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<Summary> YATB, Yet Another Technology Blog </Summary>

Monday, March 20, 2006

Beyond Technology: Jai Kannada, Jai Karnataka

I was sitting next to my friend when he pointed out an Orkut community, which is for hardcore residents of Bangalore. Its message goes:


This is a community for all those true blooded, hardcore Bangloreans who believe that people from outside Bangalore, who come and settle down here are the ones who should be majorly held responsible for the recent collapse in infrastructure, bad traffic amongst other negative developments in the city. Facilities originally created for us are being exploited by non-Bangloreans. Growing up in this wonderful city, we knew how this place was 10-15 years ago..or more. We feel extremely attached to this place and we express our hatred and anger towards all 'immigrants' here!!..Come on in and express your solidarity as a Hardcore Banglorean.. and for all you wimps at heart.. stay away!!


If this wasn’t enough for me to use the F word, he pointed me out to the following comment:


they shld be kicked out..as soon as possible..instead if we make infrastructure in bangalore better then junk,happless guyz will come in more numbers....North india is anyway slum...they want to replicate it here as well!!!



Albeit, I have been a part of Bangalore for less than 8 months; and even though most of the time I am confined inside the walls of our campus, Bangalore does have problem. And it’s not because of North Indians. And it is not hard to notice it. You notice it first when you land at the airport. You notice it when you look around for a taxi. You notice it when you take a cab and move around Bangalore. You notice whenever you go out for a walk. You notice it every time. Is it that people of North India, which includes myself, came here and ruined the beautiful airport that exists at Bangalore, damaged the roads that existED, and of course took over all the pubs in Bangalore? Isn’t this regionalism, in its worst form? In the end we all belong to one single nation, India. So, why have this commotion? Why show this immaturity? Especially, since most of the people around actually KNOW the root cause of all this so called evils that plague Bangalore. It is nothing but mismanagement, by the powers that be. I won’t be naming any single person, but I guess deep inside every “hardcore Bangalore resident” knows about it.

But personally, I actually find this whole thing funny. Consider the case of US and UK, there people complain that we, that is Indians, have ruined their economy, and here in Bangalore we complain that Northern part of India, has ruined the economy here. But the question is where do we draw the line, if nations can ruin each others economy, states can ruin each others economy, cities can ruin each others economy, then why not just lock our doors and start living in a closed world, a closed economy? A world where nobody interacts with anybody else. A world where you grow your own food, cook your own food, grow your own cotton, stitch your own clothes. A world without interaction, a world that does not exist.

19 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Its really disheartening to see such a community. Isnt it all about a single country? Then why this north indian and south indian.... if it had been the delhi that prospered like bangalore wouldn't everyone from bangalore would have gone there for a job or for a better career which i think i perfectly alright afterall be it delhi or bangalore...its INDIA
The disturbing part is that if our generation possess such a thinking, I can hardly see any thing good happening for the country and any problem getting solved

11:44 PM, March 20, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

aren't we doing the same mistake that the generation prior to us did!!
But for sure now on nobody is going to blame politicians for misguiding the "uneducated people". Educated people are not showing any sign of maturity here neway!!

1:55 AM, March 21, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

guess what!! the guy who'd started this community is a member of community called "INDIA"...HUH!!!!!
Isn't this a classic example of hypocrats!!!
God bless him !!

2:14 AM, March 21, 2006

 
Blogger Kunal Kejriwal said...

wen i saw this community, it really amazed me a lot...
tht in present world...too
there are people who think too small..
They even want Tamil out frm here...
its really pathetic...

All r saying now a days..India's future is on the hands of young blood...

But this kind of thinking will definately ruin the future of india.

3:50 AM, March 21, 2006

 
Blogger SteelySouthpaw said...

I have not seen this said "community" on orkut. Am not intrested in checking it anyhow.
But you gotta keep in mind that there will always be
.some lunatics whereever u go.
.Some misguided people
.Some narrow minded people. etc etc

On the other side of the coin are people who are openminded and do acknowledge the "real" causes, what ever they may be, for the problem

...All this holds true,in general, why should Bangalore or Bangaloreans be any different?

This kind of attitude exists among people be it in any community, country. It has to do with the upbringing of the people, if we are not taught to appreciate the good in others and the bad in ourselves, right from a young age, such narrowmindedness is bound to creep in.

The disturbing part is that if our generation possess such a thinking, I can hardly see any thing good happening for the country and any problem getting solved

PS: the 1st comment by anonymous, is pretty pessimistic..inspite of such attitudes existing in our society, we have progressed as a nation in the past 50 odd years...attitudes are becoming more liberal now-a days, and things can only get better for India and Indians.

12:57 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Blogger Imanpreet said...


Its really disheartening to see such a community. Isnt it all about a single country? Then why this north indian and south indian....


My question still stands, where do we draw the line? Because we belong to a single nation, does it mean that a boundary based on nations is good enough? The thing is in the end we all live in a single world a single universe. And in such a scenario, should such boundaries even exist?

2:53 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Blogger Imanpreet said...


Nagesh wrote:
PS: the 1st comment by anonymous, is pretty pessimistic..inspite of such attitudes existing in our society, we have progressed as a nation in the past 50 odd years...attitudes are becoming more liberal now-a days, and things can only get better for India and Indians.


Personally, I was actually surprised with this whole thing. I remember last year there was some form of strike here in Bangalore and the reason for it was that Banglareans thought that guys from North India were taking over the IT industry here. The whole thing left me wondering how these guys come TV and give all the rational theory of why US should continue to outsource. And outsourcing in US does not happen without any side effect. Somebody, who is earning, somebody who as a wife, somebody who has kids does lose his job.

3:01 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Someone once commented on my blog:

> Dude,
> If orkut, then ignore.

I find myself using this quote too often these days: "there is no malice in this world, only stupidity." And like Nagesh pointed out above, there is no dearth of stupidity, be it in Bangalore or elsewhere.

Boundaries are bound to disappear, and Bangalore at the moment gives us a hint of where we might be heading. There will be, I conjecture, a time in the future when boundaries will cease to be meaningful - or even exist!

On another note, this is a very natural and expected behaviour from these people. Bangalore is going through big time changes right now, and people apparently don't like change and fight it with all their might. But change will finally win over them. (Alvin Tofler has a lot to say about this in his book "Future Shock.") These kind of things came up in Bombay too some years ago. It's absolutely normal. You must just try to ignore it.

7:09 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh btw, this kind of attitude is not limited to a few people on Orkut - it's a wide spread sentiment among many of the "hardcore Bangaloreans".

7:11 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nagesh! Wen i wrote "i can hardly see anything good happening for the country....", i wasnt concerned about the progress that we had done in missile technology, or in software industry and not in any other fairy sector !! Ofcourse al this make me proud too!
But to me the progress means wen we progress socially, i know economic progress is as important as anything but gulp this rude fact that you can't progress on it alone.
And i go by the thing that money means nothing if i don't know how to to spend it righteously!
And my comments were'nt aimed at any commuminty in particular...It wasnt about bangloreans..i know that there are every kind of people everywhere, so i wasnt in the direction that i'd been took into...I was equally hurt when it was shiv sena who started this thing in mumbai!!
and sid
"> Dude,
> If orkut, then ignore."
It all sounds real cool to ignore things that are not good around!!
But you just can't ignore everythin
There are times when you have to care about the things/events you pass by

and iman's blog topic and our reactions are just a normal brain reaction that ought to flow out!!

Again i think nothing here is to condemn any community or to boast any other....Why do we still lack this feeling of being from a single country and not from separate religions.....thats what my point is...and i think india hasnt progressed at all in this direction...may be we had gone a few steps back!! sad but true!!
Take it on a pessimist note or whatever but i think its always better to accept realities and try n do something to get over 'em

8:00 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

...you could be judgemental on these things terming them as normal
when this happened in bombay( "normal" ) people (non-mumbai) have been beaten on railway stations to show the agitation and people have been harassed....
i wonder if this is normal?

8:05 PM, March 21, 2006

 
Blogger SteelySouthpaw said...


Why do we still lack this feeling of being from a single country and not from separate religions.....thats what my point is...and i think india hasnt progressed at all in this direction...may be we had gone a few steps back!! sad but true!!


These things are fast disappearing in social life. Religion and region are still the pawns of politics.... But to others, it is just a hindrance or a bargaining tool for facilities/concessions, thatsall.
And, India is not regressing at all. While there is no doubting that economically we are progressing pretty OK, Socially and morally to there IS reason to believe that things are looking up. Infact, today's Indian appears to headed to be a global citizen, Language no bar,
Region no bar,
Religion no bar,
Country no bar!

If u ask any Indian on the street, u r most likely to hear that Pakistan is India's enemy,...but the reaction from India when Kashmir and closeby areas were hit by a quake was commendable, That Pak was not very willing to accept our help apart, it shows social consciousness is still not completely dead in us. That alone gives me hope for the future and i live by this hope.

12:21 AM, March 22, 2006

 
Blogger SteelySouthpaw said...

@sids

These hardcore Bangaloreans are pretty small in number, i believe. I cant back this up with any stats, but i guess these hardcore....that u talk of , are just a very small number of people with extremist attitudes

12:24 AM, March 22, 2006

 
Blogger Imanpreet said...


Nagesh Wrote:
Infact, today's Indian appears to headed to be a global citizen, Language no bar,
Region no bar,
Religion no bar,
Country no bar!


Nagesh I agree that we are indeed moving towards a very open world, but the thing is that if you look at the grassroot level then we are still quite far away from ensuring these very basic things.

But, as you mention, these things are part of every society, and I personally don't think that these issues are "normal".

2:15 AM, March 22, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

@hemant,

When I said 'normal', I meant 'expected' (my bad). Now, something is expected does not necessarly mean that it is good or even desired. I'm just trying to imply that we shouldn't be taken aback or be so surprised on encountering such a thing. In fact, I would be suprised (glad, though) if there was no such thing.

And yeah, I certainly didn't want to imply that the issues are nomral or even expected, but the reactions are surely more or less expected. It's just the magic of large numbers, individual thought and the ability of a few to influence many more. If something is important enough, several people will have opinions about it and they will be very varied.

@nagesh,

Well, I really wish you were right. I was watching the debate that was on NDTV when the whole Narayanmurthy-ChiefMinister racket was blown out of proportion. People were just sending SMSes to NDTV their reactions and a surprising number of them had similar inhibitions. Still, I hope you are right and I am just mistaken due to bad sampling.

@anonymous,

Of course we cannot ignore everything. At the same time, we cannot be bothered by everything we come across - there simply isn't enough time for that. IMHO, Orkut is place which can be ignored without dire consequences. But that's just me.

2:19 AM, March 22, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

nagi i agree with you that "Indian appears to headed to be a global citizen, Language no bar,
Region no bar,
Religion no bar,
Country no bar!"
but not totally(i wish i could).I think you are someone who is attached to the ground( i suppose ), and we know the basic reality its still not the way it should be... if it were a "dude" who has seen the good good all his life and said all this "region no bar..." then i could have agreed because thats wht he has seen but we know that still alot has to be done ....the country is still divided based 'pon regions religions and lots of other useless pitty things.

Socially stil we are underdeveloped[not at all pessimistic]!! Do i need to give instances?

2:34 AM, March 22, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Maybe you should read this about how "outsiders" are treated in Gandhinagar: http://mygandhinagar.blogspot.com/

This is not to condone the behavior of the "hardcore" Bangaloreans, but just to show that things are far worse elsewhere in the country. Even with all this, Bangalore is still one of the more accommodating places in India.

4:25 PM, April 07, 2006

 
Blogger Reetesh Mukul said...

Hey, next post. Waiting to go through next post.

4:37 PM, April 27, 2006

 
Blogger SteelySouthpaw said...


Bangalore is still one of the more accommodating places in India.


yes,this "swalpa adjust maadi" and "Njoy maadi" culture is quite unique here.

12:04 AM, May 05, 2006

 

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