I have not written for quite some time and one of the reason being the 26/11 attack and followed by the mother of all scam coming from a firm which literally means truth and integrity.... May be I have grown cynical or may it is the reflection of the times we live in....
To start off, a miserably failed country in our neighbourhood manages to slaps a nation of a billion people on 26/11 and lo and behold ! what do we do after nearly 45 days of the shame... we just sit around creating dossiers (about god knows what) and showing supreme restraint to please Uncle Sam... did Uncle Sam showed that type of restraint when the twin towers came crashing down... No Sir... Never... they actually went all out to 'smoke out the rats out of their hole'.. where was this beautiful sermon about showing restraint and not escalating the situation...
I saw candle marches... people giving vent to their pent up anger.... the media goin all out to lambast the perpetrators.... but then what has come about out of all these... i guess we are pretty much in the same stage as we were before...things have cooled down a lot... frayed tempers have been allayed.. now we are focusing more on the golden globe award... or on whether Ghajini or Rab de is the best movie...
I guess as a nation we have some how grown used to calamities, disasters and loss of life.. for us lives in India are the cheapest commodity on the offer... we see umpteen scandals, ghotalas and scams each living day of ours which initially starts off with the front page of news papers only to be reduced to a small column (many years later) printed somewhere in the last page informing the audience that so and so scamster has gotten away scot free after so many years and wasting so much of taxpayers money...
talking about tax payers money, there is talk about governement rescuing Satyam from the current crisis.. all from yours and mine hard earned money.. for a firm which cheated the living daylight out of all stakeholders with so brazen a lie of such mammoth proportion that it will put the greatest liar on earth to shame... and all that the company does is to hold a press conference... and hold on.. its not to apologise to the common man whose faith they had betrayed but its about how to save their own skin and that of the company with no remorse shown on their face... and what happens next... the government comes rushing to rescue Satyam and the chief minster of the state making pleas with action plans on how it can be saved....
I just wonder if such leniency would have bee shown to a pickpocketer who is caught red handed on any given day...
strangely there has been a eerie silence from the political class regrading the Satyam crisis... such unequivocal support for the firm is unparallel in the history of Indian politics... cutting across party line all parties have kept mum on the situation... a BJP functionary who demanded a CBI probe was shooed down by his own party quite stringently... and the reason is for everybody to guess...
I think as a nation and the middle class which is one of the largest group that matters in India have somehow chose to have a selective amnesia about everything.. 'as long as it does not affect me why shud i stick my neck out'... That has been our motto of ours for ages... at the end we end up name calling the politician and start blaming everybody about the mess that we are in... I think as a class we the middle class have rarely asserted ourselves when it comes to giving direction in the march of a nation.. I just wonder how many of us vote when it comes to voting time... all of us avail of the chutti and go out bag packing to picnic... not strangely we get the leaders we deserve... hence let us not get irritated by politicians throwing shoes at each other.. or at a callous transport minister who smiles and cut jokes at a time when the transport strike has entered its 7Th day... coz for us everything is 'chalta hey yaar' till it does not affect us personally...
I guess a great reawakening needs to happen and more so in the middle class - that is us who should awake and realise that while we were asleep in the reverie and impression that it is not affecting us, the rot has gone so deep and wide that it now stands at our own door step and threatens to engulf us and our entire being... We 'll have to realise that in a democracy and a pluralistic society as ours we should get up and exercise our rights to ensure that not only our family is protected but that we initiate a process which will lead to ripple effect and engulf the entire nation leading to a brighter,safer, stronger, self resilient and happy India.... 'Let my great country awake in to that heaven of freedom' Amen
To start off, a miserably failed country in our neighbourhood manages to slaps a nation of a billion people on 26/11 and lo and behold ! what do we do after nearly 45 days of the shame... we just sit around creating dossiers (about god knows what) and showing supreme restraint to please Uncle Sam... did Uncle Sam showed that type of restraint when the twin towers came crashing down... No Sir... Never... they actually went all out to 'smoke out the rats out of their hole'.. where was this beautiful sermon about showing restraint and not escalating the situation...
I saw candle marches... people giving vent to their pent up anger.... the media goin all out to lambast the perpetrators.... but then what has come about out of all these... i guess we are pretty much in the same stage as we were before...things have cooled down a lot... frayed tempers have been allayed.. now we are focusing more on the golden globe award... or on whether Ghajini or Rab de is the best movie...
I guess as a nation we have some how grown used to calamities, disasters and loss of life.. for us lives in India are the cheapest commodity on the offer... we see umpteen scandals, ghotalas and scams each living day of ours which initially starts off with the front page of news papers only to be reduced to a small column (many years later) printed somewhere in the last page informing the audience that so and so scamster has gotten away scot free after so many years and wasting so much of taxpayers money...
talking about tax payers money, there is talk about governement rescuing Satyam from the current crisis.. all from yours and mine hard earned money.. for a firm which cheated the living daylight out of all stakeholders with so brazen a lie of such mammoth proportion that it will put the greatest liar on earth to shame... and all that the company does is to hold a press conference... and hold on.. its not to apologise to the common man whose faith they had betrayed but its about how to save their own skin and that of the company with no remorse shown on their face... and what happens next... the government comes rushing to rescue Satyam and the chief minster of the state making pleas with action plans on how it can be saved....
I just wonder if such leniency would have bee shown to a pickpocketer who is caught red handed on any given day...
strangely there has been a eerie silence from the political class regrading the Satyam crisis... such unequivocal support for the firm is unparallel in the history of Indian politics... cutting across party line all parties have kept mum on the situation... a BJP functionary who demanded a CBI probe was shooed down by his own party quite stringently... and the reason is for everybody to guess...
I think as a nation and the middle class which is one of the largest group that matters in India have somehow chose to have a selective amnesia about everything.. 'as long as it does not affect me why shud i stick my neck out'... That has been our motto of ours for ages... at the end we end up name calling the politician and start blaming everybody about the mess that we are in... I think as a class we the middle class have rarely asserted ourselves when it comes to giving direction in the march of a nation.. I just wonder how many of us vote when it comes to voting time... all of us avail of the chutti and go out bag packing to picnic... not strangely we get the leaders we deserve... hence let us not get irritated by politicians throwing shoes at each other.. or at a callous transport minister who smiles and cut jokes at a time when the transport strike has entered its 7Th day... coz for us everything is 'chalta hey yaar' till it does not affect us personally...
I guess a great reawakening needs to happen and more so in the middle class - that is us who should awake and realise that while we were asleep in the reverie and impression that it is not affecting us, the rot has gone so deep and wide that it now stands at our own door step and threatens to engulf us and our entire being... We 'll have to realise that in a democracy and a pluralistic society as ours we should get up and exercise our rights to ensure that not only our family is protected but that we initiate a process which will lead to ripple effect and engulf the entire nation leading to a brighter,safer, stronger, self resilient and happy India.... 'Let my great country awake in to that heaven of freedom' Amen
