Born to Own

WE ARE A tremendous nation when it comes to owning things that don’t belong to us. Be it within our country or outside. From the milkman at Panchsheel Park in New Delhi to the teacher at St Columbus’, everyone has owned Shah Rukh Khan for ages. The reason is he lived and studied in both the places mentioned above. There are others who may have met him on a flight but will establish relationships of a personal nature. Such is the warmth we exude, and this is how stupidly large-hearted we are.

Whenever some bloke wins the Nobel Prize, you will see television channels rushing their anchors to the place of his birth (even if he wasn’t born there) and will then go on to interview some ageing uncle who perhaps never even saw the lad to the ice-cream man who served him some fictitious ice-cream, and so on.

We are not a country. We are a proprietorship that wants to own everything, including that which was never ours.

When Kamala Harris became vice president, the way some folks exulted in Tamil Nadu was as if they were going to be on the next boat for her inauguration. Little realising that Kamala Harris detests India. She has no love lost for this country and she has never shied away from admitting this. To now make her the brand ambassador for idli-sambar in the US is far-fetched. We don’t stop just here. We then dig. We are great archaeologists: if someone flies over our country, we will count him or her as our own. We then start digging deep: we desperately hunt for some linkages to India. We could put truffle farmers to shame. We will then spend hours and hours discussing the person’s habits as if only we know about them: it’s another matter that it is all freely available on the internet, but that doesn’t deter us. We will then go and add some bells and whistles. For instance, Mother Teresa liked her morning tea with turmeric, and so on. It’s almost as if inanities would contribute to making a remarkable personal story.

Take the most recent case of Rishi Sunak. Whether England was or is Ready for Rishi is another story: India has already declared him Britain’s next prime minister. Why? Because he’s Indian. Then when you correct them, they say Indian origin; correct them further, and they say but he’s married to an Indian. Then talk about Akshata’s citizenship and they will say that his in-laws are Indian, and this story will go on and on. Have we ever paused to think the bloke we want to own actually wants to have nothing to do with us? Or the fact that Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella have made it in spite of being Indian or having grown up in India? But our indefatigable nature prevents us from being logical. For us, this is all emotional and about national pride.

The remarkable thing about us is we stand up and own people once they are successful or powerful. Have you ever heard your uncle talk about the halwai at Southall (who actually may be his own brother) with as much affection as he does about Rishi or Sundar or Satya? Nope.

Even our governments award the Bharat Ratna to blokes who have already won the Nobel or an equivalent international honour. We breed validation before ownership. I find this amusing, to be honest. How we can squirrel away to find the last vestiges of familial or national linkages and then tell the world how great we are or always were. We need only one reality check: Have we ever wondered that these blokes are where they are because they are NOT in India and have nothing Indian in them, so to speak? Can we respect their achievements without tagging along and taking 1.3 billion people as well to the party?

Whether England was or is ready for Rishi is another story: India has already declared him Britain’s next prime minister. Why? Because he’s Indian. Then when you correct them, they say Indian origin; correct them further, and they say but he’s married to an Indian

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And one day, some fine sociologist needs to sit (before he wins an international honour) and define for us the reasons of our general clinginess: why do we latch on to everything that’s “international” and claim it to be ours. From time to time, we have hailed every significant global invention as one that was founded in India aeons ago. We stand so proud of zero that we haven’t stopped talking about it.

I don’t know if Rishi Sunak will finally become the British prime minister, but I am certain of the following: even if he doesn’t become prime minister, he will be given a rousing welcome when he ever gets to India. Newspapers will be quick to dub him the worthy Challenger. Then, of course, there will be the usual speech-making at various fora. Television channels will start showing you his life in visuals whilst lifestyle magazines will provide you with insights into his sartorial tastes. Then there will be those insane food writers, and so on.

And now imagine what we will do if he DOES become the next British prime minister. There will not be a single Indian from Thiruvananthapuram to Times Square who will not be able to relate a personal anecdote about Rishi: that’s what I am worried about!

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Suhel Seth

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