A Multi-Cultural Land Called India

Though technically I’m a South Indian, I have lived in the North too long for me to be accepted as a fully fledged south Indian, it’s a bit funny because in the North, people are happy to categorise me as being a South Indian despite the fact that they (South Indians) will have nothing to do with me. That’s mainly because I don’t speak any of the major South Indian languages so when in the South, I have to try converse in Hindi, which automatically makes me a North Indian. Not that it bothers me much, I’m quite happy being the true product of the national integration that we Indians are so fond of talking about.
Despite being genetically South Indian I am most definitely culturally affiliated to the North but that’s only because I’ve been brought up there. As a consequence my frequent trips to the southern half of our country always involve a bit of a culture shock.
He first thing that I noticed about Bangalore this time whilst coming in to land at HAL airport were the palm trees. Like I mentioned I’ve been to the South a lot since most of my extended family is settled there and palm trees aren’t anything new to me, but for the first time I noticed that they bother me. It’s not just the palm trees but everything they are associated with. Every self-respecting South Indian house has as palm tree in the garden or somewhere close by. It’s the houses that disturb me really, not the trees. I can’t describe it but they have this whole terracotta tiling, weird overhangs over the walls, barred windows and funny intricate facades all over the place. Not that north Indian houses are any better, most are just badly lit boxes, but I’m used to looking at theses boxes. My grandfather’s house in a small village in Tamil-Nadu (another South Indian State) is another example of a crazy architecture because Tamilians for some reason love blue and every second house in the state is painted blue or brilliant green. I know it sounds silly but it’s one of those weird associations I make, I hate palm trees because I associate them with South Indian architecture.
The funniest thing I saw in Bangalore this time was a movie poster. Movie posters are another major difference between a city like Delhi and any of its south Indian counterparts. Delhi walls though adorned with urine stains and tobacco spit are mostly free of movie posters. Here it’s a wild poster-fest, with posters for everything from dubbed English movies to B-grade kannad flicks. The posters themselves range from black and white stencils to full colour ones. My favourite was one for what I’m assuming was a kannad flick, in the centre of the sheet was a picture of an actor dressed as a cop (a favourite Indian theme), he was wearing Ray Ban aviators and held a machete in his outstretched hand, the word ‘THRUTH’ ran behind his head (spelling mistake or a kannad word?). What really caught my attention was the caption under the title. It inspired this Ally McBeal-esque fantasy, bear with me for a bit.
I imagined a caption writer, sitting in a dark and miserable room, lit by a small naked bulb hanging from its wire from the ceiling, its feeble rays struggle against the oppressive darkness intent in enveloping the room. He sits, head in his hands at an unstable desk, cluttered with scraps of paper. He lifts his head for a moment as he throws back the last of the desi in his glass. Sweat runs through the furrows on his wrinkled forehead and flows in steady streams down the grimy stubble on his face. Then for an instant his countenance clears as he is struck by inspiration, he bends over the desk, a chewed, blunt pencil in his hand scribbles furiously across the sheet in front of him. At long last, he collapses back in his chair, which groans dangerously under the burden. He reaches for the paper and holds it against the light and reads to himself the caption, which will define a generation. He reads to himself these lines of pure genius, he reads; ‘When God is silent, he is violent’.