Incredibly Indi(a)fferent

Yet another blast. And the concerns, as always, varying across the spectrum. For the "authorities", the casuality count. For the Police, names of possible terror groups based on modus operandi. For the government, another set of answers, which now sound like rhymes recited by Nursery School Children. The Opposition looking for a lead in the Blame Game. And the Media, busy thrusting microphones into the graves of the dead and wounds of the injured. Terrorist look-alikes explaining us the sequence of blasts using 3-D Live animation. And pointing out why the blasts did minimum damage by claiming "only "23" lives. Just short of suggesting Maximum impact techniques to the planners. Having video teleconferences with people who have nothing to do with the blast and are sitting in the next room with a different background image. But this time around, their "impact analysis" seems to have found a new victim.
The "IPL". Will the IPL matches in Jaipur be cancelled. Will Shane Warne return? Will the Rajasthan Royals back out? I was always aware of how insensitive people in the "Showbiz" were. But this was probably the worst I've ever seen or heard of. Whats next...May be the smoke from the bombs, becoming a "grave" environmental concern. Also, suggestions of a less polluting one, instead. And, the media's not alone here. Most of us are no different from them (except these people(http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/may/14slid1.htm). The only difference, could be that where they are bothered about idiotic things, we seem to be least perturbed. As if nothing happened. We've found a new default addendum to "Forgetting" : "Moving on" and rephrased "indifference" to "the spirit". The most we think of doing is posting a condolence or vengeful blog. This is neither one of those. Here's my take on "what can we do?" confusion. --
Use the media again to create a stir similar to what happened during the "reservation" issue. Chain mails, to start with, a blog forum like this one to pour in all the discontent together , sort of accumulating lava to form a volcano, that explodes instead of erupting. Protest marches, Demonstrations look very cliched, but might create a ripple effect and eventually guarantee tougher action. Or atleast some action. Though, the anti-reservation agitation din't yield the desired results, it atleast wasn't a surrender. The cause did lose out. But the fight stood for more than just the cause. It depicted that we still have it in us. And one more thing to remember is that it had divided the youth into two. If we could fight so vigorously among ourselves for our bread, can't we fight together with an manifold stronger vigour for the sake of our blood.Even if doesn't yield any immediate effect, it would certainly not go in vain.
It would impact the world around us in many ways. Firstly, send out signals to those who planned it , that Indian public unlike its polity does not stand for a meek surrender. Secondly motivate atleast the honest but demotivated crop of cops to get back to action. Thirdly, the unity and magnitude of anger towards acts like these could actually draw the swayed lot of local "symapathisers" to rethink their stance. Chances even if dim, do exist.

Since the first and the third "effects" won't be of any practical use to reduce the risk to our lives( That's because people involved in such acts don't remain human and so are immune to any attempts of redemption), we can only count on the second one. But, there's very little that the cops can actually do. As, the hindi-movie cliche goes "Unke haath bandhe hai" (their hands are tied) by whom: of course "OUR" politicians. Though all of them are faces of the same coin, the ruling lot is probably taking its hunt for alliances, too far. Just figure out, the MoS, Home Affairs, ignorant query " Is the SIMI banned? " and the chief minister of another state saying that there was no ban on SIMI in his state. The list of examples could go on. It would , as always lead to the common root cause of almost all evils in our country. Political scenario. And the only remaining option is to Change it or Perish.

India……Who ?

“when you go to Singapore, you don’t spit or throw waste in public places, when you do the same in India, it becomes so Un-Indian” Dr.Abul kalam

Every Indian claims that this country is moving from worse to horrible with the passage of time. Every Indian claims that the country is full of crooked politicians and they are spoiling this country. We point our finger towards the system claiming that it is misplaced and outdated. My old friend used to say “When you point your finger towards someone, remember, three of your fingers are pointing towards you” As human beings, we never realize it.

I have seen a lot of people who give that “geeky” look towards the Indian roads once they return back and say “U.S has a much better infrastructure in place”. We adopt a lot of qualities from the west. We want to be given as much freedom as they do from their parents. We want to use the f-word as much as possible in unnecessary situations. We want to become the “real slim shaddy” portrayed by Eminem. One good quality that U.S citizens have is patriotism. They place their country and pride before anything else. They still believe that U.S was the first continent formed in the seven. Are we similar? No way, we are the cool dudes who would like study in India, utilize the resources as much as possible, and when time comes to be a man, we pack our bags and fly off. Reason – India doesn’t offer opportunities. We land in India after two or three years and from then and start complaining about ourselves. Why this is happening? If anyone give us a 1000$ (intended) we will be ready to sacrifice our nativity and call ourselves an American. Infact, we will be proud to do so. India.....who ?

The divide and rule policy couldn’t have worked much better. We are fighting amongst ourselves. Does this sentence seem outdated to you? Let me recall a few incidents in the recent past that the communal fight is still is existence and people are still cashing on it. The great maharashritian Mr. DDDDDDD ( name modified for safety purposes), said that only people whose origin is in Maharashtra should stay in that place. Can Mr.D survive if every non-maharashtrian (as they say) decides not to work there or Can we say like people in Maharashtra should not work anywhere except their state. Fences will be built around them and they will never be allowed outside. Airports will be destroyed and they will be isolated. Can such a situation ever happen again? Mr.D is totally idiotic and is just trying to do stupid act his father did 40 years ago. The Mayalyam manorama is an other example of linguistic racism. The advertisement shows a Malayali as a well dressed educated person while tamilian and telugian are shown as pathetic people. Even the latest Pepsi where dhoni comes out and says “I am MSD from Chennai. Mind it”, stands a testimony to my claim. Just have a look at how Mr. MSD from Chennai is potryed. We don’t realize that and say that the advertisement is “awesome”.

Pointing someone’s mistake is useless unless until you provide a sufficient remedy to it. Here are some of the acts that we should follow in order to establish the change that we are praying for.

1. Stop throwing waste in public places

2. Self-pride is what to live for. Stop criticizing India. If anyone criticizes India, you go against him even if odds are against you.

3. Stop being linguistic and think that “we are Indians”.

I know that these are moral science lessons that we learnt in preliminary education. We always have the habit of forgetting things that are hard to follow. To see India as a “self-sustaining” super power, we should start believing in ourselves and become the change we ought to achieve.

Proud to be an INDIAN