Many years ago while travelling in Kerala I got chatting to an Indian guy on the bus. It turned out that he was from northern India and he mentioned that he too

Many years ago while travelling in Kerala I got chatting to an Indian guy on the bus. It turned out that he was from northern India and he mentioned that he too was a tourist in Kerala because he did not speak the local language. He had to speak English to everyone and would have had the same communication challenges that I had. His skin colour was also quite a bit lighter so even though he did not stand out quite as much as me, he was still quite recognisable as an outsider. Now this sounds quite obvious if you have ever read up about India and its languages/cultures/ethnicities, but even though I technically knew this I was still baffled that you could be such an outsider in your own country.