The complex ways of the "simple" Indian life!!

" Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough." - Anonymous

We Indians are supposed to the one of the simplest people on earth. Every day I run onto articles or discussions or declarations that the Indian way of life is the simplest. Compared to our materialistic western counterparts, we are supposed to believe in simplicity. people listening/reading it will be made to think that Indians are products of "Philips" whose ad-line goes "Sense and Simplicity". But the truth cannot be farther away from this.

We Indians are one of the most complex beings. We are born with complexities and biases bundled into our installation software. We have a very complicated way of looking into the world. We look into the world with a kaleidoscope, making jigsaws out of a simple picture.

On the usual weekend, I having coffee with my friends at this coffee place (the coffees are overpriced, the politeness of the waiter unnatural and the smell of perfume in the air a bit stifling). I was talking about a friend who wanted a career shift to an alternate profession that was not exactly "main tracked", "away from the beaten path" or whatever you want to call it. The usual jazz about the generation gap and the "playing it safe" attitude , the inability to think 'outside the box" way of parents came up. My friend was 25 years and into a career already which was not fun enough. I also happened to mention how creative she was with her photography. It took exactly 3 seconds after I said "she" that somebody chimed in "What about her marriage?". 3 seconds, Bullets leave guns slower!! And this from someone who is supposedly modern, thinks out of the box and supposed to be avoiding the beaten path. The bias couldn't be much more clearer.

A similar thing happened at work. there is this chap at office. He is a really cool guy, very friendly, helpful and simple. Yet, many of the people here are little jittery of socializing with him. the reason, he has long hair and a slant teeth. That was the exact reason someone told me. Its really weird, when people say such things. Imagine what this guys classification of people would be. Homo Sapiens would be of 2 types - Long haired mammals : "Dangerouso keepth-away-iens " Short haired mammals: "harmless be-friends-iens"! Even my mom is scared of long-haired people. She threatened to kick me out of the house and disown me when I told her that I am going to tie up my hair in a pony-tail.

Another common bias that I have seen is the "cigarette-villain" effect. I have found that people are less friendly and less helpful when a stranger approaches them with a cigarette in hand. The bias is also shown in Indian movies where the villain (who is the embodiment of all evil in the world) has a perpetual cigarette in his mouth. Another similar effect would be "lowjeans-top-vamp" effect. People above certain age, generally, are less friendly to women in tight jeans and skimpy tops than to women draped in sarees. Although this defect is corrected with men of lower age groups.

An opposite phenomenon is also true. I have seen "dudes" who are wary of people who wear kumkum or vibhuti. They are by default assumed to be uncool, not broad minded enough . Just by wearing symbols of allegience to their beliefs, they are alienated. If I go on, the list would be pretty much endless.

The Indian middle class is indeed a very chameleonistic and a complicated social animal. I have seen and known some women, who have wear minis and sip beer with their husbands, smoke secretly with their friends but not in front of their husbands and who are draped in sarees at all times thy are with their in-laws.

We are born indeed with a large set of biases and complicated assumptions that work sometimes in a way that we assume them to be the obvious truth. Most of this utterly nonsensical and farcial. We should stop looking at the world through our biased glasses. We should break free from these stereotyping and compartmentalization of characters and try to see the real person behind the image. I would like to end this blog with this quote by Charles Mingus.

" Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's greatness! "

Respect.