Hello fellow humans! I like to be called Dilawar (दिलावर), which I now find to be quite a nice name—and a bit romantic, too, if spoken by a pretty, smiling girl. In my childhood, I did not like my name; it was way too heavy to carry around. Although my life speaks for itself, most of the time it has poor grammar. Anyway, here are most of my accomplishments and the deeds I’ve done.
The only video game I have ever completed is IGI-2. I have never played Mario-2 but loved Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. I have never ever been accused of Grand Theft Auto. I have lived in three or four states of India and have never been abroad. I contend that I am not running away from anyone. My current mobile number has two prime factors, and I once wrote a letter to a girl and waited for an answer for at least six months—hence, I proved that a love letter may not always work.
I never rode an elephant, a donkey, or a horse, although in my childhood I did ride buffaloes, cows, and street dogs. I do not know how to swim but dream of swimming across the Indian Ocean. I was bitten by a bitch once on my butt when I was looking at her puppies, and by Gangaram’s horse on my back for no obvious reason. I hate Gangaram.
I do not have a profile on any social networking sites and I never get sunburns. I can do farming and love walking on campus on the Thinking Road, which connects my hostel and my department.
Since my childhood, I have consumed more than 11,231 liters of cow’s milk. I have never played any musical instruments and I stopped singing after hearing my own recordings. I have trouble with English grammar and, in my pursuit of English, I lost my grip over Hindi. I’d love to be emotionally bilingual.
If by any chance you are a historian or anthropologist, here is my brief history.
My ancestors were so happy living in Iran. Avestan was their mother tongue. It was written right to left and had a strong emphasis on minute phonological differences. One day, I don’t know what happened, a group of dissidents broke away. They were literally pissed off. Why? It’s hard to say. Maybe because they were dissidents and did not like others hushing them up. Or maybe, they were just pissed off.
They decided that they must leave and start their own path. It could well have been a case of “get lost, you assholes.” But whatever the case, they did not like the status quo. So, they took their horses and came to settle in North India. They called themselves “Aryan,” which was derived from Avestan. They may have killed and displaced a large number of “Dravidians” who claim they were natives of this land. Dravidians now live in South India and are proud of their long-surviving culture despite this colossal plundering. My ancestors must have been a ruthless tribe when it came to their own benefits—a characteristic which we still possess. Aryans, as they called themselves, were fond of horses. In fact, the old Indus Valley Civilization never knew of horses; all they knew were bulls and cows.
So pissed off were my ancestors with their Avestan brothers that they came up with their own language and named it “Sanskrit” (the perfect one). They must have liked making things perfect. I like that. They did not like to write the way their Avestan brothers did; they wrote left to right. In addition, I don’t know why, but they did not like the sound of ‘h’. They replaced ‘h’ with ‘s’. So, Hapta-Hindu became Sapta-Sindhu, Ahura became Asura, Harxvati became Sarasvati, and so on.
But it did not stop there; often the meanings of gods were also reversed. Ahura were gods in Avestan, but Asura is the demon in Sanskrit. Indra is the king of gods for the Sanskrit speakers; he was a demon for the Avestans. Seriously, something really bad must have happened among them. In fact, the oldest Avestan is so similar to the oldest Sanskrit that you can translate text from one language to another by applying a few phonological changes, like so:
təm amavantəm yazatəm (Avestan)
tam amavantam yajatam (Sanskrit)
surəm damohu scvistəm (Avestan)
suram dhamasu savistham (Sanskrit)
miθrəm yazai zaoθrabyo (Avestan)
mitram yajai hotrabhyah (Sanskrit)
Initially, “Arya” meant “to till.” This was considered a noble profession. This is still considered noble; I myself am the son of a farmer. Then they decided that there should be a division of labor and came up with the caste system. “Arya” in this age came to mean “the noble.” Why? Elites were not in agriculture, so they came up with this meaning to reclaim the title. So, a few of my ancestors became “Noble,” and the person who did the farming was considered Mlechcha (the lower one, the impure).
Sanskrit was refined in this period and the best grammar in the world was written by Panini. A new language evolved called Prakrit. Prakrit was spoken by the masses and Sanskrit was reserved as the language of learning—a prerogative of the elites, the Brahmins. Prakrit was considered a language of the Mlechcha.
In fact, even these days, Sanskrit is replaced by English in letter and spirit. The languages which evolved from Prakrit (e.g., Hindi and its relatives) are now spoken by the masses and considered the language of the Mlechcha by English-speaking elites (never mind the lip service—which largely comes from a slight embarrassment for not being able to honor their mother tongue. It’s better to call it a “native tongue” so the embarrassment will be less. The word “mother” has a morality related to it as well). In a few years, their literature could be found in a museum with the tag: “Look, your ancestors used to read this.”
My ancestors were very curious about the universe. Their whole knowledge was centered around the universe. Astrology and mathematics were intertwined. Whatever they knew, they put into the “Vedas,” which literally means “to know.” This was their science. I am so proud of them. When the Vedas came to an end, they called it Vedanta, “the end of knowing.” Why would they do that? I cannot say! Perhaps they stopped appreciating change. Perhaps that was the worst thing to happen in our lives.
Since then, my ancestors lost sight of which way they were going. Hinduism has never been a religion; it was considered a way of life. Now it has been downgraded to a religion and people fight over it almost all the time—in fact, there was a time in which the narrowest version of Hinduism (Hindutva) came to the fore. Perhaps the strongest quality of Hinduism lies in its chaotic nature for allowing every kind of infusion into it (to quote Ashis Nandy).
But I digress. Being in a rich and fertile land is not easy. A lot of people vie for it. Han Chinese attacked these lands; a few stayed, married, and settled in the areas now called Haryana, Punjab, and nearby places. A few of them are known as Jats. Alexander came to India and a few of his soldiers stayed here. They married local princesses. They now belong to a much wider idea of “Rajputs.” A clan of them is known as Chauhans. They have a rich tradition, not to mention the larger-than-life Chauhan king, Prithviraj Chauhan, who is fondly remembered for his valor among the old and for his love affair with Princess Sanyogita among teens.
My forefathers belong to this clan. Chauhans are generally considered soft in nature—quite a painful insinuation in a land surrounded by more feudal clans like Jats, Bishnois, Thakurs, and Chaudharys. Perhaps this is due to the fact that domestic violence is the lowest among them. Thus, childhood is passed without witnessing much violence, which mellowed them down. They also have a long tradition of treating women with utmost pride and dignity. I am so proud to share that heritage. The relative sanity of my village is due to the lack of interest in alcohol and other “manly” stuff. One of my teachers in high school, who was a Jat, used to declare, “These Chauhans, they have learned to learn.” And then he would go on scathing rants about Jats.
So I stand here in front of you. My first name is Muslim-like, as if to prove my Iranian links. There is a symbol of “OM” permanently tattooed on my right hand to symbolize my Vedic roots. My clan shares genes with Greeks, who are famous for mathematics and philosophy, and a fierce individualism. And, of course, there is the educational exposure I have been through, which is largely Western. I inhabit within myself a long and rich history. This makes me warm, again and again.
### End Notes
– On Rajputs: See John Keay, India. In fact, he devoted a full chapter to them.
– Avestan and Sanskrit links: See Early India by Romila Thapar; pp. 8, 112, 232. (See the index page of this book for more details).
– I did an internet sortie for various information (I plead guilty).