The other day, inspired by Svenky’s story, I decided to write a short story myself. I started in English, but I could not find the right words to express my thoughts. I then switched to Tamil, my mother tongue, but in vain. I was worse at my own mother tongue!. A sudden feeling of isolation crept up. At that point, I did not have a language to claim as mine or express my thoughts fluently. This is not just my case, but millions of children being brought up in today’s India.
Modern education not only ignores one’s mother tongue but also fails to teach English properly. As a result the culture of these children does not have an identity. This identity crisis, though not evident within the country, will affect the culture and hence the art and history of the region the child is from. This raises the vital question: “Why do we need to preserve culture?”.
On a basic level, there is no fun in anything if it does not possess variety. Our drives, inspirations and entertainment thrive on the diversity of things. If everything was in a similar state, nothing would flourish. Secondly, language is an inherent part of culture and thus needs to be preserved too. A lot of dialects are fading away from the face of the earth everyday. The study of language becomes a vital part in study of history. For example, some endangered Andaman languages have a word for has lost his sibling. This directly gives us a peek into their life style and family structures of the respective civilizations. Thus, the need for preserving culture translates to the need for preserving history.
History, as we all know it, is not only a record of our mistakes, decisions and political administration, but also a tool for guiding us in various situations and shortcomings. Hence, it is vital for us to preserve history and hence the culture of various societies. Same is the case with art. We all know that art played a significant part in man’s transformation from a nomadic Neanderthal into what he is. Study of art is an integral part of ethnic research. If art is to be preserved, then so is culture since both of them are interwoven.
But at the same time, preserving culture does in no way mean the blind following of the instructions and protocols laid out by ancestors. The Tamil saying “Pazhamai veru pazhasu veru” (Being traditional is different from being old fashioned) sums it up. A critical doctrine of every culture is cultural tolerance which says that every culture must identify and respect other cultures and if possible adopt a few good things from them. Culture preservation will be successful only if the people from each culture are open to adopting the best of each world such that it leads to the betterment of the future generations. The abolishing of Sati was one such good transformation in the Hindu society. Caste division which was started for political administration and subsequently demonized into exploitation and its eventual abolishing is another example of cultural preservation through flexibility in doctrines.
Therefore, it is essential that each culture gradually reinvents itself regularly without losing its identity. With this in mind, if today’s generation is willing to have a hold of their cultural uniqueness and also the changing trends of the society, the world would be a better place to live in. I, for one, have decided to read Tamil poems and wear Veshti (South Indian Dhoti) at least on special occasions!!!
P.S.: If I was unable to clearly express what I intended to, it is because of my straddling between the two languages!
P.P.S.: Please visit The Maharishi’s blog for a different take on this subject.
Interesting viewpoint. I believe that in the Indian situation, the culture is evolving fast, but there is a tendency to stick to the black parts because it turns out to be economically favourable, no matter how wrong it is in the modern world and what the world thinks of it. Untouchability is very much a “feature” of our culture even now. Evidently there are a lot more reasons others than “style”, “being cool”, etc.
PS: Dei your text is really small. I think you should increase the size of the default font, choose a different theme.
“economically favourable”: I don’t get it da… What do you mean?
By economically favourable I meant that there are a lot of people in the higher classes (originally brahmins, kshatriyas or vaishyas) who try not give up their caste differences because, then there would be some difficult questions like “who would do all the menial work?”, “we would have to pay our servants a lot more!”, etc.
Forget people of higher castes, there are many local governments also adopt this disgusting attitude. Consider the people they employ to clean excrement from railway tracks and rag pickers in the city. All of them are “untouchables”, and are paid really less and work in horrible conditions.
Is all this not a sorry state of affairs resulting from our culture? I think it’s far better to adopt a different culture saying that it’s “a lot cooler” (however bad that reason seems) than sticking to these parts of our culture. I intensely dislike “the maharishi”’s blog posting. I guess he is also severely impaired by the inability to communicate in english (as you mentioned in your blog) and his post seems really unreasoned (esp. stuff like “You will know the _power_ of your culture only if…”, whatever he means).
“…than sticking to these parts of our culture” – That is exactly my point. People should shed these sickening things and take up new ideologies without losing their original identity.
There is one scene in Hyderabad Blues where he mentions a similar thing.
And about the local governments following suit. That is the single most disgusting thing that can happen. These governments that thrive upon the caste votes are ready to cater to the whims of their supporting clans. I can’t imagine how big a revolution is to be brought to change all this…
And I guess Maharishi got carried away a bit by the incidents!
I’m writing to you as a student of anthropology at Temple University asking for your time to fill out this survey. This past summer, I spent six weeks in Gujarat, India. Most of my time there was shared with a family of jewelers. I noticed I was getting different answers within this family when I asked why they were adorning themselves in a particular way. In short, I created this survey because I want to show that meaning isn’t as simple as we interpret it to be. The goal of my exhibit is to display the various meanings of adornment in order to ward off generalizations that are often made about cultures. The following is a link to my survey. Any information about your individual opinion of each photograph is appreciated. Also, if you could pass this on to anyone you think would like to contribute, I would be grateful.
Thanks for your time,
Sarah Golomb
http://sarahgolomb.com/