hpk.co.in - people

Stand By Me Around The World

hpk — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:15:19 +0000

Great songs unite. Christmas Mubaraq & Happy New Year!
Stand By Me.

I hope, in the coming year we become better human beings, especially better Indians. I hope we would give up the temptation of superiority/persecution in the name of race, cast, creed, language, religion, region, numbers et. al. I hope we'll be honest to our selves, our government, our job and our children. I hope we'll try to be such good people that the politicians, who emerge from with in us, will be what we want them to be - honest, upright, hard working role models.

I hope this year, we'll try to find out the number of states there in the North East and who are those Chinese looking people in Ladakh or what more voter turn out in Jammu & Kashmir really means. I hope this year we'll be "equally" outraged for people being killed any where in India. I hope we'll try to find out more about ourselves and our country and reach out to people who lie beyond television coverage.

I hope this year, we'll stand by each other in the letter & spirit of our constitution.

Amen.

Excuse me... kya re?

hpk — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:25:51 +0000

Photo by Jason Krieger/kriegs on Flickr

Excuse me...
Kya re?
Mera dil tere pe fida re...

So the other day I realized how ugly, sterile and hostile the phrase – “Excuse me” is (in Indian context)! Recently I was maneuvering my parents around Hyderabad, showing them the better side of the city. I was once again struck by their flair for striking conversations with complete and total strangers. While I was excusing my self left right and center, they would always start by salutations like, “bhayya ji, bhai saahab, madam, uncle, aunty, didi, beta, babu moshaae, etc.” Now the difference in their approach and mine is, as soon as I say “excuse me” I become an outsider, an alien, external entity. While salutations, such as what my parents use immediately form a relationship. The moment you call some one bhayya, uncle ji, aunty ji etc, you give them respect, you tell them that you recognize their social stature. Such salutations also assure people that you are one of them, and not a disconnected, detached passer by.

In my opinion people use “Excuse me” for some of the following reasons:
- to show they are refined and have at least some knowledge of English language
- because every one else in their environment uses “Excuse me”
- to create/maintain a distance with the person they are talking to
- due to indecision i.e. shall I call him, uncle, bhayya, papa ji? Better be impersonal hence “Excuse me”
- to avoid embarrassment of being stereotyped as a “UP ka bhayya”, “Bhiari babu” etc. if they use their native salutations

I am sure there may be many more reasons, but the point is, its always better to use native salutation as it creates bonds and opens up people. Its sad that we are so hostile to any construct that would expose or link us to our native past and/or culture. We systematically replace beautiful native i.e. Indian words, phrases and language with english. The problem is, language and culture are so tightly entwined that when spoken out of their realm they can at most be functional. So although, one can use the word “hello” instead of “namaste” its not the same thing. Similarly if Englishmen start using Hinid or any other language as their language of choice/pride their conversations will loose all that is rich and warm to them.

So the point is, we must be very careful and vigilant towards how we talk to people and what language we use. Our own languages are rich and beautiful and we should not feel ashamed to use them. Languages have a powerful way of changing our thinking and behavior, they are the sum total of a society/civilizations evolution and intellect. So while english is nice and all, and we should respect it etc. We should also not forget our own tongue warna “excuse me” ka jawab hamesha “kya re” hi mile ga!

Oh, by the way, did I mention, I really really want to learn Sanskrit. I am reading Max Muller's lectures India: What can it teach us.

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but people are assholes...

hpk — Wed, 16 May 2007 11:32:43 +0000

including me of course.

...but what if
...but how can you
...but we can't
...but where will we
...but why
...but is it possible

and so on... This is our usual response when we are presented and idea or a suggestion or any thing. It always starts with the negative. I guess we are hard wired to be negative. Instead of concentrating on the merits of the idea, we begin trying to find faults in it. For example, if you say, "education should be free for all". Immediately people will start asking questions like:

but won't it create a big dent in our GDP?
but where will we the money come from?
but who will manage this?
but what about the infrastructure?
but who will decide what to teach?
but politicians will use this as a campaigning point.

and so one... ~~assholes~~ people generally concentrate on pulling the idea down instead of working to achieve the goal. I don't know if this is a cultural thing but when I talk to people belonging to other countries, firangs as we know them in India, they approach to such situations in a more positive way. They'd be like, "Now we gotta get this done, lets see what are the bottle necks... and how can we remove them." This is so refreshing then our desi conversations. I admit I do this often enough but this should change. This is one area I would love to see us Indians imitate the west. Amen.

Paanch Saal Baad

hpk — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 17:18:13 +0000

In my first year at NID, I made this video to pass it off as my user studies project... ;) It worked too. But now as NID convocation (graduation) day is coming close (Dec 7), I thought its time to put this up as a lot of the graduating students are in this video. Some might like it, and those who don't, I apologize. This is in good faith, however email me if you want me to remove your clip.

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