7 letters, the concatenation of which bears a different meaning in any of the 7 continents its used in,with its usage varying in every zipcode,every boundary it surpassses. The literal definition of culture fails to take into consideration the true essence of its 7-lettered aura.
Culture means distinct things to every individual. For some,culture is wearing vermillion on your forehead as a sign of a happy married life while to others the same vermillion is served in fanta bottles to appease their deities. Culture isn’t an entity yet it has enough power to construct and deconstruct societies altogether.Our culture is what makes us distinct entities yet it also drapes us together with an invisible veil of hope and oneness. Why is it that a plate of rajma chawal holds enough value and emotion in its grains of lentils for you to feel at home no matter how far away you are from it? Regardless of how lavishly its described in the menu of a Michelin star hotel or in a restaurant across the highway,a steaming plate of the dish brings out the same emotion that it did every time it was served,steaming hot on the dining table after an arduous day at school.
The contents of a certain dish may vary from land to land but no matter which part of the world you go to there are certain things that make a group of people distinct from another and similar to each other.
It is not distance that makes us who we are because today,even 75 years after independence the residents of Fiji proudly title themselves as Indians,while the ones who live there are busy imperialising themselves in their own minds. This term “Culture” has grown to have enough substance to rage wars between nations while also being the reason a player wins 20 grand slam titles for.
It is,in its truest sense an ever evolving phenomena yet strangely enough simultaneously steady. It brings people together without any constriction of age,Queen Elizabeth was as much a part of British culture as her great grandchildren are. This is the beauty of culture. It is ingrained in us right from the moment the doctor snaps off the umbilical cords unknowingly or knowingly,culture transcends the barriers of poverty and class.
“Rainbow-tinted circles of light?
Lustrous tokens of radiant lives,
For happy daughters and happy wives.”
These lines written by Sarojini Naidu in 1912 beautifully illustrate how culture can turn materialistic glass ornaments into metaphors and symbols for radiant lives. Culture invigorates art, an artist is often defined by his culture and later goes on to define it himself. Traditional art forms are cradled in the womb of these cultures,from fluent poets to dazzling maestroes it is culture that influences people and gives them steady ground to be who they truly are.
In such an uncertain world like ours,with pandemics and crises constantly raging in different regions of the world, somehow culture is an idea, a spiritual thought that has been kept alive for centuries and decades not only in a religious nation like India but even other affluent nations.
The innate beauty of cultures is that it doesn’t constrain an individual to only a certain ethnic group,even if you’re an Indian with a copy of ‘train to pakistan’ on your shelf,you belong to either side of that train journey just as much as you wish to belong. It gives us an opportunity at limitlessness,with cultures you can feel ubiquitous from the comfort of your bedroom and as absurdly bizarre that might sound,it’s true.
You could be in a remote village reading Mein Kamph and feel like you were a part of German culture and heritage or you could be attending the most elite party in Manhattan but it would be the black thread on your ankle that would be tying you back to your roots back in Gujarat.
A christian isn’t someone who knows what the Roman 1:6 says but someone who truly believes in the later part of “give us this day,our daily bread”. For to be a part of a culture you don’t have to have lived in it for long, instead to be a part of a culture it must have lived in you for long enough.
Your culture could be a canvas of different hues and tones of your life,each coinciding and coexisting with each other yet somehow managing to make a striking identity. Roots go further deeper than the eye can see,the melanin in my skin or the adipose in my body are just chemical combinations. These chemical combinations are testament that as tanned as I might be,a bowl of Korean Ramen would easily qualify for my comfort meal on a lonely Tuesday evening.
So as I near the end of this journey, it brings us to the inevitable question: What culture am I?
I’m not saffron enough to call myself a hindu but neither am i independent enough to be a proud atheist. I’m neither Indian enough because I can barely make it to 20 when i count in Hindi nor am I American enough to have McDonalds for possibly every meal. Between these neither and enoughs i’m left to become an amalgamation.
An amalgamation of the social stigmas I wish to eradicate and all the delicacies my grandmother used to prepare at our ancestral home.I’m left somewhere in the middle,staggering to find a middle ground. A place to call a culture my own,somewhere where my “too little” and “too much” stand no relevance. For what i realise by the end is you could never be defined by one culture,for it is not culture that defines us but rather we who define culture.
