Views of a North Indian officer officer about South Indians:
I was posted in Chennai in June 2012. I have now spent almost three and half years in Chennai and I am loving being here. It was my first posting in South India and I have enjoyed it immensely besides learning so many things about people and the place. Let my share my experience with you about South India in general and Chennai in particular.
1: Work Culture
The first and foremost thing about Chennai is its work culture. You don’t have to remind anyone to complete their job. When I landed up as Commissioner of Large Taxpayer Unit (LTU), Chennai in 2012, I was amazed by seeing the office building, which is centrally air-conditioned and can easily give complex to any private sector MNC office. The file work of the officers is perfect and noting so good that you love reading them. You will find officers coming on time and doing their work silently and sincerely, which is quite rare in North India.
The Conference Room of Large Taxpayer Unit Chennai
2: Culture and Traditions
In my LTU office, there were almost 30-40% ladies. All of them used to be dressed in traditional sarees or salwar-suits with gajra on their hair. They come office on time and work as efficiently as their male counterparts. You will rarely find the woman in Chennai dressed in Western Outfits. Yet woman here are very progressive. You will find them everywhere in all professional colleges and jobs. They learn classical dances, singing or develop some skill like debating, GK or like. There is hardly any complaint of harassment and Chennai is considered to be one of the safest cities for woman. I wish that we North Indian can learn from Chennai that we can be modern without discarding our old values.
3: Religion
The people of Tamil Nadu are extremely religious but not fanatic. I was told that there had never been any communal riot in Tamil Nadu. People respect each other religions and live harmoniously. We used to celebrate all festivals in our office. Most people go to some temple on weekend. Temples are the greatest tourist places in South. You will find millions of people visiting temples in South every day. One of my bosses used to say, “People do the right things due to two types of fears: The fear of God and the Fear of Rod.”. I guess that better law and order prevails in Chennai due to the former factor and the government need not use the fear of rod.
Onam Celebration in Office
4: Simplicity
I like the simplicity of the people of Chennai. Many officers in my office used to come by scooters and even public buses. I have hardly seen any similar rank officers in Delhi using buses for coming to office. It would be below their dignity. If you have attended any marriage function in Chennai, you will be surprised of its simplicity. The size of the venue will not be even one fourth of that of North Indian marriages of similar social stature. You go to marriage hall, sit there for some time, stand in the queue to give gift and blessings to the couple, go to the dining area to take your meal and leave for your home. It just takes one hour to complete the entire process. There is no band-baja, decoration and showoff like in North. Some people may not appreciate it, but l like their simplicity.
5: Peaceful Coexistence
One of thing that strikes me in Chennai is the peaceful coexistence of all sections of the society. I have never come across any acrimonious exchange of words in my office nor have I seen it on the roads. There is no confrontation between the ‘governed’ and the ‘government’. People love their leaders and respect their authority. It is not uncommon to hear people even committing suicide, if something wrong happens to their leaders. Unlike that in places like Delhi, you find tremendous tension between the government and the governed. Government use power to control the people and people hate the government from the bottom of their heart. Such deep hatred and suspicion is virtually absent in South India.
6: Language
The only difficulty we have in Chennai in language. Tamil is a difficult language to learn. While I can easily manage all official work in English, my wife has to struggle with my maid. You have to see them talking to each other. One does not know a word of Tamil and the other does not know a word of Hindi or English. They use sign language to communicate and they do so quite successfully. Nowadays, Hindi has become quite popular in Chennai. You can find Hindi songs being played in Malls, Restaurants and even in Saloons. We even had a Hindi Antakshadi in our office at LTU. In every function, there will be a few songs in Hindi. The new generation is learning Hindi and likes to speak in Hindi with us. Hindi movies are quite popular here.
Hindi Antakshadi Competition in Our Office
7: Attitude towards North Indians
I am here since more than three years but I have never faced any discrimination in Chennai. My officers like me as much (or even more) than their local officer. I feel completely at home. We enjoy working with each other. We have now almost one third of senior officers in Chennai from North India and none of them had faced any discrimination. We are also able to be neutral as we never become part of the local politics here.
My Impressions
It has been a nice journey for me so far and I hope to enjoy my tenure in Chennai. I have been able to see a new culture. We see tremendous industrial development and prosperity in Southern India due to great work culture and the attitude of people. We from North India should learn a lot of things from them to bring peace and prosperity in northern part of India.
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