Lucknow is on Mars, Pune is on Venus

Published on July 21, 2004 By Confusing Musings In Current Events

At least that's the impression I got when I landed over here, five years back. All those Puneri junta over there, pardon me if you feel offended. I myself love Pune ( though not as much as Lucknow

), but I was really shocked to see how little informed general public is over here about the rest of the country. I realized the reason much later.

My sister took admission in XI standard in a reputed school on Paud Road. Imagine the questions asked by her classmates for first few weeks. Believe me, all these are real stuff, nothing cooked up.

- Anchal, are you a Punjabi? Because you usually wear Salwar Kameez
- Are you a Muslim? Because you are from Lucknow .
- Are you a Muslim? Because you don't put a bindi/makeup when in the school.
- Why, you don't put a Gazra , either!
- Do they sell Jeans and other western outfits in Lucknow?
- Are there cars and buses running on streets of Lucknow?
.......list goes on.

We use to have great fun discussing these stuff at the end of the day. Initially, she was amused , but later she started getting irritated. It was not before when she moved to standard XII that these queries subsided. I was not surprised she was the topper at her school both the years .

These were only the kids, the elders topped even them. Just have a look.

- One guy at the PCO asked if Lucknow was near Delhi. To be fair to him, I agreed. It's only 500 KM away.

- This guy at a Photostat shop was confused whether Amitabh Bachhan is from Ahemdabad and whether Allahabad is in Gujrat. I had to break his heart by informing that he was wrong on both the counts.

- One office boy at my workplace actually asked me if there was the Speed Post facility existing in Lucknow. I felt like giving him a mouthful

- An accounts guy in my office was rudest of all. He teased one of my friends that how come he is from UP and became an engineer. After all in UP, they only do farming. My friend retorted that "Well, I am writing software for the company while you are distributing salary to us."

- Now comes the icing on the cake. During Census 2001, one middle-aged lady came for collecting the data at my place. I was with some of my friends. She asked for our birth place. When I told Lucknow, she asked me to tell the name of the district rather than the village or small town. I would have not even blinked given my past experience but for the fact that she was a school teacher, teaching senior secondary students . God save the students ! You don't need an atlas or encyclopedia to know this fact. The then Prime Minister of the country got elected from this constituency! Switch any channel and you will hear the name one day or the other, for good reasons or bad!

Later, I realized that the course content in Mahrashtra Board was the culprit. Only in very good schools with state board or those schools which were affiliated to ICSE or CBSE did the students had the opportunity learn beyond the realms of Maharashtra. Abhinav, Symbiosis, Bishop's, Vincent's etc are such examples. Rest of students were taught mostly about state itself.

This needs to be changed. Bal Thackrey had made this famous remark why not many Maharashtrians are not getting through Civil Services. The reason can be attributed to the dated curriculum of the schools.

Comments

Manish Manke

on Jul 21, 2004

I have also faced similar questions about Bhopal, Indore. I just laugh at the knowledge of geography these guys have.
One comment which I have heard in "Yeh log kitni aachi hindi bolte hai" .I think someone should drill the fact in their heads that its their mother tounge, its our national language and also the language used by people everyday
Actually for the localites any thing beyond Maharashtra borders in alien

Confusing Musings

on Jul 22, 2004

Right Manish. Can't agree with you more.

Alka Dwivedi

on Jul 24, 2004

You have touched a raw nerve. I feel this pain again and again. People are so ill informed and the icing on the cake is they make this ill information sound like a virtue. I think if you go to a new state, and be in the top of the class, people cann't digest it. Why cann't you put a notice on your account's department, about the no. of students who make it to IAS and in IITs every year from U.P. and Bihar.

Confusing Musings

on Jul 25, 2004

The media has made loads of money on the stereo type of UP and Bihar. Media personalities like Rajdeep Sardesai only see Cow Lands over there. These are the people who feed the mis information into general public's mind. This is the misfortune of the country.

I don't feel as much rattled when some one deep america says there only snakes and sadhus in India as I do when they say that there only doodh wallas in UP, Bihar, MP , Rajasthan

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