BY GAUTAM VELPULA

I got up today in slightly better spirits than what my life has been allowing recently. Wondering what I was going to do at work today, I got dressed put on my shoes and started out to work. See I have been having some sporadic back pain and realized maybe it is because of sitting in my chair all day. So I decided to make some changes and walking the less than ½ mile seemed like a good place to start.

Walking is an amazing thing to do especially when you are not running late and there are lots of people who are. The Indian man who is always late, fidgeting around waiting for the walk light to cross the road, I am sure the place he leases out next will be on the other side of the road. The Indian girl who walks one step and runs two, she just needs a better alarm clock or she just needs to cut her hair short, it must take forever to groom all that. The Indian guy eating his breakfast walking, does he do that by choice? Or is he simply saving time. These are the regulars, there are a few like me who do not walk everyday but you will see them every now and then.

I get to work take my seat and I still have not made my mind up. What am I going to do today? See we have a killer couple of weeks and looks like we are finally ahead and don’t have to work that hard anymore. So I spend most of my day randomly looking at past work. Surfing the internet and compiling and recompiling my code (that is programming lingo for killing time).

Lunch time is here finally and I trudge down to the café downstairs to get something to eat. I greet the guard on my way back and she responds with the warm smile I am used to now. Our social contract works she gives me a warm smile everyday and I make it a point to say hello no matter who I am walking with. Downstairs it’s the same scene like any day. The Indian guy on his phone talking to his long distance girlfriend on the phone, boy has he been on that phone a lot these days, and he doesn’t smile enough makes me think they are having problems. The older Indian man unpacking his lunch with a couple of colleagues, one of them seems like he’s not very happy being there. I eat my quite lunch and walk back to my desk and go back to compiling my code. Close of business is here and I gather my things and start the walk back to my apartment. I see I missed the Indian girl she must have caught the 5:40 home. The older man must be on the 6:20 the Indian guy is having his evening snack (yes while he is walking) I reach home hang up coat lay down on my bed and start to wonder. Why have I never greeted any of these people? Why have they never greeted me? Surely they must recognize me, they see me every day.  Do I look unfriendly? Is it just me? Then I realize it is all Indians who do this. There is something about us, we are innately unsocial. We do not feel affection to our country men; it is not me or the man who is late every day. The girl who needs a haircut or the guy who has to eat while he walks, it is everyone. We just do not greet each other. We are not a country we are just a bunch of people who come from geographic locations which fall with a boundary of a country recognized as India. We have no affection no pride no sense of belonging.

After 63 years of Independence we are still struggling to find an excuse to forget the divisions we have built over the centuries before we decided to be one country. I for one cannot think of one. If we just took a minute and tried to think of all the divisions we have in our mind, it would either mean we either are set in our divided ways and we won’t be making false statements about Indian Unity or we will forget them and make true statements about Indian unity.