Prejudice with a pinch of salt

Recently the DCP has released a booklet for north east students advising them on their behavioral and food habits.

I had heard about this from my boss sometime back but I guess I wasn’t really listening then. Post lunch time my mind doesn’t really work anyways. But as I read the lines in the morning newspaper today it really made me see red with anger. Its bad enough being a secondary citizen in your own country and the icing on the cake happens to be the silent humiliation we suffer everyday. Back in college all of us would take such prejudice with a pinch of salt and have fun along the way. It’s not everyday that one gets to enjoy foreigner status in one’s own country! Frequent shopping and eating trips to knag saw me being referred to as chini. Even during the times I actually took the pain to say I was from Gangtok, people would ask if it was nearby Singapore or maybe Thailand. I learnt it is better to just yawn and let the comments flow rather than explain one at a time and wait for the questions to start from round 1 yet again.

Getting back to the point of writing this blog, the DCP’s action has really angered and amused me at the same time. I don’t think there is anything wrong with our behavior or food habits. Well some of us are animists, some worship nature and almost all are tribals. We have never been the ‘McDonalds for breakfast’ going kids. Hell, I doubt many people know of Mcd in the first place back home. I didn’t. I would like to take out my very own booklet for North Indian men on how they should keep their hands to themselves. So here goes:

1. Why bother constructing toilets in your house when the road is an open space forever available ‘anywhere’ and ‘everywhere’. Rule no 1 is to stop peeing on the roadside. You may not feel shy but people walking nearby despise the stench very much thank you. 
2. Rule no 2 is not to burp while in a crowded eating place. You may have had your fill and feel that burping is the best way to let the excess gas let off from your bloated tummies but mind you there are others there who may be just as hungry as you before you wiped the plate clean. Your burping does not exactly enhance our taste buds mister.
3. The third rule is to quit donating your paan stained spit everywhere you feel at ease. Picture this- you are walking through a nice locality and suddenly a series of orange stained walls start appearing. Added to this would definitely be the pee stench. How would you feel? Just take it this way that your fraternity brothers have already been there done that.
4. What is with the loud music in cars and neon lights fitted inside? Self declared studs may kindly note that this rule applies to them. You are welcome to enjoy your music as long as it is within the confines of your room or your car windows. We have our own music tastes and we would like to keep it that way.
5. The next rule would be for the educationally deprived. Before calling us chini or japani kindly go through your Geography textbooks one last time and then maybe we can sit down for a chat. By the way, let me quickly add, shouting out names from your car does not exactly make you cool either.
6. Politeness is very much appreciated everywhere in the world. Maybe compulsory moral science classes in schools could achieve this goal. Also when people ask for directions or any other query, can you be less rude for once?
7. The seventh rule is to learn some civic sense. The crumpled empty chips or cigarette packet in your hand is to be thrown in a garbage can, not next to where you are walking. What is the use of a first class degree if at the end of the day you aren’t a good citizen? If educated people do this then I don’t think we have the right to point fingers at beggars, poor laborers etc.
8. The final rule (for now since I am running short of words) is to mind your language. Screaming b******th while talking to each other does not make a cool quotient. Reserve these words for indoors please.

Since I am done with my rule booklet for the moment I would like to take the time to mention here that at the end of the day we are also human beings just like you. We may not share similar facial features and habits but we also have the same dreams, the same goals, and the same ambitions. For once can we all act civilized and grown up. I don’t mean it should be a one way process. It has to be a give and take relationship.

Maybe the present scenario will change with due course of time.