The Alien World

If I ask you a question “What are you proud of in India?” then probably you will have many answers, probably I have some answers like rich heritage, glorious past, national monuments, and many such things, richest cricket board, largest rail network, highest battle field, the list will be too long. But if I ask what is your contribution in keeping the pride and passing it to next generation than probably there isn’t much.

From time and again in many of my previous posts, I keep coming back to the sorry conditions of driving on roads. So is it related to our national pride? Probably ‘yes’, probably ‘no’. Couple of year’s back I had gone on vacation to Sri Lanka. It is a poor country, not a single highway, under terror for couple of decades, but as soon as I step in the Colombo airport and spoke to custom officer, I felt a difference. Airport was far better than any other airport at that time in India, though now India has much bigger and better airports.  When I stepped out of it, army was everywhere. The guide and our driver gave a brief update of DO’s and DONT’s. That included not to litter anywhere in public and keep all the trash in the car. Roads were not as wide as we have in India and there were no dividers, but still people managed to follow lane driving. In fact, in morning, during office hours the incoming traffic in the city is more than the outgoing, so the incoming traffic gets the 2/3 (two-third) of the road width and the outgoing gets the remaining 1/3 (one-third), and it is followed without any dividers or a traffic cop. Another example was autos. They were the same ‘humara’ Bajaj, but of course driver was different, because you will not expect an Indian auto driver to tell you that he will not carry more than three passengers. How you behave on the road goes a long way in defining your country, for which you can later be proud of.

On similar lines, let me take another example. India is hosting the 19th Common Wealth Games in October’2010. It is only the first time it has been hosted by India and second time in Asia. Now compare it with Olympics hosted by China in Beijing. CWG should be same to India as Olympics for China. It should be a matter of huge pride for not just New Delhi but for whole India. China has spent approximately 40 Billion dollars to host the Olympics. China built 12 new venues of total 37 for hosting the game in Beijing. They transformed the city, and probably whoever visited there for the first time (or even the return visitors) were spell-bound with the glittering city. For making this kind of event a huge success it is not just the government’s but also individual responsibility. I was told that on the day of the opening ceremony all industries in and around Beijing were shutdown to bring down the pollution. The opening ceremony was the best ever experienced in any of the previous events.

Coming back to Capital, Do you have traffic congestion around airport, the first entry point in the country? YES, during peak hours it may take minimum 30 minutes to reach the main road out of airport premise. Are people aware of such a huge event being hosted in Delhi? Not many. Ask an auto driver, he does not know. The progress of work is slow, and you still don’t see the transformation. Probably the only good thing that has happened as a result of CWG is the metro, which is no doubt the world-class. In September 2009, Commonwealth Games federation Chief Mike Fennell reported that the games were at risk of falling behind schedule and that it was “reasonable to conclude that the current situation poses a serious risk to the Commonwealth Games in 2010″.

In 2008 a new 4.43 km runway, the longest operational runway in Asia became operational at IGI Airport, Delhi. It is fitted with the highly sophisticated Instruments Landing System (ILS) on both sides, and is built to the highest Code F standards. Even with the state of art technology, there were 200+ flights delayed 2 days back.

What will happen to our national pride if we have politicians like Raj Thackeray and Police Chiefs like SPS Rathore who signifies the national shame? Or consider the root of Naxalism which goes back to 1967 started from the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, as of 2009 40 percent of India’s geographical area is under Naxalite threat. So what is the root cause, in simple word it is the over exploitation of humans by other humans. I will let Vishal talk more about it. But the fact is that there is no pride in the fact that 40% of India is under direct influence of Naxalism and people like us may be the cause.

To make a contribution, it is not important that everyone has to give dedicated time, rather it is the way of life. Not everyone can become a socialist or run an NGO, but what I do in my day-to-day life is a big part in showing what we actually are. Even though India is an emerging superpower, we still see and hear lot of things and incidents happening which are the matters of national shame. As an individual we can play our small but significant role so that we can say “I am proud to be an Indian”.

In our school days we used to write essays on train journey. Most of the time they were not the original account, but one thing that was true is that we get to meet new people.

Due to drop in airfares I did not travel in trains for almost 4 years, but the recent rise in the airfare again made me go back to the old way of traveling. In last couple of months I traveled from Hyderabad to Chennai and Haridwar to Delhi by train, and in both the journeys I had interesting company.

During my last journey I met a French lady who was coming from Rishikesh. Our conversation started because of the book I was reading – Jesus Lived in India. She looked at the book and said jokingly “you have so many Gods we just have one, now you want to take that also”.

She had a connecting train from Delhi to Nasik, where she was heading to attend a Yoga camp for 4 weeks. In the course of 5 hours I got to know more about her & her association with India. She was visiting India since 1992 and in last 16 years she has traveled most of the parts in India. Since her retirement couple of years back, she has been spending almost 6 months in year in India. She knew more about India than I do. During her stays she usually stayed in ashrams, due to which she knew a lot about Hinduism & Vedanta. She has been practicing yoga for last 20 years and that was the reason for her initially few visits, but later she fell in love with the country.

There were lots of things she disliked about India, like the way people cheat or treat a foreigner. In fact she told me couple of incidences, like the one when she was going to Rishikesh from Haridwar in the state transport bus and the conductor asked her Rs. 70/- when the normal fare was Rs. 20/-. Another similar incidence was when in Rishikesh a tempo driver asked her Rs. 50/- where the actual fare was Rs. 5/-. Now these kinds of incidences are common across the world, because last year when I went to US, the cab driver asked $100 against the usual fare of $65 between San Francisco & Redwood City. Something else she disliked was the way people drive. According to her, people in India drive with their heart & emotions. I cannot agree more.

With the Origin of GOD (, which was purely a hypothesis on why humans need God), next logical step would have been developing faith and religion. It is hard to say which part of the world must have first seen a new species, i.e. man, walking on its face. So let us assume that this miracle of human evolution took place at one place, and later when the humans developed the nomadic attributes, they started to explore around more and thus settling in different parts of the world.

When man first discovered something Supernatural that must have been the starting point of some faith & creed. This would have taken shape of the initial religion much later. Which was the first religion that existed, who started it and when, these are difficult questions to answer.

Once the religion was established, it must have played an important role in building up societies which still hold true to this date. Every religion has been refined and re-refined from its original state. These refinements are based on the progress of the society.

Initial religion and faith would have been much simpler then there current form. With religion and society in place, man was left to explore more… this was the advent of science. Science would have been a major contributor in facing the initial religion, which I believe was lost somewhere down the line when the hostilities and conflicts between man increased. Religious motivations have sometimes influenced scientific development, while scientific knowledge has had effects on religious beliefs.

Hinduism is perhaps the oldest religion on this planet and also one which is mostly, if not entirely, based on scientific facts, in which behind the complex religious rituals lies the facts of science. Present Hinduism is not what it used to be originally. Original Hinduism was based on scientific studies and had guidelines on how nature and man can coexist. It taught to live in harmony with nature and recognize that divinity prevails in all elements, including plants and animals. It is also one of the most environment friendly religion, because of this Hindus worship rivers, mountains, animals, the mineral world, as well as the stars and planets.