I've been reading a book called "Games Indians play by V.Raghunathan". I am alomost at the end of it, There's a little something in the book, that I thought would be appropriate to put up here because it conveys all my thoughts about the great Indian country entirely. I'd like thank Mr.V Raghunathandoesn't for contributing his intellectual and real insights through his book.
So here it is, which was supposed to be here on 15th August..Better late than never!!
If we can launch rockets but get nowhere
Fire missiles, but not our passions to excel,
Build aircraft but cannot fly our dreams;
If we can build oil rigs, cyclotrons and atomic plants,
But not our character,
Make heavy machinery and earth moving equipment,
Yet not move heaven and earth to improve our fate;
If we can grow enough grain, but not care enough to store them,
Allow half our population to go hungry, with malnutrition and ill health still our national visage;
If our population is well over a billion, and
Still doubling over thirty five years, what we innocently call our leadership
Turns family planning into a bad phrase;
If 400 million and more are still strangers to basic essentials in life
An equal number effectively illiterate and
A girl child still an object of rejection;
If our water table is beginning to get lower than oil,
Our rivulets and canals get desiccated,
Our seas, river, brooks saturated with refuse and effluents;
If open sewage in our midst froths pink, blue and green,
With such blatant chemical pollution a rule rather than exception and
Our reaction to these sights as best phlegmatic;
If half of our country still performs its morning ablutions under the open skies and
We are blissful being the world’s largest open-air lavatory, with basic hygiene and human dignity nobody’s concern;
If elephants and rhinos, leopards and tiger are fast disappearing,
Our mountains turning naked and barren with denudation,
Forests disappearing rapidly under the onslaught of deforestation;
If cows, donkeys, horses, even camels can roam the busiest of streets,
With us incapable of arriving at a collective solution to the problem and
In the name of compassion, subject the poor animals to the worst indignities;
If our national monuments are in a state of abject neglect,
Even a Taj Mahal stands upon a pile of a town’s refuse and indifference with Tourism a mere caricature of its potential;
If our public transport is perennially choking,
Our hospital lobbies resemble railway platforms and
Our cities, towns and villages a vast compost heap;
If our railway stations and drainage pipes are dwellings to zillions,
Sidewalks, if there, unavailable to pedestrian, and
Our traffic signals obeyed in infraction than compliance;
If our children are interviewed and waitlisted for nursery admission,
A class XII child with 90 percent cannot make it to the nearest college and
IITs, et al. brimming with 2, 00,000 applications and more for a handful of seats;
If we have to bribe a babu to pay our land taxes, and
We can get a ‘RTO license to kill’’ without
a driving test with
Corruption in a government department a rule not exception
If our bureaucracy is not a service but a power centre;
And a system so corrupt that
85 per cent leakage in intended fundings nationally acceptable, with
Local administrations in cities, towns and villages a mere parody;
If a weak rupee is our best ticket to exports,
Quality, scale and punctuality at best secondary concerns, and
Basic R&D still beyond the horizon;
If it takes three to mow a lawn, and we still
Erect buildings loading bricks on the heads of your women,
With Our pace of change and productivity long the slowest and lowest in the world;
If petitions are piled sky-high in every court
of the land, with
Justice nearly impossible to find in one’s lifetime (if then), and
Our dehumanized jails overflowing even as crime rates continue to soar;
IF shanghai alone surpasses Indian’s total exports three times over, and
India’s total port capacity by about the same margin, and India’s total foreign direct investment over ten times;
If, as a people, we have lost our sensitivity to the misery and mediocrity around us, and
The only value system we can pass on to the next generation is that of
Cynicism, opportunism and corruption;
If our standards of satisfaction and excellence lie lower
than the soles of our feet and
We are not filled with a sense of shame
At the gap between our rightful place in the world and the present one;
Surely it’s time to introspect collectively?
Fire missiles, but not our passions to excel,
Build aircraft but cannot fly our dreams;
If we can build oil rigs, cyclotrons and atomic plants,
But not our character,
Make heavy machinery and earth moving equipment,
Yet not move heaven and earth to improve our fate;
If we can grow enough grain, but not care enough to store them,
Allow half our population to go hungry, with malnutrition and ill health still our national visage;
If our population is well over a billion, and
Still doubling over thirty five years, what we innocently call our leadership
Turns family planning into a bad phrase;
If 400 million and more are still strangers to basic essentials in life
An equal number effectively illiterate and
A girl child still an object of rejection;
If our water table is beginning to get lower than oil,
Our rivulets and canals get desiccated,
Our seas, river, brooks saturated with refuse and effluents;
If open sewage in our midst froths pink, blue and green,
With such blatant chemical pollution a rule rather than exception and
Our reaction to these sights as best phlegmatic;
If half of our country still performs its morning ablutions under the open skies and
We are blissful being the world’s largest open-air lavatory, with basic hygiene and human dignity nobody’s concern;
If elephants and rhinos, leopards and tiger are fast disappearing,
Our mountains turning naked and barren with denudation,
Forests disappearing rapidly under the onslaught of deforestation;
If cows, donkeys, horses, even camels can roam the busiest of streets,
With us incapable of arriving at a collective solution to the problem and
In the name of compassion, subject the poor animals to the worst indignities;
If our national monuments are in a state of abject neglect,
Even a Taj Mahal stands upon a pile of a town’s refuse and indifference with Tourism a mere caricature of its potential;
If our public transport is perennially choking,
Our hospital lobbies resemble railway platforms and
Our cities, towns and villages a vast compost heap;
If our railway stations and drainage pipes are dwellings to zillions,
Sidewalks, if there, unavailable to pedestrian, and
Our traffic signals obeyed in infraction than compliance;
If our children are interviewed and waitlisted for nursery admission,
A class XII child with 90 percent cannot make it to the nearest college and
IITs, et al. brimming with 2, 00,000 applications and more for a handful of seats;
If we have to bribe a babu to pay our land taxes, and
We can get a ‘RTO license to kill’’ without
a driving test with
Corruption in a government department a rule not exception
If our bureaucracy is not a service but a power centre;
And a system so corrupt that
85 per cent leakage in intended fundings nationally acceptable, with
Local administrations in cities, towns and villages a mere parody;
If a weak rupee is our best ticket to exports,
Quality, scale and punctuality at best secondary concerns, and
Basic R&D still beyond the horizon;
If it takes three to mow a lawn, and we still
Erect buildings loading bricks on the heads of your women,
With Our pace of change and productivity long the slowest and lowest in the world;
If petitions are piled sky-high in every court
of the land, with
Justice nearly impossible to find in one’s lifetime (if then), and
Our dehumanized jails overflowing even as crime rates continue to soar;
IF shanghai alone surpasses Indian’s total exports three times over, and
India’s total port capacity by about the same margin, and India’s total foreign direct investment over ten times;
If, as a people, we have lost our sensitivity to the misery and mediocrity around us, and
The only value system we can pass on to the next generation is that of
Cynicism, opportunism and corruption;
If our standards of satisfaction and excellence lie lower
than the soles of our feet and
We are not filled with a sense of shame
At the gap between our rightful place in the world and the present one;
Surely it’s time to introspect collectively?
I guess this is why I prayed for my country on Independance day instead of singing praise for my nation.
