Book talk

Dear bloggers / friends,

Having dinner at a friend's place today, talk centered around books and Indian culture. 

So I would like to broach the same topics here,and see how may responses I get.

First Topic: book by author Arthur Hailey.  The Money changers. A nice topic of discussion, at this time,when banks are failing, due to bad investments. A nice intriguing read, as I have read the book at least 5-6 times in my college days. 

I invite those who have read the book to share their views on it. 

Second topic: Indian culture: Your opinions on :

1. Is Diversity in India really helping India's progress? Or are we further deteriorating due to lack of a unified identity? We rarely identify ourselves as Indians, to any other Indian. its always punjabi, gujrati, tamilian, telugu, malayalee, etc. 
2. Cultural Domination by school textbooks: Until class 8th, I hardly knew anything about south Indian history..Chera's, cholas , pandyas, the literary poets, authors, their works,  Our history books mostly concentrated on Mughals, the slave dynasty, etc...in short, all about north India, rather than south. I grew up in Delhi, and later shifted back to Chennai. In fact, I am myself a witness to, how in the south, we learn about Indian history as a whole, not just north, or only south. 
   

My question: Is it because of the authors of history textbooks in the north? Or is it just that they feel that students in the north should know more about how their ancestors came about? 

Does this propagate the feeling of superiority among north Indians, compared to south Indians? Just because they have fairer skin, and look down upon anyone who cannot speak Hindi fluently?

I am quite ashamed to say that even in my school days, there were comments of "you madrasis" targeting all south Indians. whether you are a kannadiga, Andhrite, Tamilian, or Malayalee, everyone was , "you madrasis". 

What can we do to stem this problem to some extent? 

1. Review textbooks and make sure there is no prejudice against south Indian history, which was equally intriguing and beautifully developed culturally, while people in the north were still fighting invaders.  ?
2. Start telling students to identify themselves as Indian, rather than by state or language? 
   

I would really like to know what others think. So please do respond. 

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