My Bong Roots

Mr. X and Y were busy discussing a lady and her eccentricities, without heeding that there were others in the vicinity. Slightly perturbed by the nonsense banter, I tried my best to engage myself in whatever I was doing. And even with the most honorable intentions of not overhearing the conversation, my ears picked up a few lines which antagonized me endlessly.

Here is how the conversation goes:

Mr. X: Y, did you know I had just called up Mrs. C

Mr. Y: Is it? So, what happened?

Mr. X: Oh, don’t ask. As soon as I greeted her, she replied ‘Don’t call me Mrs. C. I am Ms. C’

Mr. Y: Ha!Ha! You need to be careful with these Bong women. They are very dangerous.

Now, if you were me and you belonged to the same community, how would you have reacted? It is not a question of whether I am Bengali, Gujrati or Marathi or from some god forsaken island community in the middle of nowhere. It is about, who gives right to other individuals to make fun of anyone else.

Read further and you will notice how far these ‘so called sophisticated’ men can go.

Yours truly: I am shocked and take grave offense. Y, how dare you speak like that when I am around?

Mr. Y: Hey, but you are not a bong; you don’t look and behave like a Bengali at all. You, surely, are from some other part of the country.

My Bengali roots boiled at that statement. Why do people typecast a community a certain kind? Even with all the progress that we have made and the potpourri of cultures that we exist in, it is shocking to hear comments like that. More frustrating are the assumptions that I would be overjoyed to be bracketed in a group who did not belong to Bengal.

I was at a loss to explain the psyche of such people. Who are ‘they’ in the reality of today—are they representative of the mass or are they in the minority? Are they some insecured bunch of commoners who could only mouth the stereotypical reactions or are they radicals who truly believed likewise?

While I truly consider myself a conscientious human being, an Indian and a Bengali in the order mentioned, I do hold some pride in my bong roots. I am nowhere close to being a flag-bearer of the community and most of my closest friends are non-Bengalis. I am open to the world and would embrace its every nook and corner with the same enthusiasm.

But at some corner, I am as intensely proud of my roots as is anyone else. We pride in our destiny and our roots, for they define our culture and being. And I hate such mindless quotes, who out of whatever reason, even dare to bracket us in the stereotypical nonsense.