Going places?

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa

To see Praggnanandhaa, an 18-year-old chess whiz from Tamil Nadu, proudly posing in front of the international press with a big white ash stripe spread across his forehead as a symbol of his faith for a photo shoot reminded me of the numerous times I felt ashamed of wearing vibuthi in public during my childhood. 

Coming from a country where my ancestors were bought in as bonded labourers, I did not have many role models to follow, I was ashamed to be an Indian. The fact that many fellow Indians in my neighbourhood were loud and boisterous and had many rows with the laws did not help my perception of the race of my parents. The sing-song undulating tone of my mother tongue was a point of mocking and sneering by many. The behaviour of the few who make it a point to be noticed with their loud colour, unmistakable scents, and high-decibel speeches in buses made me want to disappear. 

Mother's eyes say it all!

The elaborate display of my religiosity was also a sore point. The near histrionic display of faith via visual and auditory exaggerations did not augur well with my mother's intention to inculcate dharmic values in me. She was fearful that all the Western education that was sweeping the world would make me a brown-assed white man who frowned at anything Indian. I knew I was. 

The opening of inner realisation, the opening of the mythical third eye, happened in my late teenage years and the years after that. One by one, I was exposed to more and more people who looked like me and spoke like me. Hey, my people were doing ok, I thought. Still, there was demarcation between outwardly displaying Indianness and accepting all as one, that we are the same. 

The world changed. Identity politics became the norm. My country, where I had grown up, had slowly become fundamentalistic in mindset. People had no qualms saying they, us, we and our people. People were one-tracked into dividing and subdividing amongst themselves. At about that time, being a Hindu became hip. Slowly people tried to publicise the hidden pearls of wisdom behind Hindu acts and rituals. 

An artist's conception of the Chandrayaan 3 lander
and rover on the Moon. ISRO

If the 1990s and the early 2000s, people of Chinese descent in my country were flying high with the phenomenal achievements of their ancestral country, China, from the yolk of hopelessness during the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution to becoming the factory capital of the world. Similarly, the second decade of the 21st century is a time for India to shine. Standing at the cusp of a successful landing of an AI-guided unmanned lunar mission and the precipice of a possible international chess champion, most Indians wear their identity on their sleeves. Nobody is ashamed to spread his vibuthi, sandanam or kumkum liberally on his forehead anymore. 

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