Hello Steemians,
This is a short description about the behaviour of the Indians written by our great and famous author Nirad C. Choudhury.
He is one of the foremost Indian writers from the last century,had authored a number of critically as well as popularly acclaimed books on India and Indian people,their customs and foreign personalities closely linked to India.
In this prose piece, Chaudhuri dissects the behaviour of Indians,particularly the Hindus, in public places, as well as in the confines of their homes. He is critical of Indians losing their temper at the slightest provocation. He illustrates this quarrelsome nature with a couple of stories from his own life, once when his hand un-intentionally brushed against a fellow pedestrian's , and later one night when he wanted to take a taxi home , and two drivers present at the stand started a scuffle to claim his custom. In his opinion, these quarrels are not expections,but the norm in Indian streets. Everybody fights against everybody,all the time.
Chaudhuri contrast this with Tagore's experience in Japan where he noticed peace and silence regin in the streets where nobody picks up a fight even when there are unfortunate collisions
This quarrelsomeness extends to Hindu homes too.According to Chaudhuri,the general atmosphere in a Hindu home is so full and gloomy that the inmates prefer being outside than at home. This dullness sometimes changes for the worse to personal clashes.
Wallowing in self -pity and sorrow are what Hindu home-dwellers excel in. A family trying to be cheerful in poverty and keep up appearances in frowned upon by the neighbours and mocked. In his younger days,Chaudhuri used to have a flippant attitude towards this general show of unhappiness,but with age,he realised it was necessary to be empathetic to this 'delusion of sorrow" in Hindu life.
This duality of conflict and co-existence has given rise to a kind of split personality in Indians. This is most evident in the case of married woman,who,on the one hand ,do their chores patiently and quietly ,showing affection towards their husbands,but on the other, once they get into a quarrel,all the grievances since the day of marriage are recalled and anger pours out like red hot lava.
Marriages don't break up because of these feuds. However,it leads to a feeling of gloom and dejection in people's personal lives. This gloom has three prominent features :-
- revelling in personal sorrow and grief
- a constant urge to prove oneself the unhappiest and,
- a craving for sympathy,particularly from strangers.
One significant fall out from this pervading domestic gloom is the tendency , in Hindu housewives , to injure themselves by neglecting health as a response to imagined grievance that nobody cared for them. This often leads to a readiness to commit suicide.