From Bengal to Gujarat to Kerala to Tamil Nadu, what makes us really unique?

There are certain things about Kerala that no non-Malayali will be able to appreciate in its full scope: The irony of an autorickshaw driver 20 years older than you calling you ‘chechi’, or elder sister, because we don’t have an analogue for the word ‘miss’ in English. Or the derision with which we view outsiders who eat our traditional delicacies like ‘appam’ or ‘kappa’ with cutlery. Or the relish with which we check out the obituary section of the newspaper first thing in the morning. The only thing we find more entertaining than an obituary is a matrimonial―for non-drinking, non-feminist, ‘homely’ virgins. If you ask a 24-year-old Malayali boy if he wants to get married, he will reply: “Oh no, no hurry. I don’t mind waiting a month.” Then there is the universal acceptance of certain Malayalam expletives, the most common being: “Nee poda patti.” The English translation (“Scoot, you dog”) deprives the phrase of its linguistic genius, the way it is offensive and non-offensive at the same time.

Perhaps the most knowledgeable proponents of a language are those who are most proficient in its expletives. If you can swear well in a language, it is a clear sign that you know the language well. Bengalis who know the meaning of the phrase “Marbo ekhane, porbi shoshane” will attest to this fact. It is the paraphrase of a line spoken by Mithun Chakraborty in MLA (2006) and roughly translates to: “I’ll hit you here and you’ll land in the cremation ground”. Once again, the translation is a pale replica of the original. “What of those words you may hear as you pass a squabble on the bypass to Kolkata’s new airport?” asks Sudeep Chakravarti in The Bengalis: A Portrait of a Community. “Or as you walk along the lake Rabindra Sarobar, among the few remaining natural saving graces of the city? Or along much of Bengal’s decrepit towns, these other places where our destitute, displaced, young, unemployed and restless live?”

But of course, Bengal is much more than its profanity, just like Kerala is more than its. Each region of India is swathed in its own stereotypes and jokes, many of which are exaggerated or half-truths. South Delhiites, for example, only drink coffee from Starbucks, they say. Some of them are so loud they won’t respond to you unless you speak above a certain decibel. It remains a mystery to the rest of India how many of them flaunt a British accent despite never having been to Britain. They got it by reading letters from their NRI cousins, someone joked. They love their shimmer and can pass off bazaar couture as high fashion. In the eternal battle between Delhiites and Mumbaikars, the latter might marginally score on authenticity. Mumbaikars might be less inclined to drop names or claim they are only three degrees separated from the prime minister of the country. But Delhiites are less pretentious when it comes to their culinary choices. “You can take a Delhiite out of Chandni Chowk, but you cannot take Chandni Chowk out of a Delhiite,” it is said. Street food is the opium of the Delhi masses, and there are few who do not worship at the altar of a zesty ‘chaat’ or a ‘pav bhaji’.

And seated on the citadel of cosmopolitanism is Bengaluru. But we don’t do justice to the people of Karnataka when we only speak of its capital city, says Bhumika K., an independent journalist from Karnataka. “Being Kannadiga is a matter of pride,” she says. “We are perceived as one of the safest and friendliest people in the country…. Our linguistic pride is further enhanced by our literary pride―eight litterateurs of Karnataka have won the Jnanpith. It is one of our few bragging rights. We like to be seen as an educated and broad-minded people who work hard and make a modest living.”

As different as chalk and cheese might be the north Indians from those in the south, as though there is an iron curtain separating the two. “In Bollywood, we have 10,000 projects a year for fair heroines and 10 projects for dusky heroines, and all of them are art cinema,” joked comedian Vir Das in his Netflix special Vir Das for India. “Because, apparently, nothing glamorous ever happens to dusky people in India. They fall out of their beds into pathos…. Even in the south where you have duskier heroes, you overcompensate for that and put them next to the fairest girls in the world. That is all a south Indian movie is―it is contrast.”

That contrast is obvious when you compare a Kannadiga in the south with a Kashmiri in the north. “The foundation of the Kashmiri identity is built on the axiom, ‘This too shall pass’,” says Beigh Saleem, former director general of tourism and culture in Kashmir. “Everything happens in a phasic manner, from the influence of the Afghans to the Sikhs to the Muslim militants. Kashmiris are characterised by a zest for good living, respect for elders and love for learning. In my childhood, our education used to go far beyond the school curriculum. Every day, after school, I used to visit a carpet workshop and a place that produced arrack, because I was so curious to learn how things worked.”

Despite our differences, the real wonder is how India has managed to remain one monolithic entity. And it is not just our culture or history that has bound us together. It is also our oddities and eccentricities. We are the land in which myth becomes truth and truth becomes myth, in which we hate our colonisers and yet try to copy their ways, in which spitting is a national pastime and tardiness a matter of pride, and, in which, violence is used to defend non-violence. We are the nation of Amul, Arthashastra, Arjuna and Aryabhata, and all of them have made it into our curriculums. Our children know how to rote learn but are ignorant of the rudiments of analytical thinking. We have no dearth of creativity, though. As the joke goes, when a student was asked to solve a mathematical problem, he wrote: “Jesus, because Jesus is the answer to all our problems.”

We love our freebies. Hotels have learnt how to stock up on disposable combs, mugs, shampoos and bath gels, because of the Indian guest’s penchant to ‘dispose’ of them into their handbags. We will create a ruckus if we are not served a ‘welcome drink’ at the reception, even if we have no intention of drinking it. We have a ‘jugaad’ solution to every problem. Apple CEO Tim Cook’s schedule in India, went a meme, included a meeting with PM Narendra Modi on April 19, a visit to Select City Mall for the inauguration of the iPhone Delhi store on April 20 and on April 21, a full-day meeting with Sonu Sardar in Ghaffar Market, Karol Bagh, to understand how the iPhone can be unlocked for Rs150!

Our uniqueness lies in our contradictions. Modernists, pre-modernists and post-modernists all over the world have spent all modernity, pre-modernity and post-modernity trying to work out our inherent contradictions. But we Indians silently laugh at them. Every time they think they have figured us out, we come out of the woodwork and triumphantly exclaim: “Gotcha”.