the complex self

he complex "self" of my friend, mine and an Indian villager
( i changed the title of this post, i think this is the right title :-) )

It was way back in 1987 one evening that I landed near Jahangir Art Gallery with couple of my friends. It was just week after I joined the course on computer software systems and a week after I saw first time a computer in reality. Then these couple of friends mine were having exhibition at Jahangir art gallery. Mumbai was still a greek to me but somehow I managed to reach Kalagodha in those crowded train. It was a blessing in disguise for all of us as we all were uncomfortable with the crowd in the city that never showed any signs of settling. Luckily for us my friend had already sold three of his painting and had twelve thousand rupees in his pocket. We took a cab and went to India gate, some thing all of us wanted to visit. Till around 9.30, we were sitting there watching people and lost in our own thoughts. We realised in comparison to the rest of the world we were silent and slow both in movements and nature and above all our dresses were common. Suddenly my friend who is now a big time designer and artist in New York told us as if he woke up from a dream that 'you know we should not be disheartened, all these guys in next life also will not be able to match my wealth". For a second my self and my other friend who is now a sanyasi somewhere in Rishikesh were, although taken back but had the same resentment in our minds. My designer friend and I had something in common, both our grand parents and their family owned an entire village, it's river, hills, farms and temples. They were bourgeois Zemindars of pre independent India. My father's village is near kannur a place called panthottam and his were somewhere near ottappalam. Although my father was born into a family that owned a village, he never identified with it ever owing to his politics and philosophy, my friend's father but owned his village inspite of the land reformation taken place during the post independent India.
On that night, on my way back home I realised it is difficult to escape bourgeois mind set and its egos. A bourgeois will always be a bourgeois. No wonder Lenin and Ambedkar wanted to annihilate it. But I also had this realisation, at every moment in every city, a large section of villagers who are on a visit to these cities do have this strong resentment against city dwellers. They feel city dwellers are being pompous without any merit. Now I also can understand why right wingers- a majority of them are from rural India seems to be regressive to city dwellers and why do these rural folk aggressively assert their cultural positions on urban India