Wednesday, January 28, 2009

How dare you!! Yes We Can too

“The 12th person to do so“ – said Kiran, glued to the television with unimaginable levels of excitation in each cell inside her body.


Sten Guns, AK-##, noose-to hang, grenades, fire extinguishers, mosquito sprays, rat poison, pesticides, The ‘Taliban of India’ shall be nipped in the bud completely before it is allowed to spread like the wildfire that did in Afghanistan. How could they even think of forming such an ideology and then assaulting women in pubs when the basic ‘laws of the land’ permit women to enter pubs, consume alcohol, smoke cigarettes etc. How dare these people try to teach the real ‘Indians’ the culture of India. Don’t you guys understand that we are the real India and we set the trends and thereby the culture of India. We are free to consume alcohol and enter pubs any time of the day. If you stops us, we’ll get the media support, we’ll set up facebook groups, we’ll form a huddle near the India Gate, we’ll stroll to Jantar Mantar in demand for your execution. Dare not teach us any kind of ‘Indiannes’. What comes to our minds when we see ourselves as Indians is ‘democracy’, ‘cricket’ and painted faces while watching cricket. We are obsessed with gadgets, cars, bombs and other toys of super citizens of a to-be superpower. Beware. We can file public litigation cases if you tell us to sing ‘Hum honge kaamyaab’ instead of ‘Yes We Can’. Yes We Can.


Please understand that we are free to crucify anyone who interferes with our personal matters, for e.g. anyone doing some kind of moral policing and telling us that low waste jeans are so not a part of our Indian culture. But we can afford to praise Obama for his dislike for such kind of fashion. Yes We Can.


Please understand, we are free to be addicted to the news channel on 20th January and remember for eternity that Barack Obama was the 44th President to take oath. And we can feel completely fine about being unaware of what number is Pratibha Patil on the list of Presidents Of India.


So what if our stylish Tennis player sits in front of our national flag with her feet pointed towards it, and you hooligans, we can just slay you in the media if you question her preference for ‘I Love NY’ t-shirts. Yes We Can.


Please understand that we are free. We are free to choose Eminem without even lending an ear to Pandit Jasraj. We can freely join dancing classes where we learn to move like Shakira, so what if we don’t know if Padma Vibhushan Birju Maharaj is a Kuchipudi dancer or Kathakali dancer. Yes We Can.


We are free to know eagerly about who won the Oscar or The Nobel Prize, so what if we can forget the correct ranking of Padma Shri, Bharat Ratna, Padma Vibhushan in decreasing/increasing order of their importance. Yes We Can.


We are free to jump lights when no one is watching and we have a really important meeting to attend, but we can appreciate for at least the next two years since our arrival from the US, while socializing, that they have very strict traffic laws and surprisingly people obey them too. Yes We Can.


Then why shall Mrs Ahuja worry about her son going out for a smoke with his friend. He is in free India. Yes He Can. Why should Mr Arora get tensed when he hears that his daughter had hard drinks at a gig last night? She is an Indian. Yes She Can.


This country gives us the same freedom the way The United States or The United Kingdom gives its citizens. Is it just our passports that are the last remains of anything that indicates that we are Indians? Or is it the paint on our faces when India plays in the World Cup of Cricket? The horrible acts of Sri Ram Sene cannot be tolerated, goes without saying. But why not act in a professional manner and centre our debate on a more critical issue, which might even be something what this Sene stands for. It is time to think for once what comes to our minds when we think about ‘being an Indian’?


And by the way, if at all, any of my patriots feel a little disturbed for not knowing what number is Pratibha Patil in the list of Presidents of India, you can look back to the first line of this post.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Nice blog Pranav...How funny we had exactly the same idea!:) Naomi

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  2. Ya..but it's unbelievable how you could understand and still so many, being so 'patriotic', could not.

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  3. So your idea of being Indian is:

    1) Being cynical
    2) Taking pride in the idea of imposing your own 'values' on people who don't agree with them
    3) Rejecting the idea of civil liberties and letting people do what they want to do
    4) Memorizing the whole Manorama yearbook

    I'm sure I'm just another hypocritical patriot, right?

    - Chaitanya

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  4. Chaitanya, the idea of being an Indian is so complex that it will take us years to define what it is, and I don't think we should even try doing that. Being cynical or not can never describe anyone's nationality. And I take no pride in imposing any values on people. Manorama, well let's just say, even if someone memorizes that, he could well be far from knowing what Indianness is. My point is simple : Let us all ask ourselves what does it mean to be an Indian today? And how are we not Americans or Brits (No grudges for both)? If the answer is just passport and cricket, we need to introspect more. And now there is this 'Sita also drank'. But I ask, why just look at this aspect of Sita? We seek only comfort zones, and that is why, if asked to pick up some 'Sita' qualities today, women would retort, "Dude, this is Kalyug, Okay??". Hey Ram !!

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  5. I agree, both that India is complex, and also that many people are hypocritical in citing convenient historical or cultural precedent that supports their views while rejecting other precedent that goes against those views. And both sides are guilty of doing this - those who claim to be modern, as well as those who claim to be guardians of culture.

    The India-versus-West conflict will probably not be resolved anytime soon. That's why the best we can do for now is let everyone do what they feel like as long as it doesn't directly harm anyone else. Which is why the Mangalore violence is unacceptable.

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  6. Perfectly said Chaitanya. But Mangalore violence is the one that happened for a day and shook the country. The pub culture is entering schools and affecting young children everyday, and sadly it would never be broadcast on TV. Is 'pub culture' a necessity to ensure some foreign policy or to strengthen our economy, that we can let it ruin the youth? And we may blame those who let the school kids inside pubs and bars. Not that it should be banned or anything, but it saddens me when I see in today's youth, such urge for visiting pubs.

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  7. Very well said !! I think we are on the same page. But how do we change things ?? That's the key question
    I am the (somewhat frustrated) 'K' who tried to fight an almost lonely battle of arguments on the hinsutan times blog. You had asked for my contact information. You can reach me on kaushkrup@yahoo.com.

    Regards,

    Kaushal

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