Secular!

While in the train, coming back from a so called educational tour, one of my friends sang a telegu song, she herself not being one. One of her friends tried to pull her leg, saying that not even, I, a south Indian, couldn’t understand the song!

To which I scathingly remarked, I am not a “Gultee”!!

She said “Oh I forgot, you were a Tamilian!”

To which, I didn’t respond, a lost cause, I thought…

Another friend added on, “You South-Indians all look similar, speak similar, there simply isn’t any difference!”

I resigned for sure now!

It seems as if all “small-eyed” creatures looked same, whether they be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian!

But later I thought, why did I get irritated by the fact?

Am I not supposed to be secular in nature?

Where I can be called whatever,

I am an Indian, or in a larger context am a world citizen!

Throughout my life, my surname has been wrongly spelt, MEMON Vimal it reads, instead of MENON Vimal, including a month ago when I was paying the fees at the institute. And every time I correct them with a frowning face!

Was this an example of religious intolerance?

Although I go gaga over the secularism in India, whose Prime Minister is a Sikh, after a Roman Catholic declined the post, whose President is a Muslim, and over eighty percent of whose population consists of Hindus, and I myself am intolerant of this?

After prodding over it for a few minutes, I found out that more than religious intolerance, it was more a case of mistaken identity, or lost identity!

A scene from last year’s Oscar winner “Crash” came to my mind, where an American guy gets a call from his mother, and he tells her that he is with his Mexican Girl-Friend, to which the Girl-Friend snaps at him, saying she is half Puerto Rican and half Nicaraguan, and where can he find a Mexico in it?

A case of lost identity for sure I’d say!

The fact that some teachers remembered me in my school days through my roll no. too irritated me; I was given a name by my parents for god’s sake!

But then, the flip side of the coin is revealed by the fact that, how comfortable you might be in an alien culture?

Although being secular is one part, and being in your own comfort zone is another!

When I took the admission to the hostel four years ago, a strict directive was issue by the authorities, no associations, based on cast, creed, religion or language.

But I myself am a part of the KSA, or the Kerala Students Association, which consists of a group of students from the state of Kerala. And the best of my friends are within the so called association. It has more to do with your comfort zone, I guess!

Although, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have friends from outside the “association”. But the “rapport building exercise” was faster, I’d say!

I could make some good friends almost at the end of the four years of college life!

So I will hold the “Comfort zone” theory responsible for the mildly insecular nature!