My first thought when I started to read Chetan Bhagat´s novel "2 States: The story of my marriage", was "Oh no, this is going to be a bollywood writen version of an imposible romance story like Romeo and Juliet or Twilight".
But its easy and quick narration made me continue the reading and I understood that under its simple plot there was many information about how that differences between states inside India, and more specifically between north and south, work in the reallity. Going through this book you get to know better the traditions, origins and value systems of two of the different indian communities, Punjabis and Tamilians. It teaches you about their different dressing codes, gastronomies, traditions, weddings, priorities in life... Also it discovers a bit more about how arranged marriage works and the importance for each community to be able to choose the person who with their succesor will get married, basically to make sure the correct heritage of each community´s identity.
Before coming to India I was surprised about how could a country nowadays still keep a system based on such strong differences (casts, tribes, classes, communities, religions...).
But now, after walking in the streets and analyzing the way people act and interact, even if I personally still don´t accept such a discriminatory system, I kind of start understanding why people keeps such a strong pertenance feeling for a specific group. In a city like Bangalore where more than 8 million people cohabit, you have the feeling of being lost in the crowd constantly, of not being important, of being another one more. And that´s the reason why I think that they keep attached to a certain community. The smaller group gives you an identity, a feeling of pertenance, of being part of something, of being known between your own people, of not being lost. And keeping the differences with the other communities only reinforces the inner union of the group.
The book is also encouraging because even the cast/class system still has a big strenght, it inspires the new generations to think above all these barriers and work towards their freedom of choise for their own future.
But its easy and quick narration made me continue the reading and I understood that under its simple plot there was many information about how that differences between states inside India, and more specifically between north and south, work in the reallity. Going through this book you get to know better the traditions, origins and value systems of two of the different indian communities, Punjabis and Tamilians. It teaches you about their different dressing codes, gastronomies, traditions, weddings, priorities in life... Also it discovers a bit more about how arranged marriage works and the importance for each community to be able to choose the person who with their succesor will get married, basically to make sure the correct heritage of each community´s identity.
Before coming to India I was surprised about how could a country nowadays still keep a system based on such strong differences (casts, tribes, classes, communities, religions...).
But now, after walking in the streets and analyzing the way people act and interact, even if I personally still don´t accept such a discriminatory system, I kind of start understanding why people keeps such a strong pertenance feeling for a specific group. In a city like Bangalore where more than 8 million people cohabit, you have the feeling of being lost in the crowd constantly, of not being important, of being another one more. And that´s the reason why I think that they keep attached to a certain community. The smaller group gives you an identity, a feeling of pertenance, of being part of something, of being known between your own people, of not being lost. And keeping the differences with the other communities only reinforces the inner union of the group.
The book is also encouraging because even the cast/class system still has a big strenght, it inspires the new generations to think above all these barriers and work towards their freedom of choise for their own future.
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