INDIAN'S first !! LOCALITES later.

I happened to read an excellent post by one Shruthi about the merits and demerits of Bangalore. While I would not like to go on along similar lines about how BAD Bangalore has become, high handedness of locals etc etc I truly did appreciate that post since it does very well in keeping the topic of discussion sane and within limits.

For the benefit of the readers who may be seeing my page, here is the link


http://nychthemeron.blogspot.com/2006/04/open-request-from-bangalorean.html


I tend to agree with the author. During the course of my life so far, I have been fortunate to stay in many cities in India including Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Trivandrum, and presently Bangalore. If any Non Bangaloreans (e.g. me) feel that this is not the place to be, and the localities are TOO MUCH, please be warned that you haven’t seen as yet how bad it can get.

My colleague in office and his roomies were roughed up by the local politician's goondas and had their gold chain and monies snatched under their very eyes. In addition to the roughing up, the cops won’t register a case, since there were no witnesses. While all this happened at around 10.00 @ nite, with the local population in full attendance, none of them agreed to come forward and give a statement. What’s interesting is the fact that many of the audience were "Non Bangaloreans" (read a mixture of Tamils, Mallus, Delhiites, Biharies and Gujratis).

These kind of incidents have happened in the past and are still happening. While what has happened is indeed saddening lets NOT label all localities this way. Most of us are used to, have seen but done nothing about these kinds of incidents happening in our home town. On the contrary we have watched in mock horror how these people have gotten away, but we never raised a voice or protested.

If we did, definitely things have moved maybe a bit slowly but that’s not because the "LOCALITES" are responsible, but because the other section is more powerful, more stronger and better equipped than us. Like Shruthi says, if we approach an individual (localite or otherwise) with gentleness and better mannerisms, we are bound to get a better response in at least 90% of the cases.

The Localities issues are not new is it? It was played years ago in Mumbai. Read the messing up of the northie population who attended railway recruitment exams, out station medical students being beaten up in their hostels etc etc. Did that change the attitude? Does any one reading this post really expect that every north Indian who comes to Mumbai is looked down upon? Or they have shut shop and gone away to their hometowns? The answer is a big definite NO.

On the contrary the north Indian population exist jeek n jowl with the localities because they have learnt to embrace the city and its mannerisms and in turn have got accepted by the local population as one amongst themselves. As Viky one of the commenter on the original post rightly said “Unlike others, I wont try to find a Bangalore in Pune, or a Pune in Mysore. Because like our spice(s), each city has its own flavor”.

People everywhere are bound by local roots and they are bound to rake up this issue whenever a matter hot’s up. But lets not forget that where ever WITHIN the country an Indian goes, he will find friends, comrades, mentor or guides both within the local population and otherwise. Trace back the reason and you will find that it has more to do with mannerisms and the fact that at the end of the day we Indians are all "ONE".

Try getting that experience in a foreign land and it’s at that point that reality strikes.

Let’s not forget that it’s this diversity that is the face of our INDIA. Instead of playing blame game and indulging in petty local or otherwise politics and raking up rather mundane issues, Lets all work together and try and make Bangalore an ideal place just as we want it to be.

Unity is strength and you will find that once we all sit down and try and work together and not mud slinging most of these so called localities who are free from vested and political interference would join hands and enable us to achieve this dream.

If a Narayan Murthy or Dhirubai Ambani had not believed that diversity and our ability to put things aside and work together as INDIANS is strong enough we would not have had made a name for ourselves this way or that.

For the records, I am not a LOCALITE but neither am I an unwanted outsider and I have consciously tried to blend in with the local population because of which I believe I would not have any major problems whatsoever in Bangalore ...

So let’s all sit and enjoy the flavor of India. Should we feel the odd man out, let’s work on blending in and most of the time we will find that there is no such distinction like Localities, Outsiders etc.

WE ALL ARE TRULY INDIAN FIRST & LOCALITIES LATER.

No offense taken, NONE given ……………..