Diversity

I was thinking about diversity for sometime now. But the inspiration to put it to words came because of todays outing. It started with a visit to the biggest temple in Mumbai, Siddi Vinaik temple. For people coming from South India, especially Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, don't visit this one with an image of the temples back home. For starters, there is no aarti and we actually do a apradakshina, a complete no-no in temples back home. The flooring is marble, and the concept of prasadam is very different. From there we headed to Haji Ali Dargah, again the biggest in Mumbai. It was a surreal experience as it was my first time inside a Dargah. It helped me quash some preconceived notions. So a outing with diversity was quite good and I started to think about the other diversities that I have been facing in Mumbai.

My roommates make a amazing case study of diversity. The four of us are from four different parts of India. Akhil is from Rourkela (East), Rajat is from Delhi (North), Nirbhay is from Mumbai (West) and myself from Bangalore (South). So we have our own Golden Quadrilateral at 42 SeaShell :-) But what struck me the most was how similar we were in many things. People always say that India is a country of diversity. But at the end of the day we all remain almost the same, and I don't know whether to attribute this fact to 'Unity in Diversity' or the lack of any diversity at all.

My friends in college is also very diverse group. We have a Jain, a Sardar, a Gujju, Tulu speaking Shetty, a Marwadi. But again we are all so similar. So where does diversity come into picture?