We grow up fed with a lot of ideas about things,
in general. A lot of Indians would like to believe that we keep the culture flag
flying high, Americans have no values, a woman who prefers traditional sarees
to comfortable western wear is ideal wife material any day, men who smoke and
drink are bad people who decent girls ought to keep safe distance from, and oh
yes, dating is scandalous.
In the same vein we Indians love to tear our
country into bits, and have inane ideas about the different sects of people who
habit these myriad bits. I was never a believer of these- but some of the
outrageous/hilarious/commonplace ones, I would share.
Hand-me-down thoughts and the influence they have on
the way we think and act these days!
Coming from Chennai, I would start with this.
Tamil boys are the most decent of all men out there. Chennai girls cannot speak
English and cannot leave home without their malli-poos. Bengalis are dirty,
smelly folks who love their fish and cannot eat/sleep/live without them. Delhi
boys are to be shunned by decent south Indian girls because they all think
about is ‘only one thing’. People from Bihar are uncultured brutes who you can
never trust with anything. Malayalee girls, are always ready, anytime, anywhere,
for ‘it’. Maharashtrians are rude, snobbish people who would never give a
thought about anybody except folks who speak Marathi. Oh, and don’t get me
started on the Sardarji jokes.
Now, where on earth did these notions come from?
I definitely did not make them up- these are views
put forth by friends of mine- and I can boast of a big circle of them, from all
over the country. And it is very saddening/ heartening to say that-
every-single-one of these I could negate. My opinions are the result of a very
miniscule sample population, and would be insignificant as well. But
nevertheless I simply HAVE to say that- Gaurav from Kolkata is one of the
smartest men I know, who comes up with the best one liners I have heard till
date. He is one of the best dressed people at work, and his nails are always
clean. Delhi boys might, on paper, do anything for ‘it’, but all the
Delhi-Punjabi boys I have known, have always been sensitive to what their women
want and don’t want, and have never, not once, manipulated/influenced/thrust
their wants on them. Gaurav, from Bihar, is the one person we would never,
ever, plan any trip without- simply because he is the one man we all feel safest
with. He is patient, sensible, and knows when the party has to wrap up. He is
like the mother hen of our gang- or, Daddy ..Hen? Ok I will stop the poultry
talk here. I know 3 girls from Kerala, and not one of them remotely resembles
Shakila, in thought, manner or bearing. Enough said. And I have the second
highest number of friends in Pune, after Chennai, and every single time I land
there, I am welcomed and showered with so much love- by, sometimes the very
same Kokanastha Brahmins who every non-resident calls the bane of Maharashtra.
In the end, it is not as much the perceptions that
are the issue. It runs deeper than that. To the extent that, such repelling
ideas would dictate the way we behave with these – normal people- who we have
no knowledge about, except that his or her second name is- say, Joshi or Sharma
or Bannerjee or Balan. This- again- is no cock-n-bull story that I have made
up. The moment a fellow Indian, from another state sets foot into Chennai, he
is given the look, scrutinized, branded, and left to his own resources. I know
that I get the same treatment too, the moment I leave the Delhi or Mumbai airport-
but isn’t that what we need to change? Be the change!
By the way, I deliberately did not use certain
words, because of outrageous stats that feedjit has been giving me, like this.
Peace out!