Idea of India and Theory of Chaos

One anguished screenwriter wrote in one of his screenplays: ‘….go to America, you’ll see Americans, go to Africa, you’ll see Africans, go to China, you’ll see the Chinese, go to Pakistan, you’ll see Pakistanis. In India, show me one Indian…we have Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians…. And we have divisions based on states…where is the Indian?’

The hero of the movie mouthed this dialogue with vigor and passion and I sat back and said, ‘nice!’

That was long back.

Recently, I happened to see the same scene from the movie in one of its countless re runs on TV during my aimless channel surfing.

Bang!

It hit me.

Where are the Indians?

Do we, think of India in our conscious mind, ever? India as our mother land, India as our own? I guess not. Most of us don’t, I don’t. There is too much rot going around to think of it all as my own and internalize it. Why bother? I have enough troubles of my own to take care of already, thank you.

But something has happened to us after 26^th November 2008.

I can’t even begin to fathom how and why it affected us the way it did. But it has. The feeling of hurt and anger at the events that unfolded on that fateful night was real and it was coming from somewhere deep within. A feeling we did not know we were capable of. I guess the real Indian was right here all this while, asleep.

Now that we have awakened like a Rip Van Winkle, what greeted us was a rude shock of chaos around. After a lot of whys and wherefores, the realization dawns that the corrupt politicians, the inept police and the rotten system around us did not fall off from the sky into our world. Neither did it sprout out from the ground one fine day. It was always here, getting more corrupt, more inept and more rotten, while we were busy taking care of our troubles.

Take a closer look at the idea of India- 28 different states with different languages, cultures and agendas, many gods, religions and many many more sub castes and communities, the very rich and the very poor, the middle class and the backward class, North and South, left and right, center and states…all these contradictions come together to form India as we know it today. It becomes a little less bizarre to comprehend the chaos around us once we understand the fabric of society. This is a mad rush to claim ones identity, the identity of the nation is lost somewhere in this melee.

But, at least we have woken up. No, don’t expect anything to change overnight. Nothing might happen even for a long time. Change happens first in our heart, then our mind and then it will have its physical manifestation in the real world through our actions. The one that happens in the heart is probably the most difficult of all, for you can’t will it and make it happen, you can’t tell it and make it happen…it has to…well, happen. And it has. Maybe only for a few now. But it’s a start. It will catch on, like the embers that eventually lead to a wild fire.

Keep the embers burning.