Saturday, April 16, 2005

North south divide

Silverine talks about the great north south divide.

That’s one sore point. I can see the southies vs the northies argument going on for a long time but as soon as the bad northies are driven out of the dravidian land voila!! You have kanndu vs the tamilian and mallu vs the telegu lot.
Wake up silverine. It’s something more then north vs south, its about our (read Indians) ability to form groups and fight against each other. The british have left but their divide and rule policy lives on.
I am a northie and I stay with a kannada guy, never had any problems. Its people like you and your colleagues who have a myopic vision who create such fissures in the society.
I was in Sydney last month and there my Korean manager told me about his experience in US where he was leading a team of 40 engineers out of which 25 were Indians. Within a month the Indians had formed groups, telegu, tamilians, northies and what not. I don't feel like writing about what all they did but my confidence of taking on the world as an Indian had taken a beating. A severe one at that.

9 comments:

silverine said...

You have read my write but you have completely missed my point. I have got umpteen mails from people accross India after this post,many of North Indians who completely agree with what I say. In fact Sanjay also a North Indian from Delhi recounts how his freinds would poke fun at South Indians while he never saw any reaction from the South Indians. Shalini Behl also from Delhi says she saw the same thing happening in her office too.
I am afraid Ideal Boy that there is already a very desquieting divide taking place between the north and the south because the relentless criticism of the South Indian is taking its toll. The numerous mails I got from concerned North Indians is a proof that there are saner elements amongst the North Indians who are painfully aware of this situation.
You are true that we southies too bunch up into Tamil, Mallu, Telugu etc groups. But these groups enjoy conversing in their languages and generally enjoy the bonhomie of a similar culture. However the North Indians in the South immediately gang up to criticise the language, the food, the culture etc. of South Indians.I have walked out of parties in a huff where South bashing is the entree, main course and dessert. Believe me this is real and happening.

My post has merely pointed to this trend and I am really happy that it got the reaction it did.

An Ideal Boy said...

Your long reply has made me sad. Mayebe you can get me invited to one of those parties and I will bash up a few northies and feel happy about it.

But still I feel that its our basic nature to form groups that leads us to these sort of divides. Reason being the same as you pointed out, similar food, language, culture, cast....

The same northies that you see ganged up against the southies will form groups on the basis of cast or region as soon as they are back home in north. There will be dilliwala and non-dilliwala, brahmin and baniyan and all sorts of permutation and combination.

My apologies to you. Good that you have written about it.

silverine said...

I am no longer welcome at these parties lol:)
Thanks for the reply and your post "North south divide" is very true in its observation that we Indians tend to form groups like bacteria the moment we get together.

silverine said...

Amen to that! I think we are generally a united bunch. This groupism is perhaps due to the fact that we are a nation of nations.

However there is one matter that the Rest of India agree with- that you Northies have a little bit of superiority complex regarding your color and Aryan origins:)This is just the general feeling.

I do have a lot of North Indian friends and they are great guys.

An Ideal Boy said...

Superiority complex is the basis of all groupism. My southie roommate is standing right behind me and smiling. He says he is smarter than me. Check the smarty link on my blog for details.

Okey silverine, party or no party I promise to bash up everybody who indulges in such groupism. And as Bagga said "We are Indians and always Stand United......"
Amen!!

Anonymous said...

That was too much of a happy ending..Err...Ideal Bhoy...Were u not the one who felt that the industrial growth down south has not been very progressive compared to north due to the "Lungi" hassle - a simple harmoic act of letting down and tyin up the lungi with invincible superbia - amongst southies!??

An Ideal Boy said...

Now thats the kind of damage an insider can do to your well groomed image ;)

Well you should know that people up north also wear lungi and dhoti. You didn and that's why I was able to get away with that joke.

Atul Arora said...

मजा आ गया आपका लेख पड़कर।

Anonymous said...

Listen, I'm a south Indian guy. I wldn't sae tt I'm irressitably gdlkin bt am quite gd lkin. I went out wit this nrth indian gerl in S'pore (as I live there) and I gt a lot of stick 4m her frndz. Her frndz did nt lyk her going out wit a south indian...seemed 2 tink I was sumwhat less bettr than nrth indian guyz...lyk nrth indian guyz (no matter how bad looking)were beta that any south indian guy...We had such a gd relationship going. I truly loved her and this north/ south divide played sum part in our bust up...I dnt undrstnd y sum ppl do all this nonsense...nrth INDIAN...south INDIAN...y can't they see tt there is the word INDIAN behind the two? Y can't we just look at each other as Indians instead of discriminating each other because we r south or nrth? Can't we juz b indians? how can our country prosper like this? vry dissapointed...plz post ur reaction 2 dis comment. Btw, my name is Srinand