Social quirks...?

Some observations through the lenses of a widely travelled individual on things I see here on a daily basis. These little quirks, if I may call them never spring up as questions in most people's minds but they do to me now. The result...? It leaves me unsettled about who we (Indian society) are and who we are morphing into. It also makes me question the many ingrained beliefs & mannerisms I've held without ever thinking about them twice.

What I've also decided is I'll begin to conduct small social experiments from time to time to see how my fellow Indians react.

But coming back to what started this train of thought...at the Temple last Sunday:

• I visit the Gujarati temple once every week, usually on Sundays. That's the day when the temple is quite full of people going in and out. One thing I've noticed is that I get a lot of curious second glances at the temple. Is it because I wear levi's and a faded Fab India kurta whereas the rest are clad in either traditional Indian or "western formal" clothing comprising a shirt & pant? Or is it because I am quite dark skinned for a Gujarati (since most gujaratis are quite fair skinned)? I think its a combination of both actually. What struck me even more were two separate incidents... when I popped into the little shop in the temple to buy some incense sticks for Dad, the man in the shop addressed me in Hindi...this was very odd. I politely replied in my flawless gujarati telling him what I wanted. A little taken aback, he handed me the incense sticks and a bill with my name scribbled on it (he asked me for my name). Hmmm. So I then proceed to walk out of the temple where another guy is handing out fliers detailing some programme in the temple. He hands them out to almost every person walking out except me. I dont bother asking him for one but take a peek at the flier in his hand. Its in gujarati. So why again didn't he hand me a flier? Assumption on his part I couldn't read the language? Or that I just didn't "fit" into someone who would attend the programme?
  
• So this whole temple episode got me thinking...what if...when I bought the incense sticks and the guy behind the counter asked me for my name..instead of "Abhijeet" I had said "Andrew" or"Ahmed"...I wonder as to the reaction I would have met with

Reading Surya's latest post on what happened in the bus in Turkey, I think that even here, we need to grow up...equality & acceptance need to take the place of a tacit tolerance which is what we Indians have right now for our own people, let alone how we look at foreigners. (except of course if you're from the US in which case you're next only to God and one step above Gandhi & the cow)