When I passed out of college as a 21 year old, I was able to, unlike the average Tamilian, understand enough Hindi to follow Bollywood movies and was cocky enough of my education to think I knew my country. In hindsight I was wrong - I was what I would describe as "a frog in the Tamilnadu well".  Other than Bangalore and Tirupati - I had never travelled outside my home state of Tamilnadu and hadn't learned to speak a third language fluently. Never lived in or visited a place where I had to speak another language - in Bangalore and Tirupati, you can get away with Tamil and English.

Then I went to Kota, Rajasthan and attended an interview where the interviewer only spoke to me in Hindi.  I survived the interview but barely. During the interview I learned that Doordarshan broadcast Hindi news at 830pm - I had never seen it because Doordarshan Madras broadcast Tamil News at that time.  My interviewer insisted that the whole country watched Hindi News at 830pm on National Network and I told him that National Network started at 9pm.  Both of us were ignorant. 

Kota day time temperature was 48 degrees centigrade - I became dehydrated and barely managed to escape to New Delhi alive.  I spent 3 days in the Capital and went back by Grand Trunk Express to Madras.  The entire trip including the train journey was an enlightening experience. I was stunned by my ignorance of the rest of India and was equally stunned by everybody's ignorance of South India (most of the people I met could not tell the difference between the four South Indian states - actually 5 South Indian states, they included Maharastra in the list of South Indian states). 

I had spent four years in college with over 30 students who were from other states (my college had 10% of the seats reserved for students from outside Tamilnadu) - I had studied geography and history but travel was real learning.  For the first time I understood why American students travelled to Europe during the holdiays (you read about this in almost all English fiction but I thought this was just fun - but travel was great education). 

I got a job with a national PSU - during the training period they took me on a Bharat Darshan to all their 9 plants around the country.  I went into Orissa, interior Uttar Pradesh - by now I had understood the educational value of travel and had learned to admire our diversity and our heritage.   Then training was over and I landed in Nashik to work. How angry and upset I was that I didnt get a posting in Bangalore which I wanted.  Only much later in life I realised that being posted to Nashik was a blessing. 

I thought I had seen everything and Nashik will be a cake walk. But I was unprepared to see Shiv Sainiks carrying Trishuls and chanting "Garv se kaho Hum Hindu hai".  Over the next few years, I saw the every body I knew being seized with religious fervour over the "Ram Mandir" - for a dyed in the wool Tamilian raised on a diet of DK/DMK Rationalism, this was a hard lesson.  I was the only person who refused to give a donation to the Ram Mandir collection - had to face bewildered colleagues who couldnt understand me. 

Now looking back at my life, I know how fortunate I have been.  I have worked in Nashik, Hyderabad, Bangalore, New Delhi and Mumbai. I continue to have smart colleagues who have not heard of Pallavas or the Cholas.  I meet many people to whom everybody south of Vindhyas is a Madrasi. I have travelled around the world (literally) and visited many many countries - wiser by the experience.  And when I bump into my friends / high school classmates who have made their lives Tamilnadu centric, I find them as ignorant as I was when I was a 21 year old college graduate.  Funny thing is one of them, who is a very dear friend of mine, is a Maharastrian - his forefathers came to Tamilnadu with Shivaji's Army - a few centuries or more ago.  Till today, he has not travelled outside TN other than to Tirupati and Bangalore. He has made an excellent career as an engineer in a PSU that operates only in Tamilnadu. He follows TN State politics and politics at Delhi - he has no clue about Maharastrian politics (which I follow because I live in Mumbai). But he is as Indian as I am. 

I find it irritating when people crib about how people are regional and parochial and there is no "Indianness".  Such rubbish!  Most of us Indians live all our lives in our small wells.  A few migrate within the state - a few hundred kilometers to find a job.  Very few migrate from state to another state. Most of us are busy living our lives - fighting our own battles - so we limit ourselves to what affects us immediately in our lives.  We care about the little wells in which we live.  I care about Mumbai / feel jealous about economic progress and development in New Delhi while Mumbai stagnates. I follow Maharastra politics.  I follow politics in New Delhi. Neither my Maharastrian friend in TN nor I follow Manipur politics. Who cares about Manipur politics? Its not fair but that is the truth. That does not mean that I have no regard for my Manipuri fellowmen. But my vote is based on things I care about. Yes - my travel experience makes me take a broader outlook.  Most of my compatriots who havent travelled are unable to take that outlook.  So what?  They are as Indian as I am - they have every right to vote the way they want - to make their lives better in their small wells. We have to learn to respect that.  That is the essence of "Being Indian".