My Country - Everything for a better tomorrow. Really!
So after my short trip to Rajasthan I finally reach Gurgaon and took an auto-rickshaw to visit my mom at AIIMS,
Common Wealth Games 2010 are approaching, so I can see all the hustle-bustle to project an image of what we are not. Standards have been set by our neighbor at the not-so-recently concluded Olympics. I am familiar with
Anyways, my routine since my mom’s operation has been visiting mom at AIIMS during daytime and going back to Masi’s place in the evening. The congested roads, the inching traffic and the construction site have become a part and parcel of my routine road trips. On my visit today to AIIMS, I was in for a surprise. The usual scene here is a lot of hotch-potch and unregulated traffic. Add to all this- a visit by President Pratibha Patil: It’s CHAOS! Routes have been changed, traffic diverted, some roads closed, others made one-way.
Whose tomorrow is it now! A few days earlier during our respected PM Manmohan Singh’s visit to PGI,
The cost of daily utility items is increasing at an exponential rate. Corruption is eating my country from inside. The politicians are filling their bank balances, and later call themselves a poor guy being targeted because they belong to minority: “I am a tribal”, quotes one of the likes. Convicts are on the p(a)ro(le)wl. And the Mango Man keeps paying all the costs, even literally: income tax, service tax, toll tax, entertainment tax, VAT.
My country is progressing towards a better tomorrow! Sure it is! Or is it? But when is this tomorrow? How long will it last? Will we every achieve it?
But the cost sure is: Yours and Mine today. Is it worth it?
Good Night and Good Luck!
Comments
Great Atempt!!
Rock It Buddy!!
But the Corruption and misuse of power is something which is present almost everywhere, and we must understand that democracy is not free (and all this is cost of democracy).
But we should also understand that situation detoriated before improving, and to improve the situation we need to continuously raise the issue.
And answerer to Vishal question whether cost of this is worth or not than I must say YES. Since we can’t let situation to remain same (which is not very good today, I must say) we have to try for improvement
And at the end I would like to steal few line from Movie “rang de basanti”
“koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota use perfect bana padta hai”.
I have some questions
A) why are you so anti system
B) You had the gutts and dynamism to be a part of the system and change , y did you choose the easier way to write blogs
C)whom are you taking a refrence nation to compare indian developement? USA? A more than 150 year old democracy with the recent indian one?
I think we have all got used to cribbing rather than finding out solutions. How many of us actually think of getting out from our luxury cars and resolve a traffic jam. We wanna just sit in the A.C. car and cribb about the system.
And strangely, something like this coming from Vishal Kohli I know is a shock.
As far as a better tomorrow... Aren't you living it today. Your parents saw that tomorrow for you and you are living it today even better than their imagination. Its your turn to see that better future for your generations to come and they will live it even better than you mind can map levels to.
Believe in the system. Its moving at much faster pace than you and i imagine.Just look around and you ll see n no. of things moving in the positive direction for the better tomorrow.
Seems you were too frustated with the JAM last nite.
Staying in noida and seeing all the roads jammed for almost 2 years around d metro construction area had been a grim and utterly frustrating experience for me. But during my recent, first metro ride in delhi-noida metro, it all seemed worth it, considering the ease it offers. Now, some questions here:
1. The metro construction definitely is going to help delhi a lot for some years to come, but sooner or later, even the metro is gonna get jampacked and then what
2. Just like any other govt. initiative, the mango man here was butchered becuase of the imminent Corruption was.Many lives were lost in oblivion.
So, what really needs to be developed lies at the much basic level. We might work like crazy on the surface but till we get the basic things right, nothing would help. Our country today needs a strong emphasis on education for all, so that we grow up and become resposible citizens, who despise corruption. We need to tackle population explosion or even the earth would suffocate one day. we need to understand the meaning and purpose of a queue. We need all this and a lot more. And all this is what each one of us should strive for.
@Indi: I strongly disagree with your views on blogging being an easier way out. Writing is a very powerful medium. And Blogging today has become a most fundamental way to use our right to speech. You're not alone when you blog.Its a whole bunch of you and me who listen. And trust me its quite cumbersome to compile your thoughts in a piece of writing which reaches out like this one.
Also, this writing surely triggers my brain cells to explore and understand the bits which make our system like it is today and instigates me to do my part the best I can. Period.
I call it the easier way coz i have seen vishal more to act upon things then just observe,pass by them and sit back and later to think about it all writing a blog.
The whole point is system isnt a stand out. You and me make the system. Are we sure that we have done our duties well to bring synergy to the overall system.
The Indian Constitute provides us not only with fundamental right but duties too.How many of us even remember them ? Here they go:
# To abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;
# To cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom;
# To uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India;
# To defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;
# To promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;
# To value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;
# To protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wild life, and to have compassion for living creatures;
# To develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform;
# To safeguard public property and to abjure violence;
# To strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavor and achievement.
Its human to keep asking for your rights but isnt it really important to give back in the form of our duties.
Lets not isolate our selves from the system.You are a part right from the time you cast your vote to the time you cribb about things not changing.
Also i don't support corruption but even when Shastri Ji(one of the most honest people India have ever had ) was the prime minister what do you think was the growth % .. It was less 4% and today we are aiming at double digit. Honestly I dont have time to bear the responsibilities and so I think corruption is something we all pay as a fee for outsourcing our duties.
We all should do our little bit and improve. But on the other hand we all are doing our jobs, and doing it with full dedication and at the end of the day we pay taxes to the government.
The govt. has delegated the duties to Police Deptt, Municipal Corporation, NHAI, PWD, Water and Sewerage Deptt., Electricity etc etc etc to keep the law and order, make roads, supply clean and health water etc etc. And the government pays the employees their to do there work and they should do it properly. If those employees shrug their duties or do it half heartedly and the Mango Man has to get down to do all the work in addition to the work he is doing then it is not the right way. It is unethical and criminal to even expect this.
I cannot get down from my car everyday to sort out the traffic, what is the traffic police-mans job? How am I supposed to pay for my train ticket and then clean my compartment before keeping my luggage. How can government expect people to travel by public transport, when to catch the bus or train a person has to travel 10km and then walk another 1km to reach his office.
Anyways this will go on and on. We all need to choose our sides.
I have to say this....really nice article. Good work. You have come a long way in ur articulation skills. Good going.
Pawan
Any comments?
Love this though. And and total concede with it. I hope the govt is hearing.
and it's nice of you to list down our duties here..Kudos to your belief in the system..but there's still a long way to go. I'm looking forward to the day when the mango man who lives in 6,80,000 villages of India shows the same belief..
anyways, whatever, i find this article very much to be a true picture of what has really been witnessed for a long time now. i agree with each and every word of it. i wished to write a comment right away when i finished reading it i.e a couple of hours when it was actually posted. had i done that i would have missed the chance to comment on the comments then. and i found indi's one to attack at. but as i came down to your response to her comment, i found every single thing already answered the way i just thought it to. still there's one for her question:
C)whom are you taking a refrence nation to compare indian developement? USA? A more than 150 year old democracy with the recent indian one?
alright if you don't have a competitive approach towards things you can achieve in life, there's a not-so competitive analogy. take the case of China, india got independence in 1947 i.e to say india was free to do whatever it felt like after 1947. while China got its freedom only after 1950 which is 3 years from that of indian independence. now see where india stands in front of china even after more than what 60 years of INDEPENDENCE.
China hosted the olympic games quite competitively a while ago, while we can't think of it even 15 years from hence. ok leave olympics aside, we are even not sure as to what honor are we going to be conferred with hosting common wealth games this year. alright, let's leave these so much talked about things also. let's see how well are we doing otherwise. take the case of indian railways. can you give me a rough figure for the speed you think the fastest indian train would be running at??
it is trivendrum rajdhani at 162 km/hr. mind taking a look at the fastest chinese train-"Maglev", with a breathtaking whoosh, it rockets to 300 kilometers per hour in two minutes flat. touching 500 kmph in test runs this train touches 431 kmph as its top speed. and to your surprise i would here like to divulge the fact that even USA, a what like 150 year old democracy, as you pointed out, didn't match it any closer because this train happened to be the world's fastest at its launch in as early as 2002. i think i made my point clear of not comparing ourselves with someone but giving someone else a fanatic desire to match our records.
education in india is not left far behind. the indian institutes of technology, topmost engineering schools in india, start after the world rank of 40 with IIT kanpur to be at 42nd position. i.e the first in india is 42nd in the world. even after such a disruption our politicians, for the sake of their vote bank, are reluctant of waiving the quota system which works as a catalyst towards this disruption. according to you the solution is to come out of your luxury cars and resolve it on your own.
oops limit reached. for more on this visit http://adroitvicky.blogspot.com/
I Loved the Mango Man thing and the style you have adopted.
Well.. a lot has been said and am sure most of it will forgotten by most of us sooner or later unless we suffer again. A traffic jam is something suffered by car owners like us and we end up in talking about taking action and the system.
But just to add my viewpoint and to answer to your question as to where are we heading.. I feel the country is apparently progressing but actually revolving in a strange vicious circle which by now has become so complex that you feel breathless when you imagine the depth of the realities.
Corruption is in our blood. What can be done to curb it? A Better judiciary and More Stringent laws? For which a bill/ordinance need to be passed in the Parliament for any amendments in law and the parliament consists of the same corrupt political leaders. So We fail.
Innumerable Gods, religions and castes and we have differentiated on the basis of these and not limited ourselves to respecting the other’s existence and live peacefully. The politics in the country in fact runs on these sections of the society. We are Punjabis, Marathis, Gujartis, Brahmins, Dalits and what not. We only feel we are Indian when 11 men on a ground fight their life to win a cup in a game called cricket or when a Taj is attacked by an outsider arousing our patriotism for next four days.
The liberty is more accessed by the Politicians in calling ‘bandh’ for no reason and crashing shops if they operate, for banning films and books and basically conduct their gundagardi. The poverty continues, leading to illiteracy, unemployment, crimes, religious fights and there is no end.
The public is the one who needs security but it is one prestigious political leader who is given the costliest and most uptight security. If this leader has to travel midst of the city or to a common public location, all the entries and roads are blocked. So we elect these leaders to put us in a traffic jam. Someone or the other of these leader is involved in a scam or murder or something as bad as communal riots. Who will raise a voice? If I do, my parents would tell me that the politicians are powerful, they can get you killed. And that’s true. Power is what matters. So Either someone either has no right and freedom to raise voice on one hand because he is not powerful and rich or someone like the political gundas have too much of liberty. So we fail again.
We spit, pee and litter on roads. Can we fight against the government to provide for better road infrastructure like more number of toilets in cities and highways? No. We have formed the habit in living at ease. We have taken things for granted. We blame the system and say, they don’t clean the city. Hello!! Lets do our part in keeping things clean so that we can ask others also to do the same.
So lets first stop taking things for granted and the system stops taking the Mango man for granted. Then we can surely think of competing with the world. Because India truly is so capable and abundant that it can be a benchmark for even the ruling countries of the world but we need to build ourselves internally.
Are we prepared to follow real austerity to bring the country in a streamline (Bcz we seriously need it)? Are we ready to face a rule to control population? What if we are asked to have one child per family in the coming 10 years? Lets talk practical. Who actually believes that the country will be better and have a better system with all the politicians blabbering everyday only for a “seat”. So the action has to be strict. Real harsh. Something like hang till death for corruption and Millitary Rule in the system. Lets talk real solution. we cant anymore leave it on some government. It has not helped and would never help.
All The Best. Waiting for more of such great piece of writing from you Vishal. Take care.