15 th August, 1947.

In winters it is pretty easy to find ragged beggars lying beside the street, battling the cold. You watch them and pity them and move ahead, leaving the wretched poor man on his own. You go for shopping and stop by at a local restaurant for a snack. A small child comes up and hands you a glass of water. Some of us sadly contemplate whether the child should be at school, or working in a restaurant. While we are thinking about this, food is served and even before we are aware of it, we are out of the place, probably returning home or finishing the last of our shopping. You are standing by your father, who is visiting a government office for some work. He takes out a 100 rupee note from his pocket, gives it to another man, who happily accepts it and when you are getting out of the building your father seems to be extremely happy about something. You glance at him and obliges you by saying "chalta hai.!".

Such instances have often been quoted in the mundane essays on the moral degradation of Indian society and the current state of our country. The essays primarily target the lack of compassion, low sense of morality and the greed for fame and money that has become an inherent part of our civilization. But nothing so far has stressed specifically on the failures of our forefathers and its consequences on our lives. India currently faces its worst ever crisis situation after independence. We don' t realize the magnitude of the problem yet, but soon we will see how 60 years of carelessness affects the lives of the 100 million people in the country. Economic crunch, security crisis, parochialism, caste based politics, corruption, religious intolerance, low level of technological research, poor infrastructure, famished farmers and a failed leadership are few of the many problems that we face today. To cut a long story short, today all of us individually and as a country stand at the most critical juncture of our lives. The next five years of our lives will not only determine our future but also the future of our country. Our reaction to the sorry state of affairs that has been plaguing our lives for so long, would ultimately decide the fate of this country.

A country which has the potential to become really great, has lost its direction. More than three generations of indifference towards malpractices has led to today. Our parents and their parents and their parents too, all had a sole motive in life. They wanted their children and grandchildren to live a happy and LUXURIOUS life and so engrossed had they been in fulfilling this motive that they almost forgot about the country. No one cared/cares about who represents them in the Parliament, as long as he/she belongs to the same caste. Bribes are ok if it serves their purpose, but its bad when its shown on TV. India has bred a complete generation of hypocrites, who have torn the country and its future into tiny shreds. But my question is "Why should we pay for your mistakes? If you lost your pride as an Indian, does that mean that I too have to be selfish like you? Even if you were naive and immature, why do expect us to be the same?". Their actions have snowballed into a huge mass if ice rolling down speedily towards us. An action needs to be taken and that too, quickly.

The future is not as bleak as it appears today, but to make sure that India starts moving in the right direction, corrective measuers have to be taken. We need to rise above our individual differences and identify our goals clearly. If we want India to be developed by 2020, well, we have to work towards it. It is not just a single person from amongst us who has to stand up and take responsibility, everyone has to be a part of it. We have to understand how small individual actions affect the larger mass. A sense of responsibility not only towards yourself but also towards the person sitting beside you is extremely important. All of us are blessed with a sense of right and wrong, and its time that we start using it too. You who reads this, hold the key to the future of our country, just make sure that you open the correct door...


Thank you.

Story of a Boy

It was the last Sunday of May, an important day for the young boys of Picaris. It was on this day that an annual ritual was performed where all young ones made their own roller board and took part in a race. A race that did not mean much to the older men of the town, but for the local boys it meant eternal glory.

It was a little cloudy today, quite strange for the month of May. Sundays in Picaris were usually bright. But still all young boys of the town had reached the rendezvous on time and could be seen as a group of bright eyed and talkative young buccaneers ready with their boards. Their fancy boards marked a resemblance to their own spirits, as all of them smiled while covertly looking at the next person’s board. It was serious competition after all. All kids were accompanied by their fathers who watched excitedly from the sidelines as their sons made preparations for the showdown.

In all this excitement no one noticed a kid who stood alone quietly observing his own board, which looked like a piece of trash in front of the other gleaming masterpieces. The poor fatherless child had made it himself out of wood from a local carpenter’s shop. His mother had told him that it was impossible for him to even compete in the race without a proper board. Yet he promised his mother that he would take part in the race. Winning did not matter to him. But now a feeling of disappointment and fear had gripped him as he watched the other kids wiping their boards clean for the final race. He had only finished making the board yesterday and did not get the time to test it once. What if he failed? What if the board broke apart in the middle of the race? It would be a disgrace not to even complete the race. People would laugh at him for being a fool to compete without a proper roller-board. And more importantly the other kids had their fathers looking after them, whereas he stood there alone and dejected.

He closed his eyes remembered his mother, he remembered the promise he had made to her. ”I will not fail. I will complete the race”, he said to himself. He remembered how his mother had told him that God was his father and that he was always looking after him. He prayed to God to give him the strength to complete the race. He wanted to have the courage to face everyone lest he failed, so he asked God for that too. The sky had started to clear. The clouds had begun to disappear.

Closing his eyes he gently took his position. The race was about to begin, and all participants arranged themselves neatly in a line, ready to roll. The final whistle blew and all the kids pushed their boards to top speed. Five minutes into the race, one could see that a lot of fancy boards had swayed off course, out of the race track and were thus disqualified. The young boy’s board rolled steadily towards the finish line. The sun beamed happily across the child’s happy face. He could see himself finishing the race. God had given him the strength he wanted. And thus after a few more second the boy not only completed the race, but also won it. He was awarded with a trophy and some sweets. Other kids looked surprisingly at the kid and realized the importance of keeping the design of a roller-board simple. The fancy ones they had, didn’t balance the weight properly and thus strayed off course. The boy took the trophy and walked home. He wanted to see the expression on his mother’s face when he walked into the house with that trophy in his hand. People saw him looking up at the sky as he walked past them. No one but the boy understood what had just passed.

Perhaps we spend too much of our time in asking God to help us rig the race. We want him to help us win while we should seek his grace in giving us strength. The other kids had wanted God to help them win, while the young kid asked for strength to bear the troubles that lay in his path. It is unimportant whether he won the race or not, what is important is that he believed in God and more importantly he had courage. And just to end the story.

“Do you want to win or do you want others to see you win?”

I shall be waiting for your response. I had read the story a long time back in the ‘The Speaking Tree’, just wanted to share it with you.

Coffee.. anyone??

‘The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self. All sin is easy after that’

I got very poor grades in my Moral Science in school, so theoretically I flunked at the very beginning of starting out my life as a social animal, and hence the following article is not exactly certified by the Board for Secondary Education. But then this is a free country, I can do and say whatever I like and get away with it. So this time, I am merely jotting down my views on a very common occurrence of our lives. A thing that gained my interest very recently, when I had to sit down for half an hour with a friend of mine constantly whining about cheating in examinations.

I do not intend to take a stand, and spit fire at those involved in the highly skilled art of cheating. The article merely mentions some very key elements involved in the complex problem. The difficulty with any argument against such things is that it continuously revolves around ethics and morality, thereby making it not only cumbersome but also hypocritical. I intend to elucidate certain aspects of this grievance which very often are forgotten when examining a problem of such nature.

Firstly, we need to define cheating. As oxford puts it ‘an act of dishonesty to gain profit’ is cheating. Overlapping the above definition with our educational system we get a clear idea of what cheating is. An action which gives you an unfair advantage over others in an examination will be termed as cheating. Therefore any such act like carrying chits, writing on desks, and other means can be easily clubbed together as an act of cheating liable for punitive action. But the definition has a flaw. Suppose in an examination of 100 students, 60 are involved in the unfair practices, does it still give you an extra advantage or does it simply bring you at par with others around you? Think about it..

Secondly, the ‘art of cheating’ as I put it requires both skill and courage to carry it out successfully without being caught. The level of difficulty involved in any method of cheating clearly keeps a check on the practice and only those in dire need of passing the examination resort to such methods. But when it becomes easy to cheat and gain marks, obviously there will be a swarm of students indulging themselves in such acts. When you are sure of not getting punished for doing a bad deed, can you be held guilty for trying to gain an added advantage in today’s competitive world?

Thirdly, any student involved in the act of cheating can never be trusted with a position of responsibility. As a student there are certain norms we must follow and groom our self for the future difficulties, while working within those rules. An act of cheating does not indicate a rebellion, rather it accentuates the weakness of a person’s moral fiber. A person who succumbed to the small pressure of passing an examination will obviously not be able to handle situations in real life which not only pressure but also money and lives of a lot of people. Entitling such a person to key position in any organization would only jeopardize the company’s future.

Fourthly, nobody is born a criminal; you become one only when the circumstantial pressures become overwhelming. Students resorting to cheating shows the amount of pressure being put on the young minds, and the fact that knowledge today is judged by the grades and not on abilities. I have so far avoided speaking on cheating being wrong morally simply because we today are living in world where we need logic and reasoning to prove everything. People today don’t understand emotions and look for reasons to explain every action. But there is a sense of right and wrong in every human being which cannot be denied, and our conscience clearly tells us what is morally correct and what is not. Stabbing a person is not the same as slapping him, and our conscience tells us this. We don’t need rocket science to prove the difference between good and bad. In a similar fashion cheating and using unfair means is simply bad and we know it. You don’t have to prove or disprove it. We already are blessed with a sense which does it for us.

Finally, cheating does in fact get you in a position of advantage over others. As we know that in war it is always beneficial to have a vantage point under your command. Hence I ask what is wrong with a person seeking a head over others in a difficult competition? Now the only answer I got was, that in a society like ours, driven solely by monetary gains, it is completely rational to cheat if it benefits you.

As you can see, most of the points mentioned above simply turn out to be self contradictory, and complexly intermingled. Also it can be seen that it is not that cheating is itself the problem, it is merely an outcome of a lot different things spiraling in space and intertwining with each other. Moral weakness, failure of educational system, overburden, pressure to succeed and most importantly the lack of moral values in today’s society, all add up to cause this evil.

I guess that will be it for now. And please do not forget to comment on this article. I would absolutely love to know your views on it too. Please do comment. .

A LESSON FROM THE PAST

Every great civilization has a history. A history which is very often marred with battles, conquests, achievements, and a continuous process of change and development. Ours is one such great civilization. We have a culture filled with engrossing myths, tales of valor, ideas of great thinkers and a thread of unity that has until now been able to tie us together into an ornament adorning the planet. We are a free country now, {or much better, were subjected to foreign rule for a few years in between}, a country marching proudly {seemingly} under the influence of the new found exuberance of technological bubbles.

I write today about something that is very closely related to our history and has somehow managed to travel through time and has now become a symbol of our existence and freedom. Something that epitomizes not only dynamism and change but also stands for unity and equality of humans. The object of discussion is an integral part of our national flag and very often gets ignored because of its size and diminutive appearance. It is merely ironic that the ‘Ashoka Chakra’ which once represented a great ruler and his flourishing empire now marks the presence of a free Indian society. The greatness of the ideas that this chakra represents has almost been forgotten today. Not only does the ‘Ashoka Chakra’ stand for a wheel of change and a continuum of evolution, it also symbolizes the views of a great king, the very reason for which the emblem was used.

In a country bleeding due to wounds of widespread parochialism, the emblem stands for equality and peace. In a country ruled by short sighted, self centered and selfish leaders, the emblem preaches the ideas of morality and righteousness in action. While we are governed by a bunch of [#$%^] who put their conscience up for sale for a few votes, the emblem marks the empire of a great emperor who realized the importance of good governance and citizenship in a civilization. In a country where people fight in the name of religion the emblem preaches non-violence and mutual respect. The emblem stands for ethics, freedom, change, and most importantly the forgotten human values of love and compassion. It is funny how a person realized these ideals more than 1000 years ago, whereas now while we call ourselves a modern society, our closet reeks of intolerance, corruption, suppression, and hypocrisy.

Our history is replete with such inspirational stories of great men and women. The significance of ‘Ashok Chakra’ is just one of many great ideas that survived the test of time. Next time you have a look at our flag, just remember what Ashoka realized after Kalinga,…. and passed down to us… to follow…

REQUIEM

In the world filled by darkness cold and fear,
I feel lonely again, longing for someone dear.

I speak now as if in a trance,
Caught in this state not by mere chance.

But due to some frailty of my mind,
When it pains me by showing dreams unkind.

And then I remember what I have seen,
And heard tales, fables, and stories, umpteen.

Of bees and blossoms and, springs and flowers,
Of wind and light and thunderous showers,

Of pain and gain and love and hate,
Of tear and smile and luck and fate,

Of blood smeared battles, and lustrous fairs,
Of acts of cowardice and courageous dares,

Of places where darkness sleeps,
While sunlight to the corners keeps,

Of people who killed for pride and power,
And of those who fell from their Ivory Tower.

I have heard it all and seen it all,
And I ask you know to make a call,

Of why you think it happens so,
That when you should let things go,

You hold fast as if holding a dream,
Undreamt, but you wish to dream?

Its strange how from so many stories told,
None spoke of how souls were sold,

For dreams that were, or were not, seen,
And world that is now or should have been!!