manish_tomer
New member
Proud to be an Indian
Amazing article written by Madhu Trehan.She writes regularly for Outlook and in
this she is replying to a letter by a reader......
Both the letters are below.....
Hi Madhu,
I have read your articles ever since I was a kid and you were at India Today.
You have often come across as a balanced person not prone to Gandhi nonsense,
until now. I live in a White Nation (the US) and have never felt like a
second class citizen. Only a blind and a deaf person can compare the pride of
a US citizen with the indignity of being an India. A US citizen trusts his
government, knows his/her death will never go unpunished,
while an Indian solider is there to die. Elite is a bad word in India because
95% of our country lives in abject poverty.
Next time ask the waiter in Taj who served you the Rs 400 drink, how much he
makes in a month. The Durban who opens the door for you, ask him how much he
makes? I bet his monthly salary will be around your dinner
bill. Shame on you and journalists like you who have failed India in the past
with coloured reporting and are doing so now. They should feel ashamed. Rather
than calling bush names, maybe we should hang our heads
in shame on PM's like Vajpayee who is too old to walk, too much of a coward
to protect his people.
Maybe, just maybe, the day people like us (the English educated hence smarter)
start feeling ashamed enough we will start making changes in India rather than
just exploiting our servants and labour class. It anguishes me to read this
national character articles. A nation that cannot feed its people (a la
Orrisa) has no character, a nation whose children move around naked (Mumbai)
has no reason to feel proud, a nation whose elected reps call religious riots
"opposite reaction" has no future. Once again, shame on you and all of India.
I am ashamed to be an Indian and shame on you for suggesting anything
else.
Chet (Chaitanya)
****************************************************
Her response was:
Hello Chet,
I will answer your letter point by point.
O Your name. You can be Chet or Jet, stay away from the sun, fake an American
accent, but you will never be able to run away from Chaitanya. He will always
be there even though you hate him today.
O Gandhi, whom you hold in such contempt, despite all his controversial
behavior, is largely responsible for the fact that there is no white boot on a
part of your anatomy today.
O You live in a white nation but you are not white and never will be. You can
fool yourself to believe that you are not treated as a second class citizen.
You choose to forget the Dot Busters, the Sikh who was
killed because he looked foreign and rampant racism. How many times a week do
you have to explain where you are from and spend your time EXPLAINING India
to Americans? I cringe to think what you say to them
about India. We do not need spokesman such as you. You will never be able to
share a good desi joke with any of your new friends.If you can't laugh
together, you cannot understand each other.You will always
be an alien.
O Yes, we are economically poor compared to US but we do not have to suffer
the highest rate of teenage pregnancies, kids coming into schools and
killing students and teachers, the highest rate of suicide among college
students, alienated parents and children, lonely old people dumped into old
age homes, drugs being offered to eight year olds (as my daughter was when
she was in the UN school in New York), serial
marriages and divorces. The US had a president who was senile and deaf
(Reagan), one who turned out to be a serial sex offender (Clinton), and now
you have one who didn't know the heads of state of major
countries and ignored warnings of a terrorist attack months before it took
place. The US is responsible for massacres in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Chile
and the list goes on. The rest of the world does not view America with the
rose-coloured glasses you have been brainwashed by the US media to see
thorough.
And, how much does a waiter in Jean Georges restaurant in Trump International
Hotel in New York make compared to the price of the drink he is serving? The
labour class in exploited all over the world.
O You seem to very upset that I am pointing out we have a national character
to be ashamed of and we ould do something about it. Your insistence that we
stay ashamed and do nothing about it is perhaps to make it easier for you to
live in a country where the only religion is to hang out at malls and
accumulate consumer items you don't really need but have been dictated by
advertising to buy that, to keep the US economy going. It is not by accident
that Americans are flocking to yoga and meditation classes to buy
happiness.
O You have done well to leave a country you are ashamed of. Call yourself an
American but sooner or later your disguise and American Halloween costume
will frighten you enough to get rid of it.
O I love America's energy and have good friends there. New York is a centre
for an enormous outpouring of creativity and imaginative thinking. Every
country has its own problems. It is for the people who belong there to take
responsibility for change.
O If you are so far removed from India, ask yourself why you are so anguished
with my article. Chaitanya is raising his head, Chet is in trouble.
Regards,
Madhu Trehan
Amazing article written by Madhu Trehan.She writes regularly for Outlook and in
this she is replying to a letter by a reader......
Both the letters are below.....
Hi Madhu,
I have read your articles ever since I was a kid and you were at India Today.
You have often come across as a balanced person not prone to Gandhi nonsense,
until now. I live in a White Nation (the US) and have never felt like a
second class citizen. Only a blind and a deaf person can compare the pride of
a US citizen with the indignity of being an India. A US citizen trusts his
government, knows his/her death will never go unpunished,
while an Indian solider is there to die. Elite is a bad word in India because
95% of our country lives in abject poverty.
Next time ask the waiter in Taj who served you the Rs 400 drink, how much he
makes in a month. The Durban who opens the door for you, ask him how much he
makes? I bet his monthly salary will be around your dinner
bill. Shame on you and journalists like you who have failed India in the past
with coloured reporting and are doing so now. They should feel ashamed. Rather
than calling bush names, maybe we should hang our heads
in shame on PM's like Vajpayee who is too old to walk, too much of a coward
to protect his people.
Maybe, just maybe, the day people like us (the English educated hence smarter)
start feeling ashamed enough we will start making changes in India rather than
just exploiting our servants and labour class. It anguishes me to read this
national character articles. A nation that cannot feed its people (a la
Orrisa) has no character, a nation whose children move around naked (Mumbai)
has no reason to feel proud, a nation whose elected reps call religious riots
"opposite reaction" has no future. Once again, shame on you and all of India.
I am ashamed to be an Indian and shame on you for suggesting anything
else.
Chet (Chaitanya)
****************************************************
Her response was:
Hello Chet,
I will answer your letter point by point.
O Your name. You can be Chet or Jet, stay away from the sun, fake an American
accent, but you will never be able to run away from Chaitanya. He will always
be there even though you hate him today.
O Gandhi, whom you hold in such contempt, despite all his controversial
behavior, is largely responsible for the fact that there is no white boot on a
part of your anatomy today.
O You live in a white nation but you are not white and never will be. You can
fool yourself to believe that you are not treated as a second class citizen.
You choose to forget the Dot Busters, the Sikh who was
killed because he looked foreign and rampant racism. How many times a week do
you have to explain where you are from and spend your time EXPLAINING India
to Americans? I cringe to think what you say to them
about India. We do not need spokesman such as you. You will never be able to
share a good desi joke with any of your new friends.If you can't laugh
together, you cannot understand each other.You will always
be an alien.
O Yes, we are economically poor compared to US but we do not have to suffer
the highest rate of teenage pregnancies, kids coming into schools and
killing students and teachers, the highest rate of suicide among college
students, alienated parents and children, lonely old people dumped into old
age homes, drugs being offered to eight year olds (as my daughter was when
she was in the UN school in New York), serial
marriages and divorces. The US had a president who was senile and deaf
(Reagan), one who turned out to be a serial sex offender (Clinton), and now
you have one who didn't know the heads of state of major
countries and ignored warnings of a terrorist attack months before it took
place. The US is responsible for massacres in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Chile
and the list goes on. The rest of the world does not view America with the
rose-coloured glasses you have been brainwashed by the US media to see
thorough.
And, how much does a waiter in Jean Georges restaurant in Trump International
Hotel in New York make compared to the price of the drink he is serving? The
labour class in exploited all over the world.
O You seem to very upset that I am pointing out we have a national character
to be ashamed of and we ould do something about it. Your insistence that we
stay ashamed and do nothing about it is perhaps to make it easier for you to
live in a country where the only religion is to hang out at malls and
accumulate consumer items you don't really need but have been dictated by
advertising to buy that, to keep the US economy going. It is not by accident
that Americans are flocking to yoga and meditation classes to buy
happiness.
O You have done well to leave a country you are ashamed of. Call yourself an
American but sooner or later your disguise and American Halloween costume
will frighten you enough to get rid of it.
O I love America's energy and have good friends there. New York is a centre
for an enormous outpouring of creativity and imaginative thinking. Every
country has its own problems. It is for the people who belong there to take
responsibility for change.
O If you are so far removed from India, ask yourself why you are so anguished
with my article. Chaitanya is raising his head, Chet is in trouble.
Regards,
Madhu Trehan