MY MOTHER IS AN UGLY WOMAN

Hello,

Read a wonderful blog with the above title. The link to the blog is here and all Indians should read it once: http://www.mindtree.com/subrotobagchi/my-mother-is-an-ugly-woman/.

The writer narrates his experience at a student seminar in Germany and tells us how disappointed he was when he heard an educated, well placed Indian trying to tell the German listeners about Indian habits.

I am not sure if all of us will actually agree with the sentiments of the writer but I do agree that the blog is well written and the sentence where the writer connects to the readers by mentioning 'mother' does pull the heartstrings. I also found the speech of the Ugly Indian interesting and humorous.

Humor is at its best when people have the ability to laugh at themselves. It is therefore not surprising that a comedian gets the loudest laughs when he potrays himself as a bumbling fool.

The Ugly Indian speaker who is potrayed to be inconsiderate and lacking in love for the motherland has actually done a wonderful job of making people laugh by becoming the butt of jokes himself. He, I feel, did fine till his error about Indians not being honest with their intentions.

There are jokes about how Indians can never form an orderly line and how like the crab they keep trying to pull down the other and how they will go to the extremes to save money.

These are fine. There is nothing wrong with such stories as these can be replicated for many other countries. We joke about stingy Indians, crabby Indians and unruly Indians ourselves.

But what is absolutely wrong is his joke about Indians inviting people and then not being ready. 'Athiti Devo Bhava' - 'The visitor is God' is engrained in every Indian mind and even an unexpected visitor can never go empty handed from an Indian house.

Except for this error the other things are normal and even this joke, although not applicable, did click because the people could connect with it. Every society and country have people who say things they do not mean. Germans of all people - the people who showed brutality towards their own people and lead to the world war II can hardly be the country who can treat others with disdain.

People can laugh at the Indian way as it is so different from the western way. It is stupid to say that just because we do not do things the western way we are not to be taken seriously. It is in this context that I remember the interview Aishwarya Rai did with David Letterman. DL tried to joke about the fact that Aishwarya at 26 was still staying with her parents. His statement made the audience roar with laughter but what Aiswarya said next made the studio go quiet and then the applause was deafening. She said something like "Yes I stay with my parents. This way I do not have to take an appointment with them for having dinner together."

What she pointed out was that just because we are different does not mean that we are disadvantaged in any way. She also made it clear that she saw advantage in the difference.

My mother may be an ugly woman but I love her. Just because I joke about my siblings does not make me a mother hater.

Best regards,

Manoj