As the Indian innings came to an end, we decided to leave the office. That was when Vivek Pradhan, a colleague who also hailed from my native state of Assam approached Shalini, the uber cool Delhi-ite who was having a cosy chat with her ‘Delhi gang’ in the cafeteria. Shy and meek, he hesitantly asked her about the training schedule and venue for the next day being unaware of the same. To this, the smart ‘Punjabi kudi’ smirked in reply, and though she did answer his query, she maintained a wicked grin all the while, and her friends kept murmuring and smiling all the while, looking at him, which made an already coy Vivek, blush, his cheeks visibly red. As he left them, thanking Shalini, and managing to smile a bit, I heard a distinct voice that said, “Bloody Chinki! Don’t know how they manage to come here,” and the comment made the entire gang roar with laughter. Vivek came to me, with sadness in his eyes, and managed to utter, “Why are these people so proud of themselves? They are in the same place as me, yet they seem to look down upon me as an insect.” I consoled him a bit, and managed to leave in time for the company shuttle in the parking area. There, I met Mohit, who was from Kanpur, a soft speaking bloke who bonded well with me right on the first day of training. We started our conversation, but were soon interrupted by the loud shrill of the huge group of Keralites standing nearby, who evidently had found something very interesting. Disturbed, my friend let out a moan of exasperation and in a suppressed whisper, commented, “This freaking Mallu Party! Now we have to tolerate them for the next two months! Damn!” I smiled at his comment, and bade him goodbye before boarding the shuttle. But these two separate experiences within a very short time span, however negligible, left a deep impact on me. As the shuttle bus left the office campus, I had started wondering about the existence of the so-called entity named ‘India’, the entity singing the glory of which, I saw almost a thousand people shout out aloud, just about 45 minutes earlier.

An extremely popular quote that went viral over the internet, a few months back, popped into mind. It goes, “Terrorists unite us. Politicians divide us.” The statement, although it has an element of truth in it, was largely crude, I thought. True, our nation, being an ensemble of various cultures, languages, regional diversities, religions, has an inherent element of diversity in the national character. And it is true as well, that we unite as Indians really well when we are facing a common enemy, very often, terrorism. But there are other elements as well that divide us, apart from vested interests of politicians who attempt to gather figures in their party vote banks by fuelling these differences, just as well there are other factors that see us bonding. The whole country stood up in support of the so-named Men-in-Blue on the 2nd of April, 2011, when M.S. Dhoni and his men brought glory to the country by clinching the cricket World Cup title. Just as they united in spreading viral text messages, spewing hatred for Sania Mirza, the glamorous tennis star who chose to marry a Pakistani national. When the national sports team is on the brink of a victory, people rarely care if it is a Marathi Sachin Tendulkar who earned the pride for the country or a Kannadiga Dravid. Regionalism is absent when they have to demand the death penalty for terrorists and in opposing a common national enemy.

Outside an element of hatred or sporting glory uniting us as Indians, we remain largely regionalized. Without that, we are Punjabis-Kannadigas-Bengalis-Gujaratis first, and, if interest permits, maybe a little bit Indian. And in derogatory terms of one community, used for others, any North-Eastern resident is a Chinki, a Bengali is a Babumoshai and a Keralite, a Mallu. A major reason, but often overlooked, for our being backward in a global environment. A clash of identities, region versus nation! Unless our neighbour attacks our soil or a certain cricketer scores 200! Beyond the borders of the country, a Chinese is always a Chinese, irrespective of whether he hails from Shanghai or Hunan, just as a Briton is always a Briton and even a Pakistani is always one. If we can, for a change, keep our regional differences aside, and work in unison, maybe we can really give our global competitors, a serious run for their money.