Identifying our identity?

Who is an Indian? How do we identify ourselves? Is it a person who was born and raised in India? Or the one who speaks Hindi and follows his culture and heritage? Or may be the patriot who misses his country and its people everyday, no matter where in the world he is. However, many expats today may prefer to identify and introduce themselves in a totally different way.

Activities abuzz, soon the many Indian American organizations in the country would be holding their annual conventions. But who will participate? Well, it really depends on how an Indian identifies himself.

If you are a Gujarati, you might be waiting for Gujarati Association of North America's (GANA) annual event. In case you are a youngster from that community, chances are you have already registered for Matri 2008 to be held in July. If you hail from Rajasthan, the Rajasthan Association of North America's (RANA) events may draw your attention. Same would be the case with Andhrites, whose Telugu Association of North America (TANA) also has a youth wing to encourage youngsters from the community to brace their language and culture. Punjabis have Academy of the Punjab in North America and the Punjab American Heritage Society. . We can go on and on with organizations for Tamils, Maharashtrians, Oriyas, et al.

Most of these organizations in their charter state that their mission is the promotion of their culture, heritage and language in the people of that community living in North America. These conventions also do very well with huge attendance registered by its patriots.

Organizations based on professions also are very popular among Indians here. The Asian American Hotel owners Association (AAHOA), which is predominantly Indian, held is regional conferences throughout June with good attendance. Their annual convention will be held in April 2009 and promotions are underway already.

Another popular organization is Asian American Convenience Stores Association (AACSA), which will hold its conference in November this year.

The American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI), which held its annual convention this week. Others not to be forgotten are The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE); Silicon Valley Indian Professional Organization; South Asian Women's Leadership Forum (SAWLF),; and the list goes on.

Most of these organizations register a good number of participation as their conventions cater to specific interests of the community. They get enough funding through their patrons, thus enabling the, to invite high profile guests like a Bollywood celebrity, a TV personality or a business tycoon.

But what happens when an organization that does not identify itself demographically or by profession but as an Indian holds a convention? No surprises here, the participation to such gatherings is very scarce, mostly constituting of the families of the people who might be presenting or are involved in the organization.

I was recently at the Hindi Mahotsav in New Jersey. The meet was organized by Hindi USA, an independent non-profit organization working pro actively to propagate Hindi in the Indian American community, and in turn promoting Indian unity. To linguistically stimulate the minds of Indian Americans the convention hosted two well known Hindi poets from India. The organization, passionately run by volunteers, holds Hindi classes in over 30 schools for children.

However, looking at the number of people present at the convention, it seemed that mostly they were the parents of the kids who took part in the program. The event organizers repeatedly requested the attendees to brace Hindi as their mother tongue and to respect the language as their own. Even the brilliant poets were intrigued by the fact that Indian Americans are letting go of Hindi in such a matter-of-fact way and that nobody is concerned about the preservation of the language.

Well, this is the state of our mother tongue today. And so is the state of being an Indian.

The Government of India has declared February 10th as World Hindi day. This is celebrated at the various Indian consulates and embassies all over the world. But that is where it gets limited to. Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan holds regular classes in Hindi with the goal of preservation of the language. But many of us might be unaware that BVB actually has a branch in the heart on Manhattan.

When two Gujaratis meet on the street, they immediately start talking in their own language. So is the case with Punjabis, Tamils and other communities. We prefer to introduce ourselves by the community today, saying that “I am a Tamil, Punjabi, Marwari or Gujarati.” What should be on top of our minds is: “I am an Indian”.

This sentiment of our identity is only leading to a division within the society. At the end of the day we are all Indians. If an Indian organizes a meet, a convention, or a speech; we should all be there in the capacity of being an Indian... forgetting what part of India we migrated from.

That would not only benefit us on the national level only but also globally. It is the need of the hour that we all came together as Indians and not as a divided community. We need to be united in Washington to lobby for the Indo-US Nuclear deal; We need to be together in Canberra to promote the India-Australia Uranium deal; We need to be united in London to promote UK's support to India in Biotechnology, which has been identified as one of the main areas for enhanced cooperation from the country; we need to be one in Tokyo to encourage India's trade relations with Japan. We need to be united so that along with remembering 9/11, the world remembers that India struggles with terrorism everyday.

If we Indians all across the world stand together in front of the world, it would only be a matter of time when we would see the rise of our country politically, economically and culturally. In a nut shell, we need to be united for the cause of India.

A Turkish Delight!

“Marhaba,” my friend Ayfer said as I made my way out of the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. Instantaneously, a vague song that went like “Marhaba, Marhaba...,” went on in the back of my head and I realized it was the Turkish way of saying hello. I reciprocated her gesture.

Traveling is not just going to different lands, seeing the historical and famous buildings there, trying out new cuisines or meeting new people. There is more to this very popular activity. An important element of travel is communicating with the new people from these new cultures and lands. Language crisis is something that can change the very experience of a journey. For some it can put a damper on their much wanted vacation, while for others it can be the spice of a trip. I guess I fall in the latter category.

Born and brought up in India and studied in an English medium school, I was very confident of my verbal English skills and never gave a thought about communication troubles when I planned a trip across the world. But it did not take me much time to realize what I had missed. Reality bites hard, and for me, it was indeed very hard. This was my first brush with non-English speaking community and I was at a loss. Full of enthusiasm and zest, I made my way out of the Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. But soon I was lost to the core. There were no hoardings in English and hardly anyone spoke my language!

Soon it turned out that spending time with Ayfer was not going to be as easy as I thought. My host’s English was just as good as my Turkish! And my mind raced with ideas how I was going to manage in this Middle-Eastern country. After the cordial exchange of greetings, we did not know how to strike a conversation.

It is said that actions speak louder than words, and soon we discovered the pleasures of the sign language. Ayfer would compliment the signs with her broken one-or-two-word English and I would try to respond back in the same manner – not going too fast and breaking my sentence into words so she could understand. I was convinced that by the time I left Turkey, I would have forgotten English grammar!

My nightmare came when I boarded a night bus to get to Bursa and meet my friend Melek. To my horror, there was not a single English-speaking soul on the bus. Forget about speaking, they wouldn’t even understand! The bus got delayed ‘cuz of heavy rain and I was starting to worry if I had missed my stop. What was I going to do if this thought was true! Trying to inquire from the bus attendant was futile and I decided to go with the flow. In my mind, planning different strategies what I was going to do if I had really missed the stop. It was my good luck that I had not and that they did spell out the town’s name in English at the bus terminal. Even the bus driver tried his best: “Ladies and Gentleman, we have landed Bursa Terminal. Our take-off time is 12.20 am”. I knew it was time to disembark.

Melek had smartly planned my visit. Anticipating the language problem, she had an English-Turkish digital dictionary handy. And, this was going to be our lifeline for the next three days. It was then I realized how she had managed to write me letters in English for the past three years.
Each time we wanted to talk, Melek would open the dictionary and we would key in what was to be said. And our kind dictionary would obligingly give us an instantaneous English translation, saving us the torture of making stupid actions or trying to decipher what the other was trying say.

The language crisis made my visit to Turkey an everlasting memory!