Indian Culture, the myth of it.
1 : CULTIVATION, TILLAGE
2 : the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education
3 : expert care and training
4 a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills
5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation
6 : cultivation of living material in prepared nutrient media; also : a product of such cultivation
What is culture? I have been told and I have read also in my history textbooks that India has a rich culture and a long history of it. Okay but there was no India before 1947. I am an Indian and a proud Indian at that. But merely saying "Indian culture is very rich" does not make it so. Are we talking about a culture where there is mass exodus to western countries for the singular reason that the living standards are better there? Or are we talking about a culture where human lives are not as precious as they are in the developed countries? Why go so far, even in this country, everyone is equal, some are just more equal. Perhaps we are talking about the culture of dowry and dowry related deaths or for that matter the culture where females are worshipped but only in temples. Just what culture are we talking about? Enlighten me someone.
2 : the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education
3 : expert care and training
4 a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills
5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon man's capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes a company or corporation
6 : cultivation of living material in prepared nutrient media; also : a product of such cultivation
What is culture? I have been told and I have read also in my history textbooks that India has a rich culture and a long history of it. Okay but there was no India before 1947. I am an Indian and a proud Indian at that. But merely saying "Indian culture is very rich" does not make it so. Are we talking about a culture where there is mass exodus to western countries for the singular reason that the living standards are better there? Or are we talking about a culture where human lives are not as precious as they are in the developed countries? Why go so far, even in this country, everyone is equal, some are just more equal. Perhaps we are talking about the culture of dowry and dowry related deaths or for that matter the culture where females are worshipped but only in temples. Just what culture are we talking about? Enlighten me someone.
posted by F-ftOS at 2:31 PM
3 Comments:
Well...I can't elighten you about what is India's culture, but I do have thoughts about what is culture.
I believe culture is the way we eat, sleep, sing, dance, paint, argue or don't argue, the way we move our hands to say something without speaking one single word...the way we communicate. Or don't...in some societies people don't speak to each other.
It is our sense of humour...some cultures [like the Guyanese] relish dark humour; we tease each other a lot too. In some societies, this doesn't happen.
Culture is our folklore, our myths, legends, the way we tell stories, oral traditions.
It is the way we dress, the fabrics we use.
Culture I would say is the fabric of our lives, the warp and weft and weave and colours.
I've thought about this a lot. Thank you for making me think some more.
I agree but then it becomes so specific too. The food culture, the clothes culture, the art culture etc.....
I am really trying to understand the Indian culture :).
Write about it, your Indian culture...then you get to see it, hear it, understand it. [And I get to read about it, yum!]
That's what I'm discovering, writing about life here in Guyana.
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