MADRASI AND THE NORTHEAST

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‘Say Manipur’ was the curt response of the lady who was introduced as the new Accountant of the branch in the bank. The HR person who introduced her stated that she is from North East I think Nagaland or Mizoram and the lady naturally felt offended. This reminded me of my initial days in the bank in the seventies when people called me Madrasi and linked people of Karnataka, Andhra and Kerala as my ‘jathwala’ hardly realizing that not only language and also our food and culture have lot of variation. Admiring on our English they also wondered why we speak in English and not in our own language blissfully ignorant of the four languages in the four southern states.

 The ignorance went to such an extent that when a Goan Christian got a benefit, me a Tamil Brahmin got accused for nepotism. Onam and fish were also presumed to be my favorite festival and food respectively. In Bihar people called me ‘imli pani’ since their general knowledge suggested that sambar has imli and hence we dissolve it day in and day out in boiled water and have with our food.

This aberration in knowledge could be excused as there were no TV or media then and people had very limited knowledge of people and culture beyond their district or at best state. The Madrasi too returned the compliment by calling everyone from Rajasthan to Bihar as Hindikaran or Settu (meaning a North Indian businessman) which term continues even today. Mercifully all these have changed in most parts particularly in cities as the reach of television ensured reach of knowledge.

But the story is the same for people from the north eastern states. People all over India club the seven states of north east and Sikkim and presume all to be the same. This is inexplicable especially with very wide reach of television and media and periodical discussion in the channels about the states’ political volatility and the individual sports achievements of persons like Mary Kom and many others. Apart from north eastern states, even in other parts of the country states have varied cultural practices, food habits and even language and dialects that are different though Hindi or the state’s official language unites all as one.

It is time for the nation and its people to understand India better and avoid region based identification like some of the customers did with that lady in the bank and forced her to handle apart from the pressure of work the stress of handling her identity. I felt offended when my identity was mixed up and not understood and I could well appreciate if some others feel so, though I am still not up to date with the culture of all provinces of the country. Hence along with the slogan of ‘vocal for local’ let us also weave better understanding of  India among people and how each state and province within those states differ but contribute and gel proudly as a nation.  

Unless that is done with equal vigor of ‘vocal for local’ retorts like ‘Say Manipur’ would continue.   

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