Driving recently through Kolkata, I saw a touching sign right in front of the main gate of Fort William (newly named Vijay Durg): 'Want to do something for a soldier? Be an Indian worth fighting for.' I was reminded of the truly great who have lived and died before us so that our country might be free, prosperous and glorious, and I sadly wondered how many of us today would qualify. How many of you - I am asking all except the most blindly selfish and perverted - could honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say confidently 'I am an Indian worth fighting (and dying) for'? I know I could not ask or expect any Indian to do so much for me...
Which led to another but related train of thought: why, when we even at all bother to tell our children about our great men and women, do we invariably mention only those who are all long dead: why only the Tagores, Vivekanandas, Gandhis, Bagha Jatins and the like? Haven't so many Indians devoted their lives in the post-independence era to improving the lot of their fellow countrymen in myriad important ways? Why do we (the older generations, who are supposed to 'teach' youngsters what matters and what does not) gush endlessly instead about cricketers and film stars and people who, in one way or the other, are busy making fortunes, often contributing very little, if anything at all, to national welfare and progress? Jagdeep Chhokar's recent death stirred these thoughts - and I am sure most 'educated' Indians would have to ask Google who he was and what he did. I could reel off so many such names without having to consult any notebook or encyclopedia: (ICS) Sukumar Sen, Aruna Roy, Ela Bhatt, Sunita Narain, Bindhyeshwari Pathak, Kailash Satyarthi, P. Sainath, Harsh Mander, M. C. Mehta, Subhas Dutta, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Bittu Sahgal, Arunachalam Muruganantham and countless others I have read and heard about, but are not 'famous' enough to be accessed via the internet. I know for a fact that most of my readers would merely gape and secretly admit never having heard of them. If we have failed to instill some ideals, some vision in our young, if we have never told them what sort of people really deserve to be respected, why do we eternally lament that our country is going to the dogs, or boast that it is doing great only because a few people are becoming billionaires every year and we can rub our weak neighbours' noses in the dirt now and then? It is obviously because we have taught our young that there is nothing to life beyond getting a nondescript job and shopping and being idly 'entertained' and preening before friends and relatives for as long as we can! What could be more pathetic for a whole nation?
A little economic gnyaan here for those who are interested, in connection with the lately much tomtommed claim that India is now the 'fastest growing major economy', which has recently become the fourth (or fifth) largest in the world. 1) It all depends on how much you can trust the source of the figures, and the government, which provides most of the data, is not the most trustworthy source of such things! 2) There was a massive fall of GDP/national income during the COViD-induced decline, so the rebound looks much healthier than it actually is - to a large extent we are merely catching up with the pre-2020 (pre-GST, pre demonetization-) years, and it remains to be seen how long this growth spurt will continue, 3) Mere GDP figures mean very little, because a. increase of production of literally anything adds to GDP, guns, drugs, luxury resorts as much as food and schools and hospitals for the poor, b. how the GDP is shared out matters far more when it is a question of overall welfare: if a tiny minority siphons off most of the benefits of growth, as is currently the case, the average Indian remains in a bad way, even if you completely forget the poorest 300 million, c. the moment you look at per capita income instead of the total, given the gigantic population, India still remains one of the poorest countries in the world, and is likely to remain so for decades to come (so comparing our situation with Japan, population 124 million, or Germany, population 84 million, whom we have just narrowly 'beaten', makes us look very conceited as well as silly), d. on many globally respected and trusted indices, such as the UN HDI, the World Hunger Index, the Corruption index, the gender-equality index and so on, India still ranks among the lowest, as anyone can check for oneself. All this is not to deride or deny whatever India has actually achieved since independence (and that's a lot), but to insist that we should all accept we have a long way to go before we can truly become Viksit Bharat, and along the way we have to correct many defects and make a lot of course corrections if we ever want to reach that goal: merely boasting about certain things and denying certain others and trying to shut up everyone who points out what we really need to do is not the best way ahead.
A status update on my YouTube channel where I am telling a new story every week: it seems I have acquired a loyal and regular following of listeners, but the number is still very small (around 150-200, I should think), considering the number of subscribers, and the number of people who know me (just count the number of ex students along with their family members, and it will come to several tens of thousands, I should think). Maybe it's because I am not spending money on 'buying' listeners, as apparently most YouTubers do? But since I don't plan to do that, this core group of listeners, if they really want me to keep going, should work a little more to spread the word around among their own friends and relatives, especially parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents. If every one of you lets ten people know, and nudge them a bit, at least two or three will start listening, and very soon that will have a cascading effect, and give me a great morale booster. Otherwise, as my daughter has said, the one solid good thing that is happening is that I am building up a repertoire of audio stories that more than one family member will keep listening to years after I am gone! But then, sooner rather than later I am going to lose steam and cry 'enough'...
One other thing, a subject I keep harping on from time to time: I miss the long and absorbing debates I used to have with a lot of people here over things that I had written. There are blogposts which garnered 60-plus comments: now I consider myself lucky if I get five or six (and often those who are keenest and have the most spare time to comment are those who hate me blindly, whatever their reasons are!) Most of my decent, informed, thoughtful readers, whether they are in their twenties or fifties, apparently no longer 'have time'. Now that is a mindless canard if ever there was one, as everyone secretly knows but is ashamed to admit. We lack time a) only for those things which we do not seriously consider to be a priority, or b) because we are perpetually distracted by trivia, whether that be attending parties or quarrelling with the spouse or scrolling endlessly through Instagram. So I am urging the best of my readers, one more time: PLEASE engage. Otherwise, I am nearing twenty years of non-stop writing here, and I might soon decide that it's time to call it a day.
Finally, for those who find this blog 'too serious', do look up my other blog. And those strange few who think I treat my ex students like toilet paper, I should beg them with folded hands to come and meet me and let me know what I ever did to make them feel so bad (because I do have a lot of beloved ex students who think quite the opposite about me), so that I can most sincerely beg forgiveness for having hurt them - provided they can convince me I hurt them absolutely without any valid reason. But to all the rest, who merely burn with helpless anger and jealousy every time they visit my blog (the root cause being, I think, that I have found the kind of freedom and peace with self-respect and financial solvency which they will never get, because they don't deserve it) my request, repeated ad nauseam, is 'Please stop reading!' I am not going to change my ways and views because of folks like you, so you are wasting your time. And calling your betters names doesn't harm them, it merely shows you up for what you are. You hide behind pseudonyms and don't dare deal with me face to face, so you belong to the trash can.
