Globalization

**************************************************************************

SWAMINATHAN.S.AIYAR
Very absorbing portion written by Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar (Veteran Journalist) astir himself. Published successful The Times of India. Read on...
In 1992, I wrote a publication titled Towards Globalisation. I did not
realize astatine the clip that this was going to beryllium the past of my
family.
Last week, we celebrated the wedding of my daughter, Pallavi. A
brilliant student, she had won scholarships to Oxford University and
the London School of Economics. In London, she met Julio, a young man
from Spain. The 2 decided to instrumentality up jobs successful Beijing, China. Last
week, they came implicit from Beijing to Delhi to get married. The wedding
guests included 70 friends from North America, Europe and China.
That whitethorn dependable wholly global, but arguably my elder lad Shekhar has
gone further. He excessively won a assistance to Oxford University, and then
taught for a twelvemonth astatine a schoolhouse successful Colombo. Next helium went to Toronto,
Canada, for higher studies. There helium met a German girl, Franziska.
They some got jobs with the International Monetary Fund successful Washington
DC, USA. This meant that they perpetually travelled connected IMF concern to
disparate countries. Shekhar advised and went connected missions to Sierra
Leone, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan and Laos. Franziska went to Rwanda,
Tajikistan, and Russia. They interrupted these perambulations to get
married successful precocious 2003.
My younger son, Rustam, is lone 15. Presumably helium volition survey in
Australia, wed a Nigerian girl, and settee successful Peru.
Readers mightiness deliberation that my household was calved and bred successful a pitchy plane.
The information is much prosaic. Our ancestral location is Kargudi, a humble,
obscure colony successful Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. My earliest memories
of it are arsenic a location with nary toilets, moving water, oregon pukka road.
When we visited, we disembarked from the bid astatine Tanjore, and then
travelled 45 minutes by bullock cart to scope the ancestral home. My
father was 1 of six children, each of whom produced galore children (I
myself had 3 siblings). So, 2 generations later, the size of the
Kargudi extended household (including spouses) is implicit 200. Of these,
only 3 inactive unrecorded successful the village. The remainder person moved crossed India
and crossed the full world, from China to Arabia to Europe to America.
This 1 Kargudi location has already produced 50 American citizens. So,
dismiss the mutterings of those who assertion that globalisation means
westernisation. It looks much similar Aiyarisation, viewed from Kargudi.
What does this connote for our consciousness of identity? I cannot talk for the
whole Kargudi clan, which ranges from rigid Tamil Brahmins to
beef-eating, pizza-guzzling, hip-hop dancers. But for me, the
Aiyarisation of the satellite does not mean Aiyar domination. Nor does it
mean Aiyar submergence successful a planetary sea. It means acquiring multiple
identities, and moving person to the perfect of a brotherhood of all
humanity. I stay rather astatine location sitting connected the level of the Kargudi
house connected a mat of reeds, eating from a banana leafage with my hands. I
feel conscionable arsenic overmuch astatine location eating noodles successful China, steak successful Spain,
teriyaki successful Japan and cous-cous successful Morocco. I americium a Kargudi villager, a
Tamilian, a Delhi-wallah, an Indian, a Washington Redskins fan, and a
citizen of the world, each astatine the aforesaid clip and with nary consciousness of
tension oregon contradiction.
When I spot the Brihadeeswara Temple successful Tanjore, my bosom swells and I
say to myself "This is mine." I consciousness precisely the aforesaid mode erstwhile I see
the Church of Bom Jesus successful Goa, oregon the Jewish synagogue successful Cochin, or
the Siddi Sayed mosque successful Ahmedabad: these excessively are mine. I have
strolled truthful often done the Parks astatine Oxford University and on the
canal successful Washington, DC, that they consciousness portion of me. As my family
multiplies and intermarries, I anticipation 1 time to look astatine the Sagrada
Familia cathedral successful Barcelona and Rhine stream successful Germany and think,
"These excessively are mine."
We Aiyars person a taken a measurement toward the imaginativeness of John Lennon.
Imagine there's nary country, It isn't hard to do. Nothing to termination or
die for, And nary religion too.
My father's procreation was the archetypal to permission the village, and loosen
its determination shackles. My begetter became a chartered accountant in
Lahore, an uncle became a edifice manager successful Karachi, and we had an aunt
in Rangoon.
My procreation loosened the shackles of religion. My elder brother
married a Sikh, my younger member joined a Christian, and I married
a Parsi. The adjacent procreation has gone a measurement further, marrying across
the globe. Globalisation for maine is not conscionable the question of goods and
capital, oregon adjacent of Aiyars. It is simply a measurement towards Lennon's imaginativeness of no
country.
You whitethorn accidental I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the lone one. I anticipation 1 day
you'll articulation us. And the satellite volition beryllium one.

JAYASALA 42