Humans look best when they have white skin. Or at least that's what we Indians believe. White skin can be synonymous to a lot of things. It can be synonymous to success, to knowledge, to enlightenment, to secularism, to intelligence, and an overall superiority over those placed on the darker side of the fair and lovely shade card. Understandably therefore, we consider ourselves superior to Africans and thus somewhat closer to the western world of enlightenment compared to them. I have a feeling that Mohandas guy wouldn't have made such a fuss over independence had those white sahibs allowed him onto the first class train compartment in Africa. But that's a story I'm not willing to spend any ink on right now.
Before baking a plum cake, it is advisable to soak dry fruits in dark rum for a fortnight. The fruits soak all the rum up infusing the plum cake with a rich fruity-rum flavour. We sub-continent people are like those fruits. Only, we are soaked in Christianity. We have imbibed the white man's religion into our culture and have even coined a word for it - secularism. We celebrate Christmas; I mean hordes of non-Christian atheist and secular Indians bake cakes, drink ,wine, don red-white santa caps, visit chapels and cathedrals for midnight mass, attend Christmas eve parties, all in the name of being hip and happening. Christianity however, is a far lesser minority compared to Islam in India and yet, no such euphoria is ever in sight among non-Muslim Indians during Eid or any Muslim festival for that matter. Because, Islam is a religion and Christianity is the other name of secularism. 300 years of colonial read Christian rule has left such deep seated roots that we fight tooth and nail over the so called universality of Sunday as the weekly off, little realising that the holy Sabbath is the day god is supposed to have rested after creating the universe for six days before that. Yes, the Sunday holiday is as religious a thing as the Jumma (friday prayer day for Muslims, a weekly off in neighbouring Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Have you ever considered wearing skull caps/burqas and pouting before a phone camera held high on a selfie stick and checking in to an iftaar party for a facebook status? Or will that mark you as a terrorist planning to blow up Hinduism's ass?
Hallelujah!
No comments:
Post a Comment