Travelogue 11

We take so many things for granted. We just use and over use and abuse. Our own body to begin with, people that we love and don’t, the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the natural resources that are god’s gift to us, the animals that we slaughter to satisfy our ever greedy taste buds, and everything else that we are fortunate to have soon becomes a matter of fact and we cease to value it.

Our country is Freedom personified. We truly enjoy a lot of freedom. Not just of Expression, Speech, Religion, Travel… ( and I can say this even more emphatically now). It is not anymore necessary for a child to fill in the father’s name on forms. A person can choose to change his or her name with an Affidavit. Post marriage a woman can attach her maiden last name and her husband’s last name to her first name. I recollect hearing on T.V. that forms will now have an additional column -“Others”, in category Sex. There is Right to Information. Public Interest Litigations can be filed. These are little things but significant. And yet all that most of us who are cynical and sarcastic, ever do is crib and criticise India. The politicians, the corruption, population, the infrastructure……I think for our size and the cultural, religious, political and social diversity, we are not doing bad. .

No place is perfect. There are people here too who jump signals, who litter in the buses and trains and who spit around... I guess the sheer size of our population makes more visible, back home. It’s not about a developed or developing country. It’s about in-disciplined people which you will find world over. The garbage bins overflow in this country too, and just now the local government is in a helpless position, unequipped to deal with so much of snow. The roads are dirty with slush, that the cars splash on to you, the footpaths are slippery with ice, the buses and trains get dirty with dirty wet footwear. Also some essential winter wear is out of stock in the shops and so on. This country also has her own share of problems. Alcoholism, Drugs, Unemployment, an ageing population, lack of child care facilities which make it almost impossible for most women to work, Religious Minorities, East Germany and all her problems because of lack of development, and generally a lack of spiritual unrest and disconnect........... Unfortunately it is never the people but the country that always carries the blame burden.

There are so many things that all of us find fault with and would want to change. Especially all things around us. Our pay checks, our boss along with his caller tune, the way our girlfriend cooks and wife looks, the noisy neighbours, the stubborn policeman, the stench in the train, the flashy clothes of a local corporator, the corporator himself, the huge statue placed in the middle of a small road, your best friend’s boyfriend, deforestation, Daily Soaps and Reality shows, the gaudily painted temples, pollution of rivers, forced donations of all kinds, the jasmine hair oil that a colleague wears, medical facilities in rural areas, firecrackers during Diwali, the uniforms of postmen and peons, Mumbai as Bombay, the condition of our Architectural Heritage, the Zoos, and the Loos, vote bank politics, Grading system in schools, slums, verbal diarrhoea, roads with potholes, female infanticide, cycle rickshaws, even worse - Tongas, Reservations for minorities, Inflation, Olympics and us….. All needs a change. All, but ourselves. We won’t change. We don’t need to!!!!! Says who????

I say, if you want change, be the change. Change cannot always be a matter of convenience.