Bhagwan Das Gidwani would never have dreamt that his epic title would be used in this context. Well neither did I. I would have never ever contemplated or been vocal about the North-South divide or the Aryan-Dravidian separations in my life had it not been for...Let me explain. Being a Bangalorean, who grew up on a healthy diet of Hindi cinema and being someone who had a good mix of friends across communities, I would be the last candidate for such talk. I have enjoyed Holi as much as Ugadi; I love dal tadka as much as I would relish slurping rasam; to me Kareena Kapoor is no different from Ramya. I have rushed to catch the 'first day first show' of many a Bollywood caper during my college years. Watching Aamir Khan was as exciting as seeing Kamal Hassan on screen.
My father's love for rare old Hindi film songs is very well known in his family. Infact, many of his kith and kin are vintage hindi film music afficionados. I made Hindi my preference of second language way back in standard eight atschool and this continued till the day I graduated from college. I have studied the language and loved it in all forms - prose, poetry and drama. I made sure that I got my diction right. I did not make the stereotype errors, you know, small nuances, that went a long way to establish that Hindi was in no way different to me from Kannada or English. So, when all these influences have grown in me over the decades, then why, out of the blue, would I be rabble rousing about the insufferable attitude of the people on the other side of the Vindhyas? Why would I get passionate about the 'Aryan' outsiders in my city?
The last decade has seen me share my time between two employers - both MNCs and the best in their businesses. Alongwith the fact that they were big players, they came with the package of having a huge crowd of people from outside the city. Which meant for every one or two locals, one was getting to see eight outsiders in various hues - from other southern states as well as from the North - from the northern most cap to the cowbelt states. The national integration opportunity was thrilling till I came face-to-face with situations I never thought existed in my integrated world....
What appalled me were the condescending, downright pathetic comments about the South made by the Northern crowd I bumped into - ranging from the food, people, the cinema, to the local language here. "Hamen to idli nahin bhaati," "Ooty kya hain, North mein toh Mussorie, Nainital, Kashmir aur Shimla hain." The Southern mountains never seem to match the grandeur of the Himalayas... is it actually in the altitude or in the minds of the people who pass these comments? Aur phir.... ek second, Andhra Pradesh ki state language kya hain? Andhra? aur Kerala mein kya bolte hain? Keral? Yahan ki bhaasha... Kannad? (Please note the shocking knowledge of geography and phonetique or the lack of it; one would have presumed they would have paid some attention to basics at school).
And while we do appreciate your food, dances, festivals, tehzeeb and your flambuoyant spirit, my dear friends, this is the way we are, and we are not ashamed of that; there is no reason to be. And no,we are not the Mehmood 'Padosan' or the Quick Gun Murugan caricatures that you would want to believe us to be, and the onus of national integration does not rest solely with us. As it goes in a famous Kannada film song of the 1980's, "Nodee Swami, naavirodu heege..." Find out what it means for yourselves if you mean business... I mean the business of becoming Indian, instead of remaining your fancy North Indian!
