A silent thought into "Indian-ness"....

We celebrated our 60th Independence day. Dunno How many of us really celebrated? And what does celebration means? Ya may be sending some patriotic forwards and mails to frnds. That's all...this has become the modern feeling of Indian-ness.

Indian-ness....
What is Indian-ness?
Indian-ness is not ethereal that circumnavigates around the religion or philosopy, but it is something that we slowly acquire from our parents,grand parents over time. A stream of feelings that we develop for the fellow human beings, a love for human kind. This is what our culture taught us.Dunno how much we are going to pass this culture to coming generation??

India : A country that has all the ingredeints to make it the best and unique in this world. Thats the way I define what India means to me and how much I am proud of my country.Rather than an physical entity surrounded by boundaries ,"India" is actually a perception of great people like Gandhi, Tagore, Vivekananda. Its a feeling that has nowadays strives hard to find its own identity because many a times we fail to carry forward that vision.

This was Tagore's vision of a great India(Geetanjali in Bold letters) and let's compare how it fare in this said to be an modern India.

Where the mind is without fear : Fear of loosing job, loosing status , money and all kind of fear engulfed everyone.

Where the head is held high: only to bow down to self desires and greed.

Where the knowledge is free: ya Education is free only if you have money to buy it.

Where the world is not broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls: with all these riots and communalisms, this statement too doesn't hold anymore.

Where words come out from the depth of truth: can you find truth anywhere, its scandals and corruption from beginning to the top of the system.

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection: only towards the perfection of economy of oneself.

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit:there's no clear stream of reason left, everybody trying to fulfill their own dreams(dead habit), rather than coming together for a common cause of India.

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action: narrow minded people fill this country with a narrow minded sort of actions.

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake: I am glad that Mahatma Gandhi is no more , because he would really have been ashamed. We are free physically but we are slowly giving away our mental freedom to get something that is really not ours.

I am not saying every person is straying away from truth(the real meaning if Indian-ness), but the truth is that narrow minded people outnumbered the real one's.

Is that vision lost now???
Yes we are loosing it gradually. Its true as Dipankar Gupta(Sociologist) says" Indians aren't so much modern as they are westoxicated".Similar is the view of Madhulika Khandelwal,author of "Becoming American, Being Indian". She says " In this age of globalisation with young men and women coming from their hometowns to Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and making money, being independent of parental censure is fast leading to the development of a new society in which those old snobberies of linguistic, cultural and ethnic origin aren't so important".

See around for yourself what changes do you see? How are we binded to the society that we are living right now that is far away from your home(hometown). What binds us to the present society and what binds us to the our hometown?. Dont think society in terms of group of individuals , think it as "the way of thinking" or perception of individuals who are living in a group.Whats the ambiance that this present society creates around us??

This aggressive globalisation is making us loose our distinct identity of being an Indian. And how will this affect we dont know as when a culture changes victims are usually the last to know about it. Now who are the victims, definitely we are not, coz we are right now witnessing this transition of time and culture. We know both these cultures coz we are in between them and we are slowly moving away from one to the other.We know what we are loosing gradually over this time, things that will never be brought back.

By culture I don't mean the superstitions, the caste difference or the blind rituals that are followed by people . It's a feeling of sacrifice, it's a feeling that keeps those men at the borders to keep us sleeping tight, it's a feeling that no matter whatever happens, we can hold on.

By chasing this western culture,it's not the things that we are loosing instead we are unknowingly sacrificing feelings. Feelings that usually used to bind people far away, feelings that people hang on to during worst ever scenarios that itself brings out the best in them, feelings that make us cry and laugh at the same time. And see now what feeling each individual has towards each other.The more a person falls behind the value of a family, the more he lives for his own the less he will concern about the fellow being, coz its in the family where an individual think in terms of us rather than me.
Relations no longer hold any value, people tend to think all these relations comes out of necessity and indeed it is becoming going that way only. Everything happens due to necessity. Necessity is slowly eating into the emotional value that has been here for centuries. Wait and watch that time is not far, actually it has already begun to happen, where children consider their parents just like an bank account.

Sandeep once asked me "One thing I cant understand is, why are the parents sending their children away from them even without trying for a life in their own land.Why are parents not aware of the future life their kids have to experience?". I replied that its the urge within those parents to see their kids economically independent, but this urge is letting those kids only earn all the time in life rather than finding time to live for themselves, coz meaning of life has changed. First it was "earning for living", now its "Living for earning".

Friends often ask me why do I always have a grudge against this fast moving world, I always tried to make them understand that I am not against but I am only worried about how it is going to be after some time if we continue this way of life.But they never understood,and sadly they feel I am afraid of being left out and in one sense I didn't tried to clarify that opinion.I have seen things happen, I have been around to places and I have seen different cultures mingle together , but never they lost their individual identity but this mingling of Indian to the west will definitely leave no trace of our diversified culture.

Think about it.I am not saying to follow the old traditions blindly but at least we can keep those moral values within us to pass on to the next Generation.

Hope this has at least made you think about the present way the society is heading to. I think there is no wrong in waiting for your responses coz I am expecting them from you.