Tum Chalo To Hindustan Chale....

The Lead India initiative (the title is their tag line) of the Times of India group is perhaps just the thing that India needed in these turbulent times. Our political system, never the most reliable and credible of alternatives, has denigrated even further to unimaginable depths. The administrative systems continue to trudge along at their own pace, unmindful of the actual needs and requirements of the nation.

And somewhere in all this, the common man, the individual is stuck. He wants change, he wants improvement in the way he leads his life. But he is unwilling to do anything about it on his own. He is content to just wipe the sweat of his brow, to complain about the sad state of affairs, and if things are really bad, then even curse and condemn the nation.

The Indian polity was never about the individual. Society always has been at the crux of everything. To say the truth, this is the case with every society, so why condemn India? I do not condemn India as much as I fault Indians for her sad plight.

We won our freedom not because the masses were behind the idea. We won it because there were individuals who felt that their lives were unbearable and that something needed to be done about it.

In the post-independence period, with its heavy emphasis on socialism, which was good in one way, I feel individualism was stifled. Society matters, but what matters more is the leadership that guides society, and that doesn't come from the mass; it comes from individuals, from single people, who have a dream, who have a will, and most of all, who have the courage to bring that vision to fruition. Our single minded attention to the public good without care or concern for the leaders who are to create that good has brought us to this stage.

And so this initiative is commendable. The video below is the official anthem of the initiative and exemplifies the angst of the Indian people, and yet tells the people, "Enough of your sighing and crying, stop your endless complaining and whining. Get up and do something about whatever it is that bothers you. Don't worry; the world will follow you if you are in the right."

So when are you doing something to change this country's perception of itself?

Musings....

Sometimes you love someone with all your heart. You love her so much that you fear losing her company; that you never want her out of your sight. Every day, when you see her, you realize ever so much just how much you love her, and yearn to love her even more so. Her mere sight makes the sun shine ever so brighter; her laughter is like birds chirping in mirth; her eyes like jewels sparkling in the soft moonlight. You want to pamper her, hold her in your embrace for all time, to kiss her sweet brow and just caress her soft tresses, to blow away the locks which fall on her blushing cheeks, to watch her nose wrinkle up o so sweetly when she laughs.

And yet you fear that she might shrink away from so much love. Love is a strange thing. When it isn’t there, it’s like a vacuum, painless, your body numb to any overtures and sensations. And yet when it’s there, it’s like a tornado of emotions, just wanting to destroy all semblance of normalcy, to make you mad and insatiable for affection. And that is a scary moment for anyone. Anyone could feel suffocated in such torrid environs, and yet one hopes that one’s love is strong enough to overcome such a sensation of reluctance.

Image: Rodin's "The Thinker"

I await....

Once in a while, we await some things more than anything ever imaginable. Sometimes, we just want time to pass ever so fast so that we may encounter some distant joy, that we may finally come to enjoy what we most wish to happen.

There are many things that I await. I await the onset of the monsoon, with the sweet smell of the earth with the first showers, with the cold breezes that blow in from the sea, and the cuppa of hot coffee that I can enjoy sitting in my veranda. I wait for the summer for all the ice-creams and cold stuff that I can partake of, for all the mangoes that I get to relish, for the family vacation to distant places. I await the autumn, for Diwali, for fireworks, for goodies and sweets and all other savouries, for the softly cooling down of the air, for the mildly musty smell of last year’s woollens. And I await the winter, for the coldness in the air, the warmth of my blanket, the sweet slumber of the night, and the celebration of the Year. I await the beginning of the month for the chance to go to the local book store and buy the month’s supply of books.

I would await my results when in school and college, wanting to know whether I did as bad as I thought, or by some miracle, I had managed to pass. I would await the beginning of a new semester, for the chance to meet up with friends, to rejuvenate slumbering acquaintances, to realize how much we care for each other. (Even now I await Mondays more than Fridays. I am no workaholic; just that I miss my friends over the weekends.)

What do you wait for?

He Wishes for The Cloths of Heaven....

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Inwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- W.B. Yeats

Image courtesy: Links2Love

Counting down....

Just one more day left before the big one. Just 37 hours before one finally faces one’s fears. While I am relaxed in the thought that this isn’t the beginning of the end for anything, it surely would the end of the beginning of my attempt to get into a management school this year. The previous statement could be misread to imply that the battle has been conceded before firing even a single shot. Au contraire, I just wish to say that on the 18th will be decided whether I am prepared enough to be called upon by some of the most illustrious management schools of the country this year. So, to Fate, and to Fortune! :)

P.S.: This isn't the only test that I am giving, so the Fates may smile someplace, if not here, though if they smile here, I would be most glad (who wouldn't?).

Where is the will of the commune....?

The Nandigram incident just doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to get over. More than eight months have passed, but the flames are just as hot, and the violence simply refuses to abate. The cadres of the ruling Communist Front government in West Bengal and the resisting Nandigram locals have been involved in a horrific ‘war’, to use the term in its most deplorable manner, which has caused the deaths of countless innocents, deprivation of the most basic forms of justice and law, and more than anything, has perhaps demonstrated the high-handed approach of the State towards its denizens.

The SEZ at Nandigram may be a harbinger of development, of the progress that has so far eluded the state of West Bengal, is all fine, but the people responsible for this sad state of affairs are not the common people of the state, who stand the risk of being asked to surrender productive agricultural land to industrialists; rather the ruling Communists, who have held the reins of power for the last 30 years are the worst culprits in this entire drama. They, by their intransigence, ensured that West Bengal was never perceived as a region of stable industrial growth, and in the process, ensured that the people remained poor and deprived, and hence dependent on the mindless political machinations of the Communists.

I have never found the Communists to be a reasonable crowd, and to those who should read this blog, this may appear to cloud or even prejudice my views on this issue. But the point is that the Communists could not have made a bigger mess of what was essentially a simple case to handle. The Communists often vaunt themselves as the guardians of the people, as the protectors of the weak and the downtrodden. I fail to see how compelling a group of individuals to surrender their livelihood is equivalent to protecting their rights. But then the Communists believe in the creed of ‘the commune before the individual’. And perhaps that creed has now been extended to ‘the party before the commune, the commune before the individual, and the individual before no one’.

Which in itself won't be a new thing, considering the forced migrations of Stalin's time, and the other expulsions in other Communist establishments. It isn't as if non-communist governments do not indulge in these acts, but then they don't parade themselves as the establishment of the proletariat, do they?

That CPI (M) cadres prevented the entry of the CRPF forces dispatched to maintain peace in Nandigram is a most deplorable and most reprehensible act, and surely warrants censuring the party concerned. Don’t tell us that this was a simultaneous act of expression; the Communists often have had us believe that nothing in their organization is ever simultaneous; they think out everything, discuss everything and only then act. So if the CPI(M) cadres are out, rampaging on the streets of Nandigram, then I hold the CPI(M) to be responsible, and by extension, the incumbent government of West Bengal.

The Congress curses and heaps with opprobrium the government of Gujarat, and only their lack of a significantly large majority in Parliament prevents them from dismissing it. But I am shocked at their silence at the carnage of Nandigram. Perhaps, the faults of an ally are permissible, but that of an enemy never so, no matter even if the faults of both are comparable. I am not an apologist for Mr. Modi, for I find his brand of politics to be equally reprehensible and abominable. But I implore upon people: at least, be unequivocal on what constitutes an abomination.

The Communists are losing their grip over what they had come to believe was their personal fiefdom. These acts of wanton disregard for the people will ultimately serve as their swansong, their last futile attempts at snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.