“RAINBOW DREAMS”

Posted by SuperHypersonic under SuperHyperSonic

“Rainbow Dreams”

Quite a few years back, in college, we had a new professor conduct
her very first lecture in our class. She was replacing a very
popular professor in the middle of the term and as a way to break
the ice , she asked, what appeared to me a fair [and a
simple]question. However, much to her surprise [and mine too] none
of my colleagues knew the answer!

She had quoted a few lines and had asked who the writer was.
Quoting literature to a roomful of engineers may seem odd, but
then one would think we would all or perhaps most of us would be
familiar with India’s[actually Asia’s too] first Nobel Laureate’s work[and a passage
which is not really unheard of] But as it turned out nobody really
identified it, with the exception of yours truly. I guess instead
of imparting one, our professor herself learnt a lesson that day.

As I fast forward to the present, the situation pretty much
remains the same. Sadly, might I add.
Fortunately a lot of people today recognize that Jana Gana Mana &
not Vande Mataram is our national Anthem. And a huge credit for
that should, ironically, go to the movie theatres who dutifully
play the National Anthem before every show.[I reserve my views on
this for another time but it does seem to serve a purpose ]

I speak to my friends in India and while almost everyone discusses
Abhinav Bindra [Well done!] or a new Akshay Kumar /Ranvir (or is
it Ranbir?) Kapoor movie [do I even care?], when I ask about the
Amarnath issue, the usual answer is indifference. ‘Ye sab to hota
hi hai,aaj yaha kal waha’. There seems to be a simple system of
indifference ,apathy and acceptance. While the people who run [?] the
country nearly always put the blame of any problem on foreign
sources or the opposition, the people simply put the blame on the
politicians. And any problem apparently seems less problematic when you find
someone to blame! And so the cycle continues.

Sixty-one years do not constitute a short period of time. It is a
duration long enough to get a grip. But personal agendas,
short-sighted & blinkered planning and bureaucracy that is so rampant in India
have only helped loosen the grip on what could have been a land
rather different.
I have been fortunate to have traveled to various countries. And
while I meet fellow Indians abroad, I see an all-too common
tendency to put a blind eye to the problems of the west [and which
place won’t have problems?]

These fellow Indians tell me, India is great…. to visit from time
to time but it has nothing to offer us .I not only disagree, I
believe these people don’t really understand India. In order to
love your country you don’t have to flaunt your patriotism. Love
comes with understanding. And you need to embrace the positives and
also identify the negatives and try to mould them into
positives. For sure India has its own set of problems but being
indifferent or escaping them is not really going to set those
right.
Yes, the infrastructure is great in most western countries, the
standard of living is undoubtedly higher ,social equilibrium is
more in place and so on. But that does not imply that India
doesn’t have any positives.
India has always been my favorite place. I believe even if I was
not born an Indian ,I would have definitely traveled here and felt
a sense of belonging. But luckily I was born here. As a country we
have everything to compete with the [so-called] best holiday spots
in the world. From the beaches to the mountains to the backwaters
to the big cities, we have it all. But then again we lack the
preservation, the perpetuation, the ease of traveling and most of
all a sense of order[of course the disorder is in itself a
memorable experience but a little order won’t hurt nobody].
My western friends, while realizing the problems of their own
culture, they also know their countries and have a genuine sense
of national pride.

I dream of a day when every Indian will truly
feel the same way. I dream of a day when people won’t think of ‘I
don’t speak Hindi’ as a social statement! I mean, seriously!!

I think if India was a person, and could speak of its people,
perhaps she would call us her power, pleasure and pain. We could
be her strength but more often than not we are the pain and we
choose to not really do much about it.

There is so much to be done. The public life in India needs to be
characterized by a clean & determined mind, concentration, honesty and a
positive attitude. And more importantly citizens need to stand up
for their rights. You may scoff and say I am a dreamer, but I sincerely hope
I’m not the only one.
I dream of an India where everyone has access to basic education,
hygiene and nutrition. I dream of an India where wishing for a
desi Phelps is not so far fetched a reality. I dream of an India where the girl child gets equal privileges and where there are fewer, if not any, double standards. I dream of an India where all of us Indians represent the power and the pleasure of
the country . I dream of an India where the mind is truly free.
Only then can we truly celebrate an Independence Day.

And among other things, I dream of all the things Gurudev
Rabindranath Tagore wrote about in the following extract from
Gitanjali , the very extract our college professor quoted:

“Mind Without Fear “

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up

into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason

has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action—

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Wish you all a happy Independence Day!

:SuperHyperSonic