Hi Steemitians,
This is my first post on Steemit and i really love the idea of getting paid for sharing the thoughts of yourself. It can turnout to be really helpfull for people around the world. So, I saw #introduceyourself was trending on top 3 here, but i have thought of introducing my country first on this worldwide platform. This is my perspective of my country.
I will love to hear it from people of this commmunity to know about there native country.
So,
"India"
India is an enigma for westerners who often spend thousands of dollars in a plane ticket to find “spirituality”.
Then the expat goes back home (or doesn’t) and blogs about the filth, the inequality, the utter poverty which s/he finds mind-numbing, the gender-bias, the staring, the food, the fun, and try to paint a picture of what living in India entails.
The best part is not spirituality of India.
Indians survive, live life, do not become an ascetic, and are happily wading through various forms of unhappy times, through corruption, dirt, social injustice, inequality and all the stereotypes that the west love to connect, in forming the concept of the uninhabitable place and name it as India. Therefore “Spirituality” becomes the magnet—the advertised best thing about living in India—the alluring consumer need— and Indians too rally together in advertising it, in the hope of finding external validation and finally finding something to be proud of; and of course, make a few bucks in the process.
But it’s not spirituality, or the food, or the festivals or the language that connects me best with India. We have mindbogglingly wonderful range in food, but that is a natural precipitate of being a diverse nation. That’s the part I love about India, but still, it’s not the best part.
If you come to think about it, every nation loves their food, their landscape, and their cultural traits. It’s a given that when we search within ourselves to find that throbbing atom of connection and identity, we’d think of the cultural artifacts. An American would of course like American values; an Israeli would love the glorious Israeli breakfast. That’s what we grow up on and that’s how things grow on us.
To understand the best thing about living in India, one has to live in India. The country of 1.2 billion people. The country where people, people, people and people are surrounding you all the time.
I know Europeans who find people all around very overwhelming. They want to escape. Trust me, us Indians hate the crowds too. Nobody likes crowds.
Yet, when we Indians go and live in countries of low population density, we get depressed seeing “empty streets” and being disconnected. We can’t take in individuality. Long back, I had answered a question on this, and the question details outlines the point I’m trying to make in a nice illustration: Are people in India/Pakistan ever really alone?
The best thing about living in India is that you are never alone. You are never all by yourself. You are never trying to do it all alone. Never, Never, Never, never. Just Never, even when you think you are doing it.
All through our lives, humans are trying on networking with people, and realizing how it could fall flat in its face [1] and how networking is just so essential to have well-being in life. People volunteer in the hope of developing networks in developed countries (so-called First World). People join classes, and spread themselves in convenient compartments to be members of multiple networks. To connect.
In India, we start connecting involuntarily; even before we are born. Through the names we are given, that signify our relationship with people. Through lack of civilities but understanding body language with the neighbourhood grocer.
We connect, and we have bonds, and we have relationships even with the milkman, co-passengers, neighbour of a distant relative, and other myriad forms of relationships that are simply inconceivable in western terms.
This also means that all these people—a diverse motley—get to have a say in your life.
Being Indian means learning to deal with complexity and being very, very adept in steering through manifold adversities. The privilege of living in India is that one learns very early on, on how to be resourceful and connect the dots around to come up with things that are useful. You must have heard about the Indian jugaad? [2] We learn how to be navigate through adversities and how to survive, because we are helped in the process by little but not insignificant ways, by others. That’s how resilience builds on in us. That’s why we do not externalize our frustrations and go on killing people with a gun in a mall or school, when we go through a break-up, are depressed, or don’t get our required grades.
Because we know, we are never alone. There are always people to support us. We take it so much for granted that we feel entitled to having support all the time. And then, we run into “problems” the moment we step out of India.
We know, we’ve lost the best thing when we leave India. The people of India. That’s the best part of living in India.
There will never be a dull moment in your life, while you’re living in India.
Lets know your country.