An outsider and I care two hoots

You really wonder that this city is coming to when the issue of outsiders — me, you, us, all of us who dare to live here even though we are not Maharashtrians — has taken over everything else.

Nothing else matters. I have very little to offer in my defence. I am not, it is true, a Bihari. Nor am I from UP. Okay, that may not be strictly true. While for some hundreds of years, my ancestors have lived in Bengal and become “Bengali”, the story goes that in the 12th century AD, those self-same ancestors moved to Bengal from Kanauj.

So I guess, by several degrees of separation, I could be a North Indian. But then, I was born in Vishakhapatnam, so that could make me an honorary Telugu (if it was another country, I would get citizenship, no?).

One parent was brought up in said Vishakhapatnam, the other in sadda Dilli. They now live in Dehra Dun. I have one sister who lives in Hyderabad. I have lived in Mumbai for most of my life.

Permanently outside, you might say. So am I south, north, east or west Indian? I have shares in all four corners of this land of magnificent contradictions blah blah blah like old-time documentaries, so perhaps I can safely be thrown out of all of them. I can with confidence say that unlike most Bengalis I happen to meet these days, I have no connections with the erstwhile east Bengal (now Bangladesh) but I cannot possibly try and explain the hows and whys to any — I say this under advisement —- non-Bengalis, so I’ll have to take my chances.

O hell, did I mention one great grandfather from Shillong and another who spent a lifetime in Burma?

Basically, I don’t care. None of you frighten me, whichever part of India you claim to come from. At this moment, everyone seems equally idiotic. Hope you had a great Diwali in these times of gloom and have a super prosperous New Year.

In between, are we to forget about the plight of Central Railway commuters, a sad, mad boy on a bus, trigger happy policemen, pollution, traffic, municipal madness and all the rest of it?

Pick of the week
All the singing and dancing shows on all the television channels. I know they are different because of the ads on the sides of the buses.

But I saw some the other day and if you channel-surf intelligently, they all blend into one another, and become a delightful concoction of song, dance, colour and light. I cannot vouch for our dancing skills, but boy, can we sing as a nation!

So why do we sound so raucously besura when we take out religious street processions? Another of life’s little unsolved mysteries.
b_ranjona@dnaindia.net