The Definiton of Being an Indian!

This one is gonna be long and perhaps not accepted by everyone.
But, any way, this is my Blog.

I have been asking this question to myself for a long time now, I have poised the question to people of different age groups, different mentalities. "What do you mean by being an Indian?". I havent got any satisfactory answers. I havent got answers. I want one. It is simply unacceptable if I dont get an answer, because there is something that we are "taught" to be proud of right from childhood. Its obvious, we must love our nation. But what is it that holds us together? What is the one common factor that unites us. What is is that makes us 'Indian'??

You might have guessed what I am moving towards. I am questioning the concept of India. I am questioning the reason why we love our nation-state. I am going back to Rousseau, to Voltaire and those thinkers who lay the foundation to nation-states. These are treacherous paths. Success is not guaranteed.

I am proud to be an Indian. But I dont know what being an "Indian" is! This is tricky, this is murky, this is interesting, this is laughing-stock.

Let us consider some examples.
Almost all European states are proud to have a language, a race or perhaps religion.
The UK is proud of English and its dialects. It is proud of being a protestant nation. Maybe that is their "British-ness".
France speaks French, Germany speaks German.
The Slav countries have a race to be proud of. The European countries have a language to be proud of. Most have an ideology to be proud of. Some have Democracy to be proud of, some have communism( although I don't know why they are proud of it!).
Mexico is proud to be Spanish-speaking yet Latin American in culture.
Pakistan is proud to be Islamic and anti-Indian.
China is proud to be Chinese (race and language).

Question: What are we proud of? Why do we not fight amongst ourselves? Or, do we?
Answer: (not satisfactory) "We are a unity in diversity! (pompous)

Now, here I move on to much graver issues. I fail to accept how one can be proud of being diverse. Proud of being "nothing".
What do I share with a Mallu (Keralite) Muslim boy? Not religion, nor race, nor language, nothing! But yet I feel he is just like me. He is Indian. Yes, accepted. Someone please explain to me what being an Indian exactly means, because I fail to accept this "Unity in Diversity" theory. I feel its bullshit.

Let me give you a hypothetical situation. Let us say, that there are 18 different kinds of people in India. We are tolerant towards each, they are a part of our 'diversity'. Now, suddenly, there appears a 19th type of person. How can this happen? Let us consider Nepali/Bangladeshi refugees. Or maybe some Greek population settled in India (just like Indians settle in Canada/Australia).
Now, will we accept this 19th kind of person into our diversity? Think about it. Although this is hypothetical, it is happening all over the world. The French, the Romanian are growing apprehensive over Muslim/Algerians settling in their country. The USA is showing signs that it no longer wants Indians. Australian attacks on Indian students are another example. Now its a different story altogether that no one wants to settle in India, but yeah, this can't happen! We won't accept another kind of guy. So, why do we accept each other?

We do not have a common language, common religion, honestly ours isn't a democracy nor is it a Communist nation. We were never united. We were always 100 different kingdoms fighting against each other. Why does one expect a Tamilian and a Punjabi to live together in harmony?
The South refuses to accept Hindi, which is justified. The North wants to force Hindi. Bad. The North-East is neglected, as always.
A Bengali judge will favour Bengalis in a Reality show. A Marwari businessmn will promote the interests of his own community businesses. An Entra( Gult for some) will never mingle with others (college politics). Some Haryanvi Khaps will burn their own children, just because they married out of "Caste". A Marathi mother will view UP as the land of people with criminal mentality. Some traitors like Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray and their Senas will not allow Biharis or Madrasis their right to settle in any part of the country. They will whip these innocent labourers and drive them out of Mumbai-the city of dreams. Yes, this shows a lot of UNITY.

There can never be Unity in Diversity. Atleast not in the minds if people. It couldn't be done in 65 years. The Cold War between regions and languages has continued too long. Politics is no longer Nationalist. It is regional, with coalitions of regional parties running the nation.

Going back to Rousseau, there is nothing such as being an "Indian". Perhaps calling oneself Indian is calling oneself "nothing". But yes, we have been taught that being Indian binds us together. So, we, the open, thinking minds of the country think about this kind of stuff. Some of us still believe in the concept of 'India'. We perhaps are looking for a time when we will be united. But how? NO ONE CAN SAY WITH CERTAINTY.

Perhaps we got united because we wanted to fight the British. Yeah, that seems reasonable enough. But it cant last long. After all, the British are gone. But now that unity is breaking away, and exponentially. This might be the reason that most of us think that we Indians aren't a bunch of patriotic heads. There might come a time when we get united against a tyrant Government, but then the Govt. will be toppled and then? Same story, true story.

Maybe it is time we found out a reason to be patriotic, a reason to be Indian, a reason to be proud of our nation-state.
We are proud of something, some of us are patriotic, but I must find why I am, pretty soon.

The Quest

This one is all about me. So there will be a lot of 'me', 'I', 'my' etc. Yeah. Whatever. This is MY Blog!!! :D
It is 0230 by my watch when I start typing. I am in Goa, and I am enjoying my life at BITS. I am shaping my life here in this awesome institute. And I am in a rather rare dilemma- I like everything, and honestly, I am not really a n00b at anything I do.
Acads obb good, and most importantly I like it.
I am in love with music and I might say  I am a good singer.
I am good at drawing, sketching and stuff.
I like to write-poetry, songs, politics, I have even tried my hand at writing a novel-the story still in my head, (except for a few chapters).
History: Awesome thing to read!
Sports has been one thing that has been instrumental in letting myself become who I am. Cricket, Volleyball, Football and now, most recently the amazing new game- Ultimate Frisbee!

Now, I come to the title- The Quest. What Quest? For What? What For?
Oddly enough, it was supposed to be a quest to find something that I like the most. Elementary, my dear Watson? Not at all!! I stopped looking for answers, and it turned  into a quest for finding the thing I hate! Queer. Creepy. Difficult!!!

I tried hard. I tried my hand at everything! Do I really like everything? Ah! There is the culprit hiding under the  guise of science and the blanket of GK! I have finally found it, finally captured it, finally imprisoned it!!

Astronomy is the thing I will never like much. And even now I use the 'never like much' instead of 'hate'.
I just dont get the point. Yeah, the stars and the planets look awesome and stuff, but I really cant understand why people remember their names, galaxies that they've never seen, hypotheses, stars, planets, milky ways, super-novas, dwarfs, snow-whites(?!), black holes, data, universe, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Well, that is a start. Atleast one thing to not like. Awesome. Great. Good Night.

On Religion, Ritualism, Spiritualism

Religion: One very heavy, "use-with-care" word.
Ritualism: The process of wasting time, money and energy to show the world how you respect your God.
Bad=Gods: Ram, Krishna, Shiva, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Mohammad.
(for me, Ram, Krishna arent Gods. They are Kings, Warriors, they are real people from history. They were respected by their subjects. The people made them God. They were GodLike. They were A.W.E.S.O.M.E.)
Better=One God: The Creator.
Spiritualism: Awareness and submission to the divine, supreme force that makes the Laws of the World.

Temples: Places that remind us of the existence of God.
Prayers: Its an individual choice. We all pray in our subconscious mind. Atheists are those who are afraid of accepting the fact, they are afraid of convincing their own selves. They are cowards. Or maybe they just like themselves too much! :)

Religion has been misused. Most of the wars are fought for money but in the name of religion. The Crusades, Islamic Terrorism, Christian Missions, Sufi-Sunni wars. God dint want all of this shit.
Its the devil in our minds that has created different images of God. It has created a divide between faiths. Perhaps, it has CREATED different faiths.
Scriptures have been misused. Scriptures have been altered. God has been cheated. People have been turned against each other.

The World is in a mess.

The Indian Hypocrisy

Is India a democracy?
People will answer this with a proud, pompous and untrue "Of Course! How can you even ask such a silly question? India is the largest Democracy in the world". Well... No comments dude... But its time to realize that you have been seriously brain-washed, and maybe if you think rationally it will be a frustrating realization.

India is not the world's largest democracy. It is the world's largest hypocrisy.

Our laws are as feudal as they can get. We are in a kingdom. The govt is the king with no power, the bureaucarcy are the nobles with all power. Taxes are high, value of money is on the decline, inflation has taken away the commoners spending power. Luxury goods are getting cheaper, basic amenities, food is getting costlier. Corruption has spread in every nook and corner of the system leaving none untouched.

A  foreign sorceress and her pretentious son have bewitched the royals and ruined the land, meanwhile filling up their own treasury. The opposition is troubled and equally corrupt, fighting over trifles, and never getting to the point.
Well, in short, the system is rotten.

The system we live in is cynical, the powerful exploit it to the demands of the agressive few, to bargain for more power. 80% of the parliament has criminal records. The govt cares about the image of the Gandhi-Nehru family, but not about the needs of farmers. Censorship has reached its limit. People are not allowed to talk freely, express their views about a person. If that happens, historical institutes are ransacked, buses are torched, books are banned, people issue fatwa against these poor guys who have just done one thing- exercised their right to expression of thought!
Dr. Ambedkar, your constitution is under attack!! Oh, but never mind, you dint write it, did you! You just copied it from various sources. Yeah thats a tough job in the absence of Wikipedia and Internet. Hats off to you Sir!

Patriotism.
Well, thats one word from history.
Our National Anthem was written as a song to welcome King George. Hell with it.
Our first Prime Minister (I might get a lawsuit for writing this!!!), let go "barren, waste land" coz he dint care about it. He wore French clothes and smoked foreign cigars while advocating Swadeshi. Hell with him.

Whenever I think about this kind of stuff.... I end up getting frustrated. But we cant ignore it can we?? That is what our parents did. That is what our grandparents did. We cant be following their path can we?? We need change. Yeah its time.

Paper Tigers

Yeah.
Its official.
India have lost 8 matches in a row. 4 in England, 4 in Australia.
We need a big change!
People, change does not mean axing the seniors coz they are the ones who are performing. Drop Gambhir, Sehwag and Dhoni from the Test Team. Maybe Laxman too.
Get a new opening pair, get Rohit Sharma into the team. If he doesnt perform we could always try Raina and Yuvraj once he is fit. Why is the BCCI ignoring Dinesh Karthik? He is definitely a better player than Saha.

Make Zaheer Khan captian coz Sehwag doesnt deserve to be captain.

BCCI, please stop this stupid IPL. It is ruining our young batsmen.

" Rahane, Jaffer, Dravid, Sachin, Kohli, Rohit, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer, Ashwin, Ishant, Umesh/Ojha. "
Yeah this looks good.

If the openig pair fails get back Sehwag and Gambhir. If Karthik fails, get Dhoni back, but dont make him captain. Yeah it is sad, but Laxman might not get a farewell test that he deserves. But a firm decision has to be taken.

I love Test Match Cricket but India keep losing! I need change!!

Problems With Charity: The Beggar

Think of the situation when a beggar approaches you; you give him a 100 rupees.  You feel satisfied that the guy, for a change, might live one happy day in his life, and you have caused this change. Have you really? Or have you convinced him that begging will be a better option for his daily bread?

You have infact, hurt the economy of the nation. Begging is popular because it is a good business venture for most of the jobless, moneyless alcoholics in your city, and that is because you are the guys who are funding one of the most despicable occupations in the world: Begging.

This might be an exaggeration for some (is it? I don’t think so!), but it is the reality. So, the next time when you give your favourite beggar his daily bread, think about the fact that you are in fact encouraging the advancement of the begging profession, and in turn hampering the social and economic condition of your country.

According to a recent survey by Delhi School of Social Work there has been a phenomenal increase in the numbers of beggars in India. In a decade since 1991 their number has gone up by a lakh.There are some 60,000 beggars in Delhi, over 3, 00,000 in Mumbai according to a 2004 Action Aid report; nearly 75000 in Kolkata says the Beggar Research Institute; 56000 in Bangalore according to police records. In Hyderabad one in every 354 people is engaged in begging according to Council of Human Welfare in 2005.



The following stats were reported by Mid-Day

10,000
Number of minor beggars across Mumbai

Rs 500
Earning of a beggar per day

10,000
Number of child beggars in Mumbai

3 lakh
Approximate number of beggars in city

Rs 180 cr
Annual turnover of the begging industry



Yeah, perhaps some NGOs are working to rescue these 10,000 minors from this Begging Industry, but nothing will change unless you change the mindset of these beggars and persuade them to take up a better occupation than begging. Maybe this is an opportunity for a social entrepreneur to make money and also make these able-bodied beggars work for their money. Maybe this is an idea. Perhaps it wont work. But someone must try, something must be done.
It might not be better for them(yeah, now they have to work for their money), but it definitely is better for the country.

We live in a bad time, the govt is rotten, there is total anarchy. The Sarkar will do nothing, coz they dont care. Perhaps we do. Or perhaps we must.
Begging is a social evil. Hell No! Its a crime!! Yeah, something must be done.