Thinking aloud
February 14, 2011 § 4 Comments
Congratulations to Egypt and her people. To stand up without ammunitions, with only peace, hope and belief as their weapons, they have achieved something which many of us had written off as impossible.
Like rest of the world, I am just another sympathizer. Fair enough, because it did not happen close to my home or in my country. But when people tweet and retweet, when they post updates on facebook and write about in their blogs, I wonder, why don’t we have the guts to stand up.
Each and every day, I come across stories of horror fueled by corruption and spread by a supposed invincibility. We all know. Most of us dismiss as ‘normal’ and conclude ‘what can I do’. But when people can say things on twitter, when many Indians can waste time on facebook liking pages about TV shows and trying to become tycoons and millionaire farmers, why can’t we stand up? Why can’t we make the buffoons realize that we will not tolerate it.
I am not talking about the poor. I am not talking about those people, who we think do not exist. I am talking about you and me, who are ready enough to bribe a police man when caught, who are ready enough to curse the same police man and at the same time sympathize with him. I am talking about us hypocrites.
We live in a pseudo-democracy. We are in times when newspapers are willing to accept money for publishing articles, when news channels no more report but propagate, when you no more know what is reality.
All of us,know about a particular man who was behind the whole Commonwealth games and what he did. We tweeted, we created facebook pages, but why weren’t we able to do anything about it? Because we accepted it as right. Right of that class of this country to steal and do whatever they want. We are sadly, happy enough to sit in our A/C rooms and cabins and let things pass. We are couch/recliner rebels. We dare not do anything about it- for our rights begin and end with being able to talk about something.
We are expected to believe that one man can steal unbelievable amounts of money. We are willing to let ourselves be divided in every way possible, without doing anything about it. We are willing to accept that it is alright for traffic to be blocked for hours for one person to go.
A certain Sen, can be put behind bars, without 99% of the country having heard about the case. And the media shall show you an actor’s wedding even when there are floods or droughts in another part of the country.
We are in a free country. But every choice has a cost- the cost of choosing to stand up for our rights is increasing even as we brush aside everything as ‘normal’ and go on with it. We cannot support our neighbours when they are pressured by certain people, we cannot fight for those people whose lands are stolen, we cannot even be without paying for a college seat.
It is depressing to think about these things. The choices we have are- a) take the ‘wheel of the bus , b) get out of the bus , c) show support to someone who is willing to take the ‘wheel. Most of us can’t drive a two-wheeler properly, so let alone a bus. We cannot get out of the bus, simply because we are in the middle of a jungle and do not know where to go. But if someone is willing to take the ‘wheel, why don’t you show support?
We do need someone to take the ‘wheel. Unfortunately, to appeal to the masses, to garner support from the educated Indians who work in big offices, you need a lot more than them merely having faced the blunt of the various negative forces. They are like fishes, who refuse to believe that a bigger pond is just a jump away today. Tomorrow our pond is going to become so small, that we are going to die here.
To the usual readers of this blog, these things I say are nothing new. I ask myself what have I done? Nothing. I am just another 19-year-old who refuses to grow up – I still believe in those good things which people said when I was a kid. I wish I can do something. But I have come to realize that that something should be big enough to not fall. It will be hard work, to build this force, brick by brick, but I am willing to do it. What is in my head, stays in my head, till then.
The above might be just to convince myself that I am not turning a blind eye to the things that bother me, but I am hoping that isn’t the case. Youth Unite was an experience. I saw how people react when posed with even a simple thing like writing about what they think on various issues. I will continue to have hope and believe in what I believe.
End of rant. Thank you for reading.
the light shines the brightest 
Agreed. What is wrong with us is we are too involved in our own lives to bother about what is going on with our neighbours, forget fellow citizens. It is very fashionable to talk about current affairs in meetings and informal settings but to act about it is asking too much from the indifferent middle class that we are turning into.
PS: Much improved style of writing !! 😀
There are two things that I think: First, our understanding of the real issues. As you said, we have a biased media, and even biased people telling us about everything and hence we believe in neither. So, we are not clear about what we are fighting. Second, the resources – even if we come to a considerable understanding of the ‘issues’ we need to fight, we need the resources to do so. Thats why the middle class is quiet (or) joining the perpetrators. But for that, they will pay a huge price, later.
Destination Infinity
I know what you mean, but at times a revolution is not the answer. I think Egypt is in a bigger mess now because they don’t have the people in place for a proper democracy. The army controls the business and now as its at the helm it will cling on. One just hopes that fundamentalists do not take over, but the army is just as bad!
In India I think a lot of things have happened to humiliate and punish those who committed crimes. Not near enough, but it’s a start. There are a lot of NGO and public activists who are doing a lot, it’s just that we don’t read about them. Newspapers take credit for many exposes, but the truth is that some individual takes it to the press, and often does the investigation.
Look at the Adarsh scam. People are being punished.
Some people do get away, if they are close to the powers and we don’t even hear their names!
I think all of us can contribute in some way. The RTI applications are a way!