Comfortably foreign: the liberty that insults

I shall like to open with words written by Americans themselves:

‘Those who die are justified by wearing the badge of your chosen whites’

From “Killing In The Name” by Rage Against the Machine

‘We fought your wars with all our hearts,
You sent us back in body parts,
You took our wills with the truth you stole,
We offer prayers for your long lost soul.
The remainder is,
An unjustifiable, egotistical, power struggle,
At the expense of the American Dream,
Of the American dream, of the American Dream, of the American Dream’

From “American Dream Denial (A.D.D.)” by System of a Down

This will, most likely, be the last post I do on the New World for a while yet, and I meant to do it yesterday but…I didn’t. So here it is now.

Well some of you will be aware of what it was yesterday. You’ll also be aware about how I’d been writing posts in the days preceding it. Now for my opinion of the day itself.

Calling that day ‘ “Independence day”’ is more than just a joke, it’s an out and out insult to other nations. It’s made out to be a big fight for freedom but when I scratch the surface just a little I realise how that is a big lie. Rather a bunch of lies. I shall address each on in turn:

Lie 1: The British taxes were too high and they killed those that rebelled

First let me get started on the reasons behind this ‘ “War of Independence”’ (my, there are not enough quotation marks in the world to show my sarcasm here): the official reason is high taxes. I looked (briefly) into this. Yes, the colonies didn’t want to pay taxes on a type of sugar called molasses. Yes, that’s right one typing of sodding sugar! Suddenly despite speaking the same language, following the same faith and sharing huge amounts of culture suddenly didn’t matter. As I’ve been told repeatedly ‘distance makes us different’, something which I find absolutely ridiculous. Second, there was a…killing of people. The word massacre should not even be used and I will explain that shortly. For now let me just say that when I was reading up on this total non-event the British were fingered for killing 5 people during a protest, one of which was found alive a day later and another was shot hundreds of miles away. Oooh, the tyranny!

Lie 2: The British government were infringing on the colonist’s liberties

IT WAS QUITE THE OPPOSITE!

The real reason for ‘ “Independence”’ is far far more straightforward. By 1776 the British were making leaps and bounds towards the abolition of slavery and were looking to right some of the wrongs they’d done to native tribes by giving them land and space. The Europeans (MAINLY BRITISH, ACCEPT IT!) didn’t like this and so they wanted to be free from this. Not to mention how the Pilgrims came over because they hated the freedom of religion that was being touted back in Old Blighty. Yay freedom!

Lie 3: The rebels defeated a major military force at the height of its power

I’ve read that there were battles, yes. But several things have to be remembered: firstly the government in London sent a small army rather than a main force because they didn’t care so much about the outcome. Then there was a mad king to deal with. But for my money I’d say the Brits didn’t care that much about losing there because they’d ‘civilised’ the land already, killed off the savages (for the most part) and introduced noble Europeans with their fine Christianity to the land. Compare that to the Sepoy Revolution in India in 1857 where, in 3 days a major British force marched from Burma to central India through sandstorms to protect this vital asset of the Empire. Hence my reservations.

Lie 4: A new nation of justice and liberty for all was created

Biggest lie of all. I’ve mentioned slavery already but here’s some figues for you. In the UK slavery was abolished in 1808. It wasn’t until 1865 that the US followed suit. In the 1812 war, possibly the stupidest war ever fought, the native tribes of the north sided with the British against the Americans. For FREEDOM! The outcome of the war? Well, The Brits and Americans began to trade with one another (so soon after ‘ “Independence”’) and the Americans decided to wipe out the native tribes in the south. Nice one, guys.

I don’t find this day offensive as a Brit. And many Brits don’t care, and will even celebrate it alongside their American friends. It’s as an Indian that my offence comes. It took one and a half centuries of bloodshed for the British to end their tyranny, which treated all Indians as lowly slaves and has left huge amounts of psychological damage on the psyche of the nation to this day. And that was for financial reasons too! The people who fought for independence of that nation were truly brave and risked their lives. In comparison the Americans had to do nothing. It’s all pathetic, it’s all a joke. And don’t get me started on how many nations have had their civil liberties taken away in the name of ‘democracy’ by the US. Hawaii is most possibly the finest example of that. In more recent years the war on terror has been dished out by both for financial gain.

Meaning Britain and America are now the same. In the most disgusting kind of way.

Free Hawaii.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

Comfortably Foreign: a series of thoughts on the New World

Normally when I see the 4th of July drawing close I avoid it like the plague but this year I've decided to take a different approach and explain why I find the whole thing odd. So I present to you Comfortably Foreign, which is a small series of 'essays' on my thoughts about the Anglophone nations of the world (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in my opinion) and where we fit in, though with special emphasis on the US because of the upcoming 'holiday.' I hope it leads to fruitful discussion rather than a shouting match.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

Comfortably foreign: Why we’re all British

First a present an anecdote that got me thinking. If you don’t want to read it skip this paragraph where I explain why you, Anglophone, are a Brit. For the rest of you here it is:

I often go to international student nights and revel in the cosmopolitanism. Somehow I feel more at home in such surroundings than more homogenous social events. Anyways I was sat with an American friend and was chatting away to a Japanese student, and during this conversation I told her I was British. After a short while I turned to talk to my American counterpart (in English of course). The Japanese girl, not having a good ear for different accents in English asked my friend if he was British too. ‘No, I’m American’, he said. At which stage I jokingly added ‘Well, it’s the same thing!’ At this stage my friend, slightly offended turned to me and said ‘actually, I’m Polish-Ukranian!’ I found myself highly bemused by such a comment and retorted ‘Mate, I don’t have a single drop of English blood in my body, that doesn’t mean I don’t belong to this realm!’ At that stage he went to get a drink but how I wish he would have stayed so that I could have interrogated him about the ‘roots’ he was so quick to bring up.

I find it out and out daft when Canadians and Americans think that just by having surnames which are not common in Britain they are in no way connected to Britain. Almost always the name stretches back far too many generations or there are too many nationalities for the person to have any connection to. Most of the time they can’t speak a word of the language and I remember meeting a ‘Greek’ that could not name a city beyond Athens. Was hilarious and poignant at the same time. Some of you at this stage may argue that ‘fair enough we’re not necessarily the ethnicities we claim we are, but we are 100% American. Why the emphasis on Britain?’ Well dear reader that thinks like that, I’m glad you ask.

If your legacy is America, think of where that legacy itself comes from: the coloniser. The language, the attitude (see the next post), the culture. Yes, different cuisines came across from wonderous Europa but it’s no secret that when they were ‘Americanised’ they lost a lot of flavour and were filled full of sugar and fat. What cuisine does that remind me of? Yes, British food (which to be honest I don’t really like, I prefer the food of the motherland hands down)! Blues music is heavily based on English folk, and if you don’t believe there’s reams and reams of work done by music professors on the subject. And attitudes? Well just read the next article to understand how the British and American psyche are more alike than you may like to admit. And yet people over there hesitate to call themselves British, even if they do genuinely have British blood in them. ‘Anglo-Saxon’ was the word used by one counterpart. My friend, the settlement my town was built on was ‘Anglo-Saxon’, but that was more than a thousand years ago. We’ve been British since then!

Does it make that bitter pill ‘colonisation’ easier to swallow? It’s nice to say it was ‘the British’ that brought over the smallpox blankets, that had nothing to do with you I suppose. Well everyone was involved so I’m afraid that you don’t get off so easily. That goes for any Australians and Kiwis too: being part of the settlements means you were involved with the Empire, live with it, don’t finger the blame on people who live thousands of miles away and claim you’re bereft of sin. If you take my roots (which I am very close to might I add!) into account, you’re in the same bracket. Sorry, it’s just something you’ll have to live with. Condemning is one thing, to say that it was ‘them not us’ is another. Stop it!

In essence, enjoy your roots, nothing wrong with that. Just don’t disown the one nation that, more than any other makes up the culture of yours. It’s just silly. We’ve been allies for so long that it shouldn’t even matter. Here’s to continued cultural nourishment on a more equal plane.
Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

Comfortably foreign: Thoughts on the Anglosphere with focus on Anglo-American relations

Before it sails over anyone’s head let me just point out that the title is a play on words based on the name of a Pink Floyd song.

Now down to the nitty gritty of it all. The English speaking nations of the world (and I mean the proper ones, UK, US, Canada, Australia and NZ, possibly South Africa too. NOT INDIA) have, in my opinion, a very odd relationship. I would not be the first to draw this comparison. Scores of people that study English literature will learn of Oscar Wilde and Robert Louis Stevenson’s experiences in dealing with people and customs from different sides of the Atlantic. Oscar even summed up the ‘special relationship’ best with his quote that the US and UK were “divided by a common language.” Now this is something that has been a cause of much bafflement to me for a very very long time. It just doesn’t add up in my book. The primary reason for this is perhaps down to my own life; until recently I felt a strong kinship with Indians (and in some senses one could argue I still do) and this has been hugely influenced by my ability to speak their language. I, for many years, felt more at home in India than other cousins raised outside the motherland because of this. From this I always felt that culture and by some extension kinship was inexplicably linked to language. After all if I can express my thoughts and feelings in a coherent manner in someone’s language, a bond is formed, isn’t it?

And yet somehow Brits and Americans, whilst having admiration for one another, do feel they are different sides of the coin at the very least and as such see each other as foreign. My American relatives argue time and distance count for something. Whilst that may be so it can not fully explain the barriers that exist, because this is not the case everywhere. I will of course dip back into Hindi because, after all, that is a language I know well. Through colonisation etc various Indian diasporas have come into existence, two famous examples being Fiji and Surinam. In both nations there have been at least 5 or 6 generations of separation with India, and as such the Bihari dialect of Hindi, Bhojpuri, has been spoken amongst these communities and changed a little. And yet it is still intelligible for a speaker of a more mainstream more Indian form of Hindi. What’s more the nuances are accepted for what they are, nuances, and then the bonds form. They still feel a part of India, or at the very least that Indian culture is not something separate and distinct from them. Heck, even the Guyanese, who now speak English, still feel India is the motherland!

This led me to think that perhaps it’s a European thing. The reason I say this is because there is a significant difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese, not enough for them not to be mutually comprehendible but enough for my language partner from Rio to realise I’d been learning what they speak in Portugal and informing me what words were used in South America instead. That said from speaking to him it appeared that when he got over this hurdle with the Europeans they just chat and don’t make a (massive) deal out of it. It’s only natural to talk about differences, but I could easily talk about the differences between Scotland and England with someone, couldn’t I?

There just has to be a British element. Or at the very least a north-western Europe element because the French are well known for mocking the ‘ridiculousness’ of the way the ‘colonies’ speak their language. I’d argue that maybe (just maybe) the Francosphere are more divided than we Anglos are.

But wait they have that ‘Francophonie council’ (google it if you don’t believe me) where they meet up and, regardless of what they officially say, fight the onslaught of English in the international arena. I can’t think of anything like that for English, well at the very least it’s not as prominent, and in any case there isn’t much of a need for it, is there?

So wait, is this a British thing? And before any Americans get up in arms, that is the correct adjective because, whatever happens English came from England. And YOU CAME FROM ENGLAND. And if you disagree with that I explained this above. Have a read again about 'Why we're all British' if you haven't.

The ‘British’ argument is one that I’ve leaned towards for a long time since there is an ‘us against the world’ mentality in these isles coupled with a sense of righteous snobbery from having shaped so much of the world in the image it is in today. And the Americans have definitely got this too. I’ve lost count of the number of Americans who feel that their government is a ‘do-good’ police force for the world and that they really are bringing ‘democracy’ to world, only the world isn’t too grateful. Argue the political ramifications elsewhere, this is most definitely in the psyche of many Americans, much as Victorian England thought that they were doing a great service to the world with all its ‘expansions.’ If you’re anti-war you may argue about how your nation is a ‘great beacon of civilisation’ and how the world can learn much from following your examples. That, again, was something the Victorians thought when they pushed through all the labour reforms and cleaned up the Thames with the largest sewage system then known to man. I see a lot of similarities in mindset even if many Americans feel that England is some weird foreign country that couldn’t be more different. I’m sorry I still don’t buy it, why are Brits and Americans so adamant about considering each other different?

Well, the best answer I can come up with is that it’s comforting. We’re familiar to the Americans and they’re familiar to us. In this mad crazy world where national identities are often blurred and manipulated and changed Britain (or the US) is a wall to lean on and give and take culture from, and then pretend as though it never happened. It’s better than having a rapport with say, the French or Russians, with their weird languages and bizarre rituals, call the English foreign because they speak our language so we can talk the night away about how different we are when secretly, deep down, we know we have more in common than we may admit to. One thing I found particularly weird when I travelled to the New World (I love calling it that and sounding like some big shot explorer!) is that I felt far more at home in the US than I did Canada. That was down to one thing; a cynical attitude. As strange as it may sound, the cheerful attitude of Canadians, whilst lovely (and I’m not knocking it I swear) did create some distance. Weird. Not enough for me to think of them as foreign before anyone points the finger, but the distance was there. Just like there is a bit of distance between me and many people from London proper, but it’s not huge.

So enjoy thinking of Brits as totally different, Americans. I know it’s not true. I know our secret…

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

My freedom hurts me (or, the terrible price we pay for free speech)

I haven’t written on here in ages not so much because of laziness (though no doubt that has been a factor) but because I’ve been battling health issues. I still am, but I’m powering through because my restless mind keeps coming with mental vomit that I need to release.

OK, that may sound disgusting but that said there are many things that have disgusted me in recent times and so I shall try and vocalise them clearly. But that got your attention didn’t?

Don’t lie!

Now on to what this post is really about. The diamond jubilee occurred about 2 weeks ago in this country, sprouting mixed feelings. The traditional nationalists have been all over it and then there have been those that have a good old dollop of British cynicism about the whole thing. The monarchist - republicanist debate has been going on for a long time and I shan’t go into it here beyond saying that I find both sides have valid arguments. But there is one façade amongst the republicans that does not sit well with me.

It all started a few days before the actual jubilee bank holiday was upon us and someone decided to post up a meme. The meme had a picture of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh laughing, over which someone had ‘wittingly’ written ‘Haha, you’re poor.’ I found it a little stupid and offensive.

Not so much because they were mocking the royals (more on that later) but because of their insinuation; that the people who made it and those that share it ARE poor, and that they’re living it up and we have nothing. I’m not buying that! You’re sitting at a comfy desk sending it via your laptop or smartphone, you have plenty of food and free medical care. Yes, things are tight but news flash: YOU’RE NOT POOR! YOU’RE NOT EVEN CLOSE TO BEING POOR! And you can argue about how the upper 1% controls everything and death to capitalism blah blah blah (though when explained coherently I don’t have a problem) but when you’re a bit jealous that they have a big estate but you aren’t going hungry every night I find it hard to believe you. How about trying to help the actual poor rather than taking a pop at people that you’ll never meet and have very little influence on your daily lives??

Next time you’re trying to make a ‘social point’ on facebook or anything else (which for the most part seems like trying to earn brownie points or a badge of honour in front of your friends, looking like you actually give a damn about someone else just by sharing a stupidly made picture on a social network), how about going for something a bit more hard hitting, or at the very least with a little more fact behind it? I find it all rather ridiculous.

Now on to something similar: mocking the royals. This increased a lot in the weeks and days leading up to the jubilee, with Brits and people pretending to be ‘liberal’, ‘revolutionist’ and ‘hip’ getting involved. One friend even posted up an infamous Sex Pistols song. I don’t need to tell you which one. Some of it had a point about how they control land and questioning how much political power the royals actually have, and I have no problem with that.

Sadly not all of it actually had a point. Some of it was rather like the example I discussed above, poking fun at something without actually thinking for a second about its monumental stupidity. From people who are older than me and in most cases should know better before you play the ‘idiots on the web’ card. When you’re making fun of their accents, appearance and what they should and shouldn’t do you’ve gone too far. At some stage you’re just mocking an innocent family or innocent individuals with their flaws as much as the next person. I’m reminded now of a particular joke the comedian Frankie Boyle did that was lauded by ‘liberals’ (and I dispute that tag enormously) as being satirical, hard hitting and modern. IT WAS NONE OF THESE THINGS! It was nothing more than a comedian pretending to have the balls to talk about anything basically trying to get a laugh out of the ageing process. Give yourselves a pat on the back if you thought it was satire. You couldn’t have been further from the truth.

For those of you saying he was exercising his freedom of speech, you’re right he was. But guess what so am I by criticising it. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. At least I gave reasons!

I just find that people take shots at the royals because, in the words of correspondent Jenny Bond, they’re such an easy target who will never fight back or say anything in retaliation. Congratulations, you’re all big hard hitting satirists, picking on such a soft scapegoat!

It is far too easy to look cool by mocking the Queen, and I for one am tired of it.

In short, if you have something valid to say about whether the royal family should stay or not, I’m ready to listen. If you’re just going to make fun of them, go away. You’re worse than useless because it means absolutely nothing. Now go get something to eat from your fridge and think about how ‘poor’ you really are.

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog

The most painful break-up part 2

Part 2 of the break-up and I’m focussing attentions a little closer to home. It could be argued that the reason I don’t get on with Indians that well is because they didn’t have the same experience as me growing up. Say that is true, wouldn’t that mean that other British Indians, who’ve been through similar stuff to you will be the ones you get along with best surely?

I’m afraid not.

It appears I don’t fit in with British Indians either. And why is that? It’s really not that clear to me to be honest but I’ll do my best to explain it to the best of my knowledge. What it appears to me is that, whilst BritIndians are more open to interact with the general population than other ethnic groups (and that includes a lot of white people, Nick Griffin), they often end up in one of two categories. In either case there is a lot of Indian egotism combined with a type of social autism that is most definitely British.

There are those BritIndians that hang out with other BritIndians and develop their own identity as such. They’ll all listen to that god-awful Asian fusion music (and my sister blog 'the musical idiot' will rip that to shreds soon enough, don’t you worry! ;) ) and spend their time discussing outfits and behaviours like old gossiping ladies as you do when you have a degree and didn’t grow up in poverty. Let’s call them aunties because that’s what they are essentially with the gossip, albeit ‘trendy’ because they listen to the audio guff that the youth do. These people often constitute a large proportion (but not quite all) of a Hindu society.

Yes, I’m about to burn that bridge too. I’m feeling extra friendly tonight.

In I walk in with my unconventional hair style, which isn’t the gelled up spikes look which is ubiquitous now or a pathetic side parting and instantly we’re off to a bad start. You’ll be amazed at how quickly that will make it into discussion even when something not even remotely about hair was being talked about. I wouldn’t care if it didn’t happen 9 times out of 10! Assuming we get over that hurdle they ask me my interests. Rock music? You’re a coconut (heavily Anglicised Brit) right? Oh you read the Gita? No, I don’t read that. I was too busy watch the latest generic Bollywood movie because that’s what Indians do, don’t they? How can you not watch them? Something wrong with you? I have also been described as being ‘too Hindu by many of these people for wanting to take an interest in my religion and culture, something which has been a term of endearment for my more international friends even though we don’t share much theologically. One particularly vindictive member of this group set to poison the minds of my friends against me for this ‘crime.’ Thankfully it didn’t work for the most part and I found out from one of my friends that he was doing this and it caused me a great deal of disappointment. He did end up souring a few relationships, and if you understood the bleak loneliness that causes you’d understand this is not mere finger pointing and gossip

Sigh. I don’t know why I bother. Now let’s say we’re at something a little less…normal. A Hindu society event. You being pious and having some theological knowledge should help shouldn’t it?

Unfortunately not.

What happens at these events is the most depressing thing of all. Whilst on the one han d these people make me glad in what they do - we have charity workers, Kathak dancers and playwrights within our ranks – they are as much in a cleek as their more boring counterparts and perhaps I was not at the party where everyone was invited to join the cleek because I’m not a part of it. I start going round and schmoozing as I would do with others that are Indian and get the friendly Pam Am air hostess response. For a moment, I’m the most important person in the world to this member of the Hindu society; they are eager to know my name, what I’m doing, why I joined and what I want to bring to the table. We will chat for literally seconds and they will pretend to be impressed by my accomplishments and I will genuinely give a proverbial thumbs up back to theirs but as soon as one of their little friends arrives I may as well not exist. I can understand wanting to give someone you know better more of your time but to just walk away? When I want to do something for the samaj (community)? What’s going on there? Sometimes it does feel like someone genuinely wants to talk to you and hear what you have to say but then someone higher up ushers them away as to say ‘you don’t belong with them’ and suddenly I’m the perpetual outcast again. I hear speeches all the time about how these people become your closest friends, and your family and there have even been marriages out of this. I’ve yet to feel this warm welcome. I have been the bystander whilst everyone else has been having fun. I watch as two people who have just met start telling each other jokes that are barely funny but have each other in peals of laughter because of their new found camaraderie. OK, I’ll be over here staring at the floor while you form a new bond with everyone else, OK? Grand…

There are many people out there who share a passion for their spiritual persuasion in the same manner that I do that have been shunned by this pseudo-friendly manner of doing things. I even brought it up once to a member of the society. He agreed that this was the case, that there’s a social order that you are either in or out of, but he also promptly shrugged his shoulders. Is that it for those of us who don’t quite fit your mould? Cheers!

Then there’s another group of people. The coconuts. They shun anything even remotely of their ethnicity and are for most intents and purposes white people. Yet they hang out with other coconuts. Something weird here, don’t you think? Indian egotism and clinginess at play again. They are always looking to ‘out-white’ each other, having more ridiculous and generic British accents, more debauchery than who they emulate (as hard as that is to believe) and are ever more looking to outdo each other in terms of immorality. Maybe it’s some new drug, maybe it’s who they can sleep with, it never quite seems to end. I look conservative in their eyes, an old dinosaur who is a party pooper cos I don’t want to get involved in their stupid games. And yet a great deal of head scratching goes on when they see that I actually have white friends, despite being no-so-white. The mind boggles.

So there you have it, reasons why I’m not British Indian in the conventional sense. I wish it wouldn’t matter but try existing just outside a society and you’ll know what I mean. As ever, my relatives expect me to get married at some stage. Will that happen?

शमा कीजिये नानाजी, आपका हर सपना पूरा नहीं कर पाउँगा…

Regards

The Vedic Underdog

The most painful break-up part 1

My national identity is something I have covered before but recent events have seen a slight change in my perception of it.

And by that I mean I’m even more confused than I was before. But before that the most painful break up anyone can ever have, more than you can in a romantic sense.

I have broken up with India. Yes, it hurts to even write those words, and believe me I can hardly believe I’ve written them on this screen, they seem branded into it now, something which shouldn’t really be there. But it is unfortunately how things are. And when I say I broke up with India, it also means that relations with most British Indians have also been soured. This is something that has been boiling up since the end of last year but it really has come to a head in recent times. I shall endeavour to explain.

One should not stereotype a whole nation when one can avoid it but it is hard for me to do anything to the contrary when one meets nothing but people of a certain sort. And Indians seem to come in one single flavour; arrogant show offs that only wish to show you up so that they can look superior. I shall describe but a small number of anecdotes, or should I say evidence, to support this. So I shall begin with an incident that took place with a retired soldier. That’s right, a PROUD, PATRIOTIC INDIAN who would put his life on the line for the nation but could not let his ego subside for even a second.

The incident in question was quite straightforward really. He introduced himself (in English grrr) and offered his hand forth in greeting. Me being the traditionalist placed my palms together in the conventional ‘Namaste’ as it felt more appropriate to me (and I suppose I wanted to impress a little, but we’re talking small potatoes here!). At this stage the gentleman thought it appropriate to say that handshaking was the more internationally accepted manner of greeting. Yes but Namaste is sweeter, more personal and more hygienic I said back. At this stage he proceeded to tell me some bull about how hand shaking was a gesture that proved to the other person that your hand is clean and available to shake because of it. Look it up if you don’t believe me but I know for a fact that hand shaking is an indication that there is no weapon in that hand, it is a friendly gesture. But this guy wasn’t having any of it. Fantabulous. Later on he said dinner was ready and so we should go to the dining room and so we should leave. In my British humour style I dared to utter the words ‘get out’ as part of a longer sentence, one that was not vulgar. But of course idiot-brained Indians can’t see it that way, I was demeaning them, wasn’t I? In fact at the time I had no idea why one of the people I had been talking to decided to say to me ‘I was taken aback by the way you were speaking to me.’ I apologised profusely despite not being fully sure about what I’d done wrong at the time. Later on my mother told me about how it was the height of rudeness to say those words together in Indian society, and that it would appear that the person that took offence. Poor English wins again (see ‘The English disease of Indians’ for more hilarious stories like this). If you’re offended by that, then take a look at this, it sums up what I think of your arrogance (contains colourful language):

http://kingmediocre.deviantart.com/#/d4vxbr9 :)

Some of you may also be aware about how India is the most vegetarian country on the planet. No other country even comes close. Yet within her borders you hear the stupidest and most insecure arguments EVER against vegetarianism. Stuff you would expect more brain-dead people in other countries to say where it isn’t the norm. If you’re vegetarian for health reasons, they leave you alone. But I dared to argue from a moral and ecological point of view, that killing animals is bad and that the environment suffers for it. And when I say that what do I get to hear? ‘But you’re upsetting the food chain!’

You’re sat in a marble house, eating sweets that were made in an electric oven and I came to this country in a giant metal bird that weighs more than several elephants. What the hell is natural here? And the environmental argument is juxtaposed by the magical health benefits of meat that boil down to one person feeling slightly better after going back on the butter chicken (psychosomatic maybe?) and ergo nuts to how it exhausts the planet. My personal favourite response has to be a relative of mine, who despite having heard all the arguments against meat eating and knowing them back to front living in a house of staunch vegetarians says nothing more than ‘मै बचपन से खाके आया हूँ!’ (I’ve been eating it since childhood!) as though it makes it all OK. Indians, it appears, always want to have the moral high ground over you. Even if they’re killing babies with hammers and you aren’t, they’re undertaking some greater good that you haven’t thought of. For that reason, you’re the monster!

It also underlines a conservative attitude that almost everyone has in India, regardless of age, that they will not budge on. It’s amazing that such a level of insecurity and such a large insecurity complex exists within the nation. I am from a proud Hindu family, such that my father and uncles will say to an Indian Christian ‘why don’t you become a Hindu, your ancestors were!’ To which the Christian will invariably reply with how it was his father’s religion, and his father before him etc. I would imagine that if I was an Indian Christian I would most probably remain so for the same reason. Who cares about personal growth though, right?

Not to mention Indian weddings. I thoroughly and whole-heartedly despise them. They are nothing more than extravagant expressions of wealth for the parents of the two kids getting married. It’s amazing how Indians save their money throughout their lives to blow it all on one event. It makes no financial sense in the slightest. I remember a story in a British newspaper of a wealthy Indian-Belgian businessman that had thrown the world’s most expensive wedding. And can you believe it my relatives were proud! Forget the scientists combating polio every day, forget the Indian author winning the Booker prize, this gets everyone riled up! And I have lost count the number of hours of my life I have frittered away hearing Indians of all ages describing in painstaking detail the intricacies of it all. I felt like shouting out ‘I DON’T CARE HOW MANY DIFFERENT TYPES OF MALT LIQUOR THEY HAD AT ALL!’ but I resisted that urge. Another reason I hate them is because I’ve heard tales of great mental abuse one family will give another if everything isn’t right. Why wasn’t there non-veg (meat) in the reception? The alcohol selection is beneath our dignity! Yes, this is actual dialogue from an actual conversation, albeit translated for your convenience.

Is this what has become of the land of the famous Indus valley, pioneers of surgery, poetry linguistics…I could go on? Whilst every Indian could probably recite to you some amazing facts about our ancestors it never ceases to astound me to think that this country has produced so many writers, scientists and activists when everyone carries on this way. Hinduism is a miracle simply for the fact that an Indian came up with something so radical. And me with my weird, more open minded look on things, not to mention the audacity to be a boy with long hair (oh my god, what’s wrong with you, don’t you want to look good? I get told) means I don’t fit in.

Fine, I’m not Indian then. Got no idea what I am but I’m not Indian clearly. I’m not British Indian by most respects but see part 2 for that. Yes I haven’t even started on you guys yet!

By Indian society I am close to marriageable age now. But with such a grim selection and a hairstyle and a personality that is not shallow and egotistical in the Indian way am I going to find a bride?

शमा कीजिये नानाजी, आपका हर सपना पूरा नहीं कर पाउँगा…

I’ve got the Kaliyug blues badly it seems, summed up in song by Digital Hippy here: http://soundcloud.com/digital-hippy/kaliyug-blues

Regards,

The Vedic Underdog