Of Diversity and National Identity

Date
October 21, 2016

Speaker
Sampoorna Biswas

Abstract
I have often grappled with the question, "What does it mean to be Indian?", tried to think of one thing that ties all Indians together, something that maybe we all have in common (I think I found one; come to the talk to find out!). We don't have a national religion, nor a national language and very recently it was discovered that contrary to what EVERYONE knew as truth, hockey is not the national sport, nor do we even have one (although unofficially everyone knows it's cricket)! At this UDLS, I want to ask everyone what they think makes them identify with their nationality/culture, and talk about some fun facts such as how Indians face language barriers in their own country, how they're often culturally more similar to the neighbouring countries than each other, and bust some myths along the way (example: Punjabi is not that widely spoken).