What is the meaning of being Indian?

What is the meaning of being Indian?

Do we use it so callously that we hardly know its meaning. I think we do.

The incident that set me thinking, happened some while back when I went to see the movie “Million Dollar Baby”. The movie was engrossing and in such movies (unlike Karan Johar’s Tearjerkers) dialogues (and even sometimes the lack of them) matter.

Now like typical Indian Movie hall scene, which I am pretty sure everyone would have experienced, kids jostling here and there, cell phones ringing, basically anything which distracts you from the movie.

Similar thing happened, an overzealous kid went talking on and on, and unfortunately his Dad did little to calm him down. We (I and my friends) were sitting just behind them and besides us were sitting couple of foreigners. One of those ladies in exasperation ended up shouting “SHUT UP”.

Rude I must say, but well the movie was being ruined. Had it been Mr. Karan Johar’s movie I would not have least bothered to what SRK was babbling about. But this was a multi Oscar winner and a movie that was really interesting.

When the movie ended, the lady did give a piece of her mind to the Dad of the kid, telling him and I quote “I did not pay the money to hear your kid talk”

Well, well, well!!! A foreigner telling an Indian dad, that his Son was disturbing people, the apple of his eyes, the bearer of his family name, this cute little kiddo- disturbing people. That’s stepping into a danger area and I am pretty sure the lady realized that once Mr. Dad reacted. And I quote,

Dad: “ARE YOU INDIAN?” –Psst Psst..Mr. Dad they don’t look like one

Foreigner: “Excuse me!!!” - Yes lady, this question definitely is the trick question to set you off the track- she continued “No I am not”

Dad: “From where are you?”

Foreigner: “Copenhagen”

Dad: “Then go back to Copenhagen and go to the halls there, do you see families there watching movie?”

Foreigner: “Eh!!” – don’t worry he would be getting somewhere

Dad: “We are INDIANS” (and here it comes) “and we have a culture” (yup our most potent weapon in arguments), “we go out as family to watch movies, we don’t leave our kids behind”…(Hmm that’s true)

Till now our foreigner protagonist was totally lost, she was clueless as to what was happening.

And at this point my friend (a good Samaritan he is) stepped in. I am pretty sure overhearing the conversation had made him puke-ish enough…

He said and I quote “ I am an Indian and I too was disturbed by your kids talking” (good entry mate, that should put the dad on a back-foot)

Dad: “Are you a father? “

My friend: “Eh!!” (Gees I hope not, I hope all the precautions worked)

Dad: “So you are not a father, you don’t have a kid and you think you can tell me about children.”

My friend: “I am just saying that kid’s talking did disturb us and nationality has nothing to do with it. So don’t bring it in”

Another guy possibly with Mr. Dad: “Hey! You should not say this, you are an Indian….”

(Aw…whatever that’s suppose to mean)

And at this point my other friends steps in to put an end to an irritating albeit interesting conversation…

“You don’t have to bring Indianness into every argument and there is definitely no need to drag it in this context”

And the conversation ended…

I was really perplexed by the development of the conversation and fascinated by the logic of it. The logic seemed to reflect Saurav Ganguly’s thinking, “I can’t make runs sitting in the dressing room” (True you can’t argue with that, but what about others who are in form and are not getting chance because of you, but then who explain him the logic)

Coming back to the first point I raised. Have we Indians started using the word Indian very loosely? I am an Indian, I can bring a kid (good, Indians do encourage family) and he can howl since we have our culture to protect us.

But Mr. Dad just one point, both my friend and me may not be father (as yet) but we have been kids in our lifetime and have gone to see lots of movies with our parents.

We too have been overzealous like kids that age ought to be but our parents had ways to control us and keep us calm (and for the records I have never been hit by any of my parents), but they could very cleverly keep me quiet.

So I am pretty sure you were enjoying some quality time with your family, but it does not give you any right to infringe upon other people right to have the same.

And why flash being Indian so loosely. Hey the reason most of us are Indians are because, when our parents thought of having kids, they stayed in India.

Had you Mr. Dad or I been born in lets say US of A (a country offering nationality on the basis of birth); we would have been flashing our American Nationality all over. Then we would not have brought being Indian into such conversation. We would have just brought our world policing attitude to the table (but then that’s a topic of its own)

Lets first understand what these 6 alphabet ‘I’ ‘N‘‘D‘‘I‘‘A‘‘N‘ strung together in this order means. Behind it is 5000 years of history. A heritage that is a mix of many cultures each assimilating and resulting in what we today call Indianness. So lets find some other arguments to counter when someone points that your kids talking disturbed them but lets keep being Indian and our culture away from it.