Recently someone added a comment to one of my videos on YouTube. The video is about lyrics, translation and explanation of a music/dance number of one Indian regional language film. The person whose mother tongue is that regional language itself, expressed his inability to understand the lyrics and the literature of that language. And interestingly, this person lives in that region and not in other country where he is obliged to learn things in that country’s language.
The language in question is one among the eight classical languages of the world. Among this eight elite group, it is one of the few living classical languages and holds a unique position that, among hundreds of thousands of world languages, this is the one and only language which held conferences, intellectual and academic gatherings to beautify it and ameliorate it in the fields of literature, music, dance and theater. This language is often discussed among linguist - for a possible motherhood - to create a link from this language to other languages like Japanese, Finno-Ugric, and even isolated languages like Korean and Basque, but not the other way around. This language has an unbroken literary tradition spanning over more than 3-4 millennia till current date, as few film songs employ some 4th century BCE poems as if they were written just the day before.
Same kind of elaborate discussion on the above language can be attributed to the two great music tradition of India, folkloric music traditions, the eight classical dance forms and other folkloric dances, Indian gastronomy, other Indian arts like painting or martial arts, Indian lifestyle and dress codes, the Indian sacred texts like the four Vedas, more than hundred Upanishads, the two great epics, numerous Puranas, Mimamsas, Smrithis, Siddhantas, Samhitas, Sruthis, Shastras, Sutras, Stotras, Tantras, Vedhantas, Aranyakas, Brahmanas, their sub categories, sub-sub categories, the secular and non-laic literature available in classical languages and other more than thousand languages. And the dimensions of the very soul of everything, the Indian civilization, themselves are something truly mind-boggling.
For every Indian, no matter of religion, caste, creed, or language, the proud moment of joy must be to understand that this vast, time-tested, incredibly subtle and genius, error corrected, refined, re-refined knowledge has survived all the odds since the civilizational foundations were laid and passed on to us. It is a great privilege bestowed on Indians, and not on any other parts on the earth, to have access to this ancient knowledge, store it in our brain and process it. Imagine how capable would be Indian brains to process such a huge amount of knowledge, say since some five thousand years, if Indians go by their own tradition and culture. Additionally there is still enough room in brains for the Indians to be lawyers, doctors, poets, mathematicians, pilots, IT geeks, tourist guides, humble drivers, be faithful to other religions, to learn other languages or to appreciate other cultures whatever the form they may take. In plain words turning our attention to our own culture is a great invaluable exercise for the gray muscles, which is available only to Indians. Imagine what kind of new generations the Indians can produce?
But what the Indians (I don’t prefer the words “majority of Indians”) do is, they simply abandon everything Indian and go for “look west” policy since their childhood and having difficulties understanding their own culture and mother tongue, like the person who posted comments on my video (I guess he would have probably been sold to “English medium” and have taken a “western path” to acquire knowledge). The Indian tradition is absorbing everything and turning it into uniquely Indian anchored deeply in Indian tradition. This was the case till the colonization, the worst episode of the Indian culture, before which we didn’t lose the economic might.
It’s justifiable to admire economically superior nations and upto some extent imitate their culture, when a nation has an inferior economy. The Mesopotamians did so when the Harappans were placed at the peak of their civilizational comforts. The Romans, Greeks and mainly the Arabs did the same, heavily borrowed and propagated Indian riches and knowledge, of course adding their own contributions. The Europeans followed the course, borrowed heavily from the Arabs and got a renaissance. Even the redoubtable Japanese did the same after the World War II and got more or little americanized. But no one abandoned their culture or the languages of their own mothers.
If we just have a glance at the Indian film culture, music industries, media, it is stuffed with western influence, from language, music, stealing Hollywood bikini culture, to McDonald’s, Pizza Huts and Coffee Shops. I really don’t understand what NY caps and T-Shirts got to do with Mangalore or Shilong or Tawang. Since the media is city dwellers puppets, it corrupts even the remotest villages in Tripura and Ladakh. I hate the media most when I happened to see advertisements like these (shame on people who endorse such ads):
It is pure and simple cultural eunuchism. No matter what you try, skin level or effin’ li’l English, you are not going to be an American or European. Neither an Indian, with a thick skull of no cultural values. Foreign languages and cultures are supposed to complement someone’s knowledge and his cultural background, but definitely not to replace them.
India, such a great civilization, mother to great thoughts, philosophies and sciences, while still very much ready to be alive with her traditions, why her younger generations more and more abandoning their cultural values? Why not proud of Indianess? Why not proud of belonging to a great civilization?
It is because of this cultural values, the processing ability of tonnes and tonnes of information by our brains passed on to us by our fathers and fore-fathers, India shattered her quasi-socialist protectionism, plugged herself into the global economy, faced all the consequences and now in result getting respect from every corner of the world. Is it permissible to turn the fertile minds, the new generation who are going to represent the new India, into barren consumerism-drugged monotonic wasteland resembling some vague occicentric pathetic egos?
The language in question is one among the eight classical languages of the world. Among this eight elite group, it is one of the few living classical languages and holds a unique position that, among hundreds of thousands of world languages, this is the one and only language which held conferences, intellectual and academic gatherings to beautify it and ameliorate it in the fields of literature, music, dance and theater. This language is often discussed among linguist - for a possible motherhood - to create a link from this language to other languages like Japanese, Finno-Ugric, and even isolated languages like Korean and Basque, but not the other way around. This language has an unbroken literary tradition spanning over more than 3-4 millennia till current date, as few film songs employ some 4th century BCE poems as if they were written just the day before.
Same kind of elaborate discussion on the above language can be attributed to the two great music tradition of India, folkloric music traditions, the eight classical dance forms and other folkloric dances, Indian gastronomy, other Indian arts like painting or martial arts, Indian lifestyle and dress codes, the Indian sacred texts like the four Vedas, more than hundred Upanishads, the two great epics, numerous Puranas, Mimamsas, Smrithis, Siddhantas, Samhitas, Sruthis, Shastras, Sutras, Stotras, Tantras, Vedhantas, Aranyakas, Brahmanas, their sub categories, sub-sub categories, the secular and non-laic literature available in classical languages and other more than thousand languages. And the dimensions of the very soul of everything, the Indian civilization, themselves are something truly mind-boggling.
For every Indian, no matter of religion, caste, creed, or language, the proud moment of joy must be to understand that this vast, time-tested, incredibly subtle and genius, error corrected, refined, re-refined knowledge has survived all the odds since the civilizational foundations were laid and passed on to us. It is a great privilege bestowed on Indians, and not on any other parts on the earth, to have access to this ancient knowledge, store it in our brain and process it. Imagine how capable would be Indian brains to process such a huge amount of knowledge, say since some five thousand years, if Indians go by their own tradition and culture. Additionally there is still enough room in brains for the Indians to be lawyers, doctors, poets, mathematicians, pilots, IT geeks, tourist guides, humble drivers, be faithful to other religions, to learn other languages or to appreciate other cultures whatever the form they may take. In plain words turning our attention to our own culture is a great invaluable exercise for the gray muscles, which is available only to Indians. Imagine what kind of new generations the Indians can produce?
But what the Indians (I don’t prefer the words “majority of Indians”) do is, they simply abandon everything Indian and go for “look west” policy since their childhood and having difficulties understanding their own culture and mother tongue, like the person who posted comments on my video (I guess he would have probably been sold to “English medium” and have taken a “western path” to acquire knowledge). The Indian tradition is absorbing everything and turning it into uniquely Indian anchored deeply in Indian tradition. This was the case till the colonization, the worst episode of the Indian culture, before which we didn’t lose the economic might.
It’s justifiable to admire economically superior nations and upto some extent imitate their culture, when a nation has an inferior economy. The Mesopotamians did so when the Harappans were placed at the peak of their civilizational comforts. The Romans, Greeks and mainly the Arabs did the same, heavily borrowed and propagated Indian riches and knowledge, of course adding their own contributions. The Europeans followed the course, borrowed heavily from the Arabs and got a renaissance. Even the redoubtable Japanese did the same after the World War II and got more or little americanized. But no one abandoned their culture or the languages of their own mothers.
If we just have a glance at the Indian film culture, music industries, media, it is stuffed with western influence, from language, music, stealing Hollywood bikini culture, to McDonald’s, Pizza Huts and Coffee Shops. I really don’t understand what NY caps and T-Shirts got to do with Mangalore or Shilong or Tawang. Since the media is city dwellers puppets, it corrupts even the remotest villages in Tripura and Ladakh. I hate the media most when I happened to see advertisements like these (shame on people who endorse such ads):
It is pure and simple cultural eunuchism. No matter what you try, skin level or effin’ li’l English, you are not going to be an American or European. Neither an Indian, with a thick skull of no cultural values. Foreign languages and cultures are supposed to complement someone’s knowledge and his cultural background, but definitely not to replace them.
India, such a great civilization, mother to great thoughts, philosophies and sciences, while still very much ready to be alive with her traditions, why her younger generations more and more abandoning their cultural values? Why not proud of Indianess? Why not proud of belonging to a great civilization?
It is because of this cultural values, the processing ability of tonnes and tonnes of information by our brains passed on to us by our fathers and fore-fathers, India shattered her quasi-socialist protectionism, plugged herself into the global economy, faced all the consequences and now in result getting respect from every corner of the world. Is it permissible to turn the fertile minds, the new generation who are going to represent the new India, into barren consumerism-drugged monotonic wasteland resembling some vague occicentric pathetic egos?
What is culture?
ReplyDeletehow do you define a singular broad definition of culture in a environment where for many generations people have lost the touch to their past?
consider how many people can not trace their roots to any ancestral place that is in true sense more than 100 years in time.
Now i refuse to consider any India that was existed before the British Rule and consider the British no different than the Muslims who ruled a huge mass in the mainland before them.
I can say that many parts of India were never part of a historically "similar" India before the British Rule.
Does that make me less of an Indian than anyone else in todays sense.
I am as patriotic as the next guy, do not break any rule of the land, participate in national democratic process each time i can.
I find your view of India very narrow, perhaps you should travel around and find the truly great vastness that is India.
A cultural survival is really a question of evolution, not of a monolith that does not change, history as they say is the witness.
These are my views and as a fellow human in a democratic environment(although with its flaws) i respect your views.
Devendra,
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary you should be the one travelling. If you travel accross this country and go to any corner of it, you can see the same vedic culture, and practices that existed for over 3000-4000 years predating any british or islamic invasions!.
"I can say that many parts of India were never part of a historically "similar" India before the British Rule."
That is quite an uninformed comment. Rather i would call it a conditioned one. You have been trained to believe that no India existed before British. Dude pls do your own research and you will see the same culture from north to the south. The word connecting them is "Vedic". That is the similarity. Discuss it with any mordern scholar of indian history and you will understand what that means. Im not talking about the racist/dumb Aryan invasion theory followers.
You can learn about how this country was , ie Bharat Varsha, from writings of Al biruni,Hieun Tsang etc.
Hope someday you realize what India really is/was.
I agree with Mr. Devendra.
ReplyDeleteAtharvanaVedaYb.BlogSpot.Com
SringaraSatakamYb.BlogSpot.Com
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all i am not a DUDE or a CHAI or a COFFE or what ever slang you kids use these days, i have a name and its Devendra.
ReplyDeleteIf you consider all places that have a vedic heritage India might end up including Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, some nations in South East Asia etc. however it is not the case. i mean come on even Buddhism has vedic roots.
I have traveled a lot due to my job, the problems you quote in your blog change in every region, and regions are a plenty in India, along with people and languages.
As for the research i can send some maps to you from the Archaeological Survey of India that follow all the various civilisations and Kingdoms in India at their peak may be then you will see a clear picture, however you have sidestepped a question i asked what is Culture?
how do you define it in a city where people have not had a so called 'village link' for 100 years or so?
how do you assimilate religion with culture? And how do you explain anomalies such as Parsi and Jewish communities in India who have been around for a very long time now and contributed to India?
Devendra, you might have heard of cell culture or tissue culture or DNA culture. Cultivating cell/tissue/DNA under controlled conditions to improve its quality using expertise and certain tools.
ReplyDeleteExactly a culture is to improve the quality of the social animal called human under controlled social conditions using tools like religion, literature, music and other tools listed in the blog’s third paragraph. That is exactly the point I want to emphasize. The tools available for cultivating an Indian are mind-boggling long list. What I have listed is a small portion of it. The expertise is some more than five thousand years.
That is why despite all the odds the India is rising. That is why even during the colonial oppression India managed to create people like Vivekananda, Chandrasekhar, CV Raman, BR Ambedkar, Salim Ali, Gandhi, Vishveshwaraiya, Radhakrishnan, etc. This never happened in other colonial part of the world.
As for the people migrated to new land, they have added advantage that they have Indian tools (culture) plus their ancestral tool (culture) of their country/place of origin to cultivate themselves. After two generations they tend to treasure their migrated country’s culture more than their ancestral culture, though a reminiscence of their culture linger somewhere in their genetic memory. Or some tend to totally forget this original link.
After independence India become a union of different countries, and after the creation of the Indian constitution, India became a republic and thus a united single country. Give or take certain regions, within the fuzzy borders (the rough result of intersecting parts by super-positioning empires like Gupta’s, Asoka’s, Akbar’s, British Raj’s, etc.) India is a one single country. It depends on people’s mentality what to treasure more. A person settled down in India from western China, still can be an Indian citizen, but can treasure his Chinese link more than Indian culture. The Malaysian Indians, Singapore Indians, Sri Lankans sometimes call themselves as the respective country’s citizens having Indian origin. This people use both cultures as a tool to cultivate themselves, but they treasure one or the other more, depending on their tastes.
May be I have not traveled lot like you (just went to Shimla from a Kerala-Tamil Nadu border place close to Thekkady, visiting places like Mathura, Bangalore, Delhi, Agra, etc.), but I do know there are people like Apathani, Thoda, Baduga, Kasi tribes (one of the surviving matrilineal societies), polyandrial societies like Todas, Nishis and some Tibetan Ladakhi nomads and even the Kalash people of Chitral of Pakistan, their languages, music, dances, colorful cultures, etc. Though I envy you for sweeping the great mesmerizing vast Indian subcontinent, you must understand that one need not to travel a lot to understand certain things in this information age. So please don’t call me a narrow minded person. And I wrote the blog considering all the people, cultures, their believes, etc.
As you said, a cultural survival is really a question of evolution, that is why people tend to forget their original link or linger over their ancestral cultural memories. This is the case when one migrates and settles down in a different land, but not in their own land. And this is the point I want to highlight, while living in India, Indians (mainly younger generations), a product of a great civilization, tend to forsake their cultural values/tools for a distant mirage western culture which has minimal cultural tools and having an expertise of say 5-6 centuries (counting since the renaissance period though it is an exaggeration as their real story begins after the French/industrial revolution, colonialism, etc.)
PS 1: I didn’t call you dude. And I hope calling you Devendra does not hurt you. Because I feel Devendra or even Dev is close to my heart, rather than calling you as Mr.Devendra, Dear Devendra or Devendra Sir. If it hurts so please inform me. You can call me Mano.
PS 2: It is sad that BRF locked my thread and mistaken me as a troll, thanks to the weird title. But I really consider the cultural transition the youths are adopting is a cultural eunuchism.
My Oh my....you did get wacked over this one! Did you know Mano means hand in Spanish? Furthermore, in Mexico it is a diminutive for brother (herMANO)...enough rambling about linguistics.
ReplyDeleteCulture is a very complex human invention, ranging from the development of techniques and technology for covering the most basic need for food, to the accepted-by-the-majority norms and more-than-complex ways men and women interact whilst seeking the basic need for reproduction. Needless to say globalization seduces even the most sturdy ethnocentric! I laughed my heart out on your last sentence, a question left for polemic to rise. I guess you have been heart-broken at the sight of youth in the big cities and believe me, same can be found from the Hudson Bay to Patagonia and the rest of the world. Culture is values of use in every way, from religion to sex. The media, speaking as a journalist here, is a tool for inducing a matrix of opinion, serving the culture producing it of course. The real problem is that a new breed of culture has been born, father: industrial revolution, mother: plastics and the term disposable. It is beyond politic and economic boundaries, it is the capitalist idea of producing artificial needs...you must consume goods in order to be part of the IN-crowd. This IN-crowd dresses the same, has the same likes and dislikes, has a common language, has a common creed -the shopping mall- and eats the same crap despite religious or health restrictions, and this Mano, is visible everywhere you go. I would say that generalizing is not fair but I see your point, Indian values are disappearing and it is angering.
For instance, the ad you despise. Look behind the maker of the product, who owns this? Corrupting Indian looks for European, white-caucasian ones? Who makes such trends? Who benefits from such? Why are these trends so appealling to youngsters -and oldies alike-?
Did you know blondes -as a race- are disappearing? Maybe there is some commercial interest in turning a minority's looks, habits, values of use, etc, to the majority's dream....and in the meantime there's a lot of people making money from it.
Jai Hind!