From: myadav@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Mahesh Yadav)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: ON THE OCCASION IF AUG,15 -- IV
Date: 17 Aug 92 03:10:12 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.



	ON THE OCCASION OF AUG,15 (OUR COUNTRY'S INDEPENDENCE DAY) -- IV
	================================================================

		INDIANS against INDIANS
		======================

		    SOME ADVICES
		    ============

	The article already seems to be getting too long. So let me end it with
giving few advices. Not moral advices, ofcourse! Some simple things which we
all can do. 
	Most of the students who come here, though initially full of
enthusiasm, begin to have lot of confidence problems. Some of the problems
are for the following reasons:

 (i) General population perceive India only as the poor country and nothing
     else. This fact is always reaffirmed by the news media. 
 (ii)Indians though patriotic to "india" and not helpful to "indians"
 (iii)lack of any achievements in sports arena.


 	I am sorry I am not able to think of any more reasons right now! It 
will be nice if somebody can cite some more. Though we can do nothing (but to
speculate) about the third point. 

	Regarding the first point, many indians who come to this land are
quite confused because media in India surrounds us with inflated patriotism 
and here all of a sudden India is no longer that great country, but one of the
pooerest nation on the earth. Nation with evils like dowry burning and 
casteism or snake charmers! Many of the indians abandon the indian values
altogether, or feel ashamed by bringing any topic about India in fron of
Americans. This is more evident in ABCD's who in turn learn from parents and 
are very embarrased about their indianness! This situation can only remedied
by  learning to have pride (not false pride) in ourselves, our past and 
even our present more than we usually do! Also, we should acknowledge our
weakness. This is by no means easy and will take our life time, getting
better!


	My basic advice is for the second point, How can we help other indians?
I feel many indians are too too shy. Many of them we come across, while walking
never respond to "Hi" or "hello", some of them even look in other direction!!
The basic reason I found is shyness rather than arrogance (In some cases, it
seems, they are truely arrogant). Once a person is introduced, he becomes very 
nice. As a matter of fact ABCD also have initial inhibitions. I have come 
across ABCD's -- mostly my students --  once they realise that as a TA, 
I am concerned about them as much as others or citing some examples about 
incidences of India (and giving the impression that I am not embarassed of 
myself being an Indian) they become quite friendly! In short, I feel ABCD 
and us, unnecessarily harbor bad feelings about each other and with little 
boldness, we can shed the differences. This can be of mutual benifit too. We 
can tell ABCD's about our culture,firsthand and we can get help to make the 
transition to American culture!! Moreever, it will be a real test of one's 
social skills!!Think it as a challenge!!

	Recently, I read in News India, that the students comming here are 
increasingly getting depressed. Some of them hardly write letters to their
parents. Their parents in turn get worried and write letter to Indian embassy
(here) to ask about their children. There have been couple of cases of 
sucide  in last few years. We can definitely play a role here. One of the
best idea which I have is, we can "adopt a graduate student", by this I mean is
we can go to the respective department and check for any indian new commers and
"adopt" one of them. One can write to them, offering them a ride from airport
to the residence. In fact, inviting them to dinner on the first day. Explaining
some details about the systems here, giving a tour of the campus. Method of
shopping can be explained by doing shopping a couple of times with him or her.
As we all know comming to one of the most technically advanced nation can be 
quite an experience. The experience can be made much more exciting by  
helping them. Moreever,it will help us in getting skills to socialize, an art 
Indian badly requires to succeed in America! As a bonus we can learn about 
changing India, first hand! If we are broad minded, we can sometimes do the 
same for students from Pakistan, Shri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. It will be 
wonderful to learn about other country which are so similar in culture and 
ideologically so different.

	Lastly, I will advise you guys to read autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi 
(also known as experimentation with truth). It is all the more, important in 
the context of Indians away from motherland. It is also a story of a person 
who was extremly shy (even by our standards!!), and how he adjusts 
in the society. It can give lot of inspiration and is amazing to read, 
how a person following, what may seem, ludicrously-simple principles can 
become such a great person!!
(By the way, it will also answer lot of questions to Indian vegetarian, 
it seem to me that he spent significant fraction of life
experimenting on perfecting vegetarianism)


	I hope my articles will help some of the Indians on the net !

		with best wishes

	Jai Hind!	Mahesh Yadav. 

	
PS: I do not intent to use term ABCD in derogatory manner

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Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian