14 August, 2011
Tarun Vijay
In spite of the stink of badmouthing in the public domain and all the wrongdoers around assaulting an octogenarian fighting against the corrupt, India is not a land of the hopeless.
Everywhere I go, I find sparks of progress even among the poorest of the poor. The cobbler, the labourer, the rickshaw puller and the small shop owner. A pandit in Pehova and a farmer in Bijnor. They take loans, curse the administration or the politician, struggle to send their children to the best possible schools they can afford and see them qualifying in IITs, PCS, IAS or becoming pilots. There are pavment dwellers, who have spent their lives eating a chapatti with onion chutney, and never had the privilege of getting a reasonable medical treatment, but they are not out. They are found fighting a battle many of the affluent would have lost after the first step.
In spite of a bad management, you still get the better doctors in public hospitals and people try their best to get a one-line recommendation from a minister to get their patient admitted in AIIMS and not in five-star hotel-turned hospital which skin a person to get 'enjoyably medically' treated. The best results are produced by government schools and not by air-conditioned high-fee structured factories of luxurious literacy, also called public schools. The highest percentage of vote-poll is from among these classes and not from the elite chocolate eaters.
That's the India we hardly see in the newspapers or the channels' highbrow, and shockingly coloured discussions.
It is this India that will win finally.
I don't want to live in despair and despondency. And I don't want to hear our future is bad, bleak and dark because those 545 people in Parliament are not doing what they should be doing.
They don't control the destiny of a billion plus people, I can assure you. Neither do the arrogant media barons.
It's just the inherently strong willed Indian who virtually rises above the politics of religion and revolutionary red and Jihadi green ghettos to see he works hard to stay afloat and make his child's future better than what he is today. From Chushul to Tawang and Murshidabad to Port Blair, in hitherto unimaginable areas and corners, one uniform wave to live better, learn more, get into higher educational institutes, be perfect in spoken English and be empowered to buy offshore companies and yet remain a pucca Indian to open new software factory in Shanghai with breaking of coconut and putting a vermillion on Ganapati. That's the India I see beyond the sullen faces of prophets of doom.
And while I write this, a friend sent me a beautifully crafted ad copy of Mahindra's-Rise. There is nothing about the corporate house, but it's all about the common, 3-tier sleeper class traveller Indian who owns a bicycle and lives in chawls or shanty townships. Their lives are made of sweat smelling dreams, their faces are not photogenic to be featured on page three, but their hearts are pure India.
That's tricolour's victorious march no Raja, Kalmadi, Pawar or their henchmen can stop.
True a few corrupt have created an atmosphere of despair. We get envious seeing a China marching miles ahead of us. But who is responsible for things to come to such a sorry pass? Aren't we all collectively kept on seeing the rich, semi-literate leaders living an ostentatious life without accountability? We not only tolerated them but the more expensive cars and gadgets persons in public life displayed, the more he was taken in awe and respect. Why? How many of public figures showed the courage to set an example of their own, living a life which is commensurate with the average living standards of our millions? In fact living simply is looked down as a foolish, impractical and fruitless exercise by the ruling class.
So what? Its only a small handful section. Millions are proving simple life can win. Small struggles win the bigger battles and small commoner alone emerges victorious, history has shown. The rich, arrogant elite ruling class seeks to hide behind comfort zones and never fuels the change. Its refuge is in status quo. It's only the small Indian that fights to win bigger battles. The day tempers rise to the precipitating levels, an unprecedented upheaval would clean the dirt in one go. It's bound to happen. Dwarfs think they are the masters of all that they see.
Destiny's hands play deftly through people's power.
The riches of Man Singh couldn't save his honour, but a Rana Pratap became immortal living in the ravines of Haldi Ghati.
On the religious front too, a common Indian Muslim wants to live as happy a life as a common Hindu or a Christian. Its only the secular labelled communalist and the Sachar committee shamanism that creates wedges and vote bank kiosks. I have seen a Muslim cart puller living amicably with another Hindu labourer, shopkeepers of multi-religious denominations living together bound by economic needs and social amity, till the mullahs and agent provocateurs of various colours step in. The smell of the sweat doesn't change according to the religion one wears. Not all Muslims can be Osama followers and not all Hindus are what we think a Hindu should be. Assaulters on Baba Ramdev, enemies of Ram Temple at Ayodhya, opponents of cow slaughter ban and political pilgrims to the terrorist homes of Azamgarh are not 'aliens' and 'Mlecchhas'. They are all devout, 'high caste', believer elite class Hindus.
Hence trust in the sleeper class Indian, who is the flag bearer of the tricolour. Who alone guarantees India can't remain shackled to the barbarian looters and hypocrites for long.
Everywhere I go, I find sparks of progress even among the poorest of the poor. The cobbler, the labourer, the rickshaw puller and the small shop owner. A pandit in Pehova and a farmer in Bijnor. They take loans, curse the administration or the politician, struggle to send their children to the best possible schools they can afford and see them qualifying in IITs, PCS, IAS or becoming pilots. There are pavment dwellers, who have spent their lives eating a chapatti with onion chutney, and never had the privilege of getting a reasonable medical treatment, but they are not out. They are found fighting a battle many of the affluent would have lost after the first step.
In spite of a bad management, you still get the better doctors in public hospitals and people try their best to get a one-line recommendation from a minister to get their patient admitted in AIIMS and not in five-star hotel-turned hospital which skin a person to get 'enjoyably medically' treated. The best results are produced by government schools and not by air-conditioned high-fee structured factories of luxurious literacy, also called public schools. The highest percentage of vote-poll is from among these classes and not from the elite chocolate eaters.
That's the India we hardly see in the newspapers or the channels' highbrow, and shockingly coloured discussions.
It is this India that will win finally.
I don't want to live in despair and despondency. And I don't want to hear our future is bad, bleak and dark because those 545 people in Parliament are not doing what they should be doing.
They don't control the destiny of a billion plus people, I can assure you. Neither do the arrogant media barons.
It's just the inherently strong willed Indian who virtually rises above the politics of religion and revolutionary red and Jihadi green ghettos to see he works hard to stay afloat and make his child's future better than what he is today. From Chushul to Tawang and Murshidabad to Port Blair, in hitherto unimaginable areas and corners, one uniform wave to live better, learn more, get into higher educational institutes, be perfect in spoken English and be empowered to buy offshore companies and yet remain a pucca Indian to open new software factory in Shanghai with breaking of coconut and putting a vermillion on Ganapati. That's the India I see beyond the sullen faces of prophets of doom.
And while I write this, a friend sent me a beautifully crafted ad copy of Mahindra's-Rise. There is nothing about the corporate house, but it's all about the common, 3-tier sleeper class traveller Indian who owns a bicycle and lives in chawls or shanty townships. Their lives are made of sweat smelling dreams, their faces are not photogenic to be featured on page three, but their hearts are pure India.
That's tricolour's victorious march no Raja, Kalmadi, Pawar or their henchmen can stop.
True a few corrupt have created an atmosphere of despair. We get envious seeing a China marching miles ahead of us. But who is responsible for things to come to such a sorry pass? Aren't we all collectively kept on seeing the rich, semi-literate leaders living an ostentatious life without accountability? We not only tolerated them but the more expensive cars and gadgets persons in public life displayed, the more he was taken in awe and respect. Why? How many of public figures showed the courage to set an example of their own, living a life which is commensurate with the average living standards of our millions? In fact living simply is looked down as a foolish, impractical and fruitless exercise by the ruling class.
So what? Its only a small handful section. Millions are proving simple life can win. Small struggles win the bigger battles and small commoner alone emerges victorious, history has shown. The rich, arrogant elite ruling class seeks to hide behind comfort zones and never fuels the change. Its refuge is in status quo. It's only the small Indian that fights to win bigger battles. The day tempers rise to the precipitating levels, an unprecedented upheaval would clean the dirt in one go. It's bound to happen. Dwarfs think they are the masters of all that they see.
Destiny's hands play deftly through people's power.
The riches of Man Singh couldn't save his honour, but a Rana Pratap became immortal living in the ravines of Haldi Ghati.
On the religious front too, a common Indian Muslim wants to live as happy a life as a common Hindu or a Christian. Its only the secular labelled communalist and the Sachar committee shamanism that creates wedges and vote bank kiosks. I have seen a Muslim cart puller living amicably with another Hindu labourer, shopkeepers of multi-religious denominations living together bound by economic needs and social amity, till the mullahs and agent provocateurs of various colours step in. The smell of the sweat doesn't change according to the religion one wears. Not all Muslims can be Osama followers and not all Hindus are what we think a Hindu should be. Assaulters on Baba Ramdev, enemies of Ram Temple at Ayodhya, opponents of cow slaughter ban and political pilgrims to the terrorist homes of Azamgarh are not 'aliens' and 'Mlecchhas'. They are all devout, 'high caste', believer elite class Hindus.
Hence trust in the sleeper class Indian, who is the flag bearer of the tricolour. Who alone guarantees India can't remain shackled to the barbarian looters and hypocrites for long.
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