India or Pakistan ?

I was travelling from Nagpur to Akola in Vidarbha Express.
And as usual I bought a General Class ticket and met TTE to ask for reservation till Akola. ( It is not illegal to ask for such a favour. Afterwards you have to pay the difference i.e. Rs 85 which will fetch you a receipt and a berth)

Well that day, fortunately or unfortunately, TTE denied to allot me a berth and warned me if he found me in Sleeper Class, he will charge me Rs 250.

Left with no option I literally pushed myself into General Class.
And managed to get a seat (I am still proud of it that I made the man on that upper berth displace his luggage!!)

Beside me there was a boy around 14 years old.
Once the train caught pace, I took out Outlook from my bag and started skimming through the index. I think the boy beside me shifted himself to get a comfortable view of the magazine.
He was more curious than me about the pictures of Naxalites, protestors etc etc.
Everytime I turned a page he would look for the pictures on that page.
Many a times he asked me who are those in the pictures.
I was trying to explain him the pictures. I told him that the rich are forcefully buying the poor's land.. I told him who is fighting versus whom in Orissa.. (And that Orissa is just another state in our country like his own Maharashtra).. That the doctors in Govt hospitals take 'rishwat' to treat patients.. That 'that' is the railway station in Mumbai where Aatankwadi's killed people..and so on.


But the real shock came after that.
I was reading an article about the wars India fought against Pakistan and how 1947 and the partition is the wrong lens to look at Pakistan and that the hurt that moves Pakistan is from a wound more recent -1971 .. blah blah blah..
There was a picture of Gen Niazi surrendering after the 1971 war.
As usual he asked what are they doing?
I told him we had defeated Pakistan in 1971. And the picture had been taken when 'they' capitulated.
The boy looked at the picture trying to recall something. He thought something was definitely wrong..

He thought for some more time and decided to give vent to his doubt and asked with the innocence of a child,
"pan apanach tar pakistan ahe na?"
{"BUT WE ARE PAKISTANIs NA???"}

WHAT THE FFFF??

I immediately asked him whether he went to school ..EVER??.
The answer was a meek No. He had left school after 4th std. And then he started to work on a construction site to earn a living.
But most interestingly he was not ashamed or even surprised when I told him which country he belongs to!
For him it was just another thing he did not know which did not matter!!!

What does it mean to be an Indian?

So this is my first post friends..
And I am going to dedicate this post to Mera Bharat Mahaan!!!
And in this post I wish to discuss the core of INDIANNESS !!!

So WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN INDIAN ? OR WHAT IS INDIANNESS?

Call it a psychological concept or a common thread that binds all the billion Indians together or anything you like. But the issue at hand is quite abstruse to grasp.

Right from our childhood we have been taught to identify ourselves. We are taught that we are living things and not non-living things; we are animals and not plants; we are mammals and not ..well.. non-mammals; we are human beings and not chimpanzees.
We are taught to distinguish ourselves and many a times via negativa.

In this respect Indianness is just another identity we all have got right from our birth. For instance, I am from Akola in Maharashtra. When I go to Gujarat I am Maharashtrian. When I go to China, I am an Indian and so on.

BUT Does the concept of indianness end here?
Well, any affirmative answer will be indicative of a superficial thought.

So what else is it?
Before even trying to answer this question it will be of utmost importance to know the origins of the term 'Hindustani'.
Just if don't know- Rivers had names long before land teritories.
From river Sindhu, came Sidh. According to the usages from Greeks and Iranians, came Ind and Hind. Persians used the suffix -stan to refer to a large territories and so the land beyond the Sind or Hind became Hindustan and its inhabitants became Hindus.
Pleasently surprising is the fact that the use of these terms to refer to religious body came much later, after Muslims established themselves in large parts of Hindustan.
According to eminent historian Irfan Habib "the name was not accepted even by the Hindus till the latter half of the fouteenth century being obviously an alien imposition." !!

NOW all these 'Hindustani's have edured many intrusions throughout the history.
(Did you know more than 60% of the history we learn from our textbooks is about wars !??!)
All of which leaving a cultural mark of the intruders' culture. And the Indian civilization assimilated all these into its own culture.

So now we come to the Core. (And as so many brains have tried to define Indianness, I will take my shot)
I think Indianness can be defined from the following concepts, practices or beliefs or it can atleast be distinguished from others valur systems:

• Respect to elders and a web of duties and obligations in family life
• The fact that all of us have a common history i.e. preindependence. I think if British had ruled only the half , say upper half, of India, we would not have formed the nation as it exists today. Only the upper half would have got independence on 15th Jan, 1947 and we would have called THAT India!!
• Our dearness for our Gods and ancient myths
• Joint family structure
• Spicy food
• Our skin colour
• Our festivals and grand rituals
• Unyeilding faith in equity
• Reluctant consent to sex as a necessary activity. The word is still a taboo in many parts of India.
• And finally our ability to endure, absorb (that might be with great tribulations) any change in our psychology, culture, practices and behaviour.

Now THIS is what I think.

But it is worth mentioning that 'It is lot easier to experience Indianness than to define it !'