In the wake of the recent controversy unleashed by Mr. Raj Thackeray, here is my take. I am leaving this post open for comments. Help me find an answer.
I was born in Ranchi in erstwhile Bihar, now the capital of Jharkhand. My schooling was in Ranchi and in Bangalore. My parents have settled in Bangalore for close to 18 years now. I studied and learnt Kannada while in Bangalore at the same time out of my own initiative I learnt my mother tongue, which is Bengali. I learnt Hindi as I loved to read the literature in it. I did my engineering in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. I met my dream girl there who is Oriya settled in Pondicherry. Then I went to work in Pune and subsequently that company transferred me to Mumbai. I got through one of the top B-Schools in the country located at Jamshedpur. The offers from various companies are mostly based out of Mumbai, with a rider that I should be mobile. I am a gourmet and love to eat food from various parts of the world. I love life. I love celebrations. I love to gorge on sweets and burst crackers during Diwali, but come December I eagerly wait to decorate the crib and eat plum cake and pudding. I wait for sewai during Id. I bow down before a temple, a church, a mosque, a gurdwara. My passion is stirred when I see the tri-color. I lustily sing Jana-gana-mana. My best friends are a Punjabi from UP, a Hyderabadi from Orissa, a Malyalee working in Jamshedpur, and a Malyalee from Delhi. I give my identity as an Indian. I love the vastness of this land. Unity in diversity. That is my country to me. It is my country. It is where I was born.
Till date I was never afraid of being an Indian. I dint know my caste till a few years back. I dint care. I was an Indian. I was a son of the soil. Does it mean that to be a son of the soil, I need to be born in the village? Is there any group that I belong to? What if I dont want to be part of any region? What if I say I am an Indian. This is my country. Mumbai blasts shocked me as much as the Nandigram issues. I volunteered to serve my people when the Tsunami hit Tamil Nadu. One of my best friends who is a TamBram started a drive for educating and enriching the lives of orphans in Pune. Should he not do this and stick to his work in TN? Why are you taking my country away from me? I dont want a state. I want the country. It is MY country. India is my Mother land. Should I stop being an Indian and stick to being a Bengali? Or perhaps even that is not acceptable as I was not born there.
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1 comment:
hello sir,
I completely agree with you. I am from Jamshedpur too and have friends coming from all places and belong to all castes, religions and whatever.people like Raj Thakrey are able to say whatever they want because they are in living in a fool's paradise. Had this son of the soil really that important why hasnt shiv sena or MNS been able to come to power in Maha. They do all this for what they think as welfare of the locals. But ask the locals when laborers flee isn't the work that was dependent on huge migrant force getting slowed down. Maybe politicians start taking politics as an opportunity to serve the people and not to harass them or start taking decisions on their behalf we might see better days...
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