India Then... India Now
Nov. 3rd, 2008 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mcgillianaireThere used to be a time when I was embarrassed by my Indianness. All through elementary and middle school, all things Indian were treated with scant respect by my peers. The situation improved in high school but more often than not, all things Indian evoked negativity. Then I went to uni and things started to change dramatically. India was no longer just a pariah state. Some people had actually been to India. It seems incredulous to believe that hardly anyone I went to school with in Oman had ever visited India. Mumbai was less than a two hour flight from Muscat! In fact if I'm not mistaken, barely a handful of the kids I went to school with from the age of 6 to 18 (I did my entire schooling in one institution) had been to India. In one case, the mum of one of my best friend's in my graduating year (2001/2) was enamored by Indian culture, but refused to visit because it was too dirty and was worried that she would contract some incurable disease. She didn't exactly say the bit about the incurable disease but she might as well have done. It's probably how a lot of other parents felt.
It's incredible how people's perceptions and attitudes can change in such a short period. Almost everybody I meet now, especially since my move to London, have nothing but good things to say about India. The first thing everybody says without fail when I tell them about my Indian heritage is whether they have visited or that they would love to visit India. The ones who've visited it have been to places even my parents haven't been to and they've both traveled it extensively. (My mum's even had the opportunity to visit Kashmir back in the 70s). The ones who haven't visited know somebody really well or are related to someone who has been to India. Perhaps it might just be a British adolescence thing? Whether it is or not is immaterial. India is just as dirty now as it was five or ten years ago, but by simply visiting it people's perceptions and attitudes towards and of it have completely changed.
Other changes have also been taking place. The Indian economy has entered the news for usually the right reasons in the last few years. Bollywood is going global. Curry is this land's favourite dish. Indian sportspersons are reemerging on the scene in a world driven by professionalism. The diaspora is 20+ million strong and ever-growing. A lot of the diaspora communities are among the most successful in their adopted country. Some of the world's richest people are Indian. We've just launched our first-ever lunar exploration. The list goes on. None of these changes however should take away from the depressing fact that there are more poor people in India than any other country in the world. I can't remember the exact figures but I think it's something like half the world's poorest people live in India. It doesn't help that we are less than twenty years from becoming the world's most populous country, but it is still the world's worst economic statistic.
Perhaps I'm just getting older and the people I meet are more mature than my peers in school, but I feel like there has also been a drastic change in perceptions towards India in the last six years. Even when I joined uni just over six years ago, the negativity still permeated to the surface more than the positivity that has now taken over. There are probably more problems in India now than ever before (what with the situations in Kashmir, Assam & Orissa deteriorating by the day, and not to mention Naxalism, the Thackeray thugs making a mockery of the rule of law and so on). All these problems are taking place as more people visit India than ever before. It's an interesting trend but one that I am both happy and concerned about. I'm happy because I'm more proud than ever to mention my Indian heritage. I'm concerned because violence is on the upswing in India and that could affect my friends and family. The last thing I want is an increase in the violence directed at foreigners and tourists. I don't want people to stop visiting India because it's one of those countries which you really need to add to your social CV. And I am saying that because I am from India. It's organised chaos personified. It's vibrant. It's colourful. It's filthy. It's overcrowded. It's a beautiful country. If you ever imagined what it would be like for a functioning society to occupy an abandoned block of flats stripped down to its bare essentials with exposed walls, pipes, wires etc and went about their daily business like everything was normal, with piecemeal improvements made from time-to-time, then that's India for you. It's one big functioning democratic mobocracy.
Anyways, I'm not sure where I wanted to take this post but just wanted to get some thoughts off my mind. Amidst everything I've written above, the point I wanted to finally make was that recently I met someone who had visited India and loved all things Indian. Somewhere during our conversation he stopped me and said something which nobody has ever said to me before: "You should be proud to be Indian. It's such a great country." I was like eh?! If only he knew what I really felt about India... and after everything I've experienced in life, if also he only knew exactly how I felt to hear somebody telling me just that. :) [The song below inspired this post. Brought back some memories...]
It's incredible how people's perceptions and attitudes can change in such a short period. Almost everybody I meet now, especially since my move to London, have nothing but good things to say about India. The first thing everybody says without fail when I tell them about my Indian heritage is whether they have visited or that they would love to visit India. The ones who've visited it have been to places even my parents haven't been to and they've both traveled it extensively. (My mum's even had the opportunity to visit Kashmir back in the 70s). The ones who haven't visited know somebody really well or are related to someone who has been to India. Perhaps it might just be a British adolescence thing? Whether it is or not is immaterial. India is just as dirty now as it was five or ten years ago, but by simply visiting it people's perceptions and attitudes towards and of it have completely changed.
Other changes have also been taking place. The Indian economy has entered the news for usually the right reasons in the last few years. Bollywood is going global. Curry is this land's favourite dish. Indian sportspersons are reemerging on the scene in a world driven by professionalism. The diaspora is 20+ million strong and ever-growing. A lot of the diaspora communities are among the most successful in their adopted country. Some of the world's richest people are Indian. We've just launched our first-ever lunar exploration. The list goes on. None of these changes however should take away from the depressing fact that there are more poor people in India than any other country in the world. I can't remember the exact figures but I think it's something like half the world's poorest people live in India. It doesn't help that we are less than twenty years from becoming the world's most populous country, but it is still the world's worst economic statistic.
Perhaps I'm just getting older and the people I meet are more mature than my peers in school, but I feel like there has also been a drastic change in perceptions towards India in the last six years. Even when I joined uni just over six years ago, the negativity still permeated to the surface more than the positivity that has now taken over. There are probably more problems in India now than ever before (what with the situations in Kashmir, Assam & Orissa deteriorating by the day, and not to mention Naxalism, the Thackeray thugs making a mockery of the rule of law and so on). All these problems are taking place as more people visit India than ever before. It's an interesting trend but one that I am both happy and concerned about. I'm happy because I'm more proud than ever to mention my Indian heritage. I'm concerned because violence is on the upswing in India and that could affect my friends and family. The last thing I want is an increase in the violence directed at foreigners and tourists. I don't want people to stop visiting India because it's one of those countries which you really need to add to your social CV. And I am saying that because I am from India. It's organised chaos personified. It's vibrant. It's colourful. It's filthy. It's overcrowded. It's a beautiful country. If you ever imagined what it would be like for a functioning society to occupy an abandoned block of flats stripped down to its bare essentials with exposed walls, pipes, wires etc and went about their daily business like everything was normal, with piecemeal improvements made from time-to-time, then that's India for you. It's one big functioning democratic mobocracy.
Anyways, I'm not sure where I wanted to take this post but just wanted to get some thoughts off my mind. Amidst everything I've written above, the point I wanted to finally make was that recently I met someone who had visited India and loved all things Indian. Somewhere during our conversation he stopped me and said something which nobody has ever said to me before: "You should be proud to be Indian. It's such a great country." I was like eh?! If only he knew what I really felt about India... and after everything I've experienced in life, if also he only knew exactly how I felt to hear somebody telling me just that. :) [The song below inspired this post. Brought back some memories...]
