Wednesday, October 14, 2009

The Indianness in them....

This is after the article that I saw in the Mumbai Mirror this morning..

On the first page...."INDIANS STOP BOTHERING ME"-Nobel Laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

And the whole Indian thing of "Look-we-have-some-part-here-so-its-ours" couldnt help but come to my mind.

Indians are hypocrites when it comes to such things.We just realize that there are some of us working out there,slogging when they get some recognition.

Now consider this...theres not much of India in Sunita Williams...except her first name and the fact that she was born here (Even taking samosas to outer space doesnt count..really)
But when we got the news that shes going out in space..we suddenly realized that theres a woman out there who was born in India.

Then there was Slumdog Millionaire,never mind that more than half of the crew working on the movie was British,the fact that it was shot in India with Indian actors suddenly made it an Indian Movie..And when the movie got The Oscars...Oh my god "We Indians are great arent we...we showed them!"

It was the same with the movie "Water" at the last Academy Awards.

When movies like "The Sixth Sense" and "The Village" were successful we started behaving as if M.Night Shyamalan had never left Kerala for Philadelphia..

Vijender Singh was made the Poster Boy of Indian sports when he got the bronze at the Olympics...but wait...wasnt there a piece of news some days back about how P T Usha was refused a room of her own at a National Sports Meet...why was that?

Because shes been out of action from quite some time now..

I dont say we shouldnt be proud of what our fellow Indians achieve...but what irritates me is this sudden affection that we get for people whn they get aome well deserved fame and recognition..

Now,Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born in India and educated here..fine enough..But the research?All the hardwork?That was what he did in the US right?So why are people suddenly forging long lost relationships with him...why are people clogging his email when all these years they didnt bother to keep in touch?

Salman Rushdie and M F Hussain are in exile..Why?Coz we cant face their work..we are intolerant when it comes to their work.

But do wait sirs...maybe it will take another Man Booker and maybe some honour in Arts..before we finally realise that even you are Indians..

4 comments:

  1. Point. Point indeed.

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  2. It's actually unnerving. You are right.
    I remember a headline that appeared in a malayalam daily after Robin Uthappa's dazzling performance led to India's vicory. The headline roughly translated as 'Half Malayalee Robin Uthappa leads India to Victory.' Ugh! AND, it appeared on the FRONT page!!

    See, it's even regional....:|

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  3. absolutely correct...nicely written

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  4. very true....we indians have kindaa infatuation for success n laurels...but..kya kare,'yeh dil he hindustani??

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