On a quiet evening in a Bengaluru hostel, a South Indian student turned to Reddit to vent. What began as a personal rant about roommates quickly spiraled into a wider debate over language, identity, and respect in shared spaces — a fault line that many in India’s big cities know all too well.
The anonymous post, titled “North Indian roommates are unbearable”, was more than just a complaint about college life. It detailed feelings of exclusion when two Hindi-speaking roommates conversed only in their language, even after the poster attempted to respond in English. A junior from Punjab, the student wrote, “refuses to speak anything except Hindi,” and the warden allegedly asked others in the room to accommodate her by speaking in Hindi.
But for the writer, the issue went beyond language. Every attempt to converse in Hindi, they said, led to mockery for having a “South Indian accent.” Casual slurs — “South Indians are ugly because they’re not fair” — deepened the resentment. “Why should I go out of my way to accommodate people who make no effort to meet me halfway?” the student asked, pointing out that most South Indians grow up bilingual or trilingual, while many North Indians expect others to adjust.
Beneath the anger, the post reflects a larger anxiety playing out in India’s cities. Bengaluru, a magnet for migrants from across the country, has long prided itself on being cosmopolitan. But that openness, the Redditor suggested, is increasingly taken for granted. “Kannadigas have been too accommodating for too long. At least in Tamil Nadu, people stand up for their identity,” the post read.
The post struck a nerve online, attracting a flood of comments from netizens who shared similar experiences. “I know people who are living for ages in Mumbai but don’t bother to learn Marathi. Simply because they are never forced,” one user wrote, adding that linguistic apathy isn’t new in Indian cities.
Another commented, “North Indians have huge issues adjusting to people. If you see, they go outside and adjust because they know it’s not a choice or option for them. But in the South, because people are polite and empathetic, they get bullied softly.”
