The ONE point

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity....

Well… that just about sums up what we need to do from now on....yeh toh pehle kahin padha hua lagta hai (shayad suna hua bhi)...

Long years ago, this very speech began our country's journey as an independent country. It probably was the peak of our Nationalism and Unity. Lets call it The ONE Point or TOP…ONE being the highest value of nationalism any person can achieve (Analogous to system efficiency which determines how well a system works, Nationalism is the factor that determines how well a Nation works). It was a time when people had an apparent common enemy to fight and everyone came together during the freedom movement. Somehow that value has gone wayyyy down over the years…don’t know how many zeroes after the decimal point (Talk about the Nano heh).

What stood in 1947 as a single nation is turning back into a collection of princely states. Yesterday I had mentioned about how there were so many online posts where Indians and Pakistanis mindlessly cursed each other. A similar pattern is found on the net on Indian communities where we Indians foulmouth each other over state boundaries, language, religion and what not. We have 2 states fighting over water!!! We fight Pakistan at the border…and we fight amongst ourselves over whether Belgaum should come under Maharashtra or Karnataka. Shouldn’t we get that sorted out before we fight an outsider?

But we don’t have a perfect state either. We have biased corrections at the district level. How is it that Latur always has all the toppers.? People actually started going to that place because the exam corrections there are easier. So, a new law was made that was applicable only to Latur that restricted admission to people not from the Latur district to 30 percent of the seats. Instead of improving the correction methods, they applied another quota. The end result…the same law is about to be implemented in every district. Shouldn’t we sort this mess out before fighting with Karnataka?

But we take our city itself. We have the MMRDA (Mumbai Metropolitan Road Dev Corp) and MSRDC (Maharashtra State Regional Dev Corp) fighting and destroying public property (road signs) because of disputes over which areas come under the development of MMRDA and which under MSRDC. How stupid can you get?? Shouldn’t we sort this out before we fight against other districts?

Why is it that Lata Mangeshkar comes out to protest only against the Peddar road flyover that would be too close to the buildings and would be a safety hazard and keep mum when the JJ Flyover was constructed?

Why is it that people protest against there being a Hawkers Zone outside their building premises which would lead to garbage accumulation when the same people throw garbage out of their apartment windows inside their building compound on their neighbours cars?

In the end it all boils down to The ONE Point….ME

If what I see around me is not good, it is because I am not good. So when I improve, I am in a position to tell someone else to improve. When I am not prejudicial about a person’s nature or motive just by the shape of his beard, I will be in a position to tell someone else to not be prejudicial. When I will refuse to be the stereotype Gujju who can identify a stereotype Undergundu (every southindian=madrasi), I will be in a position to tell an Undergundu ki not every Gujju puts Money over everything else and its not only the Gujju that puts Money over everything else. When I decide not to bribe a police officer, I will be in a position to file a complaint against any person who takes a bribe. When I bring my nationalism to TOP, I will be in a position to expect the country to be at TOP.

Otherwise, Love Story 2050 would make sense if it was a Cross-Border Love story of a Punjab di Sikhdi Manjeet and TopGun Murugan.

Happy Independence Day !

PS: “Our Diversity Fucks us.” – Ganeshan Neelakantan