I have been in constant dilemma over writing about this incident. I feel guilty for writing about some people's personal lives. But, I fail to take it easy. It forces me to think, worry and analyze. Now, I have finally decided to write it down.
A few days back, I was walking back to work after lunch. I saw this Indian couple walking on the street talking loudly in Hindi. Their Hindi conversation attracted my attention bringing a smile to hear an Indian language here in the foreign land. As I am about to divert into my way, I notice that the guy starts running suddenly. He starts running onto the road. At first I think, they are having fun. But soon I realise they are having argument about something. The girl is shouting loudly to stop. The guy does not listen, he jumps onto road. I get scared, not for the guy who just jumped on to the road, but for the girl. You will know why in a while. The road was empty. There was a signal few meters away. It was red and the vehicles were still waiting for it to turn green. If the guy had real intentions of acting crazy and crossing the road in a bout of anger, he could have easily done it. It was safe. But he did not. He ran for two more steps and then looked back. I smiled, "Coward!". Then I looked at the girl, she sighed in relief. Then I looked back at the guy. He looked back, first with fear and then with a strange arrogance. He walked back with chest wide and full of attitude. I remember him warning, "Don't do this to me again!". I thought, "Common! Don't act smart now!". Then he walked back to the girl, they walked in opposite direction while continuing their quarrel. I just wished I could hug the girl and say, "Girl, you do not have to deal with this. He needs to grow. You deserve better."
This all happened in less than a minute. As I walked back cursing them for spoiling my afternoon, many things popped into my mind, and stayed for long time.
We as Indians are cautious about public display of affection. We hesitate to hold hands. Kissing in public space is taboo. We are awkward to talk about sex. Why? Because this is our Indian culture. This is how we are. These acts are supposed to be done in private. I do not want to debate if these are right or wrong. I want to say what I felt at that moment. I remembered all the couples whom I had seen hugging, kissing, smooching on the streets of Boston. When I had encountered them during my initial days in USA, I was awkward, not knowing how to react. But at this moment, those acts seemed divine to me. I mean it, they seemed divine. It was sad to realise that while we are taught that showing affection is supposed to be intimate and done privately (I am not opposing it), we are not told to show our negative emotions privately. If PDA is western culture, is fighting and making scene in public Indian culture? Why don't we feel ashamed of it? Why are not we cautious about it? Someone may counter-argue saying I am generalizing it. No, I am not generalizing it. Look around yourself. Look how people in our families and personal sphere act. Look how are we on streets. Look at our elders and their interaction among themselves. While they shy away from showing affection, there is no hesitation on showing resentment. If expressing affection is supposed to be done in private, then showing anger and resentment should also be done in private. How many are doing it? How many are even aware of it?
By pointing at the guy's behaviour, am I blaming the guy? Am I blaming all men? No. While I was witnessing this on that day, similar incident might be happening somewhere else where the girl might be behaving madly. However, I want all of us to introspect, both young generation and our parent generation. I don't know if anyone sees it or not, to me the guy was manipulating the girl. I don't know if he was doing so deliberately or not. I felt pity for the guy. He was insecure. Had he not been, he would not act like a maniac. He was scared since he did not have courage to accomplish what he set for initially. He was doing it just to grab attention of the girl. He was also egoistic and afraid to lose control to the girl. That's why as he returned, he made sure that he made it look like he returned only because the girl was begging to return, and by doing so he was doing a favour to her. I don't know if the girl was able to understand that or not. If not, I sincerely wish she understands it. Such manipulative and abusive behaviour is uncalled for. It is disgusting to think that we educated, financially stable (atleast not poor) people are being like this. I can go on and on about such behaviour I have seen and heard of among young people in close circle as well through stories of others' personal lives. I see the confusion, frustration, insecurity everywhere and it saddens me. As if, everyone is deeply insecure and is dumping on the immediate outlet they can get. What is going wrong? I am not talking about poor, uneducated people who are struggling with their life. It would have been understandable in that case. But we are middle class or upper class people with enough financial stability to lead a secure life. We are educated enough to decide right to wrong. We are from a so-called stable society. Then where does it go wrong?
While our generation is struggling with this, I want us to to take it seriously, to take ourselves seriously, learn to be responsible for our actions, and how we treat others, especially the ones close to us. Our action can be the cause of insecurity for another person. While our social structure is going through lot of parallel transitions, it is essential and urgent for us to put a check on such behaviour. While being a part of the changing society, it is our job to watch out for such abusive behaviour in ourselves and people close to us. I can not emphasize enough the urgency of this situation.
Despite all this philosophy, I would like to think most of our young generation as a victim of such abusive behaviour. I want to blame our parent generation for this. While our elders easily point to us for getting westernized and losing our culture and ethics, I blame them for passing on to us the skewed view of Indian culture. Kids are watching you constantly. You are model for them. They know when you love each other, they know when you respect each other, they know when you abuse, they know when you get abused and keep mum, they know when you haul swear words, they know your struggles, they know when you bow to social pressure and make your family a second priority, they know when you discriminate between your daughters and sons, they know when you treat your sons as future bread-earners and nothing else, they know when you treat your parents as burdens, they know when what others say matters more to you than the priorities of your loved ones, they know when you criticize them in front of others, they know when you hit and abuse them in the name of discipline. They experience it every moment. They learn from you, your good, your bad. They imbibe all of this subconsciously, even if they do not know or are unable to express in words. They take whatever their mind is capable of. They build their conscience with these experiences. The fact that they have such skewed and confused opinion about good and bad is because of you. Because you did not pass on this message clearly to them. Because you did not know them in first place. It makes me laugh and sad at the same time when people justify their wrong behaviour saying my parents did so, so will I.
I feel stressed as I write it, but no more guilty about writing what I witnessed. As I conclude, I want to say, it is urgent. Treat it is as an epidemic and deal with it immediately. Otherwise, we would soon choke ourselves in the name of culture and implode. Act now before it is too late and the term "Indian culture and values" is left as a mere myth.
