I have been watching the comedy by Russell Peters lately and I have to say that the guy is damn funny .Some of his jokes can bring waterin one's eyes . For those who don't have much idea Russell is a canadian comedian with an anglo-indian descent .For more info check out <<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Peters >> . Those who had the patience to read the entire thing must have noted the fact that much of his material explores the cultural divides between many different ethnicities . Well , one might wonder how such a track can be funny but .....believe me when I tell u people, it is damn funny.
The guy, really, as wiki says compares people from different ethnic backgrounds and just presents the difference in a unique way . Offcourse there is some exaggeration involved but I think it is acceptable. Some of his comparisions involve jamaicans and indians, americans and indians, english folk, chinese folk ,sri lankan folk ....you know the whole lot. And sometimes the things that he says about us indians turn out to be true to some extent .And the thing to notice is that such simple/small matter often escape one's thought .
Seeing him compare all different kinds of people , my attention turned immediately to my local neighbour hood ,that is ,my college campus. Again for those don't know, i study in Indian School Of mines in Dhanbad,Jharkand {yeah,yeah...erstwhile bihar} and we have people from all over Indian coming and reading here. You have J&K to chennai, and jaipur to kolkatta. And when one puts all the guys in one hostel one can witness one hell of a comedy show ,LIVE . Especially between the south and the north because the south indian {boletho the 4 states} cannot speak hindi properly and the north indians {many} are not good in english . Some of them reply in hindi even when questioned in english . I guess there is some strong anti- english thing going around with those guys . And in 99% of the cases none of the two parties has interacted with each other before landing themselves in this place. And that is where the comedy begins ........
>>OH!!!!!!! You are a south indian !!!!! WOW ,u look like any other normal human being ...i thought ppl down south have some extra physical features . I hope u live on oxygen ....do you ??? Do u know hindi ???
>>ahhh ...no sorry i don't
>> OH !! that's right u must be speaking "that " language at ur place
Each one finds the ways of the other guy pretty weird and doen't understand them even after 4 yrs of b.tech. When I saw the northie eat this dosa with a spoon--- I was shocked .When he ate jalebi and had tea after that I felt something funny in my stomach. And similarly when he saw me mixing rice with my hands ,he was pretty suprised.
One of my senior was asked by his relative if the currency used here is Rupees or not . MAN!!!! Now that is now n-bomb dropped right on his head. Imagine want went through him when that question was thrown at his .
This one time, there was sambar made in the mess for lunch ,after days of roti torture. And this guy comes and sits beside me and says {in hindi} "well...u must be feeling happy .....isnt't this want goes on in our house every day "
>> ahh......no
>>> NO !!! what else do u eat ???
>> sometimes roti,puri and other stuff
>> Abhe !!! u make rotis also ...mast yaar
Come on !!!!! how insane can one be .Yeah, he might have little knowledge about south indians but just because I am one does'nt mean I have been eating rice, sambar and rasam all my life since my birth . Like , I don't go around asking guys from rajasthan "hey !! Does your father ride on camels to his work place" or "does the camel come and pick you up from the railway staion" .Nor i would a expect a guy from gujarat to eat 'dhoklas' every day .OK,now that good an example but I hope you get the point.
I want to merely present the situation in the initial days of coming into such multi-ethnic places. The solution one finds to overcome these ethnic boundaries is left to him/her . The basic problem in such cases , I think is lack of information and communication and most of all-- assumption . We seem to simply assume stuff about the other guy .Language as I said seems to a hurdle in this case ,but definitely a crossable one . All that is needed is to go the guy ,shake his hand and start speaking. Now that we are in 3rd year, we are pretty cool about all this "cultural background" thing or I would say we got used to it . As some one pointed out, once one gets busy in building a stong relationship with people these ethnicities don't matter . But initally when we land into such situations we are in for one good hearty comedy show.
3 comments:
yeah,yeah...i agree with you....
though you are following the lead of Russell Peters in exagerating......
i have been in situations where i would be conversing in english and my counterpart in hindi!!!!!
i havent seen any of Peters till now (but will see it soon) but i agree tht in first and part of 2nd year many of the converstaions are comical.....
Assumption...yeah thts a major problem in many fields and still more in this case of regional misunderstanding..........
though i disagree tht we r used to it....i thnk understanding is a better way to describe this....all of us interact with guys(or gals) frm other region and come to know them after sometime......
anyway good comparisions & examples there....... :)
Of all the things you said, one thing is absolutely true. Everything depends on the individual. There must be someone to take the initiative and interact with the other person.
And when someone asks you whether you've dosas and sambhar since the day u were born, make him see the humour in his own question. That will give him a strong feedback on his unintentionally made assumptions.
As far as I am concerned, I am truly fascinated by people who are different from me. That draws me towards them. And forget N or S India, I would love to live in Greenland......!!!!
Your reference to that Rajasthan and camel in explaining the point is laudatory.
If we look deeper into this the root of the problem lies with the lack of individual identities of people of the four Southern states.All the South Indians are usually identified as 'Madrasis'.Such categorization deprives them of their individual identity. The cultural differences between the communities go below the surface.
Many a time I took pains to explain people that I am from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil is not my language! I have nothing to do with Madras or Tamil! Even then the categorization that is pretty popular forces them to draw parallels between the SOuthern cultures.Little do they realize that the culture and language of all Indian states are essentially Sanskrit based and no separate legacy can be traced back to nay of the language or culture.
If the so called North Indian communities identify them as a unit,then it is absoultely senseless-You have Gujrati and bengali cultures which are as different as chalk and cheese.
So, my appeal to all the non-south Indians is : Please respect our Individual cultures.
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