A couple of days back, while walking down a nearby busy street, I noticed a motorist spitting on the road. It so happened that he almost spat on the leg of another lady pedestrian. The lady seemed to be in her mid-twenties, and was formally dressed, maybe on the way to her workplace. Her quick outburst was "...you culture-less idiot"!! Although she escaped from having to clean her dress or leg, that left her in a bad mood, and that I think, would've eventually held on to her psyche for hours during the day. If she had found a stone, I'm sure she would've hurled it at his head!
But what stuck to my mind was the word "culture-less". There can only be a culture, but nothing "less" or "more". I searched through the dictionary and found that culture is defined as follows:
The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society (Courtesy: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/culture)
So, now, with the definition in hand, the lady was definitely wrong; at least grammatically!
Lets take a look at a few examples of using culture:
1. America has a gun culture.
2. Africa has a drug culture.
3. Indians have a culture of raping their women!
4. Accepting bribe is part of our culture.
5. We have a culture of idolising foreign culture
...and so on.
So, its clear that culture differs from place-to-place.
India, especially, is a big nation, and we have a history of a varied culture.
In recent times, we've been hearing a lot about crimes against women and girls, is this the culture that we want to cultivate?
We see videos of couples being beaten by a group of self-proclaimed moral police, is this the culture that we want to pass on to the next generation?
And it really surprises me when people go around beating others in the name of culture, thereby introducing a new culture of intolerance.
We are the present-day ambassadors of an Indian culture, that we very proudly project to people, not realising that we are only being proud at what our ancestors have done. Our present day culture is not something that we can be proud of. We do not carry forward any of the good things of the past, and at the same time, we haven't been able to successfully deal with modern culture.
History gives us enough proof that great empires have fallen due to their over-indulgence in sex, booze and internal violence. While we boast about our "great" culture, we should realise that we are not the followers of that "great" culture, and that a fall is very imminent.
But what stuck to my mind was the word "culture-less". There can only be a culture, but nothing "less" or "more". I searched through the dictionary and found that culture is defined as follows:
The ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society (Courtesy: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/culture)
So, now, with the definition in hand, the lady was definitely wrong; at least grammatically!
Lets take a look at a few examples of using culture:
1. America has a gun culture.
2. Africa has a drug culture.
3. Indians have a culture of raping their women!
4. Accepting bribe is part of our culture.
5. We have a culture of idolising foreign culture
...and so on.
So, its clear that culture differs from place-to-place.
India, especially, is a big nation, and we have a history of a varied culture.
In recent times, we've been hearing a lot about crimes against women and girls, is this the culture that we want to cultivate?
We see videos of couples being beaten by a group of self-proclaimed moral police, is this the culture that we want to pass on to the next generation?
And it really surprises me when people go around beating others in the name of culture, thereby introducing a new culture of intolerance.
We are the present-day ambassadors of an Indian culture, that we very proudly project to people, not realising that we are only being proud at what our ancestors have done. Our present day culture is not something that we can be proud of. We do not carry forward any of the good things of the past, and at the same time, we haven't been able to successfully deal with modern culture.
History gives us enough proof that great empires have fallen due to their over-indulgence in sex, booze and internal violence. While we boast about our "great" culture, we should realise that we are not the followers of that "great" culture, and that a fall is very imminent.
Excellent Ramanand, It's 100% true .
ReplyDeleteSuper..I liked the line " the lady was definitely wrong; atleast grammatically"
ReplyDeleteSuper..I liked the line " the lady was definitely wrong; atleast grammatically"
ReplyDeleteGreat insight, but again I think everyone of us say this a zillion times,don't know what then is different that does not bring that change. I would like to quote very recent confrontation with my very young cousin who just completed his masters in the US and now working as a consultant. I and my wife wanted to badly watch "Rustom" a movie you must all have heard about. Unfortunately it was pulled out of the theatres in our city and I was wondering if there was a way that we could still watch. My cousin came up and said, he knows a website which has this movie, I asked how much, he said it's free. I asked if it was a piracy, he said most probably. I then was not happy and lectured him about all the bad things about piracy. He just ignored me and said, it's ok Bhayya, don't think to much. I am totally clueless on how do we enforce and reinforce the good things that we all want to talk about but never put them into action. What is that one thing that will motivate is to make India great again?
ReplyDeleteVery good article Ramanand. Good insight and food for thought about our culture. We say India has great culture but how many Indians give importance to our great culture and follow it?
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