Hatred-O-Phobia ...

This post is a kind of off shoot from the post I read on Sandhya's blog. The issue is about migrants within INDIA who migrate to other states for work or studies generally do not like that city and in turn starts developing hatred towards that city. I see this as a psychological disorder and it has nothing to do with the people or the culture of that city. Almost 90% of the migrants who moved to different cities within our country leaving their home town would want to go back to their hometown if there is a chance and no one wants to live in the city where they have migrated, it very well applies to me as well ...

When I moved to Bangalore I used to hate this city to the bottom of my heart, it is just the feel that I am away from the place where I have lived for almost 28 years and suddenly when I came to this city, I just could not stand their culture, attitude and whatever these people in Bangalore do, I would make sure I find some fault or other, you won't believe, for a guy like me who was born and brought up in Chennai, the first rude shock came when I saw folks in Bangalore eat "Kesari" and "Uppuma" as breakfast, that too full of oil or ghee shining on its top and people eat plates and plates of kesari in the morning at 7:00 AM, I just could not digest that behavior, because for me breakfast is always "Pongal Vadai" or "Idly Vadai". Anything that happens which does not coincide with the image you have in your mind, is an upset to you, simple psychology rite ?

Similarly people who move to a new city will always try to compare anything and everything with their city, let it be roads or transport or traffic or food habits or entertainment, they would want to compare that with their hometown, for some the change would be refreshing and for some that change would be disgusting. Another main reason why people start hating a specific city would be because of the local language which they are not aware of, that would contribute to some amount of irritation in oneself. I would say that I am at least lucky in that aspect as most bangaloreans talk tamil as well. I still have my heart in Chennai and I cannot accept Bangalore as my home, though I am living in this city for 5 good years, I still wanted to go back to Chennai and I don’t think I can ever love this city, even if this dying city revives itself and comes back to life, I cannot stay here.

There is one to be blamed for this attitude and adapting to change is not as easy as we speak, we need to be mentally strong to adapt to changes which are against your needs and wish. In Chennai you can see tea shops and paper shops open as early at 5 in the morning, here in Bangalore tea shop opens at 8 and paper wala puts paper at 8, this city is a "Sleeping City", for a guy like me who was very active in Chennai, found it very difficult initially to accept these, if I have to drink a cup of coffee I have to wait till 8, what is the charm in reading the news paper at 9 ?? though all these may sound silly and you may ask are these reasons to hate a city, may be not from an outsider perspective, but from my perspective, yes there are the key reasons for me to hate this city and these people, because my mindset is like that. I generally don’t cry foul at public, I don’t open all these topics in front of a bangalorean and make him feel bad or provoke him to say something about my city Chennai, I tend to keep quiet and ignore these irritations.

I am not saying that his is a trend only in INDIA, this Hatred-O-Phobia is across all continents. In the US, a California folk will not like a Texas guy, In UK Middlesex folks do not like Hampshire folks, so this is there everywhere and we all need to learn to live with it.