Today I am sharing some observations on Indian diversity and how its Free for all Democracatic system allows the diversity to flourish:
Below observations are from 1996-1999 in Bengaluru
1. A security guard of our Apartment complex knocked on our door in 1997 and asked for 'Gift' I asked him 'for what' and then he said in his broken Hindi/Urdu that since it was our Eid. I was totally flabbergasted as we are not Muslims and so never celebrate Eid. Then he said it is the Biggest Eid of Hindus - then it dawned on me that he was referring to Diwali - A common festival of most Indians - Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists etc. This man was living in Karnataka for all his life of about 50 odd years yet was completely unaware of the word Diwali. No one forced him to know and he didn't care; yet he was as Indian as any.
2. Again this happened some time 1997; we had a tight deadline to publish an Ad in Times of India Bangalore and the agency called me to approve the draft on a Sunday. So I went, after the approval process I asked owner of the agency if he worked on a Sunday too. His response was "Yes, we work all through the year, except Easter and Christmas days." Again I was totally surprised that this man so confidently and comfortably declared this living in a Hindu Majority country and closing his office only on the two Christian holidays, in fact not even National (Republic) holidays like Indian Independence Day, Republic day and Mahatma Gandhi day - which are compulsory holidays as per the laws of the country.
3. My good friend and a Nationalist Indian Muslim who is PhD in 2017 told me as a matter of fact that all Muslims in India are from Arabia and none of them were converted. They are just immigrants, who came many centuries ago and settled in India. This is so contradictory to even popular (not factual) history which teaches that there were many conversions that took due to invasions of Islamic hordes from West and Central Asia. Such is the diversity and unconnected reality of India is.
4. A former colleague in 2018 declared that Indian Muslims language is Arabic, neither Local languages nor even Urdu, but Arabic. Again this young lady is highly learned Engineer working in IT and Management fields.
5. I have an old friend whom I have know from 1985-88 and then 1997-1998, on whom I need to write a different blog with all the anecdotes which made me realize his unique family. In short he spoke with his parents Kannada, with his brother Gujarati, communicated in writing with his wife in Hindi, spoke to his children in Sanketi and obviously worked in English. He also knew Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.
The above simply prove that India a great diverse country with unique tradition of 'Unity in Diversity' and never forces people to adopt to any standardization or uniformity. Like everything this is also Good as well as Bad for the nation and its people; yet it's the way it is and is wonderfully beautiful the way it is.
Below observations are from 1996-1999 in Bengaluru
1. A security guard of our Apartment complex knocked on our door in 1997 and asked for 'Gift' I asked him 'for what' and then he said in his broken Hindi/Urdu that since it was our Eid. I was totally flabbergasted as we are not Muslims and so never celebrate Eid. Then he said it is the Biggest Eid of Hindus - then it dawned on me that he was referring to Diwali - A common festival of most Indians - Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Buddhists etc. This man was living in Karnataka for all his life of about 50 odd years yet was completely unaware of the word Diwali. No one forced him to know and he didn't care; yet he was as Indian as any.
2. Again this happened some time 1997; we had a tight deadline to publish an Ad in Times of India Bangalore and the agency called me to approve the draft on a Sunday. So I went, after the approval process I asked owner of the agency if he worked on a Sunday too. His response was "Yes, we work all through the year, except Easter and Christmas days." Again I was totally surprised that this man so confidently and comfortably declared this living in a Hindu Majority country and closing his office only on the two Christian holidays, in fact not even National (Republic) holidays like Indian Independence Day, Republic day and Mahatma Gandhi day - which are compulsory holidays as per the laws of the country.
3. My good friend and a Nationalist Indian Muslim who is PhD in 2017 told me as a matter of fact that all Muslims in India are from Arabia and none of them were converted. They are just immigrants, who came many centuries ago and settled in India. This is so contradictory to even popular (not factual) history which teaches that there were many conversions that took due to invasions of Islamic hordes from West and Central Asia. Such is the diversity and unconnected reality of India is.
4. A former colleague in 2018 declared that Indian Muslims language is Arabic, neither Local languages nor even Urdu, but Arabic. Again this young lady is highly learned Engineer working in IT and Management fields.
5. I have an old friend whom I have know from 1985-88 and then 1997-1998, on whom I need to write a different blog with all the anecdotes which made me realize his unique family. In short he spoke with his parents Kannada, with his brother Gujarati, communicated in writing with his wife in Hindi, spoke to his children in Sanketi and obviously worked in English. He also knew Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.
The above simply prove that India a great diverse country with unique tradition of 'Unity in Diversity' and never forces people to adopt to any standardization or uniformity. Like everything this is also Good as well as Bad for the nation and its people; yet it's the way it is and is wonderfully beautiful the way it is.
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