Sunday, October 30, 2005

Desire....Desi ire...

One of my friends sent a wonderful write-up explaining the 'dependancy addiction' very widely prevailent predominantly among the men in the U.S!It set me thinking as to how conveniently most of us(us being the desi guys - the escapists from India living in the U.S) try to alienate ourselves from a group depending on our mood and almost magically,are able to easily sneak back in without getting noticed!

Men of our ilk have been brought up in a certain way - an expectation that is well set right from the days of kindergarten and that is to maintain some kind of a non-commited position towards whatever we do!There should be no show of even an iota of genuine emotion unmindful of whatever the situation warrants.It might be something as trivial as getting charmed by the new perfume that the girl sitting in the bench next to you is sporting ,all the while trying to seem attentive to whatever crap is being written by the lecturer on the board or something of a higher degree as to watching a sleepy child on the railway station perched on its mother's shoulder,unknowingly letting go of one of its slippers and we still seeming unbothered trying to read the bloody damned outlook magazine that the Higginbothams stall guy sold for an inexorbitant amount of money!

And there are much more of those graver situations such as watching an accident unfold in front of our eyes from the window of a public transport bus and yet trying to lighten up the situation by taking our eyes of the commotion outside and busily tearing the bus ticket from the previous journey into 20 smaller pieces!

The question that came to my mind is..Why are we behaving in a certain cliched manner?Why is there very less emotional part in most of the interactions we do and decisions we take?

In a country well known for its public displays of affection,I wonder if the desi junta would even exhibit a public display of normal human behavior.There are occasions and incidents that prove the double standards of the desis.While it may not seem unusual to see a desi hold the door for the person coming behind in the office or utter those 'hovyudoing or whats up" greetings on the stairway amidst the americans,the real test of the person's character comes when such a desi is in the 'Indian grocery store or a desi restaurant'.The desi roots start taking control of the brain and the Indianness gets exposed instantaneously with the kind of unhealthy scorn the eyes sport!Not a single smile or any sort of greeting and not even the smallest courtesy to say a sorry as their shopping cart nudges past the other desi's leg.

With that being the case,what is amusing is the amount of fun we try to have being in the background,with no real public interaction and exhibition of emotion.Why do you think around 25 unrelated souls form an egroup; like being in touch and enjoy each other's passions/jokes and ideas?
It is a part of every normal person.A tinge of hypocrisy when it comes to outrightly accepting the fact that we long for company and shamelessly try to gain attention,whether directly through some brilliant exposition of one's talent by means of a poem or a painting or a photograph or through a subtler medium such as blogs or jokes!

Its akin to the stolid guy who parts coolly from the airport,bidding adieu to near n dear ones with all smiles,but sits inside the flight and cries it out for a few seconds!

Oflate we are being exposed to so many of those confused desis,trying to paint a picture of being different from the masses,taking a dig at their own people!The feel of helplessness adding spice to the hatred!Finally,what needs to be understood is..Whatever one may say,however great one may seem to portray oneself to be and however change one may try to bring upon oneself,theres one strand of DNA in your make-up which has the DESI component well embedded in it!One need not be proud to be a desi but atleast can try to consciously accept the fact that one is!
Its the DESIRE to be different which is showing up as DESI..IRE!

-Raapi

Posted by rajesh |