I come from India.

Which India do I come from?

There are not just two, but multitudes of them.

It is only the binary-minded, the indoctrinated, the compromised, the hateful, the star struck, burdened consciences who believe that there are just two Indias.

Every Indian’s India is different, and there are more than a billion of us!

I come from all of these Indias, including those that exist in the minds of the snobbish elite, of the woke sold-outs, of the pseudo-liberals, the Commies, the India-haters, the appeased and the appeasers -those who sell their souls in the West to earn their keep, and in process, become unwitting collaborators with those who wish to keep our great civilization under perma-seize. These quislings are my fellowmen too, and I must speak for them as well.

1. I come from the India of naysayers who doubted our ability to handle the pandemic, and mocked our vaccine efforts, yet rushed to register en-masse on CoWin and crashed it, when they were made available for free.
2. I come from the India of hypocritical elite who raise hue and cry about AQI, but keep driving SUVs, and accumulating air-miles.
3. I come from an India where Bullywood first commodifies women and sells rape-culture onscreen, but when called out sheds clothes, picks placards, and begins looking for caste and religion in every crime.
4. I come from an India where we blame our large population for all our problems, but get triggered at the mere mention of a population control law.
5. I come from the India of manipulative media where established journalists do not ever leave their AC offices, but claim to know more about the problems than the people facing, and resolving them.
6. I come from an India of some ghettos which love our neighbours’ sports teams, armed forces and leaders more than our own, but when called out, are quick to scream ‘G-H-I’phobia.
7. I come from the India of comedians who can joke only about race, colour, body-shaming, sexual preferences, Hindu gods and goddesses, their rituals and festivals, husbands and wives, and hence do not sell……which is why such comedians find protests more profitable than hopping onto platforms and cracking PeeJs.
8. I come from an India where some 50-year old politicians consider themselves too young to shoulder responsibility, and 75-year olds feel they are too young to retire.
9. I come from an India where some political parties have always professed loyalties to Soviet Russia and China, and some have now even signed MOUs with the Communist Party of China.
10. I come from an India of Brit-lovers who ensured that despite winning the freedom from the UK, we kept their Viceroy, rechristened him Governor General, and continue to remain in the Commonwealth.
11. I come from an India where patriarchy is attributed to one caste, criticism is kept confined to one religion, and every male is castigated as a rapist by a comedian who wanted to flog himself on the stage at the Kennedy Centre.
12. I come from the India of the blissfully unaware who refuse to acknowledge that the sub-continent was divided on the basis of the two-nation theory which has created two whole nations for the minority religion, yet the idea of the natural Homeland of the majority one is considered blasphemous.
13. I come from the India of the lumpen where laws passed by the Parliament following due process are decried as undemocratic, but squatting on roads for days-on-end while disrupting traffic is considered democratic.
14. I come from the India of so-called progressives who mock vegetarianism, but rail against dairy- all in the name of global warming.
15. I come from the India of cynics which asks its armed forces for proofs of air-strikes, and accuses them of rapes and human rights’ violations, and yet I also come from India which cries copiously when every single soldier of hers lays down his life.
16. I come from an India whose history has been whitewashed and religious fanaticism of the past is sought to be explained as ‘affairs-of-the-state’; and where kids are still proudly named after infamous rapists, murderers and marauders.
17. I come from the India of the masochists where the sentiment of Akhand Bharat is mocked at, but Aman ki Asha gets traction; where the Ancient Language is considered ‘anachronistic’ except when one has to quote Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, Atithi Devo Bhava and Sarva Dharma Samabhav to justify appeasement or welcome illegal immigrants.
18. I come from an India which considers dynastic succession as democratic, calls casteism as ‘social engineering’, allows communities to be used as ‘vote banks’, labels misgovernance as anti-incumbency and finds her politicians better at providing comic relief than so-called comedians.
19. I come from an India that strangely allows for the freedom to propagate religion, and any suggestion to ban conversions is met with vehement outrage from the pseudo-seculars and the supposedly irreligious.
20. I come from an India that shall listen to my soliloquy and react in different ways. Most shall identify with the truth that has been spoken. The Usual Suspects shall get busy in their ‘outrage manufacturing factories’. Fake News Peddlers would keep working overtime to dish out more slander and falsehoods.
21. I come from an India which does not run on Twitter, does not watch Netflix does not fly Luxury, and is certainly not ashamed of embracing its own identity, and is slowly recuperating after the destruction caused by the pandemic.
22. I come from an India that does not hate itself, doesn’t believe in performing serpent rope tricks or making puppets dance to entertain the West; learns lessons from her past, works hard in the present and is optimistic about the future.

If you want to gauge a person’s character, watch him on a platform where his inner self and the world view come gushing out. Not everyone has the good fortune to be able to bring laurels for the nation. But using a global platform to spread disinformation about your own people, portraying half of them as despicable creatures, falling far short of your ‘carefully crafted moral edifice’, while hiding behind the armour of your own art, is something that only a ‘circus monkey’ would do comfortable in doing.

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#VirDas #CircusMonkey #TwoIndias #KennedyCentre #harvard #Icomefromindia #monologue