Raj Thackeray and Chhath Puja

Raj Thackeray, leader of the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena, says that “North” Indians should not celebrate Chhath Puja as it is against the ethos of Marathi culture. Wow! That is all that I can come up with now. Doesn’t that make a proud Indian, oh wait, “North” Indian. His remarks are not only anti-Indian but anti-Hindu as well. Mumbai has people from all over the country. Chhath Puja ,celebrated mainly in Bihar and in parts of UP and MP , is a festival dedicated to the Sun God , who is indubitably a Hindu God and not just a Bihari one . Then how the hell does the celebration of Chhath against Marathi values? Are not Marathi’s Hindus? And going by Mr. Raj Thackeray’s rationale , Tamil’s should not celebrate Pongal , Malayali’s should not celebrate Onam , Sikh’s should not celebrate Baisakhi and so on . I bet all these festivals indigenous to states other than Maharastra also contribute to the poisoning and deterioration of Marathi culture. I guess if Ganpathi Puja is started being celebrated in Bihar with the Mumbaiyya pomp, it will be very much against Bihari values, won’t it? For God’s sake, literally what the hell was he thinking? Does this person even consider himself to be a Hindu? If he does, his act is indeed very blasphemous. I bet our neighbors must be ecstatic over all this in-fighting. And what the hell is North Indian? The word suggest that there is a country called North India. There isn’t. There is only one India, at least on the map. It certainly does not look like “One” to me. We have North Indians and South Indians, and of course Maharashtra. I feel like lashing out when I am called a North Indian. I think that this word should be banned. I was born in a country spanning from Kashmir in the north and Kanyakumari in the south, which goes by the name of India and that makes me an Indian. The British did not just divide the country along the lines of religion. Gone are the good old days when we used to fight just over religion and caste. India has indeed moved ahead in every sense. Now are we fighting over pseudo ethnicity. It makes my blood boil. What’s next ? People being corporally chastised for conversing in languages other than Marathi ? I think that has already happened . May be the time has come to delineate Hinduism on the basis of language and state . God Save My Motherland !