A little about me first, I moved to the US around 3 years back. Well, I grew up in India, speak chaste Hindi, absolutely love using ‘Desi’ cuss words and am a big time Hindi movie buff. I, like every 2nd Indian, who is not a doctor, am an Engineer by profession, not from the IT world thankfully (tongue in cheek humor intended here..lol). So, my fellow countrymen, judge me not by the place I live in or the words I write…J. When I resided in India a few years ago, I obviously had not seen the US and was pretty ignorant about it. For me US was like some other place in the universe, I had grown up watching on television as to how exhilarating life in US was and all that. I don’t know about you guys but I surely thought that the national dress of America was probably a bikini. HAHA.
So with hopes and aspirations of a young adolescent I came to US to live the American dream. Apart from what I don’t like about here(which I shall mention some other time), what I do like about this place is that it will give you an opportunity to shine, you won’t be bogged down by a 1000 unwanted obstacles which we in India unfortunately face every single day of our lives. My blog is not going to be about India bashing, not having visited India for the last 2 years, I miss it like crazy and I don’t have the heart to say anything negative, trust me! It would be positive criticism all throughout just so that someone-somewhere might realize that what they are doing is wrong.
India is a country which is bustling with talent, it’s waiting to explode into global recognition. When our Prime Minister says that the strength of India is it’s youth, I am with him a 100%. But so often we hear in the news or experience for ourselves that we as youngsters are pulled into situations or scenarios which are not conducive for our personal growth as well as for the growth of our amazing country. Issues like religion and culture, or ethnicity and status are few of the things which I feel, we as individuals, blessed with great intellect should not be wasting time on. We need to move beyond these petty little things and decide for ourselves, whether it’s worth our time or not.
Starting with something as close to us as Bollywood or Cricket, is where I would like to put my point across. We all, irrespective of religion or caste or state, have grown up watching Sharukh or Salman dance to the tunes of silly Hindi movie songs(back in the 1990’s at least if not now), they are billionaires today. So is Sachin Tendulkar, the whole of India has watched him bat in silence, at one time we all went gaga over Zaheer Khan’s swinging Yorkers and we all have swooned like crazy to A R Rehman’s heart touching tunes. I for one, have even enjoyed Altaf Raja’s ‘Tum tohthehrePardesi’..lol. My question here is even though we shower so much love on these individuals, but when it comes to our colleagues, the stranger we meet at the bus stop, our next door neighbors or for that matter the cute girl at college, we tend to judge them by their religion, why?
Why is it that religion plays such a negative role in our lives even today? When it is supposed to be such a sacred identity. When you look around you, throughout the globe, there is no other country which constitutionally or historically has been as tolerant towards all religions as has been ours(considering the population and diversity). Alas! All these practices only persist in theory, as far as I know. Even today, a Hindu can’t marry a Muslim, a Muslim can’t marry a Hindu, Hindus and Muslims can’t marry Christians, Sikhs…well that’s one cool religion we got, tell them they can do the Bhangra at the wedding and they won’t give a damn after a while…Just kidding!..:)..
Why base our life on something which we have inherited from our ancestors, why judge someone based on that, I mean why hurt someone based on that? India might have a Hindu majority but it is equally important to make the minorities feel safe. The minorities on the other hand are equally responsible for being tolerant in their approach towards other religions. I think it’s time for us to move on in terms of things that are all religious. Bricks and stones should take a back seat for love and common sense to prevail. When a country makes religion its numerouno priority, we know what happens, or perhaps our neighboring country can tell us better and I sure as hell don’t want to be a part of such a nation!
People by nature are hostile towards others, who they are ignorant about. Americans are hostile towards people of a different color (to some extent), Australia is known for racism and so is UK. We are the first ones to react if one of our own faces racism in another country. What we don’t realize is that we are also equally racist. We are actually racist towards our own people.
People from the North East are very casually referred to as ‘Chinki’ or ‘Thapa’ or ‘Bahadur’, South Indians are often called ‘Kallu’ and Biharis are often ridiculed for being from Bihar, often referred to as ‘Bhaiyyas’. I have done this, but I was 10 or 12 years old, immature and stupid and that’s what this kind of an attitude is, it’s immature. Most of India’s intellect comes from Bihar, they could probably solve differential equations in their head(they are quite capable), South Indians rule the IT world and people from the North East…Boss, you have to see them play soccer, their sense of fashion and their skills at playing music instruments. I have lived in Sikkim(Go ahead, google where Sikkim is real fast..lol) for 4 years and I have literally lived on the ‘Dansberg’ beer. Guess who owns that beer company, it is Danny Dengzongpa (Sikkimese by origin, a popular Bollywood actor). As it turns out, they brew great beer too…J
We keep harping on the fact that our culture is the best, we are like the Elvis of culture. We gave culture to the world. Wearing Saris and Salwars is culture. Going to a place of worship is culture. Raping women is culture, asking for dowry is culture, uttering threats like ‘Tu jaanta nahi hai mera baap kaun hai’ is culture. Banning humorous(vulgar too) roasts is our culture. Getting couples married off on Valentine’s Day is our culture. Being hush hush about sex is our culture. We are, magically, a country of a billion people, no one had sex, we all just dropped from the sky one fine morning! What exactly is our culture trying to tell us?? Or is it that our culture is in the right place but we are interpreting it according to our whims and fancies?
When the GDP of a country is calculated or analyzed, I am extremely sure they don’t take into account the number of Saris the women of that country wore, because then for sure, US, China or Brazil would have been disqualified. A woman wearing a Sari looks really beautiful, I could not agree more on that, but a woman wearing pants and bossing 1000 men around as the CEO of a company, now that’s someone I would be terrified of. It’s time to realize that this misconception of our culture being the greatest will not take us anywhere on the world map, it’s just making us lose focus from what the real need of the hour is.
You know, I actually feel like my class 10th Geography teacher at this moment. She used to lecture us on discipline each and every day, we in turn used to diss her in the funniest ways possible. My math teacher used to lecture us too but she used to beat the crap out of us while lecturing us, so we never made fun of her. Funny. I hope I am not the Geography teacher in this case and you guys not the students..:).
Anyway, Whether you like this blog or not, is none of my concerns. We may never meet or see each other but if it can help you introspect a little, change your mindset and realize that discrimination and hypocrisy are not healthy for us, the youth, of a country which is shaping up to rule the globe, or if my words can make any of you just take out a moment and think about these issues, I would consider myself as having done a good job. It’s our collective responsibility to make sure the world notices and views us in a positive light in the future, more importantly than that, we see ourselves as the next best thing to happen to the world. I guess that’s what we are, we are the next best thing to happen to the world…
