one of the very big problem with indian societies is not acknowledging and embracing ‘diversity’ in their lives. we look for homogeneousness in every aspect of human interactions. we look for people who look like us, eat like us, think like us, speak like us, dress like us.

when we make friends, we naturally get attracted to people like us. our family friends are families like us. that’s how we are brought up and we are bringing up our kids as well. even in our work life, we collaborate better with people like us. we feel safe amongst them

a punjabi will mostly have north-indian friends and will find it difficult to befriend a non-hindi speaker. in offices we will socialise with people of our age, our grades and sometimes even look for our batch-mates. i am talking about learned so called evolved people here.

and the problem with homogeneousness is that we don’t learn perspectives of others. we live in our own cocoons and assume that’s the whole world. we fail to develop empathy. we think rajma-rice is everything without knowing anything about curd-rice.

all I am saying is make conscious efforts to embrace diversity, teach your kids about it.

ending this thread with a short poll. Do you have friends (close friends) who are diverse? it could be people plus/ minus 10 years your age, not speaking your language, different social status, different income levels etc etc