Location: Avon
Restaurant, Hosur Road ,
Koramangala
Time: 1 P.M.
Me: I’ll have one
egg biriyani.
Friend 1, 2 & 3:
We’ll have chicken biriyani.
Waiter: Ok, sir.
15 minutes.
[I should mention here that Friend 3 loves poking fun at random
people in general, but also has a history of finding himself at the receiving
end unexpectedly at times.]
Friend 3 (to tease
the waiter): Aeeiinn.. Thoda ulli.. Illa illa.. Adhu enna da solvaanga?
Friend 1: Pyaaz.
Friend 3 (in broken
Hindi): Aan! Pyaaz. Thoda pyaaz leke aao, bhai.
Waiter: Aen avlo
kashta padreenga? Vengaayam-ne sollunga. [Why
do you have to struggle so much? Just ask for vengaayam. (the Tamil word
for onion)]
Me, Friend 1 & 2:
Hahahahahahhahahahahahahhhahahha.. Bouuuuuu!!! [The same “bowwu” Dhanush uses
in Why This Kolaveri Di song]
Friend 3:
*awkward silence and sheepish looks*
Now, the reply (from the waiter) wouldn’t have caused
embarrassment if it had come from a Tamilian. Not even if it were from a Telugu,
Kannadiga or a Malayalee. But the fact that it was from a North-East person is
what took us all by surprise, and made us roar with laughter the moment the
sentence ended.
Further enquiry revealed that the waiter had worked in
Tirupur for a few years before moving to Bengaluru, and that’s where he learnt
Tamil. We were amazed by his proficiency in the language in that there was not
a hint of non-native accent in his speech. He sounded very much like a native
Tamilian. Unlike people who move to different cities to earn a livelihood and
stubbornly refuse to learn the local language—and it’s a well-known fact that
there are SO MANY such people in Bengaluru—this man made the effort to learn
Tamil when he was in Tirupur, and made sure he’s a decent speaker.
There are definitely more such industrious NE people in our
cities. Those whom I’ve interacted with so far have always been respectful and
well-mannered. And, as their fellow citizens, we must treat them as our equals,
and not as outsiders.
Now, there are some important facts about the North-Eastern
states we must all know before we discriminate against people who come from
there. I’m just using a couple of examples related to Assam here.
With an annual yield of 6,80,400 kg, Assam is the world’s largest
tea-growing region. So the probability of your daily dose of tea—be it at home
or at the tea stall—being made of leaves plucked in Assam is very high. Also, note that
some tea stalls are run by Malayalees, which means the cup of tea is a symbol
of national integration in itself.
Of course, IndianOil does have refineries at other states,
and there is a possibility of our using the produce of those as well. That’s
the level of dependency we find in our day-to-day life—a very important reason
for co-existence.
Just imagine if the people of Assam try to create an indirect embargo
on tea and petroleum trade to different parts of the country. It’d for sure
affect normalcy throughout. The other states that supply their goods to the
North-Eastern states can avenge for this through another embargo from their
side. But it’ll never be of any use to anyone. The day we realize that we’re
dependent on so many people for so many things in our life, and be thankful for
what we get from them is the day we lay the foundation for growth.
We welcome the North-East monsoons wholeheartedly, but treat
North-East manushans (people) in a
very ugly way.
It’s time for us to change.
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Image courtesy: http://loveme4evers.wordpress.com/
