This is just some random musings and observations, part patriotism and part amateur sociological meanderings
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Was bored and generally looking up stuff on the internet yesterday. Came across this fabulous site- http://www.censusindia.gov.in
Ok I know what you're thinking (the absence of any gainful pursuits in my life among other things) but I'd recommend you to visit it nonetheless. I got a fantastic kick out of it- looking up different cities, towns, villages etc.
The web is a beautiful place. Did you even know such information was out there?
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The universe seems hell bent on denying me slumber. At night I feel fresh enough to take over the world put off studying for hours on end, but two minutes into doing anything even remotely constructive my boredom cells kick in and put me off to sleep. And trust human beings to disrupt a well earned (preceded by 1 whole hour of studying) nap during the day. There was some absurd demonstration happening down at the Haryana Roadways depot right in front of my hostel balcony (I knew I should have picked the garden view suite). Absurd because for the life of me I couldn't understand a single thing they were saying… and I think I was the only one really listening. Something about the bhrasht sarkar and humaari maange. There were repeated murdabaads and zindabads, but I don't know who they were directed at. I mean why would anyone in the sarkar , if it is as evil as you claim, come down to a shady area beyond camp at 12:00 noon to puree karo anyone's maange. I just failed to see the rationale of it all. Even if what they were saying was coherent, who was listening? Loud complaints against a most predictable scapegoat… and the only one who heard it was me…
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15 minutes into this post sleep fuzzy-headed pondering I got a call from college. PD (having momentarily shaken herself out of a prolonged stoned stupor) wanted me to come over and consult with her on gifts to be purchased for visiting recruiters. Of all the money the placement cell wastes, this is the one outlet that I abhor with a vengeance. What do those stupid trinkets mean anyway?
"We’re really glad that you saw fit to exercise your feeble imaginations beyond b-schools and consented to come on campus. We need you much more than you need us. And even though you give us jobs that make absolutely no use of what we spend busting our asses over for two years and jobs that would make morons feel like brain surgeons, we're really happy you did, we're sooo fortunate". Is that what we're trying to convey?
This unfortunately is just the tip of the sordid iceberg. Last month's obsession was new curtains for the placement cell. Yup, that'll get us all jobs won't it…sheesh
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The first thing that ammu chechi warned me about on the eve of my arrival in the hostel was the veritable sea of bongs that I would encounter and have to co habit with. And I must admit the prospect was initially, entirely unpalatable. Bongs have this way of making you feel excluded when you’re surrounded by a horde of them. Having spent three years of college fraternising with mallus, befriending people from other cultures was not new to me, and I never felt like a lost outsider. But this was different. At first I was perturbed and used to complain about them in my head all the time.
Some argue that people from the North East also tend to exclude themselves from mainstream society. But I know for a fact that that isn’t at all true. They behave like outsiders because they are treated as such. They’re usually so ridiculously outnumbered and they have very distinctive features. I don’t know if this is true, but I feel their community pride and strong kinship is more a product of social ostracism, a defence mechanism if you will.
With bongs, its decidedly different. They go out of their way to distinguish themselves from the rest because they associate a large part of who they are with their language and culture. Varda calls it cultural chauvinism. But really, there shouldn’t be anything objectionable about being proud of where you come from. They have a legacy of some of the greatest minds to have gained prominence in any field. So why does this jar with my sensibilities?
I could think of only two reasons, either I don’t have any sentimental affiliation with my community, no sense of pride in being a Punjabi and I just envy them. Or maybe the Punjabi in me is fundamentally different from Bengalis. Maybe the distinguishing trait of my community is to blend in as unobtrusively and comfortably as possible in any situation. That doesn’t necessarily make us superior, especially if we do it at the cost of our own identity. It could be both or neither.
Given that we hear and read so little about illustrious people from the north east I’m tempted to say that the key lies in extensive documentation of a community’s achievements. But that may have perverse outcomes like cultural stereo-typing. The intelligent Bengali, best for all academic pursuits. The loud and brave Punjabi, called upon for any nature of physical work. It’s a tough situation and I wish I could come up with an answer.
But I would like to issue a request to whoever reads this. Please refrain from referring to people from the north east as “chinkies”. It’s the worst possible thing we can do. They’re not Chinese, they’re as Indian as you or me. I’m saying this because I wasn’t aware that it was offensive till I got out of home and went to college.
For my part, henceforth, I’ll try to resist being bitchy about bongs. (at the risk of reducing my readership’s interest quotient by 50%)
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A while back I was working on a submission and like most assignments, this one dragged on till the wee hours of the morning (my ability to go without sleep for extended periods of time is my biggest enemy, I just end up dragging my feet on everything). Somewhere around 3 in the morning I got terribly bored and went to watch some T.V. One of the girls was watching a south Indian movie (tamil I think) and even though it was entirely incomprehensible for me, she was so engrossed I didn’t have the heart to tell her to change channels. So I sat and started to watch it with her and within a matter of minutes I had discerned the entire plot. The son of the family had died and the young priest who was supposed to perform the last rights just couldn’t bring himself to go ahead with the task. Reason: he’d had a long and passionate affair with the deceased fellow’s wife and in fact her only son was a product of their illegitimate union. It amazed me that the images and melodrama were enough to communicate the plot. It may just have something to do with the fact the story was a tad hackneyed, but nonetheless it made me realise that we are a very visual and demonstrative people.
People accuse North Indians (i think my injured punjabi pride is re-surfacing) of being “showy”- living in loud, ostentatious houses, wearing loud, flashy clothes and being loud in general. But aren’t we all a little bit like that? A wedding isn’t a wedding unless it’s big, a death isn’t sad enough unless we’re all terribly inconsolable at a funeral… and maybe that’s ok. Maybe there is peace to be found in abandoning inhibitions and embracing how we really feel.
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In retrospect this post sounds slightly muddled. But I still agree with everything I’ve written. Even if it ends up contradicting itself :)
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2 comments:
I liked the post-may be cuz it echoes some of my thoughts-esp the bits about ostracism of ppl from the northeast and the groupism of bongs, we've had enough of bongs, haven't me?
Dunno if you'll ever see this, Puri, but speaking as a mallu-blooded resident of Bong-land, I have to admit that mallus made me feel far more excluded than bongs ever did. Until I got to college and made the discovery that not all of them are coconut-oiled freaks.
No way to explain it, really...unless one surmises that bongs are mostly better in their natural habitat. And I totally agree with what you said about the way people treat north-easterners, it's sad and wrong and needs to change.
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