[Assam] Bideshat Apon Manuh - Sentinel letter

[Ram Sarangapani]

Highlights mine.

This topic also came up recently during our recent visit to Assam. While
there were some who seemed  very taken in by the 'lifestyles of their rich
and famous' cousins across the seven seas, there were clearly those who were
hardly taken in by the show or whatever it seemed to depict.

It would best, I guess, to keep aside my personal feelings on this  - I have
too many friends who fell for this :)

--Ram


*Bideshat Apon Manuh *
Bideshat Apon Manuh, meaning ''one's own people on foreign shores'', which
is a tourism-based serial telecast by Doordarshan Kendra, Guwahati, is
indeed enjoyable as well as popular, being on air for about five years. But
despite being entertaining, it is has certain negative effects.
The serial portrays the lives of well-established Assamese families residing
in different foreign countries, signifying only the glamorous and
comfortable lives that they live, *thus giving wrong ideas about life in
such countries to the naive and aspiring local people.* The serial does not
emphasize the struggles that these people faced to achieve their position of
dignity in the alien lands amidst alien people; the prejudices they had to
encounter; the racial bridges they had to cross; and the problems of
cultural identification of their children. The younger generation back home,
ignorant of these facts, is thus encouraged to seek better fortunes on
foreign shores, aided by equally vulnerable parents.
A large section of the Assamese people are settled in foreign countries,
pursuing their own fortunes and visiting their home State occasionally, more
as guests. *Can they be called ''apon manuh''? It would be more apt to name
the serial as "Bideshat Asomiya Manuh".
*It is disheartening *that television serials are rarely made on the lives
of Assamese people in accomplished fields, who by dint of their hard work
and labour are working with dedication in Assam and in other parts of India,
making a difference to society by contributing to the development and
progress of their own nation.
*It is time to discourage brain drain to foreign lands. The serial in
question should be presented in the right format and direction, with a
strong message to the Assamese society that life in foreign countries is
just as challenging as that in India, failing which its telecast should be
stopped.
Malabika Mitra,
Zoo Road, Guwahati.