From: rk@nms.hls.com (S Ramakrishnan0)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Indian Cultural Shock...
Date: 28 Sep 92 00:35:14 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Hughes LAN Systems Inc., Mountain View, Ca
Originator: ramakris@csgrad.cs.vt.edu

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