I remember distinctly my hubby telling me this one day. We lived in Delhi then. He came home excited and said,"You won't believe this. I met a Sardarji today at a meeting. He asked me if I am a Malayali. I responded in the affirmative. He then smiled and spoke in pure Malayalam to me!"
I was shocked. A Sardarji talking our lingo?
I prodded him further and learned that the man had spent some years in Kerala where he had picked up the language and now could speak it with great ease.
Talking about creating a rapport with us, what better way could he find?
Well, we moved to Mumbai but he remains on my mind..in my heart.
So I feel learning the regional lingo, getting to know the culture, respecting their customs should be high priority for each one of us.
One day I happened to visit a friend's house. As I stepped out of the door, I inadvertently stepped onto her fresh, beautifully laid out rangoli. I apologized profusely. She simply waved me off. "People do step on it at times," she smiled.
But I thought stepping onto someone's piece of art was highly insensitive. I apologized again.
I do speak Marathi but not too fluently. But I watch as the locals instantly warm up to me when I identify with their language, though I make some grammar errors here and there, I do give it a try..just to see them smile.
I make their Poha, Misal, Sabudana vadas..cook their amti, varan bhaat(rice-dal) etc and watch them say in surprise, "We thought you cook Mallu dishes."
I know an American closely, who adopted this city, our nation as his own. He trod on dusty village roads, visited mud huts, greeted the poor folk with a namaste, sat down on dung covered floors, ate whatever was laid down before him with his satisfied grin.
I sat amazed one day when he sat at our table to eat rice and fish curry. He kept aside the fork and spoon saying,.."I really don't need this"..and proceeded to eat with his bare hands.
No wonder folk he knows in Mumbai love him like mad!
I watched as he carefully lifted footwear placed by visiting folk just outside his own house and brought them back into his own room..just in case none misplaced them.
I watched as his wife wore sarees, though it caused her immense discomfort, at wedding functions..just to identify with the people.
They never lauded their own culture or tried to impart it to us Indians. "Your culture is the best. Never try to copy ours," he'd say when he saw youngsters wearing hip clothes trying to ape western ways.
All of us have to move from place to place within our own nation. On job demands or whatever our concern. We need to identify with the local people, learn their language, respect them, try to win them over and not make fun of them just because they seem 'different'.
All cultures have something good about them. Let's take the good, leave the bad out. We..I'm also guilty of it..often generalize folk by the state they come from. So a Tamilian eats idli all day! A North Indian has parathas even in sleep and Punjabis dance bhangra day n night!
Nothing can be more preposterous than this view.
We make fun. We smirk at oily Mallu hair. We laugh when the Madrasi..(by the way..all south Indians aren't Madrasis!!..) eats his rice and curd..the curd, with his hands kneading into the rice and eating it in huge gobbles, the juice dripping down his arms!
Well..that's his way of eating. So what if he likes only sambar and rasam and you like your dal! Why make fun of him?
We really need to make an effort to learn to understand people, different ones whom we meet on our way.
Let's remember though we are many states, different languages..
yet at heart we are simply Indian!
