| Subject: what is unique to gujaratis? |
Author:
shailesh
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Date Posted: Mon, October 31 2005, 14:25:10-4
here in the u.s. an indian from gujarat is either a patel operating a motel, or a student of some kind of technology or business. or that’s how the others think of them. gandhiji, too, left kathiawad first to study in england, and then went to earn a handsome living in another of the english colony. it was the african land that transformed him. gandhji made gujarat famous, but could not inspire gujjaratis to practice what they say to foreigners what they admire. to praise someone is in deed to distance oneself from that that one admires. guarati businessman ( ‘bania’ ) is thought to be a knieving person.
as for the identity, the new gujaratis do not speak well in gujarati, especially the educated ones, the students. now the english words have made inroads into their vocabulary. before that it was urdu and farsi, and arabic before that. but even without that, the “talapadi” gujarati was different from place to place. in junagadh in the mid 1940-s my father and school teachers scoffed when i spoke like my illiterate mother. the language of sorath contained some peculiar words and expressions coming from the muslim kink’s court. and the muslims, who were supposed to be speaking at least, urdu, acquired kathiawadi sounds, making their dialect unique to the area.
as for the culture of gujarat, in our area, the practice in the farming community was that when the daughter married, she would take with her some yogurt for the starter for making yogurt in her new home. yogurt, as cultured milk, acquires the flavour of the culturing ingredient. so do things, thoughts and acts depict the various impressions coming from various sources. in your web page there is the picture of dandia raas. when i was in baroda university art school’s folk dance group, the girls and boys who danced with me would change into the “folk” dress from their common english style clothing. and the dean and vice chancellor expressed their disapproval for my not dressing up like them as a govt. of india cultural scholar. and i was simply making a point, that, like one’s vocal chords and the passages of utterance, one’s clothing and motions of life, too, acquire the culturing. but it is different from the blind imitation born out of the centuries of conditioning forming the inferiority complex. may be, gujaratis are not uniquely feeling inferior to the english culture. the rich and powerful as they are, the americans, too, are impressed with the european culture.
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