Seeing Things

The Devil is the pseudonym of this gentleman who is solely responsible for making my blog look hugely popular. For those who didn’t notice, check out the 42 comments on my previous entry. (ahem!) Most of the comments are as verbose as the blog entry itself. What’s more interesting is that they are all almost unconnected to the main subject of my entry! And with each comment he seemed to veer my blog entry into a brand-new direction. From ‘the joke in stereotypes’ , he took it to ‘Muslim bashing.’ I still have not understood why. He typed and he typed and he typed to explain why but it made no sense to me atall. While ‘Muslim bashing’ he touched upon ‘my questionable upbringing.’ From there he leapfrogged to ‘India’s struggle for freedom’ I found that amusing. Considering, he is a typical exhibition of the long-lasting effects of the 'divide and rule' strategy adopted by the British Empire in their attempt to keep their hold on India. From there he went on to discuss ‘Gandh...

I often come across people who form opinions about people based on stereotypes. I have always campaigned against it. However, many continue to adamantly stick to their opinions. Women can not be interested in sports Blonds are dumb Sardar ji’s are fools Muslims have a natural inclination to become terrorists People from Bihar lack culture Gujrati’s are misers There are many more that one can think of. While all these stereotypes are based on certain facts and perhaps figures. It still doesn’t make sense to judge an individual based on the colour of his/her hair or the country of his/her origin. One must judge a person for what he/she is. I know most of the readers of this post are in agreement with me but I’m truly disheartened by the number of people who allow themselves to get swayed by such stereotypes. Here’s the joke: As part of my job, I had to attend a few focus group discussions of late. In every group, one typically finds a smart guy who knows more than the rest and speaks bet...