Comments on: behenji, identity and other selves

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 13:17:00 +0000

Hey Neha..
Your blog was impeccably smooth and engrossing. I was looking up “behenji” on google.ca when I came across your pc of work.. Marvellous stuff, I must say. My boyfriend sometimes teases me that I am a “behenji” because of my utter disconcern for learning slang expletives. I don’t see anything wrong with my state of “ignorance”, but you are TOTALLY right about the masked appearances people put on to be “mod” or “hip”. I never went through it myself, although I was VERY close to being a behenji.. oiled hair and all… not to mention, awesome hold of Hindi and a keen leaning towards being cultural-and queerly religious too!.. I’ve changed tons since then, and not that I consider myself to be any different from within. Behenji is more of a outwardly physical, and impressed mental state.
Kudos to you.. you’ve done an excellent job at summing it all up. The meaning of the word, most respectfully abusive!

By: neha vish

neha vish — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 04:39:00 +0000

Shivani Kumar – St Stephens (History)?

She was a classmate.. :)

By: Pareshaan

Pareshaan — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:51:00 +0000

Wow,
nice blog and a very rigorous exposition, Behenjis/Ally Mc Beal. Both very well written posts. I must say.
Are you a journalist by any chance. And you were at TISS?
Maybe you know my sister, Shivani she was at TISS too. And you seem like you are the same age.
Well, very well written and well thought out blog, very nice,
Thanks.

By: Justine

Justine — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:36:00 +0000

People can be so cruel and shallow. So many hang-ups.

By: J. Alfred Prufrock

J. Alfred Prufrock — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 11:39:00 +0000

This post makes me cringe at the situation you portray and at the same time, proud of my college because we didn’t have this stereotyping.
Nobody ever called me a dehaati or whatever. There was a healthy respect for people who were good at something regardless of whether they were ‘affluent’, ‘western cool’ or just ‘from down the road’.

The ones who tried too hard to be something they were not comfortable with – the behenjis / bhaiyyas trying to be mod – were laughed at. Strictly speaking, that was not nice either. But very few of us are wise at 17 and 18. (Which of course leads to your post about under-age marriage ..)

J.A.P.

By: ~River~

~River~ — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:59:00 +0000

Oh, your blog is smooth today. smooooth!

Don’t even start me on the “chinky” thing in DU. I began seeing it from close quarters only after I started teaching here.

Strangely enough, in JNU, where I was a student for several years, I never noticed the vast and powerful divide. I must have been blind or young!

By: neha vish

neha vish — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 13:44:00 +0000

Inky and km: Thanks
Pradyot: My guess is that you are a male and you have a comfort zone group on your campus. Your levels of noise as regards appearances would largely be determined by the group you find. We’re more forgiving towards the style of men..

Unfortunately a lot of this discrimination starts from men/ male dominated campuses. IIT (I lived for 14 years across the campus gate, and then married an IITian, and inherited all his friends) is famous for its whole male and non-male jokes. And that’s just what most of the world gets to hear. *Shudder* Delhi is a city of appearances. We can all pretend otherwise.