The Rasicm Rant

Ok, this one is quite touchy. The moment it comes to Race, suddenly one wrong word and everything falls apart. But surprisingly that's not how it is in India! Oh yeah, this is a good one!

Recently I overheard an argument that was taking place in my neighbor's house. All I could hear was, "WE DO NOT ALLOW!" When I found out the root cause, I understood. A couple of students from Iran wanted to rent the house. The owner was ok with it, but the rest of the residents in the building were not! And the reason was clear. In the past, a couple of Iranian students had stayed there but they were forced to leave because apparently, petrol was being stolen from bikes in the parking, and the building watchman was "scared" they were going to harm him. There is no evidence of such stuff ever happening, but who would care as long as they have a scapegoat in hand. The building residents conveniently decided that the blame was to be put on the two guys who came from a different country. It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard in my life.

Taking that past prejudiced opinion into account, they decided that once again, the two guys from a different country will not be allowed to live in this building. Apparently they have made it a rule now for the building residents. But yet again, like my previous rant, there is a much nicer way to put forward such things. You don't just shout at the top of your lungs at a couple of foreign students and ask them to get out without explaining to them why they can't stay there.

Another important point to note was that the apartment owner was ok with it! I don't get what gives the rest of the residents a right to decide who stays in the apartment they don't own! Because of this, the owner got pissed off at being shouted at and yelled back. Just like every other argument, the main topic was forgotten and these "elder, wiser" men just created ruckus early in the morning. I would say even a group of drunk teenagers would behave more sensibly. These were middle aged fully sober men yelling at each other because of a "possible misconduct" that "might possibly" be caused by 2 foreign students. That's one hell of an assumption.

What an experience we gave them. They land in this beautiful country hoping to learn something new, and what do we give them? Racist arguments and prejudiced opinions! I would like to see these building residents try to find a place to live in a different country and narrate the experience to me.

I had experienced student life first hand in Wichita, USA, and guess what, it was amazing! In fact, we had really friendly neighbors despite being warned that it wasn't a good neighborhood. Incidentally, I also happened to make a bunch of friends from Iran, and again guess what, I had the best time hanging out with them! In fact, I had not experienced a single incident of racism in over three years of staying in so-called conservative Kansas, and also traveling out to quite a few states across the US. When I look back at those three years, I actually had friends of different nationalities, ages, genders, religions and races and never felt bias of any form. I truly learned a lot about the world and life itself.

Two years in India, and I experience age bias, gender bias, religion bias, linguistic bias, racial bias, pretty much everything that can tell two people apart. God damn it! What are we living in! People judge you if your nose is shaped differently! Apparently, that's the Indian way! Sadly...

The Language Rant

It's been a year and a half that I've been back in India and yet, our great country still surprises and disgusts me to no end. This time, it's about the language we speak. We all know how many languages are spoken in India. Actually, we don't. It goes into the thousands and many tribal languages are still unknown.

Now my situation is pretty unique. Despite being brought up all my life in Hyderabad, the capital city of a Telugu speaking state, I've spent most of my time speaking in English. I don't mind admitting that I'm more comfortable speaking in English. It's been a thing right from school, and I've continued speaking English with my classmates through college and my also with my telugu-speaking roommates in the US. I occasionally get a surprised look on people's faces when I tell them I'm more comfortable speaking in English, but it never bothered me and it never will. I can understand the surprise factor there. 23 years in Hyderabad, India and not comfortable with Telugu? - yes surprising but not criminal, surely! But when someone steps over the line and orders me to speak in Telugu because I am Telugu, that's when I get royally pissed off!

It started with this old man that turned up at work today and asked for the guy who runs the office. I instinctively replied in english that he wasn't here. This man suddenly gets all offended and asks me, "Do you know Telugu?". I said yes. And then he goes on - "Speak telugu. When you know how to speak telugu, then speak to me in telugu". Was that an order? He didn't stop there. He suddenly felt obliged to ask me what I was working as in the company, and what I had studied prior to this. I barely opened my mouth through all this. I was offended that he wanted to judge me by questioning my academic background.


If someone had a thermometer around, it would have exploded. My blood was boiling. It was more about the way he said it than what he said. It was sheer contempt - like I was a piece of dirty cloth he wanted to throw away. Wow, never before had I come across a person so judgmental that I spoke in a different language despite knowing Telugu.

Yes, I could've spoken back in Telugu, all it needed was a simple polite request. But looking at the way he treated me like I was a traitor to the telugu speaking clan, I felt a rebellious monster rising in me. To hell with his linguistic demands. Last I checked, we live in a free country that speaks thousands of languages. I can speak 3 languages (something almost any mildly educated Indian can do), but I'm good at just one. I speak in the language I'm good at. I put my best effort in making sure the other person understands what I'm saying. Now if the people around me have such a big problem with me not speaking one of their preferred languages, it's their own problem. I never demanded anyone to speak in English to me, I sure as hell don't get offended if they speak back in Telugu or Hindi or even a language i don't know a word of!

So what's with our mentality of not being able to accept anything that's not native? Why the arrogance? What if I had grown up learning only Spanish all my life despite being a Telugu person? And worse, what if I couldn't speak at all?  Would he still judge? If he did, then I don't think he deserves to be human.

 I honestly feel people should calm down with their judgmental thoughts. Even if I keep the telugu speaking part aside, I don't understand why people (especially the elder ones) demand to know what others had "Studied" in their past. Obviously, any answer without the words "computer" "engineering" and "technology", means that the guy is completely worthless. So if I said I had a degree in Puppetry or I had a career that involves Fermentation of Beer, that old man might even get me arrested or something. In my personal experience, I've come to realize that quite a lot of "Educated People" and "Wise Old Men" I've met are actually pretty narrow minded. So if you ask me, I would rather proudly say "I'm Uneducated" despite holding a Bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering and nearly getting a Masters too...

India's Honking Problem

Everybody that lives in India knows all about the roads we have here. Even a 10 minute ride out on these roads is equivalent to jumping out of a plane with no back up parachute. It is true that the roads are quite dangerous and very poorly built but from my observance, the primary reason for all the danger is not the build quality but the people themselves!

After having spent 3 years living in Wichita, Kansas, the realization of how dangerously we live in India was like a punch in the face. It's been 9 months I've been back in India and I still cannot cross the road in front of my house by foot. It's just way too scary, way too unpredictable. There is never a break in the traffic, so you've got to force yourself in between the zooming vehicles. I'd rather drive 3 miles and waste fuel, than risk my life getting across 100 ft of pure madness.

I've better adapted myself to the driving conditions but still get jolts of fear when I see someone perform bravely foolish stunts just to overtake a single vehicle. I've also realized most of the traffic jams are also caused by the lack of common sense of motorists, rather than the road builders. Of course the road building jobs are themselves so silly, even a teenager would be capable of building better roads and the rains multiply this problem ten-fold. And then there are the illegally parked vehicles, sentimental religious structures in the middle of the road and all sorts of animals having a picnic.

Even though it is an undeniable fact that the management of traffic and road quality is of the lowest quality, this post really is about the motorists.

I feel quite justified in stating that we have among the worst drivers in the world. I don't know who trains us to be like this but surely something needs to be done. I am guilty of being a part of this system myself but there is little I can do to set it right. And I've noticed that is what everyone else says too - "I know I'm breaking the rules but we are forced to do it since everyone else does it". Who is this everyone and why do they constantly "find themselves" in a situation where they are "forced" to break traffic rules?

I've tried driving without breaking at least the most basic rules and it works! I still get to my destination, thankfully unscathed, and maybe, just maybe, a few minutes late. Seriously it isn't so bad! Sometimes I've waited alone at a red light while the rest of them simply jumped, I've slowed down for pedestrians to cross while the others zoomed even faster just to get past the poor walking people already risking their lives. I feel I'm among the few that use turn lights too!

But I've noticed the use of the turn light just does not work! There have been many situations when there were 4-5 motorbikes on the side I was turning into, and I switch on my indicator to "indicate" that I'm turning. Not one guy notices this! All the motorists promptly speed up trying to overtake me from the wrong side before I make my turn. One time a biker nearly crashed into my car's left side and I was more angry that I stopped and saved him a trip to the hospital instead of just smashing into him and breaking his bones.

So basically, the turn light kind of works the opposite way. Instead of warning people I'm about to turn, it seems to be sending a message that I'm allowing them to over take me from that side. And this is basic driving sense, you don't have to live in another country for years to know how to use a turning indicator!

And then comes another irritating part of the driving experience, the Honking! Oh man.. where do I start? All I can say is, it is a major mess. I simply fail to understand what prompts people to use the horn so excessively. The road is perfectly straight, most - if not all - of the vehicles seem to be moving in the correct direction, and I still hear non-stop honking from at least 4-5 vehicles around me! The reason for the honking is something that only the honker can explain.

I've actually observed (and I'm not exaggerating) people honking almost sub consciously! I remember one instance very well - there was this guy on a bike and was driving straight on a mostly empty road and his finger was on the horn button pressing it in regular pulses - beep-beepbeep-beep.. i seriously felt something was wrong with him. But this kind of behavior is something you can observe in a lot of people. Some sort of psychological disorder in the general mass of motorists? Give them a horn button to press and they'd do it while sleeping.

Also another thing i've noticed is that a surprisingly huge number of people absolutely fail to honk at least once when turning into blind lanes. Now that's another major management disaster of not having organized traffic in the smaller lanes (not unexpected if they can't manage the major roads either!). The introduction of a Stop Sign (and the threat of a ticket for not stopping) might take a few centuries to come by, but in the meantime, the safest way would be to slow down at a blind turn with a short friendly beep on the horn. While these guys overdo it on the big straight roads, they don't do it where it is actually useful!

I cannot even remember the count of how many times I've ended up face to face with another motorist at blind turns, just because he didn't beep. The worst part is, I never fail to beep and the only thing that prevents me from crashing into him is my own low-speed which allows me to stop quickly. The other idiot simply corrects himself without even slowing down and zooms away past me without a second glance! And like I said, this has happened so many times, I just cannot count.

All these are just a few examples of how bad the situation is. There are hundreds more such issues on our roads, each of which cause accidents, sometimes fatal. Each of these occurrences leave me astonished about the mentalities of people around me. I have no problem against anything Indian, in fact, I love everything about it, but there are a few things that are to be realized as faulty. It is a clear example of a flaw being repeated over and over again till it actually becomes acceptable and even believed to be right.

I hope that in the coming few centuries, if the human race can survive long enough, our country can correct a few flaws like these and making living here a better experience.