Pride in being silently proud

After a relatively warm reaction to my first blog, in fact better than I expected (thanks to my constant nagging which forced at least my friends to read it: D), I was in a dilemma as to what to write about next. Not because I could not find anything cool to write about (seriously; I never think about writing cool), but because lately so many thoughts have been fighting with each other in my mind that I just kept sitting and waiting for one thought to emerge as a winner so that I can pen it down. Or rather type it down.  Unexpectedly, it was one thought that never occurred in my mind in its entirety. It just kept springing up here and there and lately it was very much buried under the thoughts of recent events; Anna’s fight and Indian team’s plight. Thus I never imagined it to take over cricket, movies, religion and politics (my favorites) to become the topic of my second blog post. But Speedy Singh’s song “shera di kaum” featuring Ludacris made it happen.

Before I move ahead let me tell you something else. Not many know but I am still pretty much active in Orkut communities, especially cricket community. It is a group of passionate and knowledgeable cricket lovers, mainly from India and Pakistan who discuss each and every thing related to cricket, on and off the field. Not surprisingly they are mostly fighting with each other trying to prove that their team is better than others.  At times the fights turn ugly. The whole of last year, it were the Indians who were  badly bashing Pakistanis on their team’s miserable performances and this year it’s their turn, thanks to our team’s superlative show in England. However one thing happened amidst these cricket fights that led to this blog post. It was South African cricketer Wayne Parnell converting to Islam. It caused some really unexpected celebrations by the Muslim members of the community (mainly Pakistanis), as if his turning into a Muslim was a big achievement for them. It also started a series of threads (an Orkut term) by certain Pakistanis, glorifying Islam and requesting and welcoming every non-Muslim to join this great religion. Anyways, the moderators soon came into action and warned all such members, as due to the diversity of members, discussing any religious or political issue is not allowed there. But all those events did make me think; what made those guys do all that. I mean everyone loves their parents but who would want someone to ditch his own parents and join theirs? What made them so happy?

Now back to shera di kaum. Lovely track right? Well I do not find it too great but that’s not the point. Point is, in a year how many Punjabi songs (with repetitive lyrics about jigra of lions and lassi da glass) will come out in the market glorifying Punjabi culture. How many times will we see Punjabis claiming to be a proud of being a Punjabi in situations where such claims are neither required nor do they make any sense.  I remember in college one Punjabi friend of mine will keep reminding us of him being Punjabi (o hum Punjabi hai ye ni kerte, o hum Punjabi hai wo ker dete hai, o hum Punjabi hai aise ni kerte, o hum Punjabi hai waise ni kerte) time and time again. One day he acted so surprised and even looked down upon me for not knowing Punjabi. For a second I was like, man Hindi is our national language right? All these experiences always made me think what makes Punjabis do all this? Why do they have to keep bringing out how great they think their culture is?

Today while listening to the shera di kaum track, this thought again came in my mind and I concluded that Punjabis and Muslims unnecessarily flaunt their culture and religion respectively. I am sure everyone is proud of themselves, their culture, their practices and their beliefs but you won’t see as many proud displays by other groups of people as you would see by Punjabis and Muslims. I know that what I am conveying here is very strong but it is an honest opinion without any ill feelings or intentions. I am not criticizing them for this but just putting forward an observation.  I trust my friends to understand my intentions here and even invite my Punjabis and Muslim friends to prove me wrong. I will be more than glad to be proved otherwise. I sincerely want to know is it a superiority complex that makes them keep telling others that they are better off than them or an inferiority complex that makes them declare and prove time and again that their culture/religion is best and no matter what others might think of it, they are proud to be what they are? I hope it’s neither of them and it just be a non-intentional, motive less, innocent cultural and religious characteristic.

PS: I apologize if I have offended anyone. However I believe in what I have said and won’t take it back unless proved otherwise.