Saturday 9 March 2013

India : The Art of Surviving



"If not continuous water supply, at least get us a water tanker once in a day", pleads an old man while talking to government officials while they are on their visit to...wait a minute, not a remote area, but a well to do colony in a tier 1 city of urban India.

Surviving in India is not just a luxury, but an art, which everyone masters overtime.

We don’t have value based education; we are never taught to explore anything new, engineering / medicine / law or at the most business administration are only options which we are exposed to, taught and motivated for.

"If not continuous water supply, at least get us a water tanker once in a day", pleads an old man while talking to government officials while they are on their visit to...wait a minute, not a remote area, but a well to do colony in a tier 1 city of urban India.

Surviving in India is not just a luxury, but an art, which everyone masters overtime.

We don’t have value based education; we are never taught to explore anything new, engineering / medicine / law or at the most business administration are only options which we are exposed to, taught and motivated for.

Ok, so those freshly baked muffins (read children) are now out of the oven and are ready to be delivered to the retail centers (read colleges) around the country.
As we were never provoked to think about why we are learning the xyz subject, quite naturally we choose, rather made to choose the 'safe' career option under the able guidance of previous survivors (read parents/guardians). Testing untested waters is simply absent in the social fiber of our motherland. For example, we make engineers who may survive recession or a job lay-off, but have we even tried to make Techno-leaders who can provide and create jobs?
I would certainly choose not to blame the great Indian middle class for keeping this tradition up till now. After all it's not about living your dreams, it's about survival.

For instance, non-private government jobs (where 'generally' there is no need to have any competency in first place, let alone keeping it up, and virtually no one can remove you from your job) have a clear choice, either get corrupt or be dead/singled out /framed in false charges. I hope we all here agree that there are two types of corruption, viz; "Mujhe toh karna hai corruption" and "Mujhe karna pad rha hai corruption".
Most (read almost everyone) choose one of these. After all it's not about serving the people and performing your duty, it’s about surviving.

If in case, till now you have not understood the reason behind naming the topic as such, let me help you.
The basic idea which is being conveyed here is, though six long decades have passed by since we have attained 'freedom', we still are merely surviving. Look at the world at large; do we honestly see any value addition that India is making despite being 2nd in population and 7th largest economy?
We serve and get paid by courtiers like Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and France which are not bigger than Madhya Pradesh even if put together. Very simple and realistic reasons which I see and have felt are; ill will of our law and policy makers and the equally adjusting and accepting nature of us all. We always choose safe slavery over dangerous freedom, you see, it's in our culture. I still believe that, had we gotten freedom by Netaji's way rather than simply waiting for British oppressors to get bored and go back, we ‘may’ have been living our freedom and not just surviving it. (This might sound irrelevant, but just read it again, I am sure you'll find a connection here)

Enough of cribbing, let's see the positive side, despite the fact that more than 70% population still doesn't get social/economical or judicial justice, we are surviving. Non-efficient public distribution system, lack of sanitation and absence of waste management system, no social security, bomb blasts everyday !! Doesn’t matter, we can survive. If not anything else, we are at least number 1 in surviving, give any condition to us, we were surviving and we will survive.

People are welcome to add their cribs as well as thoughts for better India.




1 comment:

  1. I have a big problem with the fact that two hours of an examination can determine a child's future!

    But despite all the flaws with the education system issues plaguing the education system— lack of quality, policy deficiencies, and absence of vocational training, let us not forget that India is a mammoth nation, and changing the education system would be like maneuvering a battleship!

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