I should like some readers to visit my older posts, if only to look up some recent comments - as for example this one and this one (you've got to click on the underlined words/phrases to go to the indicated article - in case someone didn't know. All those who did, please don't mind: I didn't know myself only a few years ago).
Also, what Rochishnu has recently posted on his blog (and my comment on it) might provoke an interesting discussion.
7 comments:
A few years ago, I had not even heard of Chetan Bhagat, when one of my friends lent me Five Point Someone. Then after many months I was looking him up on the internet and found his blog. Good post Rochishnu has put up. I have always argued that it is lamentable India does not have any nobel laureate who has won the nobel by being in India except Rabindranath Tagore. Mother Teresa won it by being in India of course. All the others have won it after years of research work abroad. Since India goes ga-ga over Indian born nobel laureates who are settled abroad, it means we don't have much right to claim Mother Teresa's nobel as an achievement of India. And Tagore... well, how many people read Tagore these days...? Only serves GK quiz question purpose. Who wrote the National anthem? Of course, many deserving ones did not win the nobel in the past. That holds true for many other Asian countries and not just India. It is an European prize after all. A small question here. Why does India not have an award that is held in same esteem as the nobel? The past cannot be undone. The question is how long we will get away by claiming that Indians don't win the nobel from India because the nobel committee is biased. How many Nobel class people are being trained here? I former President says, "You won't dare spit in Singapore." I ask why? Why won't you dare? Not because people suddenly become overwhelmed by the cleanliness there, not because people become extra conscious, but because they know that there is no escape from the heavy fine or punishment. Who creates that? The sytem. If the rules ceased to exist, then people will start dirtying there as well. A country does not become great by expecting the people to become moral divinities through lectures by Presidents. It becomes great by laws and how they are implemented. And if you don't spit out the dust in Indian cities then you have to swallow it with all the obnoxious ingredients. That does not mean I am recommending spitting. Singapore is probably a bad example to give. I am sure lots of Indians will counter it by saying Oh it is such a small country, India is so huge. So I leave it to Sir to give a better example. Some people claim we are number one in remote sensing sattelites. We are having a lesson in play of words. Indian Remote Sensing sattelites are made only by India. Obviously! So we are number one. Other countries make sattelites for that purpose with other names. I hope we have a good debate here.
Best regards.
You won't have a debate here, Rajdeep, because most readers are a) too 'busy', b) they feel bad to read this sort of stuff, c) they can't write coherently in an informed manner, and d) they don't know what to say. As I keep repeating, despite our burgeoning 'education', India is becoming less and less a country of readers, thinkers and writers.
Anyway, let's wait a little more to see if there are a few more inputs...
1. I only have a very vague idea of who Chetan Bhagat is, and I haven’t read any of his books (have I missed much?). He writes some sense and some not-so-much-sense.
2. Leaving the politics of the issue aside, The Nobel Prizes as far as my understanding of them goes are not so much European as much as they are world prizes - tremendously coveted as well (even though we sometimes gape and wonder whether 'they' are losing it or 'have been losing it'). More appropriate would be to think of even literary awards like the Booker and the Pulitzer - I don't know whether there is anything that holds the world captivated as much as these two - India certainly doesn't have anything comparable to offer (leave aside that some great Indians are thumped on the head with these Indian awards only when the West takes notice of the great Indians...)
3. Yet there are connections. Before we can have world renowned ‘anythings’ - maybe we should be aware of what exists amongst us. I've heard of a book called 'The City of Love' written by a fairly young Indian author but it's not even readily available. I don't know whether anyone has read it but going by some of the blurbs it looks like it might be a very interesting read. Moebius Strip, a book that Suvro da had asked me to read some years ago seems now to be out-of-print. And the less said about whether the blog writer himself deserves more recognition - the better! So do we recognize talent? Goes without saying that we don't. But what's worse is that we don't care either.
4. The connected thoughts link across your recent blog-posts Suvro da: disappearing ways of life - we don't care. Exploited humans - we don't care. Vanishing wildlife - we don't care. Great human beings - down with them. If we don't recognize them then we won't feel too bad about ourselves (or call it that tall Sunflower or Poppy phenomenon spreading in waves that Bhagat talks about).
5. Lastly...in relation to the point regarding cleanliness, Rajdeep, there is something that perplexes me. In that terrible city filled to the brim with uncouth people who in public places will be scratching different body parts and spitting and peeing on the sides of the roads - there is one place which is still clean and it's been running for 24 years. It's the Calcutta Metro. I remember when I was in class XI and was hurrying down with an ice-cream to catch a train, a gentleman working for the metro looked at me and very politely said, 'Baire susthyo bhabe ice-cream-ta kheye bhetore ashun....ei train-ta chole gele porer train-ta dhorben…kamon?' I was indeed humbled. I didn't have any intentions of littering the premises - but it was still a moment of embarrassment. Another friend told me that he once saw an old man hobbling over to pick up a wrapper that someone had thrown on the platform without saying anything to the miscreant...there are thousands of people using the metro everyday – yet in all the years that I used it – and every single day, I never remember even a toffee wrapper or a paper packet lying around…. What makes that possible, I can't help but wonder at times...
That’s all for now. Do my points make sense? Shall comment again later. And I'm really sorry. I think I missed Rajdeep's comment for this post (or else I didn't - horror, horror - read the last bit carefully enough!).
Take care.
Shilpi
I didn't want to needle you of all people, Shilpi, but thanks as always for the comment. I still insist it's unlikely that there'd be a debate here involving a lot of sensible people.
By the way, it's been some time since you used the Kolkata Metro. Now it's horribly overcrowded, and the stations are not half as clean as they used to be. Kolkatans are getting back to their old ways, it seems. However, there's some talk of airconditioning the coaches, following in the footsteps of the Delhi Metro...
You're welcome, Suvro da. I felt the poke of shame, which made me comment, which wasn't a bad thing....
Oh, that's sad! But I did use the metro in 2007, and it still seemed clean. I don't remember seeing the platforms being littered nor did I see people spitting on the platform....it always was terribly crowded though even when I was using it regularly.
And as for the other bit that Rajdeep brought up: laws could help somewhat, I think. Very stringent laws with heavy fines (in regard to things like cleanliness, civic behaviour, and punctuality), but they'd have to be enforced.....
Then there is the problem associated with very big sprawling cities which keep getting messier and dirtier and more crowded....
And there is a deeper problem. It's the middle class, which seems to lack the value base. It's something that I keep repeating, I know. But one can see it in relation to unreasonable, dishonest and criminal behaviour - cheating, stealing books from the book-fair, ripping out pages from library books, stealing books from the library...and then sniggering and gloating and bragging about one's conquests or else brushing it off as though these were anything but disgusting actions. These things have nothing to do with being poor or with any material resource - it's the lack of an adequate, and articulated value-base. Having cheated myself - I know.
I know how annoying it is to have people commenting on one thing here and another thing there without taking the time and effort to form the connections amongst the highlighted posts - and ack- I've done it again. I haven't said a word about the first of your underlined posts, Suvro da.
So much for now. I made a horrible mistake in my previous post ('Moebius Trip' - that's the title of the book...).
Take care.
Shilpi
I have a special attraction for the Kolkata Metro. I saw it being built, I rode it on the first day it was opened to public, and it is the only place in Kolkata that reminds me of Japan. People do become conscious when surroundings are clean. I realized this when I rode the Delhi Metro too. But to keep them continuosly conscious we need the rules.
My humble opinion is, being crowded is different from being dirty. The rush hour trains in Tokyo are far more crowded.
I have found it difficult to procure most books that Sir recommends here in India. Would have been able to read as much had Sir not been generous enough to lend many of the books.
And Shilpi, you have not missed much by not reading Chetan Bhagat. As you yourself said, he writes some sense and some not so much...
Well, regarding Bharat Ratna, the deserving people get it after foreign awards and the not so deserving get it sooner. What else can I say? ...
It is a pity that no one has cared to comment on Rochishnu's blogpost yet!
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