I can’t understand why we all are making so much fuss about the apparent “racist” incident in Australia! I have already read like 5 blog posts on this topic, and my Facebook feed is also filled with comments & discussions on the same incident! Everybody is pissed-off with Australia big time, but why?
Haven’t you guys heard that “there is no smoke without fire”?
Remember the great Indian Revolt of 1857? It was triggered by something as idiotic as Indian soldiers being given those “new Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle. To load the new rifle, the sepoys had to bite the cartridge open. It was believed that the paper cartridges that were standard issue with the rifle were greased with lard (pork fat) which was regarded as unclean by Muslims, or tallow (beef fat), regarded as anathema to Hindus.” [Refer to the complete article here.]
Bottomline: If you are living in a foreign country, you simply can’t afford to agitate the local nationals by trying to change the way they live.
We Indians do this wherever we go. We change the entire rules of playing. In fact, we even threaten to change the entire game at times! How can this be acceptable to the foreigners who are extending their hospitality to us (at a good price, ok)?
We Indians are such a repressed and suppressed lot, that our men-folks simply can’t stop themselves from ogling at all the wrong parts of the anatomy of a female walking down the road! I dress in such orthodox way, and still I have to suffer those disgusting looks every time I step out of the house! And, to be very honest, it takes me all my will-power and self-control to not resort to murder right there and then! (Yes, I can kill a guy for treating me like a piece of meat!) Maybe the ‘goris’ in Australia feel the same way too when our Indian lads “size them up” in public!
And forget about the ‘goris’ abroad – how do we treat them in India? Haven’t we all heard of cases in the news when some ‘gori’ was raped and murdered during her visit to India? I remember this recent one who was found dead in Delhi zoo! Why didn’t we have such posts flooding the blog-o-sphere back then… shouting for human rights and justice and what-not for that dead girl?
And if that isn’t enough, we even threaten to change the entire work culture and family structure for those foreigners wherever we go, and even without going anywhere!
We are ready to work night-shifts, at one-fifth of the pay the Americans get for the same kind of work during day-shift! We are ready to work 16 hours a day for no extra pay! We are ready to work on weekends! We are ready to work on holidays too! We are ready to come to work anytime and for any price! Let’s just face it – we have become machines, with no social life!
But the rest of the world is not workaholic like us! The rest of the world does not have a dead social life! The rest of the world does not have a non-existent family life! People in developed countries like to balance work with a personal life. They like to spend weekends with their family/friends. They like to spend the money they earn, and not just keep saving it for their future generations! They like to join dance classes, other kinds of workshops, go on weekend vacations, create their own local musical bands, and so many other things!
And we Indians go there and threaten to change their entire way of living! We force them to either turn into machines like us, or lose their jobs! And then we are pissed off that they don’t want us there anymore! But we told the British to get out too, remember, when they threatened to interfere in our way of living! So why are we getting so angry now? The Kangaroos are probably frustrated that the “tigers-who-breed-like-mice-and-chase-like-rats” are forcing them into the rat race too, and it’s finally showing through! There is nothing racist about it. If white folks from a different country had threatened their way of living like this, they would have got the same treatment too!
WE are the real racists! The difference of brown and white is in our minds! We are the ones who scream for “fair skin”! We are the ones who are ready to lick the feet of our American callers in BPOs! (Yes sir, thank you sir… I have heard it all in my 2-year BPO stint!) And it’s not just color; we show discrimination on the basis of every possible factor! We have reservations on the basis of caste. We have political vote banks on the basis of religion. And our states are constantly fighting for separate existence! Remember what the Biharis had to suffer last year in Maharashtra? ‘Jai Maharashtra’! ... ‘Mi Mumbaikar’!
What exactly are these ‘Mumbaikars’ so proud of anyways? Most of the business community of the country consists of Gujjus, Marwaris and Punjabis/Sindhis. The service class consists of Biharis, Bengalis and Southies mostly. So if the Maharashtrians/Mumbaikars can’t keep pace with the rest of the country, they start throwing them out of their territory? Is that the solution? Well then, that’s exactly what the Aussies have done too! So why are we cribbing about it now? We set an example, they are following it now! Every action has a reaction. There is a payback for every piece of Karma… and this is what it is now!
As for Ahimsa, you really think Indians are still following Ahimsa? You’ve got to be kidding me! One of my very close friends from school was forced to abort her second pregnancy, because her unborn child happened to be a female! Is that Ahimsa? Drunken husbands still beat up wives in most parts of our society – is that Ahimsa? The kind of ragging that happens these days in colleges – does that come under the category of ‘Ahimsa’? Shobhit just wrote this post on our "brutal birthday bashes"! And we say we follow 'Ahimsa'! Haahhh? What distorted perceptions!
And the best part is all of us sitting here, passing judgments on an entire nation, when we don’t even know what exactly happened there, that led to the death of some student! It could have just started as a normal college bash between 2 guys, for all you know, and then got blown so out of proportion because one of those 2 guys happened to be an Indian, and the other one, an Australian! Haven’t we seen this sort of thing happen in all walks of life?
Two kids get into a fight at the bus stop. Their parents, instead of stopping them, start fighting among themselves. One of them happens to be a Bihari family. So the other says “Oh you Biharis are all like this, always creating trouble wherever you go!” Oh but there happens to be another Bihari family on the same bus stop, and they overhear this statement, and join in! And then the rest of the parents follow suit! And eventually the auto-rikshaw drivers stop to see what’s happening, and obviously, most of them are Biharis! And lo and behold! Before you can even remember the name of the first President of independent India, there is a war going on between Biharis and non-Biharis!
And then the news reporters try to get their own story out of this, and confront people sitting in Bihar, who weren’t even there at the location of the original incident, and ask them if they should be given a separate country! And then there is a viewer poll on it, and you are asked to SMS ‘A’ or ‘B’ to some 5-digit number, and the cellular service providers mint money out of this, along with the news channels, while the country burns in hell! Oh and the Opposition party tries to convince the nation that somehow, these ‘riots’ are happening because of some fault of the current government in power in that State! And that somehow, they should have been able to dream that something like this was going to happen in their State, and make necessary 'arrangements' to prevent it! Some ‘Opportunists’! Personally, I wouldn’t let it past the news channels to have started the fight themselves! Or to have paid someone to start the fight!
Get the right perspective guys! Once again, I repeat – if you see half a glass of water placed in front of you, don’t automatically jump to the assumption that it is half-empty or half-full! Just look at it as half a glass of water please! And don’t believe everything that the news channels throw at you… most of it is manipulated! Keep your cool! Refrain from passing judgments! And most importantly, keep your own eyes open and your wits around you! Don’t let the media talk you into any kind of reaction! Because remember – every reaction is another action – which, in turn, will have its own reaction!
Just do your own work, think happy thoughts, be positive, be creative, be responsible for your own actions and decisions… and the world will take care of itself automatically!
