मी, गर्दी आणि आपण.

Why are we so proud of our nation ?

             Pride should always be balanced by the reality of the reason for that pride. Now when we say we are proud of our country shouldn’t we take a look around and find what did we invent of the thousands of (really useful) things around us? The 100s of types of plastic this computer/mobile is made up of, or the chipset on which it runs or the operating system that makes so many things possible? or the rubber that is in your tires or the engine that drives you to everywhere, Let alone the vaccinations that have literally made you live this far or the life saving drugs that some of us have used, What has India invented? So why the hell are we proud of India so much? Why facebook is filled with how everything, yes everything has its root in India, that is not even “past”glory that is “false” glory.

                We are the people who however educated might be are ready to play loud music near hospitals in countless of our festivals and marriages. We put caste first in several of our decisions. And let’s not even talk about how many of us believe that stars and planets hundreds of light years away have the ability to affect our lives. Of the thousand things that we use from when we wake up till we sleep what did we really come up with first? From the tooth brush to clean water from LPG to motor engine to railway to paper to a simple zipper or anything small and big what has India really invented? What is our contribution to humanity? A culture that forbids alcohol consumption eventually to give way to “social drinking” or is it the relentless rant about how our Vedic books have all the knowledge in the world? It’s one thing to be working in Microsoft and Google and whole other to come up with a company like them. Doesn’t it ever get annoying when people (falsely) say most of NASA is Indians and so are most of Google and Microsoft?

                Our country could be great but then great countries make sure that every innocent life that is lost is accounted for, we lost 160+ people on 26/11, by terrorists shooting randomly, and next day we went to offices and somehow that signifies the spirit of the nation? How? And if it does what is that spirit? You can’t stop us? Of course no one can stop us we are a billion. But isn’t every life as precious as the billion-1 lives are? How can we get mad at a nation that protects its people by strictly implementing the security policies at their airports? Just because he is a Bollywood star? Shouldn’t we implement our own security procedures as strictly as they do? Why do we get so emotional about something that is just plain practical?

                Yes we have one of the best space programs there is, we do, but what do we do with all the satellites that we launch? How much of our crop still is at the mercy of the weather which can be predicted to almost pin point detail by all those satellites and all those super computers we built.  Why are we using most of the essential infrastructure and time for accommodating meaningless entertainment and news channels can we really afford that?

                And yet, facebook is filled with posts telling how our nation is the best, how our Vedas and other books have some truly essential knowledge. But haven’t the developed nations have developed without this “culture” and these “books”? How did they do it? And if you say that, eh the way they live is just not correct or India somehow has better living standards you are missing the point.

                The point is, of the 100 things you use around you right now, if you cannot point out single one that is invented in India or you feel its “chalta hain” for people to stay on footpaths and get run over to their deaths by the Bollywood “Stars”, we clearly have a long way to go and just by saying we already invented everything in some ancient books is just plain hypocrisy.