Caste System right in your face - Regionalism right on your plate - nationalism around your place.

How many people know about dinner table etiquette around conversation?  I would think people normally have, over the years, learned certain things not to do at the dinner table.  I would think one of the etiquette is probably to not get into arguments while enjoying food or celebrating some one's birthday.  Ah..but I don't get those artificial constructs.  My policy is to listen but make your point.  Never let a jerk leave proudly in their ignorance.  Ignorance might be a bliss for them but it is misery for others.

I have, over the years, heard that caste-ism doesn't exist in India - at least in modern India.  I, for one, don't practise it.  I know many of my Indian friends in India who don't practise it.  I know Sardars who don't practise it but at the same time, I feel the ignorance around caste system, jati, regionalism, nationalism exist in India and among Indians.  Humans tend to live with many identities.  The live like ven diagrams - some identities exist outside and while other intersects.  For example, I might be male and ethnically Indian but then my nationality will intersect with female, ethnically white but an American.

I have two children and they are both born here in US.  I immigrated to US from India with my parents. I have become naturalized Citizen when I was still in College getting my bachelors.  My wife immigrated to US when she married and she became naturalized US citizen as soon she was eligible.  Since then she has voted in all the elections.  I have probably missed one election.  Being here for most of my life, I do think of my self as an American but to most people here in US (understandable) I am seen as Indian who is an American.  I probably think that is true myself.  However, my kids, I don't want anyone (including their teacher) telling them that they are Indians who are Americans.  They are Americans who happen to have Indian ethnicity and race.  So to Trump, I hope he sees people for there race but still sees them as Americans if they are citizen of this country.  I didn't vote for him but he will be our President for the next four years at least.  I am alright with it.

Now getting to my real point around this blog.  If an Indian approaches me, from India, and asks what am I?  From that question, I usually understand that they are asking me which part of India I am from?  My response is always, I am Punjabi.  I am Punjabi because my grandparents and my mother's and father's grand parents are from Punjab.  More precisely, they are from Pasroor & Sailkot.  Those place are now part of Pakistan.  My paternal grand mother and my maternal grand father grew up in villages next to each others.  I had only heard them to talk to me in Punjabi.  They both didn't know how to write in Gurmukhi because they were from the part of Punjab that later went to Pakistan. They never thought of themselves anything other than Punjabi and belonging to the land where there ancestors lived.  They amazingly were able to stay as a Hindu when many probably converted under the Muslim persecution around Mughal period. I am very proud, as I read history, that many of the people who stayed Hindu even when they were treated as second class citizens.  Sikhs obviously protected the dharmic traditions but I also feel proud of Hindus who didn't convert even with constant pressure, probably, to do so.

The other important part of this personal history, my family has a surname that is probably from the varna - vashiya.  Vashiyas are the trading class - the business class that brought wealth in the society.  They probably didn't create wealth but did provide proper role in the society.  Vashiyas and Banias are used interchangeably and in most place in the north have been used as an insult.  Insult in a sense that you are cheap or you will sell anything for the money.  From my personal experience and knowledge of history, I feel the group is much maligned with out any basis.  For one, like I mentioned previously, vashiyas should have been the one to convert first right?  I see many Muslims with last name Chaudhry, Rana, Bhatt but I have yet to run into a Muslim with last name Mahajan or Gupta.  So seems like they are not to sell themselves and brave enough to not convert.  So if anyone who should be ashamed, it should be the Khatris for not being able to perform their duty.  I don't mean that but if I ever hear a Khatri make a bania joke, they will surely hear from me.  For that matter a brahmin.  I don't tell sardar jokes because I know how much they have contributed to the nation.  They are Sardars (leaders) for a reason.

So why am I talking about this?  At the dinner conversation a friend jokingly said that Guptas are not truly Punjabis.  I have known him for a while and I know that he was just teasing. It was annoying a bit but it was kind of like..a joke that I would have probably let go.  But then I heard, from another person at the table, I have never heard of Punjabi Guptas.  That was annoying to me the most.  I barely know this person.  I am not sure if she is saying this as a joke or just being a jerk.  I felt with her body language that it was not a joke.  She interested herself in a conversation that a normal person would have stayed out of  I couldn't let it go.  I am sure the reason my grand parents had to move to the Indian side of the Punjab was someone telling them they don't belong.  It is like my kids hearing at school that they are not Americans but Indians.  Those things will annoy me because no one can tell me what I am.  Or how I or my kid should identify themselves.  We carry many identities because humans like to be in groups.  They try to belong to many groups and some like to stay in limited group.  I like to, if I can, belong in many groups.   I also don't go around telling people they are not christian, Sikhs, Californians, American, European or anything else.  I don't even tell Pakistani anymore that ethnically they are the same as Indians.  They have chosen their identity.  Their identity might be a state of mind and who am I to tell them they are something other than the true believer - for them I am a Kuffar.  But what I will never let anyone tell me is, where I belong.  I belong where I am.  My kids belong where they are.  We immigrated legally.  I talk to many people here in US.  The whites, who are labeled racist many times, are not the only one who act bigotted against another group.  This groupism exist in every race and every ethnicity.  But I can truly say that though I do run into my share of bigots that happen to be white, I also run into bigots who happen to be non-white.  The world is like that.  I am, I will say, bigot against a bigoted religion that teaches to divide humanity into believers and non-believers.  I feel we all see ourselves belonging to a group.  I am not sure why someone telling me which group I belong or don't belong to irritated me the most.  I think the idea someone challenging you where you belong or what your identity is what annoyed me.

To the person who called Guptas are not truly Punjabi - are you proud of your ignorance. You are the type who probably calls Trump a clown and a bigot but then feel your ignorance is justified.  Like the frog in the well who believes he has seen the world because his world is just that well.  To this jerk..you are the one who disgusts me.  If you are a "just" Punjabi - I will rather see you as a moron who happens to be a Punjabi.