Be Proud to Say: Naan Madrassi Da

Have always cringed whenever I heard my north indian acquaintances address tamils as 'kale kaloote madrasi', 'madrasiyon jaisi', or even 'ghaas foos khane waale madrasi' and so on.

I grew up in Durgapur, West Bengal and did not consider myself a 'pure-bred' Tamil. I settled in Chennai back in 2002 and allowed myself time to take in the culture, environment, and food habits. Though I am not a great lover of Chennai but I do take strong offense when people talk ill about the Tamils. 

Maybe the Tamil in me is offended. Let me cite a few instances: 

An acquaintance often would crib about the lack of opportunities for her to get married. She claims that if she had been living in a place like Delhi or Punjab, she would have been snapped up, just like that. I have certain observations regarding that claim. I think to get snapped up, an eligible girl or a boy needs to have many more capabilities than simply being fair! This girl is quite fair and bemoans the days when she has to step out into the sun, saying, 'madrasiyon jaisi kaali kalooti ho jaungi.' On such occasions, I have ignored the urge to say even if you remain fair, you wont get a suitor unless you fulfil certain other criteria. That said, on many occasions, I have dared to challenge her and asked, 'why don't you marry a tamilian, given the fact that you have lived here for generations?' To this she says, I don't want to mix my genes with these kale madrasis! As if! I mean which madrasi in his right mind would marry a dumb bimbette! For whatever it is worth, I say that Tamil women are much much more smarter and brilliant than their northie counterparts. You need to struggle so much to have a decent conversation with a northie. Phew!
The instances where I feel offended by the girl would demand a separate blog post, but then do I want to give so much space for someone like that? Nah! I have moved on.

Anyway, apart from this girl, I have few other acquaintances who claim that their otherwise super-intelligent progeny have become dumb after coming to Chennai! I mean are they kidding? A Marathi couple with 2 dim-witted kids claimed that their son had become dumber after coming to Chennai. I was so aghast I remained silent. My blood was boiling.
The afore mentioned boy is quite silly, you see. And I wish to think that he could not have become silly because of namma Chennai's air? He would be born silly, right? And what caused his silliness? Of course, the dad's jeans, err genes, silly!

So, the point here is that when they were in whichever hell hole they were in, the other kids would have been dumber than this boy. So this boy would have shone like the sun, when they came to Chennai, the boy started looking dimmer, dumber, which is actually his original state of mind. Literally. When the father moaned about how he was stuck in Chennai, I retorted, rather politely, 'you know, you should return to Mumbai. Your son would feel more at home there. You guys wont be able to match the IQ levels (pun intended but didn't register) of Chennaiites!' He nodded solemnly.

I will continue on this...