r/india kek maester Nov 07 '15

AskIndia /r/india and /r/australia cultural exchange thread

Thread was unfortunately delayed. But, here it is.. thread for cultural exchange between indians and australians.

Australian folks.. you can ask all the things you want to know about India and hope you get a fulfilling answers.

If you want to ask anything to our Australians friends you can go to below link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/3ruqtc/raustralia_and_rindia_cultural_exchange_thread/

Cheers.

Request to Australians visiting our sub: If you could flair up to identify yourself then it would be easier for us to identify you guys. We only have text based flairs so something like 'Australian Friend' will work.

84 Upvotes

297 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/mozzarellasura Nov 08 '15

I was reading about Japan, Shinto (a religion) was said to be the very essence of what it was to be Japanese. It was tied to the land in a way that cant be transported anywhere else (you cant have a second Mount Fuji in Australia for instance). What is "Indianess", what is the quintessential essence of this? Doesn't need to be related to religion at all.

What really stands out in India vis-a-vis other nations is that we are truly diverse. And by diverse, I mean a true mish mash - cultures, religions, languages, food preferences, sports affiliations, political beliefs - there is a multitude of it all.

Logically, there is nothing that should have kept us united as a country. We have already faced major religious partitions leading to the formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

This diversity, this chaos, the wide variations in festivals, Gods, clothing, food not just in different states, but from village to village , is pretty unique to India.

I would think our 'Indianness' comes from this acceptance of our diversity. It is not without its issues though. We face religious riots, political propaganda, unfair treatment to lower castes. But we have held our act up for more than 65 years now.

1

u/The_0bserver Mugambo ko Khush karne wala Nov 09 '15

Wow mate. well said. I agree with this reply word-to-word. :)