The other day I was conversing with a girl, somewhere outside ; the general who are you, where are you from kind of talks. When she asked me about my origin – i replied back.
“Trivandrum”. I got a blank stare back from which I understood she was trying to figure out where in india it was. To make things easier I smiled and said “in kerala”. Now she comes up with the bouncer. “Oh…kerala is in Trivandrum is it?” (with a smile that she finally understood). It was my turn to stare back and wonder what namuna! God- did she know which country she belonged to? I was so prompted to ask how many colors are there in Indian national flag! When I explained Trivandrum was capital city of kerala she asked –“ what about munnar! Its so down in Indian map...dont you use coconut oil??? yuck it stinks.”
Now….grrrrrrr….HOW DARE SHE! groundnut and mustard oil stink too honey!
India is such a small country. And we have the vindhya’s dividing it first – into something called north india and south india. Both sects run as separate country. Northies look at southies as the “coloured mustache sporting country creatures” from the south. And the southies look at northies as some external forces invading their kingdom- making hindi the national language. The divide doesn’t end here. South india comprises of 4 states- Andhra , TN , Karnataka n kerala. Each state has its own language, culture , religions and much more divisions. They live fighting with each other about the superiority over each other’s language, culture and people. I can’t comment on the northern side as much cause I haven’t stayed / lived in any cities beyond the vindhyas – but am sure as being an Indian they also must be excercising their right to find fault and divide – based on caste and creed , color, sex and god knows what else.
We learn to hate right from the beginning- Home is the first school; we hear our parents , relatives, neighbours talking disrespectfully about others religion, culture etc. Then at school we work on our own in building these skills- forming friends groups based of these biases, notions …we just keep adding the negatives – forget to even take a second look at the positives. Finally when we all become grown up to live a life of hate, disrespect and a clogged mind. At some point in life through all this we stop seeing any good at all, stop getting associated with goodness and good people – only flaws, the negatives that we see shroud the real picture. After all evil connects with evil. :) We can not think clear even if we want to because of the blocks created.We learn to point fingers on all others...except ourselves.
I wonder why we become so hyper when some foreigner calls our country dirty / under developed. We live on these biases daily.Cleasing of our own minds is required first i guess. We can abuse 100 cultures , millions of people of whom we know nothing about, but no... how dare they talk about our country like that. Agitation, violence, hatred again.
PS: i am normally a neutral human being, but over the years i have been taught, and i have built a hatred for Pak - mostly due to undying love for my country. Now to stand by my own words, i dont know a single pakistani myself, i dont know what they think / live. every pakistani might not do my country any harm...so god help me clear my mind. :) May my thoughts be clear. May I not be led through prejudice and small talk.
I am reminded of 2 poems here….both my favourites and 2 contexts. One from a poet a nation loves…Tagore (no one uses the words of wisdom he has written about though). Another from my own personal collection of poems and my favourite. Copied below.... :)
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"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake."
- by rabindranath tagore.
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The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter
“Little prig.”
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I'm not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry:
I'll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track.
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
- ralph waldo emerson
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