Wordly wise(r) 09/08/2009
 
The Danes are apparently the happiest people on earth. They won't ever let you know that. And you won't know if you look at them and if you haven't read your newspaper's foreign page ever. You can go on looking at them surreptitiously (like I did) and wonder what makes them so happy. They won't stare back and strangely they don't seem to mind your staring either. (The English would have minded and I have realised it much to my chagrin when I used to do the obviously-not-so-surreptitious staring on the London tube.)

When you read stuff of this sort that generalises the emotions of a country as a whole, small as the country may be, and the generalisation is as simple and as pat as it comes, it sits in your head like the ghee you rub on the kadai before making dosa. It is the defining base for all your thoughts about the people of a state. For me, the Danes are happy, Lahoris are hospitable, the English are Wodehousian, the French are stylish, the Germans are aggressive, and you get my point. Indians? Well, that’s for another blog :)

And when you sit in a class with a redhead Finnish girl on your right and a beautiful almond-eyed braided-haired Kenyan on your left, listening to a German speak in the softest of tones; the kadai is rid of that ghee all by itself. And the dosa begins to crumble.

Having proclaimed to be a world citizen several times, when you come within kissing distance of the 'peoples of the world', it is frightening to discover how far away one is from being a true world citizen. Years of mistrust of such aforementioned generalisations prove to be true. And years of sneaking belief in the same generalisations also prove to be true.

All those misconceptions and myths then float swiftly, like muck, to the surface. And then they get splished and sploshed into your new knowledge. The 'who am I' question, no, not the rhetoric, existential one but the more prosaic, rooted one pierces through all this thickening flotsam like a sharp diver and raises its head. It is as if the brain has rubbed its hands together and is polishing a brass plate where is written that I am an Indian, I am a Bangalorean even (see, the plate is getting shinier) and I am helpless to prevent it from doing so. But then you let that plate hang where it should. World citizenry, you realize and begin to accept, is reinforcing and forgetting your identity at the same time.

And so you re-enter gingerly into the flotsam. And begin clearing the muck.

Honestly, I did not start out to say all this. I started with the Danes and their happiness. At the risk of generalisation again, I say they are generally happy because they are secure in their own world. A friend says they are 'koopa mandukas in a well full of gold'. She may be right.
Ironically, I am studying globalisation in a town where national language and national identity seem so deeply ingrained that the rest of us can only peer at it and wonder. And it looks like it will be long before the world manages to shake and stir this core like it has in many other countries. We are Danes, we speak Danish, we are happy eating our kartofler and rogbread, (no, we won't call it potato and rye bread), playing our board games and getting excited about ice-kicking competitions and drinking cartloads of beer. And if you actually ask them why they are considered to be so happy, I can bet my last kroner they would um and ah for about 10 seconds and with a straight face give the standard explanation they give for all their eccentricities -- 'it is the beer'.
 


Comments

Sarit

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 8:19:52 pm

Rash,

Great piece of writing. Loved reading it.

--S

 

Judy Wanderi

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:53:06 pm

Hey Rashmi.

Very interesting read. You are very articulate. Btw, I never thought that Danes were 'happy' but again that is just a generalization! :)

 

Dipti Nair

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 1:00:26 am

All I am interested in is when and how did you come within kissing distance of the 'peoples of the world'
;)

 

Sam Panchamukhi

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:31:17 pm

Danes, as you mention, seem to be beerfully happy. The Bhutanese, meanwhile, seem to be riding high on the Druk. While breathing the rarefied air of the Himalayas the Bhutanese have created Gross National Happiness - an index to measure the distance between them and the lesser mortals living in the plains. Now come to think of it, why would anyone want to measure happiness! And how on earth can you measure it?! Happiness, as I sense it, is a concentrated personal moment of immense gratification. Why do we sense happiness in others? Well, that will end up being another blog on wellness:0 That brings me back to what you mentioned about 'Koopa Mandukaha'. Everything's swell I guess, when everyone's in the well Rashmi. What brings me back to your blog each time is the fact that you seem to be perched on the wall of this well.

I have always admired your lucid, incisive writing replete with visual metaphors and sardonic comments. Highly engaging and enjoyable. Keep waiting for more...

 

Yamini

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:19:02 pm

Sounds like a place I'd like to be in. I had no idea that the Danes were supposed to be happy. Is it just an observation or...?

 



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