61 Years.

India is getting old. Almost as old my grandmother infact, who has been 65 for the past 10 years.

I wont lie and say they’ve been a fabulous 61 years filled with fame and fortune because they havent. India has had its share of ups and downs, booms and recessions and here we are today, with an inflation rate of 12.44% and more than a billion similing citizens.

Some citizens are smiling much more than the others, and possibly grinning broadly. And this would obviously include the newest citizen to make India proud, Abhinav Bindra who won India a Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympics. And according to news sources, it is India’s first individual Gold Medal since forever. Thats is quite surprising news and also an impressive feat and for this very feat, the government has kindly volunetereed to give him 1.82 Crore Rupees as a prize along with a lifetime of free travel in 2 Tier A/C Trains. Well, thats good for the reputation of the country and definitely good for him, he’s done his part for the country and now his name will go down in history.

As for the rest 999 Million people like me who still have to do our part for country, unless we become Politicians, hope is quite bleak to affect and inspire the country as much as Bindra has. However, the Indian football did their part as well by winning the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup against Tajikistan with a final score of 4-1. Well done to them, I did watch the match live and cheered for my country with all my heart.

Over the course of the 18 years of my life, I have read about many people who seemed determined to “change India” and “modernize it” only to be eventually faced with failure and blame the country for refusing to change. You cannot simply change a country in the blink of an eye, it takes lot of time, effort and evolution to take place. You can contribute to this process and maybe increase its speed by a tiny margin but thats about as much as the average man can do.

But why do you want to change the country? Is it to make it like UK or US or one of these apparently developed western countries? After having spent approximately a year in England, I have to conclude that even though life there is good and decent, its nothing quite as nice as India with the genuinely friendly people and the small things here which make life worth living. I believe that, with change, we may lose a part of these things that make India the great place that it is. I also believe that change is inevitable and it may be for the better or the worse and that can only be proven with time. Change cannot be forced, it must take its natural course and its own time to be efficient. People will grow up, and slowly, the entire nation will move onto a new path, in a different way and everyone will be happy with the direction of movement. And thats when the change will be deemed to be successful.

I remember my Politics lecturer at university saying that how he has no idea how democracy successfully runs in India because it defies every single defined condition necessary for a democracy and yet manages to maintain the world’s largest democracy. But he also mentioned some small points here and there and even though they seemed to be insignificant, they are the things that keep the country running. And those small things are some of the reasons why I love my country.

Nothing in the world except for death can seperate me permanently from my country, my motherland, my India. Mera Bharat Mahaan.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under Festival, Home, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.