Saturday, October 18, 2008

SHUT up spitting SHIT

These comments were directed at MPs from Bihar. ‘Dung-beetles’. ‘The Ganges of Corruption’. ‘Rotten Brains’.

When it comes to criticizing Bihar, I am one of the Biharis who have generally been ahead of people of other states, at times. Yes, the average Bihari is rather lazy, likes to shirk his duty whenever he can, is a little silly several times, and shrewd whenever he can grab unearned money.

Does that justify the above poison pen comments?

No.

Many sensible readers of my blog may mention that this is merely a political statement, aimed at vote banking. And that, my friends, is the actual cause for concern. The fact, that statements like these can win votes elaborates the fact that the average voter in Maharashtra agree with the Thackreys!

Some weeks ago, the author of ‘City City Bang Bang’ for TOI wrote something like this – ‘Statistically speaking, more than 50% Maharashtrians do not conform to the views of Raj Thackrey. We are happy to hear that. Do we bother that nearly 40% Maharashtrians do.’

During my five year stint at Pune, Maharashtra, two separate incidents sort out as glaring examples of the same.

We were a group of nine girls in a flat, eight of us being from North India, five of those eight from Bihar. We were stopped in the midst of celebrating a birthday party by angry yells from our next door neighbours.

“These shameless north Indians,” spluttered ‘auntie’, “you have no manners. You have not been brought up well” and words to that effect.

Next day, ‘auntie’s’ daughter, who was about our age, came to us smiling. “Don’t worry. I understand. If I had been sent to a hostel like you and wouldn’t have the pressure of guardians, I’d have freaked out like you guys!”

Another incident was when we once rode wrong side up into a one-way street. The traffic police stopped us, arrested – yes, there is no softer word, arrested us and detained four of us Biharis in the traffic police station. Any word uttered in Hindi did not appeal to him. He wanted nothing short of 500 bucks. We girls had been on a shopping stint and had perhaps about twenty rupees in all between us. Things remained at a stalemate like situation. He wouldn’t budge and we couldn’t budge.

Finally, two hours later we were allowed a phone call. Which we made with alacrity, to the only Maharashtrian flatmate of ours. She came in thirty minutes. She spoke to the policeman in Marathi for about five minutes. After paying a hundred rupees as fine, for which we were given a receipt, the four of us walked free again.

I do not want to mention the number of Chemistry and Botany lectures that bounced above my head because they were given in Marathi in my college. There is no point in mentioning that when in a group of Marathi students, I always laughed late, if at all, depending on if a translation of the joke came my way. It shall be useless to mention the several travel concession and hostel admission forms I was unable to fill because of them being in Marathi only.

But there is a point in mentioning this – even today, when my CSIR fellowship comes to Patna University, it mentions the name of my Pune college and the address is still that of my hostel in Pune. I know that tomorrow if someone else from my department is called for the Shyama Prasad Mukherji fellowship, they will perhaps remember my name for I have been, till date, the only student from my department to be called for that same fellowship.

I am not the only example of such irony. There will be hundreds of people like me. People who work there, have bought houses there, have lived in there for ages and ages and given the state the best years of their lives.

For what?

For being called ‘dung beetles’ and being the possessors of ‘rotten brains.’

Interesting.

(The author of this blog has often been accused of possessing a Marathi accent while speaking Hindi, has a large number of Maharashtrian friends and is well-liked amongst the lot for knowing passable Marathi. My dear average Maharshtrian – respect your language and culture. I agree it is worth it. Be proud of it. But come on! Stop being an Australian Cricketer about it. Er, did I mean Arrogant, when I accidentally typed Australian Cricketer? By the way, my knowing Marathi is not the only reason why my friends like me.)

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