It feels wonderful tapping
my fingers once again against the laptop keys to jot down uncanny thoughts on
my favorite slate.
The confusion at this hour
that keeps pestering my psyche lies upon a very basic question where I find us,
the worthy citizens of India stumbling over.
Which way does our country
want to move exactly at the moment:
Is it modernization or
westernization.
Yes, the same point posed
by one of our politicians some days back. Well certainly this is not any pro or
anti party agenda for me.
Neither do I want to get
into a discussion about what he exactly wanted to achieve with this.
But just the thought of
choosing between “modernization and westernization”, made some wires twist within
my mind.
The questions I am about
to put are not my major concern but little milestones to the many concerns that
would lead us to chose either one of the two facets.
To begin with:
Why is wearing
jeans-tshirt or any western dress for that matter instead of conventional
outfit being taken as such a crucial prospect today.
Even the press finds it
such major news that it colors the entire front page to capture it.
And I don’t even want to
mention about the nuisance created by statements given by our honorable
politicians over this matter.
Let me put forth some more
choices like, considering continental food and foreign-born entertainment to be
symbolized as higher status components over desi ones. These topics may seem to
be small-scale while talking about the growth and development of our country.
But from a broader prospective, they portray the direction to which our
generation is being steered.
The ease and comfort
factor is understandable and trust me I don’t have a thing against globalization,
but wasting our energy and money over choosing these, while the country is
almost in the state of a huge turmoil from every visible perspective.
I wonder at times, did it ever
occur as a problem this big to our freedom fighters that they should have worn
t-shirt and jeans instead of kurta-pajama and then started off with the
satyagraha.
Aren’t we ourselves being
ironical here.
At one point of time, we
want our country to make a mark in front of the world, and at the second
instance we are rowing towards changing the image of our motherland and the
little aspects that define our civilization with the foreign twins.
The time and situation
demands our generation to rise above these little picks and concentrate on
taking bigger steps for India to bounce back and with its own identity rather
than with a westernized anatomy.
From where I can see, the
beginning step for us should be striving to bring about a change in our
education system, for starters.
Obviously the decisions
need to be taken by authorities and at the Central administration level.
But why waste time protesting
over the attire while the entire education hierarchy needs a makeover.
The other fundamental
though major interests that flash my mind over which we need to work upon are:
Cleanliness, discipline
and respect for each other.
Because with a head count
this huge, the above factors seem to appear to me as a necessity, not a choice
any more.
Our freedom fighters
definitely succeeded in dragging out the outlanders, but something they were
unable to get rid off, were the solid stains left behind in each and every
field.
Then why not use our
rights of living in a free nation and invest our time in something more reasonable.
These makeovers I am
talking about, are not modern concepts, but just the etiquettes that already
once existed on this land.
All we need to do is come
back to our senses which have been swayed away by the flashy western world and
try to rebuild our culture before it gets long lost.
Ours is a generation that
stands on the verge of a major switch to be seen by our nation and the entire
world.
It completely depends upon
us that in the procedure of modernization, whether we want to open the gateways
for western winds again or achieve back the grand status that India once
possessed.
The glorious past and its examples
have been employed by each one of us, only to win over in oral debates against
the western world.
Why keep the splendid possessions alive just
in our thoughts and conversations.
The world believes only in
deeds.
Every step we take, each
decision we make, will give our country a totally new face.
Do we want to cover the
face of the “Golden Bird” with fallacies that keep hypnotizing our generation into
making a choice of westernization over modernization.
Let us think it over again
and chose the direction with utmost precision.
