Diversity

“I think... if it is true that  there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Kareninaf, you can achieve." “It’s the possibility of having

iIt was quarter past two, I was late and feared entering the hall. Golay hall in the English department of the University was closed with the outer wooden door clamped . I desperately wished to attend the presentation though the topic was on a comparative study on Multiculturalism by  Dr Dorothy from Georgia State University. I missed the foreword for having been late. I saw a young girl probably in her post graduation just pull the door wide open , I thanked God and this youngster as I sneaked in to the hall behind her. I sat on the nearest  seat near the door in the most uncomfortable way but felt happy that the visit which is twenty two km away from home did not  go vain. Dr. Dorothy stood there and was deeply engrossed presenting her Paper. She wore a salwar kameez with the dupatta loosely thrown across her shoulder, she seemed middle aged with a few strands of black haired locks near the forehead,  rest of her hair grey. She was tall ,fair and brawny . The hall was filled with students pursuing post-graduation, M.Phil and PhD in English. We all listened to her deeply.

 The word  Multiculturalism relates to communities containing multiple cultures. The term is used to describe either cultural diversity or the demography of a specific place, sometimes at the organizational level like schools ,businesses , nations. She also spoke in context to post colonialism. She referred to anthologies or the collected works. I was looking at her trying to imbibe everything including the way she presented the paper. It was time for clarification then.She looked around as she sipped mineral water. She seemed tired due to the heat yet was wholehearted.  The hall had grown hotter but the air conditioners were working. Students asked her elaborate questions and she answered it in her best way.She spoke about the writers and about the critics and everything related. It was a learning period for me. Our head of the Dept Dr. Raja Rao finally proclaimed that  there was time for just another question but there were two hands up. A Kashmiri students put  his question . I looked at him, kashmiris are considered to be a  minority group in our country . I realised that I was also a minority in Maharashtra but then where did I belong to. I am a Konkani from Goa ,well that was what my father had told me, but my native place is Kerala,  have been brought up in Hyderabad, and have been living in Maharashtra for more than two decades. Then am I a minority in Maharashtra?

It reminded me of the incident when I was working as a  teacher in  Mumbai. A kindergarten student was run over by a mini bus, the driver who failed to see the  little girl standing on the road. My friend threw her bag,  picked the child and ran to the doctor in a bid to save the life of the little girl. Her dress was soaked in blood but she could think nothing other than the child. The doctors tried to revive the little girl but had to declare her dead. The mother who had come to pick this little girl had swooned on seeing the accident . Still later she was brought to reality . Many days later the mother came to school and thanked my friend for the timely act which had helped them reconcile to the destiny thinking that their little one was attended by doctors who had tried to revive her and that God had destined this .  My friend was a keralite and the child was a Maharashtrian.

I wished to ask Dorothy that the literature , dialect and cultures differ but still there is something which bonds us and the literature. I knew the answer as I had heard Dorothy speak about brotherhood. I was reminded of empathy in Shakespear’s ‘Venus and Adonis’, Jataka tales portraying Buddhist morality  and Jewish literature like zeemach’s ‘It Could be Worse’ that literature bonds us through its universal values by reliving the readers of emotions and perhaps evoking powerful emotions. We are bonded by the morals and the malevolence of  Humanity.autthat  it, life would be dull.

t“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” ― Maya Angelou