Hum Hindustani

A very amusing incident happened in our office today. There is an avuncular gentleman in our office, Mr. Nair (I am using his name with his permission). An agony uncle of our office who is forever telling people to calm down, slow down, relax etc appeared very perturbed and obviously upset. The reason…..a client had called him a Madrasi!!! (He is heading a marketing group). He was & always is furious when Indians get their country’s geography, history or in this case, demography wrong. Being an extremely well read & widely travelled person he has no time for what he calls “nincompoops”. He stressed out to all of us (the client had left by then) that he is a Malayalee from Kerala. And also went on to explain the basic differences between the four different Deccan states.
Soon, the topic turned to other states as well & the movies & serials were blamed for creating prototypes & thus hindering understanding about the real culture of the states.
By then another person (not naming him as he does not have Mr. Nair’s sporting spirit) said something to me about punjus(his language , not mine----I choose to leave out the rest of his statement). When I told him that my family is originally from Haryana….he looked perplexed & said “ aren’t haryanvis Punjabis” when I said no, “ah!,then Jat” that too was wrong as I am a Rajput….
But, Mr. Nair took over from there & gave him a good piece of lecture on Indian states & cultural diversity. When we were leaving for the day, Mr. Nair had called the other guy & was offering him a lift back home!!!
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Dear readers please do not interpret it as parochialism or any such thing. This is an incident that has happened…what is impressive was Mr. Nair; a South Indian was explaining the geographical & cultural identities of the North Indian states.
It’s a victory for national integration!!