"Khaana khaana bhi bhul jate ho kya?"

 "Khaana khaana bhi bhul jate ho kya?"

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Hey guys!

If you've been to a school (at least a CBSE one in Delhi), and by some unfortunate occurrence you forget your homework. Holy shit. The drama that ensued was insane. Teachers would just straight up de-humanize you. For what? Human error. They would call you names, throw insults at you, sometimes your whole family, and sometimes you were just thrown out of the class for the rest of the period. As someone who is out of the school system, this entire thing seems silly and bogus, because it is and I do not think it is talked about enough. And it fills my entire being with rage.

Recently, on social media, I am seeing a lot of hate against Indians and the South-Asian community in general. I saw a video looking into this hate, and it just boils down to Indians having bad civic sense. I mean come on, how many times have you seen people peeing on the road openly? How many times have you seen your own father or brother or uncle spit on the road? How many times have you broke the red light? How many times have you narrowly escaped being in a road accident because of someone else who broke the traffic light? Countless times, am I right? Because I have personally seen it that way. When I told them to stop, their response was, the others do it too. What is this, relative grading, a dick measuring contest to see who's more alpha or sigma? What the actual fuck? But it is reality, it is also human behaviour or rather primate. Quoting House from House MD, "Monkey see, monkey do." Our behaviour is just a product of what we see others doing.

The video also explained why Indians have bad civic sense. It is just a sheer lack of empathy. You know how Indian parents to fit into the society pressure you to be a topper then go to a good college then to get a good job then marry someone of their choice then have a kid, then another. The thing is, the kids born out of their parents themselves having little choice in their life, are rarely loved just for their existence. The same people who faced the cycle, pass it to the next generation.

In India, everything is about discipline, how ironic. We were taught to be disciplined before we were loved genuinely. This is probably the reason why these kids grow up to be the adults India is ashamed of. One of these acts of forced discipline, is homework. If you don't do homework, you're punished heavily. You are taught to fear, not question. As someone who has sometimes forgotten to do her homework, I have been made to stand, insulted and thrown out of the class. Now, there is this famous question I have been asked and seen others getting too. "Khaana khaana bhi bhul jate ho kya?" which translates to, do you forget to eat too? My own mother who is a teacher has asked this question to her students and I also have told her to stop doing this. Because you are implying that if a student, say maybe a 10-year-old, forgets to do their homework, they are obligated to forget eating too. Now, I don't know how many of you know this, because that is an eating disorder. Do you want a literal child to have an ED? 

Your stomach releases hormones when it senses it needs food, to the brain, which triggers us to eat, this is millions of years of evolution at work. Eating is necessary for survival, hence necessary for evolution. Doing homework? No. It is episodic memory, meaning the same circuit of the brain that makes you forget where you kept your TV remote, again, not rooted for survival. 

The bigger takeaway here is, this is exactly how a lack of empathy was ingrained into us. If we were never treated with empathy, how can we treat others with empathy? It all starts from your childhood and only a very few break free from the cycle. The more 'messed up' your childhood is, the more 'messed up' you are as an adult. Believe me, I have seen them as someone in her third year of college.

So, please question more things around us. Question iffy morals. Question authority. Question power. India needs it. You are India.

~Your dear blogger

~Ashmita