Skip to main content

Legacy

I was visiting somewhere and I would meet up at a friend's place every morning to pick her up in my car and leave from there. Since it was really early, she would toast bread and make warm coffee for the both of us for the few days that we were touring around. Every morning, she would warm the milk, and then put a full tablespoon full of instant coffee into it, stir it and then hand it over to me. On the toasted hot bread, she would put a dollop of butter and serve it on my plate as the butter was melting. This  was very different from the way my mother would serve it at home. Coffee would be served by mixing a small quantity of instant coffee with a cup full of milk. Butter would be spread on toasted bread with a knife, and then put on my plate at home. The first day my friend served breakfast this way, I thought it was because we were in a hurry. Then I realized, after this repeated for the next few days, that it was probably what she knew from her mother... it was what she considered normal. This was what had been passed to her as legacy.

At that time, I felt it was improper of me to say the classical "but this is not the way my mother makes it"! This was something that is passed on to every generation from the last one. It merges so many different cultures, so many different beliefs. In a household, this is what begins so many saas-bahu dramas. The bride comes into the house and learns that things are done differently from home, that the potato is cut in a different manner, the water is added a little later than the way they do it at home. And she adjusts. Or perhaps she just keeps mum to avoid any troubles. On the other hand, if its just the new couple living alone, they adjust and form their own rules. The guy finds a new custom of using mouthwash after a meal, maybe. Or simply enjoys a new customary dessert of chopped fruit and milk every other night. To their kids, this will be what is 'normal', to have the fruit-and-milk dessert at night. And when they marry, they will find that the other family does not have the delicious dessert at night, and will tell their spouse one day, "You know, we should have some fruit-and-milk dessert at night". The custom, the legacy thus lives on.

It is interesting, isn't it, how we decide what is 'normal' based on our own experience? Actually, we don't even decide or even believe the customs to be normal; we just "know" that they are normal -- this is how it should be. A lot of our prejudices, a lot of our conflicts are rooted in just this -- our belief of what is "normal". It is always the "others", their pagan beliefs, their weird ab-normal customs and their un-cultured ways. We tend to define progress and civilization as sending a man to the moon (this should remind you of the movie Agantuk by Satyajit Ray). We tend to define how men and women should walk and talk normally. And we try to define everything we do as "normal". And when we meet the other culture, its always the white-man's-burden, the rush to "teach" them civilization. For the longest known history, I think this is what has motivated a lot of people and justified wars to them. Not to the rulers and kings, mind you -- but to the foot soldiers. Save the ignorant natives by killing them, and by thus showing them the great wonders of how developed we are. Ours is the only true God, ours is the only true civilization. We never take a moment to understand what the others are doing, how they have progressed through centuries of civilization. We never take time to re-define civilization as we know it. We believe ours is the only true legacy.

I'll close with this quote from Swami Vivekananda, at the close of the Parliament of Religions in Chicago, 1893: "In spite of this evidence, if anybody dreams the exclusive survival of his own religion and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion will soon be written, in spite of resistance, "Help and not Fight", "Assimilation and not Destruction", "Harmony and Peace and not Dissension"". Tolerance, isn't that the greatest legacy?

Comments

  1. Love the quote by Swami Vivekananda. Wonderful post Sudipta!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mala, thanks :) His speeches and letters are always a mesmerizing read.

    Manasa, aare kabhi kabhaar kisi ka bhala bhi soch liya kar!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Normal .. My idea of whats normal has been shattered ever since I went to Singapore and Indonesia. And as I travel more of South east Asia, i am certainly redefining a lot of things I always thought were right. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Arre, kab tab kuware rahoge :P boudi aayegi tho khoob khilayegi :P:P ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Wonderful thought put in very crisp way.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Utsav, first of all, welcome onboard! And yes, the more you travel, the more you tend to learn and adapt. Would love to hear stories on your own blog.

    Manasa, kyun re, teri boudi se mai sirf khaana khane ko shaadi karunga?

    Mampi, :) thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I am here after a long time(almost 2 years:-).. nice to see you around..

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mommyof2, yeah long time no see! Glad to have you back.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maa khuh chihal a panjam hastam

The hit counter on my blog reached 20074 today. Why you may ask, is that news, and why hadn't I cheered myself up when it was at 20,000 for example? Well, it is news because 20074 has been a very special number for me during my entire college life: it was my admission number, and my system-wide unique identity. It is strange, and surprising, how these numbers become a part of our identity. The social security number, the passport number, the id number in the college, or even your roll number somehow becomes an almost innate part of the day-to-day life. As soon as I see the same number somewhere else: maybe on a telephone, on a hitcounter, maybe somewhere else... a thousand memories are triggered. As my eyes struck the hitcounter showing 20074 right now, I was thrown back to memories of filling up exam answer sheets, hostel admission forms, library recall requests, and so much more! I believe that number was present on almost every official form which I filled in college: even when

Swami Vivekananda and the Indian Renaissance

The following is an article I sent to my mother based on which she presented at one of her conferences. Do read. =======================================  The common perception of Swami Vivekananda as the religious leader who preached Hinduism to the West and established the Ramakrishna Mission in India is a very limited definition of the impact he had on the collective psyche of the common Indian. Besides his direct impact in adding steam to the Indian Renaissance, a large part of his thoughts and writings also affected the other stalwarts of the movement. While fathoming the entirety of his impact on the Indian Renaissance would be impossible, we will briefly explore some aspects of his influence in the following pages. Raja Ram Mohan Roy is generally credited with ushering in the revolution. His numerous ventures that contradicted the prevailing religious opinion of right and wrong broke the stranglehold of the prevalent quasi-religion, the norms of society and its sole autocrati

Tips and tricks for the GRE

Hello everybody, First of all, I thank all of you for the good wishes and congratulations that you have sent... either as mails, PMs, or anyhow. I have also been getting a lot of mails from people asking for tips and tricks and how I made it to the 800 in quants and 700 on the verbal. So if you are prepared for a lot of gyaan (which I love shelling out), here you go: 1. How long does it take to prepare? A: There is no definite time frame. But about 2-3 dedicated hours a day, for about two-and-a-half months is enough. Then, again, it is dependent on your level. To find that out, I'd suggest that you should take one paper-based test that is there in the front of the book (Barron's, Kaplan, anything... or even the Big Book). If you score about 750 on the quants, and about 500 on the verbal (no cheatings, etc) then the time frame I've said should be enough. If you scored more, great... you should try to get to around 1550!! But if less... well, spruce up depending on how