not proud to be an indian today
Author :
alpana
Blog :a postcard from vimal
Date: 8/15/2012 4:04:00 AM
15th august has rolled around and the band playing in the school opposite my house seems muted. there is no blare of patriotic songs either and the mood is subdued. just yesterday i visited a friend who said-" this year i don't feel very patriotic and really don't want to hoist and salute the indian flag. our town is going nowhere and we will have finally lived a futile life, trying to make a difference and not succeeding. do we want our children to face this same sad future?" that set me thinking..after 66 years, have we finally woken up to the fact that today we , as a nation have nothing much left to celebrate? the last four years have been particularly desolate and distressing. each day unfolds news that shows up our leaders as scamsters at best, murderers, rapists and jailbirds at worst. laxman's comman man ( more so probably the common woman ) toils on regardless because earning roti, kapda alone and keeping body and soul together takes up all the time. forget the makans, my friend - even the so-called upper class can't afford to build a small house ( as i am learning right now to my immense discomfiture!). why has a nation who stood up fearlessly to the tyranny of the emergency suddenly lost all political will? this land of milk and honey, so rich in it's natural resources is sliding into an economic, political , social and moral vacuum.
talent, in the form of our brainy youngsters is fleeing our shores. i just bade farewell to another of my daughter's friends who is leaving for the us and will definately not come back. it saddened me but looking at the present scenario, i couldn't help but wish her godspeed. i wanted to say - come back and work to make our country a better place - but the reality is sobering. what right do we have to ask our children to come back to a skewed education system which demeans their intelligence through reservation, a political system where each new cm/prez/ minister is worse than the prior one, all scamsters, murderers and rapists bent on frightening levels of degradation and pillage. where the system is crooked and wants to make you like it. where a catatonic pm is manipulated by a shrewd lady who lets him face the slings of outrage while making merry in the background and pushing her no-good progeny into our cabinet and ultimately down our throats.
is the inability to change fuelled by "the inertia of laziness or the resistance of fear"? can we get out of this morass of lethargy and " be the change you want to see"? i think all of need to look deep into ourselves and find the strength or else die trying.