Tuesday, April 20, 2010

A FEW THINGS TO PONDER ABOUT

"What's the first picture that comes to your mind when you talk about India"? was our professor's question. While my classmates gave answers like "I picture India as the land of Terrorists" "Our motherland" etc. my turn came and I answered "I see people with different traditional dresses" and he bluntly told me that I was lying. I tried to explain my answer but he turned adamant. Later on, he asked me "You mean the traditional dress of Tibet"? and I felt the hot blood rushing to my head.
This wasn't the first time that I experienced such an attitude from the teachers. Since I'm the only non-Kannadigan in our class, they would often carry on the lectures in Kannada and the teacher along with my classmates would laugh sometimes. And whenever I question them, they would tell me that they weren't talking about something serious or something which is related to the class lecture.
Another experience was that a teacher once asked me about the meanings of some Sanskrit terms which I couldn't answer. With a cold voice, he told me to learn it along with Kannada. For God's sake, why should I learn it when there are many mainstream people who doesn't even know that the North-eastern part exists in India.
In another class, our lecturer mentioned that she hated the Iranians and the Chinese and further went on to insult their English. I was shocked to hear such words from the teacher and I went home very disappointed with the teacher's prejudice.
Another teacher during his lecture said that the North eastern people have lost their identity after borrowing so much from the western culture which I don't agree with.

These are a few things which came to my mind after experiencing these incidents:

1) How do you deal with racism when the most influential people like the teachers are practicing it inside the classrooms? I am quite sure that these people are the ones who discuss Racism and who reacts back with anger when the Indians were facing racism in other countries like Australia, England etc..

2) Relating it to our Mizo community,is it always a good thing to use our own mother tongue when we have non- Mizo friends by our side?

3) Is it the best thing to talk about a particular group without having much knowledge about their values and beliefs?

4) Is it a good idea to impose a language on someone when he/she is not willing to learn?

5 comments:

  1. i was taken aback by how the media was abuzzed by the racism encountered by an indian or two in australia..wat about us??and talkin about kannadigas...ders one lecturer who olwas manage to show some discrimination or pass funny comments on the NE culture or so....and he's blind!!!!

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  2. ziak tha hle mai,scholar kut chhuak nge nge

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  3. Jajus kan ang theilo ni tiro JARJO :)

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  4. i wonder if the "mainstream" media would've caused so much ruckus had it been pple from north-eastern India - the so called "chinks" who had been the victims of abuse in that Auatralian incident!!?? And yes, there is no denying that we have been heavily influenced by the western culture but seriously which culture hasn't been unless its a village in the middle of a forest or something?? I don't know why some so called well-learned pple would make assumptions on certain things without proper knowledge/in - depth analyses!!?? I guess racism is everywhere and i don't think it'll ever really stop.. the only thing is it's subtle in certain places whereas it's not so in certain other places. Here's a thumbs up to all the haters so that they may rot in hell... muahahahaha :-D

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  5. @babie: true..what if the indians out there were people from the north eastern part...they might have portrayed us in a negative manner..it's the same thing that's happening in india,esp delhi...if any north eastern girl gets molested,the mainstream people would always give a remark on their lifestyle,their sense of fashion...etc etc...in a way holding them responsible for the consequences..this ain't fair.

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