Caste System

I am a movie buff. I have always been. I like watching movies. In theaters. In nice theaters actually. Not the ones we have in our town (I have watched movies even there). I also admit that I have stop following Bollywood for past four years but I haven't stop going to theaters to watch movies. I watch Hollywood instead. But I digress.

For past few years, I have had opportunity to interact with people from different states and culture which included Bongs (a lot of them actually), Assamese, Tamils, Mallus, Gults and Oriya. Most of them had the same story. They weren't allowed to watch the Hindi movies, listen to Hindi songs as kids. Somehow, they were bad influence. (Forget about Hindi literature, even hindi speaking populace of India avoid that for some reason.).

Another general trend in all the non-hindi speaking (= Hindi not first language) is that if you talk about Bollywood with them, they have a tendency to point out the actor/actresses/singers/music directors that belong to their particular region. They do acknowledge other actors/singers but the best one is always from their region. That celebrity will be their favorite too.

Few years back, I never thought about an actor as a south Indian or Bengali or anything. I simply liked them or disliked them. I liked Kajol as she is a great actress. I liked Rekha for her grace. I liked Sushmita for her personality. I don't understand why they are defined as a bong or southie? Does it even matter? All these people who feel so proud of these celebrities being associated with their region, do they think that if they went to these celebrities and told them that they belong to same region as them, these celebrities will treat them differently? If not, then whats the point of showing off?

I know people who actually followed Saurav Ganguly in Ranji trophy matches just because he is a bong or told me that Kishore Kumar is better than Mohammad Rafi because Kishore Kumar is a Bengali (though I am not sure that Kishore Kumar ever wanted to be known as one). It didn't have anything to do with his ability as a singer but the family he was born in. How is that fair? And then obviously, they have so much superior knowledge of music and such fine arts than poor us (Hindi-speaking population) that we should take their word for it, even though they have been listening to Bollywood music for only 4-5 years while we virtualy grew up on it. I am not sure what offends me more: the arrogance or the unfairness.

Unfortunately, these are the people who had chance to receive highest form of education but some how the education part of their studies skipped them. They are supposed to be more cultured than us (and thus their arrogance) but they forgot to learn about manners, decorum, honor and justice. They boast their unfairness instead of being ashamed of that. I simply can't comprehend which culture accepts that and how is that superior?

P.S.: I didn't mean to judge any community in this post. I am just rambling. I have some very good friends in each of these communities and I still don't like judging people based on the community they belong to. I strongly believe that every individual is different and whether I will get along with him/her depends on our compatibility rather than their place or family of birth.