This evening my university friend Vijaya Krishna from Vijayawada asked me to come to some chat room to chat with some Pakistani citizens (the word he used addressing them is goons) in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the cricket team of Sri Lanka in Pakistan yesterday. I did not like chatting with them nor considering them goons. The fundamental responsibility of every good citizen of a nation is to respect the citizens of another nation. The fundamentalists in Pakistan did bring a bad image for Pakistan across the world but it does not mean that all in Pakistan are terrorists. There are many terrorists in our nation also both in the forests and civil societies. Political leaders are the public terrorists for that matter. Does it mean that India is a terrorist nation? We need to grow as human beings first. We need to think a lot before tagging a group of people to a distinct category. I personally dislike anybody calling Pakistan a terrorist nation. In fact Pakistan is a victim of terrorism. Millions of people in Pakistan are suffering from poverty just like it is happening in India today. Even Pakistani government has no control on the terrorist outfits operating from its soil. It is easy to deal with animals but not beasts. Terrorists are beasts and they create unrest in quite uncivilized and barbaric style. I am an expert in chatting. I never found one compatible to chat with me in chat rooms. I can chat with anybody for any number of hours. I did not like to use these skills to chat with a set of Pakistani citizens who might try to defend their standpoints as the respectable people of Pakistan. It must be their role to safeguard their interests and argue on behalf of their nation. I have no good reason to argue with them like a beast. The issues at hand are not smaller. In this respect, I have some observations from the recent past:
1. We must not hate a nation because there are some bad people in it. Every nation has a different set of bad people. Our role must be to understand the issue from its roots and resolve it peacefully applying vision and idealism. History showed that anger, retaliation and short temper might achieve results fast but the eventualities would be terrible. Two world wars are the best examples.
2. Every Indian must understand that cricket is one of the biggest diseases of India today like corruption. Everybody is interested in this nasty game which does not contribute to the development of this nation at all. If we need physical exercise, we can do it at home or avenues nearby. We need not play cricket and make it a national cause of pride and glory. We must stop giving cricket players the image of gods and celebrities. They are the most unwanted people in this nation because they are wasting valuable time of every citizen of this nation that considers cricket a great game. When millions of Indians are suffering with various problems, when our idealists, scientists and thinkers are struggling to face these problems sacrificing their comforts to a great extent, it is inhuman on our part to waste much of our time thinking about, watching and playing cricket whenever we get time or making time only for it.
3. India is losing its vital values of tradition and culture day by day. When we lose uniqueness in the positive sense, we lose our identity as an admirable nation or individual. Try to get honest and reliable answer to the simple question, "How is a typical Indian positively different from the typical citizen of any other country today?".
4. God subjects us to a set of problems now and then not because He is angry with us but that He wants to reform us at the right moment. Economic recession currently plaguing the stability and safety of nations across the world is just one example. Earlier we lived in dreams when everything was going on well. Now we got time to learn lessons from the bitter experiences and prepare for the future, whatever it may be. An ordinary man does not become a capable soldier to safeguard a nation unless he is trained well by his superiors. God is doing the same toward us today. He is teaching us lessons silently. Be prepared to take life as it comes instead of waiting to enjoy it the way you dreamt of it. Life is a struggle basically. It may look heavenly some time but it is transitory.
5. Man and woman are interdependent, always. It is true that women have been subjected to injustice and unrest for ages due to many acts perpetrated by selfish and cruel man. If man wants to live happily, he must love and serve woman. Men can be admired by women only through their services of honesty, idealism and broad outlook. The progress of a man depends on how much he understood a good woman to respect her and how far he is sensitive and sensible enough to pity a bad/helpless woman and reform her. Love and service must be our paths of reformation toward women. We must listen to women and allow them to live freely. God created this world for every creature we are seeing today. Women are also a part of those creatures like we men. We can't be considered great Indians as long as there are prostitution, rapes, attacks and abuse against women. Great India means a place where everybody lives happily without disturbing the peace and comfort levels of others. Mutual understanding and cooperation must be our guiding principles in this direction. We must live happily and die peacefully.
6. Today there is a great need of social reformers in this nation. Many failed to understand what India needs today to become super power soon. Achieving great things suppressing the innocent and the helpless or cheating many can't be a good deal. Today we are achieving success and happiness cheating others. Answer everybody of you to a simple question honestly, "How am I earning money and how am I planning to reach my goals?". Most of our plans revolve around one thing "selfishness". It means running fast in the race when everybody else is still getting ready to start. It is not real success. Such success does not yield long-lasting happiness. Success achieved after real struggle is sweet. It instills creativity, innovation and challenge in us. Social reformers are the right people to teach us how to do in politics, business and life. Idiots and loafers and liars and criminals are our political leaders today. Quite strategic and manipulative thieves are our business leaders today. Those that know how to cheat others are the successful people in thier lives today. All these sections of people are becoming great through wrong ways. Others are admiring them because they are helpless sheep. Answer to a simple question to yourself, "How many celebrities we are seeing today alive reached those positions fairly and are remaining in those positions fairly without cheating or exploiting others directly or indirectly and how much is their realistic contribution to the development or peace in this nation or world?". You would get surprising answers to this question. It leads you to one simple conclusion, "We are living among cheats being trained indirectly on how to cheat others and live happily not bothering about anybody that does not know how to cheat us like we are doing". Underdogs are those that don't know how to cheat others. The slum children showcased recently in the highly focused "Slumdog Millionaire" represent the double standards in Indian politics today and the Indian way of life. Everybody is interested in A R Rehman and other celebrities that were felicitated with Oscar awards but not in millions of poor children and other helpless people living desperately in inhuman conditions across the nation. We are celebrating 10% moonlight before us forgetting or neglecting 90% darkness behind us. The result is birth of naxalism and similar anti-social elements across the nation. We must remember the fact that a million hungry and impoverished people do not allow a hundred millionaires to live happily around them for long. Poverty and alienation do not bring peace and prosperity to us. We must develop this nation as idealists and thinkers but not as businessmen and politicians. It happens when the good people are empowered to rule us through the weapon of democracy. It would be possible when all of us intelligent and awaken citizens of India keep democracy meaningful through our voting and constant constructive public opinion. For that to happen, our children and we must stop thinking about cricket and related unwanted celebreties of this nation. Then, we would have enough time to think about the real problems in this nation and how to eradicate them slowly. The fact is a number of burning problems never allow a few people also to live happily. It is up to us how to build and lead our lives.
7. Questioning attitude is vital to Indians today. The attitude "Let it be" leads us to unrest and pain one day or the other. Often we must ask a simple question before doing something, "Am I doing the right thing as a good citizen of this nation to contribute to its peace or development in any way?". Most of us are enjoying the fruits of the achievements of our forefathers today. Check the number of inventions and discoveries that took place in our nation or other parts of the world in the recent past which largely contributed to the happiness or comfort levels of millions of people. Today we are all self-centered compared to our old generations. We are more interested in applying for patents and benefitting largely out of such commercial avenues at big level. How many of our politicians or businessmen are interested in the problems of ordinary people of this nation or world today? You can count them in minutes. Rest of the celebrities are living for themselves. They don't mind even if the entire India is set on fire. Their only concern would be, "Where shall we go now to live happily leaving this bloody and useless nation forever?". 80% of the NRIs hold this opinion today though they never speak it up on public platforms. Indians are experts in hiding the bitter truths and telling sweet lies to attract others. How long can we be such fake and deceptive Indians?
8. Everybody must understand that we may live up to 100 years by God's grace. We don't need billions of rupees or unlimited assets to live happily for these few years. What are our billionaires doing then? They are keeping their money with Swiss Bank and other international organizations. Billions of rupees are lying useless at these institutions. Many of these billionaires and millionaires die even without telling anybody where they hid money. Why this greed to these idiots and criminals in this nation? Most of these rogues and dogs and bitches are in politics. They are exploiting this nation like merciless dacoits and public thieves. What are we reading daily in newspapers? Cases of corruption and exploitation everywhere. No progress at courts to settle those disputes. The Satyam case is just one example still hot in the newspapers. How many of such cases were resolved quickly in our nation so far? They take decades to settle matters legally following the outdated policies and procedures. Whose money are these celebrities misusing or disusing? Our money, the fruits of development of this nation achieved through the struggle and strain of a select few whom we forget happily. The result is hunger, thirst, nakedness, unrest and decay of lives and places in many parts of the nation. When we forget to identify the good and use them for our overall development and peace, when we tend to admire and encourage thieves and dacoits to exploit us sweetly and silently, we fail to see a happy India in the real sense. We are living in such a helpless state of affairs today.
We can change this set of bad things in India.
We need to think and act like thinkers and idealists to achieve a better state of affairs. Each one of us need to play a constructive role to build a better India soon.
It would be possible when you think seriously about this nation and its development, not cricket. If you waste your time on cricket, enjoying your life happily, forgetting the woes of millions of people in this nation, it might be your house to be looted tomorrow or it could be your relative to be raped or killed today.
India is in our hands.
We need to build it strong.
Foreigners don't help us much in this direction.
They have their own businesses and concerns in their places.