Appreciating the Differences #53

From our childhood we have been taught about “unity in diversity” of India. As a kid I never got a chance to travel across India and get the feel of it. Through the social media we witnessed the existence of differences but it barely helped us to realize the meaning of unity in diversity.

I’m born and brought up in a Bengali family. Our sentiments, values, food habits, interests have built up in a certain way. Anyway, when I stepped out of Bengal for my job, my views about many things changed in a dramatic way. Our population is huge, so is our cultural diversity. After travelling 1500 miles away from my home, I landed on a place which was still my country and my people. But at the first place, that unity wasn’t served on my plate. I could see only differences and it didn’t feel right in my right in my heart. I was facing trouble in adjustments. The change included the weather, the language, the food, the religious events and so on. It was a lot to take in.

As time passed, I started understanding the essence of south India. If somebody is different from you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he/she is bad. I always tried my best not to be disrespectful even if I don’t like something. But I have found people around me to judge me for my personal preferences/cultural differences. That’s what I felt a little bad about. Same kind of incidents I witness very often on Internet. 

Last week I was watching an online show of American kids trying foods from all over the world. First of all they are kids, kids are bound to be choosy about foods and they have a particular taste-preference. Secondly the show didn’t project any cuisine to be bad. Anyway as those little kids were trying out all the dishes, they didn’t like many things. Many people from the country whose food was tried out became furious and expressed their disgust by using bad words against those little kids. Among all this chaos, I saw one comment: 

The amount of adults showing disgust towards kids is alarming. I hope these guys never deal with any kid.

The point is when we see someone doesn’t like what we like, we loose our mind. Our ego gets hurt. And to prove ourselves superior we try to belittle others. Even those innocent little kids didn’t get exemption from the hatred out of intolerance. 😟

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