Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Independence eh?

Tweets, status updates and text messages all start to roll in. News channels air Lata Mangeshkar's Jana Gana Mana every thirty minutes (Smart ploy that! They're assured of viewership for the fifty-two seconds they manage to incite their audience), Flags seem to fly everywhere and our PM sizes up Chandni Chowk before he triggers off nationwide celebrations.

LONDON LONDON STATUE!

<PAUSE>

We'll let our PM unfreeze though.

We'll allow him to admire Chandni Chowk's dingy streets, the Jama Masjid and the Gurudwara Sisganj.

Beautiful, isn't it?

<He Sighs> Thank you, Mr. PM!

Now we'll give him an ordeal to accomplish. An ordeal unrivaled in difficulty by none other. We'll humbly request him to introspect. Introspect about the marvel that is India, the greatest democracy the world has witnessed.

India, a country that never invaded any other. A country known to have established the first university. A country known to have invented the Ayurveda, the oldest system of medicine known to man. The very same nation that won praise from Albert Einstein for being the country that thought us to count!

Wonderful, isn't it?

It's time to raise the stakes a little higher. Let us now humbly request our PM to introspect on behalf of a billion Indians. Slightly tricky? Ah well ..

We still suffers from deaths due to contaminated water. We are proudly a poacher's paradise. We know 'preparations' for the Commonwealth Games have become synonymous with 'jokes', we cannot protect people in a world heritage railway terminus but let the man behind it stay unscathed for nearly two years, we can boast of seeing sky scrapers here, there and everywhere but cannot provide shelter for those rough hands that build them. We can run away with a respectable GDP but exposed lies our poverty levels like chickenpox boils on a boy's forehead!

We can ... we can't!

Now let us revert our attention back to the bushy face of our revered PM. He seems unmoved on that podium. As he stares up at the Tricolour, he knows all these problems exist, but, smart as he is, he knows the solution as well!

It's simple.

Merely stop gaping at the PM. These are your woes too. This is yours and my country too. Request the PM (humbly) to climb down those red steps of the Lal Qi'lah and ascend them yourself. See yourself as the man introspecting. See yourself making the changes. See for yourself a better sight.

<The PM hoists the flag and proceeds for his annual report>

The place where the PM stood merely moments ago is vacant.

Any takers?

















1 comment:

  1. could have been better...none the less a good read...a lil clique....u r capable of better..

    ReplyDelete