Indianism

Context: A friend is in the US for the first time, is a little home sick and is in a "Missing you all", "India is great" "Indian festivals are great" "Indians are great" mode ;)

 

What Transpired:

 

Me: Give yourself a couple of years and when you are back I will hear you say "uffff these mosquitos", "ufff people here have no road sense", "aaaaah the stench", "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew Indians" ;) and all and all

 

Fren: U r completely wrong. And all u ppl know that what are we :)

 

Me: You will know what I know only after you go through what I said. That means, come to India after 2-3 years and then talk.

 

Fren: The same sentence applies to u also...Did u also do the same thing when u returned back to India?

 

 

Me: Don’t live in an imaginary world. I very much said so when I got back to India. That’s the reason I am telling you. Moreover I was in the US for a very brief time, 5 months. It took me 2 minutes to get used to the size of the maruthi 800 car in India. It took me 2 weeks to get used to the mosquitoes ;) The rest of the things are the ones told by people when they visited India after a longer duration.

 

Well, it was friendly conversation and neither of us holds anything against each other. I however continue to ponder on the same and did have things to say about it.

 

"You people know that what are we" - This really got me thinking. What did that sentence really mean? Are we the ones who would never complain in life? Well, I for sure am not one such ;) But that’s besides the point. Let me state my point with an example. For instance, if there is a drainage around (which is pretty common to find in India :D), I wouldn’t think twice before I say aaaaah the damn drainage is stinking. And I would just not take it hands down if anyone would question my patriotism when I say that. NO! If I express my thoughts on a fact which is there for everyone to see, there is nothing derogatory about it. It’s just about the damn drainage and got nothing to do with anything else.

 

There are certain things in life that we can talk about only after we go through similar things. Without experiencing things, our opinions would be diametrically opposite to the ones we express after we go through them. This is one such. However there is a lot I would like to talk about this, but that would be another blog post altogether :)

 

“The same sentence applies to u also...Did u also do the same thing when u returned back to India?”

Here the person is assuming that I couldn’t be like that. That’s more because the whole thing is being positioned as how patriotic you are than how one looks at things.

 

I was reminded of an incident in life. As a kid (sometime in middle school), I had been to a friend's house. While we were talking her mom came to give us something to nibble upon. Aunty was talking to us when my friend (I don’t remember the context) said my mom is the most beautiful person on Earth. I instantly thought "No, my mom is the most beautiful person on Earth" :) While it is true that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, I am sure everyone thinks that their mom is the most beautiful person on Earth. The beauty here though is a reference to the value that one associates with it.

So, while I do consider my mom the most beautiful person in the world, I wouldn’t stop from saying something like mom so n so thing is not nice, change it or anything to that effect. And when I do that, it doesn’t mean I appreciate her beauty/value any less :)

 

So while I can’t let anyone question my patriotism, I wouldn’t stop from calling a spade a spade.