INDIANESS

I was at my school reunioun and the DJ was playing lousy and sad tracks. Some English numbers were being played and no one wanted to dance. There was a request counter and one guy requested for nashik dhol. The crowd of 50-60 who were present there wen t wild. At that moment, I just thought about it "How Indian we are?".

Needless to say, Indianness comes to us from within. It is in our culture and how much every we try, we will always cling on to it. You can see us practicing it in every part of our life. Most part of it is good but somethings ought to change.

Indianness as one can say is the real Indian feeling that we get. Its all about overloading passengers in a car and traveling to having roadside stuff and feel and know that it is better than 5-STAR stuff. Its all about bribing people to not waiting in queves. Though the former thing can be more associated with, the latter people will complain is due to unavoidable circumstances and deny that it is Indianness. But yes, it is! Tough this form of Indianness has come up in the last 20-30 years, lets hope it doesnt continue like the other forms of Indianness over a century. Every Indian craves for this Indianness. I'm sure that Sachin Tendulkar after having more than 500 crores in his bank account misses the Shivaji Park vada pav competitions he had with Vinod Kambli.

Lets talk about us, the normal middle class Indians. Some cases where our Indianness is seen. This is something that separates us from the entire world. This is our identity. This is where our heart dwells. This is something 90% Indians, may it be in US or in India will always do. When an Indian family buys a car, the car has to go to the temple first. Then it can see the face of the house where its going to stay for years to come. Every year on dussera, it doesnt matter if you are a Hindu or a Christian or a Muslim, u pray to you machine. Whatever machine you associate your business with. These are some of the religious things that we as Indians do. We don't care a damn when we dance during ganesh festival that anyone would observe us. We just don't care. In fact, we feel left out if we see someone dancing on the streets during the ganpati festival.

Now about our habits. No matter where we eat, for us roadside stuff is the best food that we have every tasted. We enjoy the vada pav more than Mcdonalds burger, tough the latter is hygienic. We enjoy the nashik dhol more than rock songs which are referred to as trendy in front of Indian counterparts. We enjoy the 'ghati' dance more than the soothing and slow ball dance. And in the ball dance we get to come close to our lover. We all want to sit in a mercedes and we enjoy it but the fun of sitting on the first tier of a double decker bus right in front is different. Recently, while standing just round the corner of a road, I observed a vendor carrying gulab jamun on a hand cart. Heaps of gulab jamun. I instantly wanted to grab a bite of it, however unhygienic it might have been but only to realize later that i had my exams round the corner as well.

Why does an Indian mind differ from others in such cases? I have absolutely no idea but it has something to do with our culture and our traditions. We have inherited somethings and we can never loose them. We as the present generation have a job cut out. We need to see to it that such tings don't change and India and Indians remain the same as they are. Some things have to change but not the ones I have mentioned above.

JAI HIND
(See here again, v haven't used Jai India but persisted with our old things. I have goosebumps all over my body when I say these words. )