a 'foreign returned' Indian for:
• walking around with a mask - cannot tolerate the dust and pollution.
• carrying around and frequently using a hand sanitizer
• standing away from a queue/crowd of people at a counter...
• refusing to eat/ drink anything that is not hot and cooked
• No street food for me...that takes away a lot of fun of being in India. So I have to make do with the less tasty, more hygienic replicas made at home.
• Every time, some one invites me over to their place, there are a whole bunch of dos and don'ts. 
• I have to try and be as polite as possible to say, "no" to meeting people who just have a 'normal cold and cough" or meeting people with kids that are carrying some infections.
• I perhaps offend a lot of friends and family members for all the precautions towards catching infections. I don't blame them because most often small things that can spread infections to someone like me does not even occur to a normal Indian.

So from now on, for those who do not know that I've had a kidney transplant and am on immunosuppressant for life, I am the snobbish Indian/ non-resident Indian (NRI) who cannot deal with true India anymore :)