A few days ago, I got the ’long term resident of the European Union’ card. What does that mean? Now I don’t have to go to the Immigration office every once in a year. For another 5 years I have peace and calm.
England- my love
It also means, that now I am eligible to get a Polish passport. if I would decide to apply for a Polish citizenship, I have to write to the president of the city and apply( I still don’t know how it works. I have to read about it though).
I had a chance to talk to couple of my Polish friends, whether I should apply for the Polish citizenship or not. One of my friends, suggested that I should apply.
But there is a problem. If i take the Polish passport, I would have to surrender my Indian citizenship. I would get a card from the Indian government(POI- person of Indian origin), which says that I was born in India. There wont be any need to get a visa to visit my family. But then again, I would loose many privileges. For example, It would not be easy to buy property in India. Most importantly I wouldn’t be considered as an Indian citizen any more. (Can You imagine not being considered as a citizen of Your own country? Kind of strange right?)
So I said to her ‘ ahh… I am not sure. If it was for a UK citizenship, we Indians wouldn’t even think twice. But for a EU passport? I am not sure. I have to sleep on that’’
Then she asked, why is it that You Indians always praise UK so much? What do they have, that Poland doesn’t have?
I was a little bit ashamed myself. Why is it that I am worshipping England, like its some holy grail of countries, or something? 'Common Jay, don’t show Poland in bad light!’ I thought…
It’s not that I think Poland is a bad place. I find myself living here for a long time to come. Let me explain…
At least 70 percent of the countries on our present earth, was once an English colony. From huge countries like USA, Canada, Australia, to small Caribbean Islands like Trinidad& Tobago, Jamaica etc etc..
The United kingdom ruled us for 200 years. The english introduced their education system, legal system(we even started drinking tea with milk because of the english people). English people love curry so much, that it became their national food! Thanks to the English, our education system got better(we have world class universities in India). English became one of our official languages(we still have the funny accent though). Indians can work in corporations all over the world. It’s because of our english language proficiency, that we are able to survive in almost any part of the world.
But there is also a bad side to the story….
According to Indian Vedic texts, people in the society can be classified into 4 classes(according to their profession- Priests, warriors, Official working class, and the ones who do the manual labour) The english taught us, that brown colour is dirty, and introduced untouchability.. People who were very dark couldn’t touch the English elite. Only the fair Indian people like Brahmins could come near them. They used the Vedic texts(and our naiveness/ stereotypes) to bring forth even more divide between us. Thanks to that, we started becoming shy of our origins, and our skin colour.
But It also destroyed our self respect. Once the English left, people who were dark were still considered as dirty by other fair Indians. We still think that White is more beautiful(ads still show whitening creams for men and women).
So basically we think that English people are gods! We love english humour. We love their music(i honestly believe that English are very talented when it comes to music).
When we think of England, we think of social welfare, good jobs, high standard of living. World’s best education system. So if we ask any Indian, ‘Would You like to live in the UK and get a UK Passport?’ There is no question, that every one would want it. Even at the cost of loosing one’s Indian citizenship.
After having the discussion with my colleague, I am convinced that I would like to get a Polish Passport. Of course that wouldn’t make me a polish person. I know that I could never be Polish. Something’s cannot be changed. There is a saying in India “ If a crow takes a bath, it would never be a crane” I am not just talking about colour. But I can never develop the Polish mentality. I can miserably fail in trying to achieve it. I think that Polish citizenship would give me many advantages. I can travel visa free to many countries. Other than that, I will always be an Indian. 🙂