Saturday 24 August 2013

Let's be alchemists: Change those wings back to GOLD!

“Yeh Kahaan Aa Gaye Hum, Yoonhi Saath Saath Chalte?”  “Where are we heading, having been unknowingly walking together?”

(This is not a Bollywood post like the previous one, but it does have one thing in common with it: the country from where both originate: India! India, and where the youth’s taking it.)



India! The country where the earliest civilizations started, where the mother of mothers, Mother Teresa, father of fathers, Mahatma Gandhiji, son of sons, Shravan Kumar and daughter of daughters, Rani Laxmi Bai set their feet. The nation where science and literature, architecture and music, astrology and astronomy, mathematics and poetry took birth and walked hand in hand to reach the zenith of all possible glories! The same India, Hindustan, Bharat or Aryavarta, where the Guptas, the Mauryas, the Mughals, the French, the Portuguese, the British laid hands on: some to construct, some to demolish. India, like the charm of crystal, the purity of a pearl, the essentiality of water and the décor of eras; is nothing less than the enigma of the present world!

For someone who is unaware of India, as a nation must happen to draw up a lovely image of a country bustling with every possible image of prosperity! He must have thought of ‘the enigma to the world’ as the unknown reason for such an amazing state! But sadly, if this person were to visit the place, he would find me and kill me for feeding him with the bullshit I’ve stated about the country in the above few lines. But, unlike him, the world knows it’s true! But then, sorrowfully, unlike the world, and like the person I talked about, our youth, the buzzing new generation doesn’t even have a guess, for whether it’s true or false.

The sons and daughters the nation provided us with continued to be ripe and fresh, ready to serve, ready to know and ready to acknowledge and respect the country. But it happens to be such that someone suddenly stopped watering the soil of our country; that the generation produced today, happens to be, not a little, but pretty much unaware of anything related to our country.  

I do not here, emphasize on the fact that India is a great country, and we must praise it for its flaws. I am also not being the crooked History teacher and asking every child to memorize when, where, how and why! But then, isn’t it important for us to know? For our children to know? And theirs and on and on?

“Unless India stands up to the world, no one will respect us. In this world, fear has no place. Only strength respects strength.” -Abdul Kalam.

We know the present scenario isn’t much of a worthwhile ‘watch and praise’ kind, but to lift the nation from the dooms of decay to the skies of development (which it lost a while ago) we need to children of the nation to do nothing more than this in the first place: LOVE! Yes, the simple four letter word again! But it’s got power. Power amounting to heights that can force one to be the change and continue to change. And maybe India only needs an alteration. So, imagine what respect can do!

When I was a little kid, my mother would tell me about how wonderful India is, about how glorious we were and ought to be. She taught me patriotic songs, we watched movies that moved me, even as a child! My father, during bed time, would tell me the Ramayana and Mahabharata, just so that I knew! It’s never unnecessary to pass on cultural stories. It’s never genius to not let your children know.

Today, if you pick a child and ask him, what we contributed to the world, he’ll smirk and say: ZERO! And no one would correct him. Well, you’ll say, “He is not even wrong! We did contribute that digit” But you do not know, with a zero, he means nothing! He needs to know, that it was math we gave the world, it was physics, it was art, it was poetry, it was design, it was democracy, it was fashion, it was yoga and, beyond all: CULTURE!


Have we forgotten what we taught?

Is there where we were destined to be?

Is this Bharat Mata? Are these her sons and daughters?

Let’s change the answer form a ‘YES’ to ‘NO’!

As children (even if you’re 18+), we’ll read and watch and as adults we’ll so the same, but also teach. We have inexhaustible raw material! A population of over 1.2 billion!

Let’s no longer call India a nation! Let’s let it be what it is: a festival! A festival called India! The festival that people join from around the globe, the festival where we show them what we’ve got, the festival where we CELEBRATE INDIA!




“India of the ages is not dead nor has she spoken her last creative word; she lives and has still something to do for herself and the human peoples.”
-Sri Aurobindo

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