On being cool

Opening disclaimer: I know that it's completely un-cool to write about being cool, but anyway here goes...

Someone at work sent around this ridiculous video link of a group of desis dancing like jackasses around a swimming pool and then I never heard the end of it.
"Hey, the one on the left looks a little like you.", "Wow, you guys really know how to party back in India." and "So, why are they swimming in their clothes ?"
I had to face up to the question that's always been left unspoken at the back of my mind. Are Indians really an un-cool people? Speaking of which, what exactly does it mean to be 'cool'?
What is it about so many of my countrymen that sometimes makes me laugh, blush or cringe?
I think I have two possibilities here. Either there's something wrong with me or there's something wrong with them.
Let's explore the first possibility. Could it be that I am so sensitive about being a foreigner in the US that, even after all these years, I still try to disassociate myself from desis who are fresh off the boat (FOBs) because they remind me of my roots?
It's possible, but unlikely. I never tire of talking to people about my Indian roots. Most of my friends here are Indians, some of whom I have known since childhood. While I am not uncomfortable around Americans, I find their sense of individualism a little chilling and I usually prefer the company of people I can be more comfortable around. That being said, I accept that I am affected more by socially inept Indians than I am by similarly behaving people of other nationalities.
Could it be then, that I'm an arrogant ass who pooh-poohs at those who I feel are less sophisticated? Again, I won't deny the charge, friends have often called me stand-offish, but no one has ever accused me of being a snob. Four years at a small town engineering college kicked all the big city snootiness out of me and instilled in its place an appreciation for the simpler side of India. I don't think I have ever looked down on those who were brought up without privileges since then, and I have always had friends I could never introduce to the genteel.
That brings me to the second possibility. Is there something about many Indians that makes them look ridiculous while remaining oblivious to the fact? (Notice how I say "them", and not "us". I don't think any one considers themselves to not be cool.) I think back to groups of desis eating at a nice restaurant without taking off their oversized winter jackets, or Indian contractors walking into work with unkempt greasy hair and smelling of garam masala, or of over enthusiastic FOBs at posh nighclubs drinking themselves silly and showing off their Bhangra dance steps on the center of the floor, or of Indian graduate students openly cheating at exams in American universities.
Why does this get to me? I don't know, it just does. I feel as if people judge us expat Indians as a single entity and that somehow the desi who argues with a waiter about why 2 bucks is a good enough tip at a buffet drags me down with him.
Am I saying that Indians are clueless as a community? No, not really. But I think that if we are observed out of our familiar environments, we can be jarring to the senses. By that I mean that when Indians act like Indians in India there's nothing wrong, but when they go to other countries and then only partially alter their behaviour to adapt to a new culture there's a problem. A fakir sitting half naked under a banyan tree in India and smoking pot is cool, put him on a subway train in Boston and he's just a bum. Traditional Kathak dancers are cool, Govinda doing his funky moves in Paris in front of throngs of bemused spectators is not. And, I have to add, spitting paan on the sidewalk in Delhi is not cool, doing it in Manhattan is simply disgusting. Bachchan? - He's just always cool.
Uncouth tourists are not purely an Indian phenomenon. I have an American colleague who hates travelling abroad with his girlfriend because she loudly proclaims that shopkeepers in foreign countries should all learn English.
So I suppose that to be cool, one must either integrate completely with one's environment or stand out completely and unselfconsciously without upsetting one's surroundings, like the Tibetan monks you sometimes see in full regalia walking benignly through the streets of New York. It's the "neither here nor there" crowd that really make me uncomfortable.