I am an Indian...

-


I was in the branch of a Public Sector Bank on a Friday on some work and in the back ground amidst the noise of the busy branch was a faint tinkling of a prayer bell. In some time my meeting was interrupted by a priest who brought the sacred fire and the prasad to the occupants of the cabin. When he came to me, I smiled and stepped back; he saw me, smiled in acknowledgement and moved to the next person.

What happened is a regular occurrence on Fridays in many secular organizations in our country. We are proudly secular but we happily pray to the Gods of our choice and we respect the views and beliefs of others. When the priest entered, all the occupants in the room including me stood up immediately out of respect. My personal beliefs made me step back from the sacred light and this act was respected by the others in the room. They did not bear me any ill will nor did they treat me any differently. When the priest left the room our business conversations resumed where we had left off.

This instance did not make the bank any less secular than before nor did it make the people feel uneasy that one person in the room differed from them. If we extrapolate the bank to our country, these instances happen daily, sadly these days when someone steps back only because he does not have the same belief but respects the faith of others the responses have changed. Some feel offended even outraged and this is in stark contrast to the average person in the country.

All these years we have been secular and yet religious, pluralistic and yet patriotic, been different yet similar and we have been Indian. How can differences divide the nation today? How can some claim the right to the nation based on their choices when till date the only thing common to the 1.2 billion people is their nationality being different with their food choices, languages, cultures, beliefs, customs etc?

Being Indian is more than sloganeering or bullying others to walk one way, it is about living together and growing together in more ways than one.


Image courtesy Google



Comments

Post a Comment

Your take on this?

Popular posts from this blog

Bad donkey, small wall.

-
Image
This was a crude translation of a proverb that comedian Karunas (as pointed out by Chriz ) made famous in one movie. The Tamil original runs thus, “Kazhutha ketta, kutti suvaru” so you have the translation. I heard that line somewhere and I wondered especially having heard the translation as to what could have been the origin of the proverb. Any ideas? PS: I Googled it and did find something.
Read more

Memories of PTC bus journeys!

-
Image
MTC bus today! As I was turning into Haddows road today a MTC bus whizzed by nearly missing a few people on the road as is the norm. Just when I was about to curse the bus and its driver and everybody connected to it, my mind drifted back to the days gone by when I used to travel by these buses. The more my mind drifted, more instances that have been deeply etched in the confines of my memory came out like a mental slideshow. It is amazing how at the most unexpected moments lost thoughts surface and make even poor memory people like me feel good about us. Coming back to the post I thought I will put together a few memorable ones for the record. It was in the days of khaki shorts and white shirts, the old uniform of Dominic Savio Preparatory school (I’m told it has graduated to a matriculation now!) and its bigger sibling St. Bede’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School (100 years now, dear school of our hearts). School was a two stop bus ride from home if you got onto a white board bus ...
Read more

Its a colour full life!!!

-
Image
                                 (image courtesy Google Images )  During a pre-employment medical I learned that of the 256K colours in my mobile I can see but very few. It is official; I’m a little colour blind. No I don’t see the world in black, white and shades of grey but if you were to bring me a RmKV multi-colour sari and ask me what are the colours I will call out red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple, white, black, grey, pink and brown. Maybe I may get a few more but that’s all, with all due respect to the master weavers of RmKV. The fact of the matter is I cannot discern between shades of the same colour and that makes life simple! I see a red as red irrespective of whether it is called blood orange, safety cone or tomato. To me it’s red. PERIOD. Do you know what a banker’s lamp is? I didn’t till I happened to see it in the shade card . Horror of horrors, it is a green. Even...
Read more