To me, India is not one country but a "theme & ideology" under which many countries stay together...the demography, psychography and even economy changes in each 500kms...we have more than 200 languages, varied cultures, rituals, society. Even the religious belief for each religion are diversified (even within same religion)...it is actually very tough to create one movement pan-India.
Interestingly, I understood that we do have common AIOs (Youth segment) for few factors...one of them is the "hatred against the politicians and bureaucrats". the "anna team" (the team behind anti corruption movement in India) understood it well and created the movement successfully. This is the first ever post-independent movement in India which appeals to all the youth in India across the demography, culture, class, economy and social barrier. the team successfully promoted it through alternative media, word-of-mouth, open press, radio stations to gather support. The govt was bent, finally.
in other hand, we have "other india" who lives in socio-cultural Utopia and dreams of being "exotic" in this very country.
In the wake of a popular Bollywood movie which glorified Spain through its crap story, half Indian actress and a six fingered Hero, the “La Tomatnia” came in India!
The original La Tomatina festival which once started in Spain (once a year) to overcome the over-production of Tomatoes and reincarnate Spanish tourism is now being enthusiastically “copied” as a “social activity” by some enthusiasts in Bangaluru and Delhi! It’s unfortunate that we, being Indian, fail to understand that this country is culturally rich enough to arrange or re-invent any mode of “social activity” (which is fit for our demography) rather than merely copying the “others”. A socio-cultural activity as “Holi” (which unfortunately became religious, later) was designed by our fore-fathers to initiate the social network, break self-barrier, social belonging, spreading happiness and peace; the same motto, that La Tomatnia has in Spain.
The fetish of being “westernized” is rooted so deep in our gene that we fail to recognize the price of a tomato (in India) vis a vis the hungry Indians (for original La Tomatina at Spain, the tomatoes come from Extremadura, where they are less expensive and are grown specifically for the holidays, being of inferior taste)!
Or is it actually a fetish of showing off the power of money to the “other India”? A fetish that is growing in monstrous proportion in the cities like Bangaluru and Delhi… “See I can smash so many tomatoes with my girlfriend which you might never have eaten in your life”…a Spanish dream in dreadful Bangaluru traffic!
The most common disease in “India.inc” is ‘living in a socio-cultural Utopia’ which many youth relishes everyday. When these day dreams break, they lands into the Smokey, polluted, poverty ridden, class barricaded roads of modern India…
Read more about Anna team and La Tomatina, India:
1 comment:
two extreme faces of our Dear India..tomatina here!!
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