My first name is Sreedhar. You might want to know what it means. In a way it has very good meaning. Sreedhar means the person who carries his lover/life partner in his heart (or we can say something like the person who has made his body a home for his life partner). I feel very happy when ever people call me with my firstname (half of my friends call me with my lastname. Oho.. I forgot tell what's my lastname is. It is Manchu. It has got funny meaning. You know what it is? Snow! Now I live in Burlington, Vermont which is famous for its snow. So considering that I feel my lastname is kind of appropriate. Still I don't know because of some strange reason I like to be called with my firstname Sreedhar (may be because of its meaning and thinking that girls would feel happy to know that). I think I wrote too much about my name.
Anyway now let me tell you where I am from. I am from small village 'Adurupalli' located in Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh state in a great country "India". My mothertongue is Telugu. Before going to say something I want to write few words here about my mother language Telugu. When India was still in the hands of British, one great person named Brown from Britain liked my mother language Telugu so much that he wrote first Telugu to English dictionary. In a way all our Telugu people are obliged to him considering the fact that he was the first person to do that not being native Telugu person. That means he had to learn the language very well to write a dictionary. He had to learn it deeply. I am sure if he didn't do that we would have lost lot of words somewhere in the annuls of history. Moreover as India was in the hands of Britain, our own people couldn't do certain things like this to preserve our history, culture and languages, etc the way it happened in the western countries. We didn't have any power or resources to do that as we were not allowed to rule ourselves. Anyway I feel I am deviating from the main subject. So he wrote the dictionary. And finally he said Telugu language is Italian of the East. But I always tell my friends and other people Italian should be called as Telugu of the West as Telugu came in to existence before Italian did. I guess I have every right to think like that because of this simple fact. More over western people occupied my country. If we had occupied european countries, then people would have definitely called Italinan language as Telugu of the West. The beauty of this language lies in its short words. Most of the words sound like music. I mean most of the words has Prasa (Rhyme). For example I explain two simple words here. Bhama and Bhamma. If you pay attention you can see that both words sound almost similar except the fact that the last word has to be stressed as mma where as in the first word it is just ma. But here lies the beauty of the language as the meaning of the two words changes entirely from one to another. First word means 16 year old girl. Second word means 60 year old woman. Cool.....Right? Actually this language was made specially for poetry. They made this language (lot of words) just to suit certain rules in the poetry. So in a way I am too proud to say that my mothertongue is Telugu.
In India generally people call us 'Andhrite' on the name of my state 'Andhra Pradesh'. My state is famous for education. Every where around the workd you see lot of Telugu guys. In a way it is sad considering the fact braindraining from my country. But at the same time I always believe there are reasons for everything. My state has got very few industries. It totally depends on farming, like my own family does. Most of the people do small scale farming. Farmers have to rely on lot of factors like rains on time, electricity resources, etc for farming unlike software. Some times I believe what ever work you do, it really doesn't matter. All the farmers put their souls in to farming. They do 100 percent sheer hard work to produce crops. But still if there is lack of electricity and lack of water, etc every thing is gone out of his hands. I still remember my farther going to fields in midnight as we used to get 3 phase current only during midnights. Everything is risky. Sometimes people lose their lives bitten by snakes, in accidents etc as they have to walk in total darkness. So most of the families make sure that their children have proper education. In a way it made big impact on our state, in fact on our country it self. Right now in every inistitute either in India or in other countries you find at least 40 percent Andhrites. In every competitive exam in India you see 40 percent of the ranks go to people from my state Andhra Pradesh. I think people from my state are too good in Mathematics like Gujarathis in Business. Thats why you see lot of Telugu people in American universities excelling like anything in everything. So in a way most of the middle class families in my state depend on education to make their lives better.
Ok. So I wrote something about my language and my state. If I want to say things about my country India, I think this lifetime won't be enough. I can say one simple thing about my country. Unity in diversity. It is like small Europe considering the number of languages and religions it has. 80 percent of the poplulation are Hindus. Bye the way I haven't said anything till now about my religion (I don't like the way people call our religion as Hindus as we never knew what religion was till the time Muslims tried to attack our country long time back in the 11th century and Christians from Europe tried to occupy my country. All other people named our religion as Hindus. They named it on the name of one of our sacred rivers Sindu. I guess they couldn't pronounce it properly and Muslims wanted to have some name for Indians, so they called us Hindus based on the name of river Sindu as it was close to the Indian and their borders then). I feel extremely happy to say that I am Hindu. We never attacked any country in our life time. In our 5000 years civilization we never attacked anyone. Our country was so big it vasted from now Afghanistan to now Indonesia. I heard stories that in the old times Muslims and Christians used to listen to great stories about India. Especially about wealth in India. So all the time they wanted to attack India. But we always fought for our people. Even though we had big empire and lot of people to attack all the small countries then, we never did that just because we always believed in peace. Then my country was pure Hindu nation. Muslims first started attacking my country in the 11th century. From then on, they kept on attacking my country till 17th century. In all that time they forced lot of Hindus to change their religion. After that British occupied our country as then our country was ruled in parts by small small kings with small kingdoms. British with their cunning mentality used the rivalry between small kingdoms to get hold of those kingdoms. Let me explain how cunning they were. They used to help one kingdom first to defeat the other king. Then they used to help other king too. That way they made sure that they get taxes from both people for using their help. Finally they could get the total control of my country at the endof the 17th century. So many factors like illeteracy, poverty, unawareness among the people on whats going on in the country as it is big, were the reasons for getting independence very late in the 19th century(1947). I am sure I strongly believe that if we had opted for violence, we would have got independence very soon like all other countries. But we never did even though all the time I strongly wish we had done that. Being weak and gullible is not a bad thing. Being powerful and still use it for bad purpose like hurting weak people is a sin and worst thing. Using intelligence for bad purpose is always a bad thing. I am sure lot of people, especially western countries, feel proud to say that English empire was huge. But I feel it was the worst thing done by English. They did so many attrocities and horrible things to humanity. If there is justice, one day they have to get the punishment in future, if not today. You might ask me where is the logic in this as poeple from this generation didn't do anything. But looking at past, it always follows a cycle. Some times you do mistake, but your people get punishment. Thats the way it works. I don't want them to have any punishment. But I can't stop anything if they have to go through something. With that belief I think that they will get what they deserve.
I can say so many great things about my country. At the same time I feel sad to say about certain things in my country. My country is with lot of poor people. There are lot of people who don't get one meal a day. Out of 1000 million population almost 300 million people are below poverty line. Strangely the differences are huge between rich and poor unlike western countries. Population is a big obstacle for my country. Corruption is another thing thats making my country suffer. But I sincerely hope all this changes one day looking at things happening in my country these days. The other major problem for my country is caste system and religious clashes. Still in this times, certain religious people don't like to follow birth control as they think they are spreading religion according to their holy book. This ignorance is making my country progress slow. In a way it is making their families suffer as most of the families in that religion are poor. Having lot of children doesn't make things better but worse. I feel some times government has to make same rules for everyone. We shouldn't make rules based on religion. That way we will never see progress. We have to make sure that every one is same under law irrespective of religion, caste and other things like rich and poor.
The major worry for my country is terrorism from the neighboring country. People fighting on the name of religion giving names like servants of God and naming it holy war to kill the innocent people including woman and children in Hindu religion is a cruel thing happening in my country India. It makes me really sad to see the fact that all the Hindus in Kashmir were made to leave their homeland. Most of the Hindu population was wiped out of the state by terrorists. The remaining Hindus are now beggars on the streets of Delhi. I feel really sad to think that once upon a time it was pure Hindu country. Now Hindus are facing so many problems. Where is the justice? Where is value for being peaceful? Do we deserve this? Defnitely not. I believe that our patience level is too high. But still if people try to mess with it, I am sure people can't be tolerant all the time and one day they will go to extremes if others don't realize how to live peacefully with others.
I am happy that I was born as Hindu. I was never told by my parents like you should do this because you are hindu and you should follow all these Hindu religious rules. No. It never happened. Because we don't have any religious rules. You go to temple if you like it. Otherwise live your life. At the same time we never try to change religion of other people like Christians and Muslims do in my country. The culture is totally dependent on Hindu religion. It makes me really sad to see how certain sections of people are trying to destroy our culture by changing religion.
I think I totally deviated from my origianl story. But when ever I want to put my thoughts on the paper, by the time I finish it starts huring to see the things happening in my country, to my people and to my Hindus. I still feel first I am Indian, but not Hindu. But some times I guess it doesn't work if you are not united on the name of some thing like Americans do on the name of Christianity. You can always aks me you are complaining about lot of things, but what are you doing to solve problems? Yes thats a nice question. I am sure I can't solve every problem. But I make sure that I do something for my country, for my Hindu people. Even if you get the impression that I am ignorant for supporting Hindus, I don't feel bad. But I am sure you will change your opinion once you start talking to me. More over I don't try to harm other people. But instead I will stick to Hindus. I won't provide funds for terrorism but for helping poor. There is no terrorism concept in Hinduism because we don't believe in spreading religion. We don't believe in having multiple wives because we don't try to spread religion having more and more children.
I guess it never ends....I will keep writing my thoughts here. Not for others. It is just for me. It has to remind me all the time my responsibility to my country and my Hindu people. In a way if it makes my friends to chip in their help, I feel what ever time I spent on writing this letter is definitely worth.
I will keep adding to it.....
Sreedhar.
