http://www.skknews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=7671
Namaste (This is what we say in India for ‘Hello’)!!I am a student here in SKKU. I always have this practice of introducing my country in my presentations. After one such of my presentations, one of the students came up to me and asked about India. She was trying to express her sympathy towards India, based on the emotional experience she had after watching “Slumdog Millionaire”.
Well, I think most of you today would have the same feeling about India in relation to this movie. What has been portrayed in this movie is just a very very minor part of India. Well, but the one thing about the slum-dwellers speaking English is absolutely true.
Few centuries ago, Gold and precious stones were sold on streets in India. But the British rule used the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ to destroy the unity and strength of India by explicitly displaying the religious separation among Indians. India has today fought through it all and is persisting as a country which would well be one of the competitive threats in every field to most countries in the world. Be it Information Technology, Nuclear energy, Economy, Space, Science, etc...
Well, however, these britishers atually did a big favour to us by helping us get internatonalised. India is one of the countries which can speak English just like another local Indian language.
India is separated into 25 states and 7 territories which create 16 major languages and 1,000 minor languages and dialects. Being the second populated country in the world, India definitely struggles to provide comfortable shelter for her citizens, but time will prove her ability. Other than just population being a concern, unlike other highly populated countries, India today also faces the diversity in her languages and culture. India is the largest democratic country in the world. This makes it all the more complicated to achieve her targets sooner. India is probably the only civilization in the world which shows a clear continuity of her several traditions from the times of her earliest known civilization. Even today several levels of social evolution coexist in India and her composite identity has won her the quote, ‘unity in diversity’.
Among the various topics I could talk about India today, I would rather focus on how closely related Indian culture is with the Korean Culture. When I first came to Korea, I realized the necessity of learning Korean to survive daily-life here in Korea. This dilemma introduced me to a highly capable and highly qualified Korean lady, for my Korean teacher. She would manage her daily house-wife life as a Mother of 2 kids along with teaching me Korean in the evening.
This reminded me of the similarity the Indian women shared with the Korean women. In India, Women are more towards home-keeping while the men work for their family. Well, I somehow noticed a similarity in Korea where the women would prefer to quit work and take care of the family once they have kids.
The common tradition in Korea is to respect parents and give them high priority. This again reminded me about the similarity the 2 nations shared. India is the biggest of the few countries that have the concept of joint family system and arranged marriage. The wife is bound to live with the husband's family. This might seem wierd to most other country people, but that’s the true color of India, where the women just readily bear anything to be with her loved one.
And talking about arranged marriage, modern India would rather go for a love marriage while most part of India is still in the concept of arranged marriage. It’s where the parents chose the bride or groom for you. This also reflects as to how obediently the kids suppress their desires towards their parent’s choice and how much they trust on their parent's decision for their life. India and Korea also share similar religious background.
Looking more deeply in many other aspects, I conclude with my belief that India and Korea are closely inter-woven in culture and that we share a common bond :).
Writer,
A proud Indian in Korea
