Anupam- The Dreamer

Whichever place you visit in our country, you will find the same type of food brands, clothing brands, FMCG products, styling of shops and local economy! The massive scale of globalization has flooded the native markets with the standardized products- you name it and it is available everywhere- Dominos, Pepsi, Chips, Levi’s, Nestle etc. etc. Even the Indian brands like Bikanervala, Haldiram have scaled up massively, such that the same aloo tikki available in one corner of the country is available in the other corner of the country- and even with almost the same taste!

Don’t get me wrong! I am not a critic of standardization or globalization. I am also not cynical about the massive positive impacts they have brought to the economy- like efficiency, wider availability of products, better quality, competition etc. But, one big negative impact that can be seen, in every place I visit, is that it has subtly killed the local economy in some sense. For example, now, the FMCG products are available in plenty in every city or town, which has negatively impacted the growth of local foods. Now, even in famous places, you have to toil hard to find genuine local cuisine or food. When I ask local people what is the specialty of a particular place, some people answer just one or two things. Some even don’t know about the local things- they say that it is the same as any other place! Decades of standardization has robbed a local tourist place of its specialty, so much so that in a few more decades, I fear that whether the upcoming generations will know about their local cuisine, culture, clothing etc. or not.

Everywhere, the people now wear the similar dresses- shirt, jeans, tshirts, trousers. Only a few elderly are seen wearing the local attires. The young ones are adopting global trends at a frantic pace. It is not a problem that they are adopting good things of other regions or nations- infact now they can better gel with the other people when they go to their country in terms of commonalities. But, the problem starts when the people forget their roots- their local culture, their food habits, their economy. That is when the degradation of the people, culture and economy starts.

One more global trend is to learn languages commonly spoken globally- like English, French, etc. Nothing wrong in that! Infact, it is better to learn as many languages as one can. It is scientifically proven fact that when a person learns many languages, the brain of a person develops with more neural connections and it also slows down the neural degradation. So, becoming a polyglot is infact an achievement! But, the problem is that in the race of learning the language of others, if a person his/her own mother tongue, then sooner or later the diversity of the languages will be lost. Even in my family, the older generation still speaks in their own native language i.e. Hadoti. Although, it is not very difficult and different from Hindi, but they still converse in the local dialect. The generation of parents converses with their parents in the local dialect, but they converse with us in Hindi. Now, our generation does understand the local dialect, but never ever converses in the same with either our grandparents, or parents, or siblings and cousins. We converse in Hindi. So, you see the local dialect is slowly dying- from being a spoken language to just being a “known language” (which is no more spoken by our generation).

Now, I am witnessing that the upcoming generation i.e. Gen alpha, does not even understand the local dialect because they never have heard their parents, or their grandparents (i.e. our parents) speak that language to them. Infact, it is astonishing to see that some of the children don’t know any second language! They know and converse only in English! Even, the Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Germans have not given up their first language i.e. their mother tongue, even when they know other languages. So, the point here is that over-standardization can steal away the local culture and tradition of a place.

Therefore, while promoting standardization of anything over a region or a country, we must ensure that the local flavor is not lost! We need more cultural exchange and more sharing of ideas. But, we don’t want one idea to destroy another idea, because that will destroy our diversity and our shared cultural heritage that we have bequeathed from our ancestors. I hope our generation doesn’t lose sight of this responsibility, because given the pace of globalization that Millennials have seen in their lifetime, our generation will be the last link between the “surviving localization” and the “upcoming globalization”. And we don’t care enough, then the tsunami of globalization will wipe off all the surviving local things. It is not a question of either this “vs.” that, it is rather a question of this “with” that!

Till next time….