From: akash@ravel.udel.edu (Akash Sharma)
Subject: Re: Indian Cultural Shock...
Organization: University of Delaware
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 05:07:40 GMT

In article <99089901.A090@netman.nms> rk@nms.hls.com (S Ramakrishnan0) writes:
>This post isn't meant to be a flame at all. I wonder if others 
>who read <1992Sep27.213645.9078@news.clarkson.edu>
>posted by Rajat Kapoor are as surprised as I am ?
>
>  >Ist Shock : Not every body knew Hindi
>  >
>  >If there was something I had taken for granted, it was that almost
>  >every Indian could follow Hindi ( does not imply fluency).  After
>  >all, most of the popular movies were in Hindi (or so I thought).
>
>Its inconcievable that someone who has (I assume) lived in India all 
>his life, watched Doordarshan beam programs in various languages daily 
>should say such a thing. 
>
>  >2nd Shock : The language they knew, and conversed in, was
>  >incomprehensible.
>
>One of the aims (I suppose) of starting the National TV Net was
>to increase the awareness amongst Indians of the diversity of the 
>languages in India by beaming programmes in various languages.
>If you were shocked to know that Indians do speak languages
>that you couldn't comprehend, I must assume you lived in a protected
>Hindi belt where you were ot even exposed to DD. Did you ever see
>Chitramala ? Or the Sat evening movies ?
>
>  >3 rd Shock : " South India = Madras" concept not applicable
>
>This equation is not very clear. I assume you mean by this that you 
>thought all of South had one language and culture. If you thought all 
>of South had one culture, its still an acceptable level of ignorance 
>for an Indian who has never travelled south. 
>
>(Surely you didn't believe that all of South India was 
>"Madras State" ? If this was your misunderstanding then its really
>amazing. You couldn't have possibly imagined that Charminar, Indian
>Silicon Valley and Indian satellite launch site lie in "Madras State" !).
>
>  >And those, who weren't as fluent, care was taken to accomodate them and
>  >keep them in midstream of social life.
>
>I was born and raised in New Delhi. I lived there for 14 yrs before
>moving to Rishikesh, Lucknow, Simla and then finally to south. My
>childhood friends were from Ludhiana in whose company I learnt to even 
>speak in Punjabi during my childhood. With all this background behind me, 
>I can vouch for one thing: Even those SIs who could speak "accent-less" 
>Hindi or even Punjabi were treated with a condescending manner by most of the
>NIs and were "kept in the midstream of social life" as you put it. Most 
>NIs I knew would studiously avoid mixing with SIs at the level of
>families.
>  
>  >4th Shock : Existence of North-South complex amongst some SI's
>  >
>  >(...) However, my feeling
>  >only, many SI's had been brought up to detest so called North
>  >dominance. 
>  
> I (and I'm sure there're other SIs too) do not detest the NI dominance
> for there isn't any NI dominance to begin with. What I think I do
> detest is the almost supercilious atttiude of most NIs (most that I
> met) towards SI languages and their culture. I can recall numerous 
> incidents during my stay in Delhi where our language was made fun of -
> so much so that we would avoid speaking in Tamil when we go out - in
> Dtc buses, while shopping in the Monday bazaar in Ajmal Khan Rd, 
> while travelling in Taxis. Ask any cabbie in the Gurudwara Rd Taxi
> stand in Karol Bagh: anyone speaking with a "madrasi accent" needing
> their services will be literally taken for a ride.
>  
>  >First, they were asked to learn a language they did
>  >not want to... " English is better !".  
>
>That's just not true. My mother teaches Hindi in Madras and she
>can't cope with the number of people who want to learn Hindi
>in our Mohalla. Trust me: Its not your language they detest, 
>its your attitude.
>
>  >Rajat Kapoor
>  >
>  >cultural shock, not 
>
>Truly. But in a different sense: What's really shocking is to know 
>that to understand India better, certain Indians need to travel abroad.
>
>---
>S Ramakrishnan, Hughes LAN Systems Inc., Mountain View, Ca

        Before I get started, let me apologize for my lack of unix
expertise, due to which I can't do any paragraph by paragraph commenting
as some of our regular commentators do so well.  I have never posted
an article until now, but here I am to the aid of a fellow Punjabi.
(Chill guys, that was just a joke.)  Okay, so to get on with it.  Let 
me also say that I did not find the original article by Rajat Kapoor.
shocking. For that matter, the same could be said of Ramakrishnan's
(hereafter referred to as RK) reply.  

1) RK says that it is inconceivable 
that Rajat watched DD and still thought that everyone knows Hindi.
I think the point here was that Rajat thought that everyone knows
Hindi, regardless of any other languages that they may or may not
know.  So, I don't see any problem with such an assumption,
since when I was in Punjab, we learned Hindi, Punjabi, and 
English.  True, that it may not always be the case, but such a
background may lead to an assumption such as Rajat's.  On the
issue of DD, I have this to say.  Our local relay station was
Jalandhar.  The national program came on after 9 p.m.  Back
then, I was young and there were such things as no TV after 8
p.m.
2) The "other" language was incomprehensible.  Well, it is kind
of like that when you don't know the language.  Now, RK's 
expecting NI's to understand programs in non-Hindi languages
without interpretations (which I seem to recall are missing
on DD) is like my expecing him to understand Chinese by watching
a Chinese program on TV.  Kinda hard to do!
3) South India = Madras.  Again, I think what is meant here
is that these two words are used interchangeably.  I know of no
NI's who thought that the entire South India is Madras State.
What RK means to say with that Charminar statement is beyond
me.  Hypothetically speaking, if all of South India was the
state of Madras, who is to say that the aforementioned three
and many other "structures" would not have been there.   BTW,
I know that Madras is a city.  I am not saying that anyone is
correct in using Madras as a synonym for SI, but do acknowledge
that people do so.  About RK's bad experiences as an SI in North
India, such things also are not unheard of in India, in general.
I wonder how my MOHALLA would react if I was the only
Punjabi speaking person in Machlipatnam.
     Far as the condescending manner is concerned, in 5th grade
we had a student from SI, who stayed with us until 7th. 
Contrary to RK's claim, it was he, our classmate, who openly
claimed to be better than us on account of his being from SI
and being able to speak English better than us.  Then again,
one of my good friends now is from Andhra Pradesh, and his
entire family is very nice to me.  Futhermore, my sister's best
friend in high school in India was South Indian, and her brother
was pretty cool.  So, the point here is that all over India you
can find good people and people too preoccupied with their
respective prejudices.
4) North-South Complex.  Don't know what to say that I haven't
already said.  Suffice it to say, that there still exist wide
gaps between what I perceive to be many subcultures within
the Indian culture.
RK was shocked that to understand India better, certain Indians
have to travel abroad.  Let me rephrase that.  It is sensible to
say that in order to lose a singular perspective, and gain a 
global understanding of humanity, certain people DO have to 
travel.
	Finally, let me say to RK and others, that my article too
is not meant to be a flame, and any constructive criticism is
welcome.  In the footsteps of Wayne and Garth, "Party on!"
(Keep the discussion going, didn't quite have the same ring to
it.)
Akash.
e-mail: akash@brahms.udel.edu