Why you shouldn't be proud of Maharashtra

Why you shouldn’t be proud of Maharashtra?

Nope this is not one of those articles, where I seek to be in the limelight by writing upon an unnecessarily controversial point of view, without even actually believing in it totally. Who do you think I am? Shobha De? She should learn to shut up her ‘kitty party- page 3’ mouth occasionally. I mean freedom of speech is fine, but douchebaggery can’t be cured by freedom of speech.  I mean it’s not a crime to hold an unpopular point of view, but you can’t be the one to hold an unpopular point of view, every damn time and also De doesn’t look the sort to actually believe in whatever she propagates.

But this article is not about her and others of her likes, it is about you and me and Us (I guess you + me = Us, so yeah), the common everyday Marathi person.

Nope am not gonna say Maharashtrian, because that’s the dumbest thing ever. If something of Punjab is Punjabi or of Bengal is Bengali, then anything of Maharashtra , whether be it in English or any other language is by definition Marathi (Marathi here includes any and everyone who is proud of residing in Maharashtra and has some loyalty towards it. So if you are let’s say a Sindhi who can speak the language a little bit at least and respect Marathi culture, in my eyes you are Marathi) What do you call someone or something that belongs to Karnataka? Whether be it in English or Hindi or Marathi, anything that is from Karnataka is not ‘Karnatakian’ its Kannada. So moving on, why am I saying that you shouldn’t be proud of Maharashtra...nope it’s not the farmer suicides either. Punjab and Andhra have equal problems on that front, while it isn’t something to brush aside, it is not the reason I am saying you shouldn’t be proud of Maharashtra.

‘Oh yeah’..now you are thinking, that this is one of those double re-enforcement kinda things, where in just like a clichéd bollywood movie father says about her daughter’s chosen guy or what reality show judges try to build suspense upon but fail because now it has become the oldestest trick in the book- ‘Mujhe yeh pasand nahi aaya..(wait for unnecessary pause)..mujhe bahut pasand aaya!’..But sorry to disappoint you..am not one of those hyper proud mostly politically aligned assholes with stickers on their car that change the ‘mala garva aahe Marathi asnyacha’ quite outrageously to ‘mala maaz aahe Marathi asnyacha’ which goes to show that if you have to openly declare that you are arrogant than the foundation of your pride is false and vain.

I am saying You shouldn’t be proud of Maharashtra because of this stand up act I saw by Doug Stanhope...drunken anarchic genius who seems to be so crazy that he actually makes sense.  In his own controversial yet courageous no-holds barred mode, Stanhope once did an act wherein he said that being proud of one’s history and culture and celebrating it, is just celebrating what someone else did, a few hundred years ago. He goes on to hilariously establish the point by enacting two drunk redneck Americans, talk about how America saved France’s ass in world war -2 and how its pointless because they had no actual part in it etc etc.

And he is right to some extent, I mean it even feels my chest with pride, when I hear about how a 16 year old Shivaji Maharaj conquered a fort with some of his buddies, or how Dnyaneshwar faced mountains of criticism since his birth yet traveled extensively almost till Punjab, spreading wisdom, fighting irrationality and he summarized the Geeta in a simpler language and took Samadhi all before reaching 21...but having said that, what do we have to be proud of, when all we did when we were 16 or 17 was discover the joys of pornography and masturbation. Am not saying all of us were unproductive pieces of shit, but still even if we were doing something constructive, what have we done to be proud of the acts of others, in whose region we seem to have just had the lottery-luck to have been born. Why should we be proud of their actions? It’s a bit like being Rahul Gandhi, just having been born in a family with a few great people, doesn’t necessarily make us one of them does it?

What does this pride give us? Does dancing and riding down the roads on Ambedkar and Shiv Jayanti makes us worthy of their great heritage? Is this the pride we are talking about?   Before I come across like an angry 50 year old socialist, lemme say, I am not advocating that we all give up our jobs, wear swadeshi and become farmers or give up the money we spend on eating out to the poor. I am not a crazy idealist. Besides, who do you think I am?  Sharad pawar? to shamelessly preach what I can’t and don’t practice.

But talking about Marathi pride, we as Marathi people, tend to be on extreme ends of this issue. Either we are so proud that we post statements like these which I saw on one of my friends FB page “Valentine chya divshi Makada-wani, Gulaab gheun phirnyapeksha, Shiv Jayanti la talwar gheun phira” yeah..I know it’s dumb as anything. There is so much dumbness in there, I am gonna take a few minutes to deconstruct that for you. 

First of all, who goes around carrying roses like a reverse beggar, to give to any girl that one sees on Valentine’s day?  I mean no matter how lonely you are, no one does that. Also, when has anyone seen a monkey carry a Rose around? Also, what the hell are you gonna do when carrying around a sword on Shiv Jayanti? How does that pan out? If you are gonna actually seek and out cut down terrorists (remember I said terrorists and not Muslims, if your mind made that connection then you have problems you need to work out. Not me. ) and corrupt politicians and govt. Officers...then hell yeah lets go and do that! ...Am always ready for some violent uprising against a corrupt system. But, if you are just gonna go around wielding swords on Shiv-Jayanti, how does that help anyone? Or even pay respects to the memory of Shivaji Maharaj?

This kinda thinking is an example of false arrogant pride that I was talking about. Other practical examples include irrational violence as perpetrated by MNS or Shiv Sena or any other organization.  One that gives a chance to news organization all over India, to always sweep the real reasons behind the outrage under the carpet of regional chauvinism.

But coming to the other  end of the argument, we also have people, who being Marathi are so un-marathi, so unaware of their own identity, that you wouldn’t know they belonged to the land of strong, determined men and women like Savarkar, Tilak, Babasaheb, Jijau and Muktabai etc. These are the ones who even though good natured and all, don’t really have that style or the fire in them to market their language and defend their culture as well as they should...or just to be even proud of their own heritage.

I mean what does Tandoori Tikka have that Mutton Rassa can’t top? So why isn’t Rassa as culturally popular?  Why can’t it be made known, that in spite of whatever so-called brave exploits that Rajasthani Rajputs are proud of, they were the ones to surrender to the Mughals (with only a few exceptions) and it was the Marathas who were the first and only Hindu powers to actually lay siege to Delhi, yet come to its help whenever needed. It was the Marathas that broke the mighty Mughal empires back. That planted the first Hindustani flags over Attock and Peshawar after a thousand years. The reason why Maharashtra doesn’t have as many palaces as Rajasthan or Delhi is because we didn’t have the luxury of enjoying because we were busy in the words of the great Bajirao Peshwa ‘at striking at the trunk so that the branches were falling by themselves’.  Why is it that we don’t know that the Mughals were only titular heads of India when the British came? Why is it that we can’t proudly say that  we are the most forward thinking state thanks to the multitude of social reformers like Tilak, Ambedkar, Savarkar, Ranade, Karve, Agarkar, Phule, Shahu Maharaj, Eknath maharaj, Tukaram maharaj, Gadge Baba etc?  Why is it that Bengalis are proud of their fish and the Delhi-wallahs of their food, when we can’t be proud of growing the king of fruits- the Hapoos in our own backyard? Did you know that a recent observations stated publicly by TOEFL stated that Marathi people are the best at speaking non-accented English? If Tamil people take pride in their language, why can’t we take pride in our own?

The answers to those questions are two things- one being although being good natured, strong, hard working etc. we have never been good at marketing ourselves. There are exceptions but not many. We have always been good at getting work done, in the normative sense of it, but not seeking credit for it. This has somehow become a generalized attitude, while it’s great at getting work done without having ego issues involved, it tends to make us forget our own strengths.  Secondly and sadly, I feel it’s the regionalism at work in Maharashtra itself. I mean let’s accept the fact that traditionally, at least since the state was formed, it’s been western Maharashtra, because of the urban centres like Pune and Mumbai, and the fertile regions of Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli etc. and to some extent Konkan region, that has held influence over all of Maharashtra. Hence, regions like Khandesh, Marathwada, Vidarbha have always been forgotten.  

So for example when anyone from Mumbai is asked about Marathi cuisine, what the fuck does he know beyond Vada Pav, Misal Pav and Malwani seafood ...Pav (yes, Mumbaikar’s eat too much pav. Might as well start having sea food with  pav too) At max, his knowledge extends to Kolhapuri Tambda- Pandhra Rassa and puran poli. But what about the Saoji Cuisine? Or kala masala preparations of Marathwada? Or Shev Bhaji and Mutton from Khandesh ? Moving on from the food, How many of us know the forts beyond the ones in the Sahyadris? Or of beautiful sanctuaries of Vidarbha? Or that Godavari water from Maharashtra is used by like 90% of brewers to make beer? Or that Nashik is known globally as India’s wine capital? (yes, I know that most of my examples are about food, sorry can’t help it)

I know it’s a large state but it sure as hell helps when you can brag about having awesome tourist places from Mughal replica of Taj Mahal to shrines of nationally renowned saints of all faiths to few of the best colonial era buildings to forts to ancient caves to undiscovered sea costs to 3 Jyotirlinga temples to tiger sanctuaries. I mean shit Gujarat promotes tourism like anything and they don’t have beer! We have all the tourist sites one could want and also the awesomely cheap yet insanely classy, exclusively in Maharashtra, London Pilsner beer. How many of us are proud of that? (LP is a thing to be proud of)

So let’s say you have done all this, acquired as much knowledge as possible about your own state, marketed it well, how does this pride still help? Is it really sectarian to be proud of your own state? Does it make us divisive? Let me give you one small example, about why Marathi people are the least bit sectarian. Traditionally, it has always been the norm that whatever region the railway ministers belongs to, gets the most number of new projects/ trains. When Mamta was there, we get Bengali named “Duranto” trains...when Lalu was in power, Bihar got many Garib Raths...so on and so forth. So when, Suresh Prabhu became Railway minister, it was assumed that Maharashtra would finally get going on long pending projects like the Solapur Jalgaon line, Pune Nashik line, Panvel CST fast corridor etc. But what happened? To my initial disappointment yet later understandung, Prabhu went for the overhaul of the entire railways instead of regional appeasement. Just like many more before him, he saw the big picture rather than instant gratification.

 So when any news organization or even else says that we can be regionalist...don’t worry every region in India is the same. Tamil people won’t have Hindi boards and have even had Anti-Hindi riots and other leades like C N Annadurai and Periyar propagating the greatness of the Tamil culture, yet they were offended when Balasaheb used to speak about Marathi pride...the Kannadas have actually taken to making Belgaum their second state capital, when Mangalore should have been the one, just to finally stamp out any Marathi influence there etc. The media is somewhat biased towards this issue as well. If people are fiercely proud of their culture and expect others to respect the same, then its regional pride. If the same happens in Maharashtra or especially in Mumbai, then

 Please realize that am not saying  be overtly proud of being Marathi and hate everyone else, but don’t be cowed down by biased criticism either.

But it again brings us to my original point..why shouldn’t you be proud of being in Maharashtra? It’s simple, what’s the use of all this mere pride, if  you aren’t getting inspiration from it do make our better? To lead by example as we have always lead, To implement the principles of Shivaji and Tilak and Babasaheb in our day to day life. To truly make this state, an even better, truly a ‘Maha-rashtra’ We must strive to be the best, not by demeaning others but taking them with us. To show others of what excellence truly is, inspite of all the adversity in the world.  Let me just say that Maharashtra isn’t just a state...

It flows as much from the throne of Shalivahan, as it does from the waters of Godavari..It stands tall, determined and strong, as much from the Swarajya of Shivaji as it does in the form of Sahyadris...its present in every word, every philosophical verse of Eknath, Namdeo, Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram..present in the strengthening words of Ramdas, in the simplicity of Sai baba and Gadge Maharaj as much as it is the temples of Pandharpur, Ghrishneshwar, Jejuri etc. It flows from the Arabian sea, just like the tide upon tide of attacks unleashed by the Peshwas upon the Mughals from Malwa upto Attock and Delhi....it was there when Savarkar traversed the waters of Marseilles, there when he got caught and still didn’t give up, it was there when Lokmanya Tilak renewed the struggle for Swarajya, when Babasaheb sought to liberate the people’s minds, as much as it does in the rivers, forts and forests...in every crevice it resides, from a where a Babu Genu or a Vinoba Bhave are born... It’s seen in the carved statues of Ellora and Ajanta, as much in the words of P L Deshpande and Kusmagraja...in the debt, despair yet undying passion of Dadasaheb Falke, in every stroke of Gavaskar and Tendulkar, in the melodious voices of Asha and Lata, in the soul capturing voices of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Vasantrao and others, it’s the fuel  in the pride and fire of Balasaheb Thackeray.. it is the cries and screams of the 105 who were killed by their own, in the struggle to call it their own..Maharashtra is not just a state, it is the blood that flows within you..a philosophy that states that giving up and accepting is never an option...that the impossible is nothing but that which we haven’t given a shot at yet..Never Back Down..Jai Maharashtra.