OUR ROOTS

 I recently heard that a few of my friends had never eaten chaat on the streets. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement! My first genuine thought was - 'Poor them. They never got to experience what chaat actually tastes like'. Not only this, there are some people whom I know who haven't seen a paper-wala or a doodh-wala in their life. This means it's always been packeted milk their entire life and ... god knows what they do with their newspapers!

         I know that many traditions have been lost over the years. Though these would be called occurrences rather than traditions, there are some experiences that you ought to have experienced if you've lived in India your entire childhood. Like riding an auto-rickshaw, thinking that cricket is the only sport that exists until you're ten years old, thinking that you would be 'cool' if you could do an accent(and then terribly fail at it), going to tuitions, debating whether your mom will use the chappal or the belt to beat you because you scored less in your exams, etc. 

       Albeit, I don't see the paper-wala as much anymore because my mom gives away papers to a firm(who use it for good purposes) but the paper-wala has a latent uniform - a white shirt with the traditional, checkered lungi tied up to his waist. He always has a worn-out white sack with him. Amma would bring out all the newspapers outside and place them in front of him. Then, he would take the rope and the shiny, dangly thing from the sack and place them on the ground. Then he would stack all the papers together and tie the rope around it and then came my favorite part. He would pick up the queer metal object -which used to be an object of great interest to the younger me - and hook it to the rope and lift it up. All this while I would be waiting behind amma, just watching all those newspapers dangle from the weighing machine. He would then inform amma how much all those newspapers weighed and pay her from his GRT purse. And lo! Amma would fire her typical bargain dialogue and say 'But last time you paid me more, no? What happened this time?' It would be different if she was the one paying. Then the dialogue would be 'It was way lesser last time, anna! Why are you asking for so much this time?' 

    All these different kinds of happenings are indigenous to our subcontinent and hence it's ours to own. But, it's memories of how my dad made me chew a branch and said it would do the job of my toothbrush that'll be special for me, not dinner in a 5-star hotel. To be honest, costly chaat is not very flavorful to eat ... It's always cold and bland. So people, life advice: Eat Roman food in Rome. 

     I know that I sound like that one conservative person who keeps saying - 'Back during our times', 'Those good old days ...' yet I think that being insensitive to our culture does not mean being 'cool'. We must remember that our traditions, our culture, our vibrant and colorful festivals, our diverging languages, our disparate food, and one-of-a-kind clothing styles are the only things that differentiate our country from the rest of the world. And this is something that we as Indians should be immensely proud of. It is something we should flaunt to the world. Westernisation doesn't mean forgetting the Indian way of life, just how being a better version of ourselves doesn't mean losing our old selves.

*Not intended to hurt anybody. If you haven't experienced it already, just do it later.*

- Jiya Chandrapu