Metanoias

Just back from my whirlwind tour of Nanded - Mangalore - Goa and feeling absolutely great to be back in Mumbai, though knowing myself, i'll be stifled with the place pretty soon and be clamoring to travel again. What can i say - cities bore me.
Without going into details of the trip, let me just say that it was an amazing experience, in fact all my trips seems to keep getting better and better! Did a whole lot of crazy and wacky things (planning to write a little book about it) but basically came back enriched with many, many insights.

Metanoia - a word of greek origin that is little used in today's time. It means a shift of mind. And this trip did really give me a few shifts of mind, beginning with totally changing my perspective about India as a whole. I can't help it, i love this damn country a little too much for my own good, and my urban upbringing had so far blinded me to the truths of just how different, just how removed and far from our popular perception is the world of rural and small-town India. Believe me, staying in cities, especially a one as Mayatic as Mumbai, one can very easily fall into the illusion that YES, India is developing, YES, Starbucks and Gas and Tommy are about a stone's throw from my house, YES, my son listens to the latest gangster rap, wears the latest (and most absurdly expensive) branded clothes, speaks the best english amongst his peers and his hence popular, YES, things such as poverty and unemployment have always been there in human society, but so what? those damn newsmen love to crib, and finally, YES, India has come a long way, and it won't be too long before we're granted Superpower status along with a seat in the U.N veto council. Big Six, huh?
Big NO.

Thanks to the government for putting up such a good show are obligatory; that's their job after all, to show that all is well. Whom i'd really like to hand it to for putting up such a fantastic glamour laden depiction of India is the media. Being a media student myself i know full well just how absolutely rotten this industry is. Oh yes, politically correct goes out the window mates, this whole industry is ABSOLUTELY ROTTEN. Cheaper than Kamatipura whores, mediamen and women are ready to sell their souls to increase their sales, and believe me, what they don't want is a thinking, criticizing audience, what they want is someone who'll either be star struck by the Karan Johar style movies that bollywood is reknown for, or be equally brain dead with K - serials. What the media (under the sagacious nod of Big Grandpa Government) wants is middle aged men to pore over the pictures of skimpily clad women in Mid Day, to read about leaking pipes and arrested porn actress in Mumbai mirror and to read about the latest cricketing headlines on the front pages of TOI. What they definitely don't want is people reading newspapers like The Indian Express (I'm an absolute loyalist of this paper - you want news, proper, hard core news, not the crap we get, read this paper. It'll open your eyes, and open your mind a little too) and asking why? where does our hard earned money go? surely not into THIS india!

Well, my recent forays into the the Three Cities left me with a great deal to think about. It served as a wake up call to the realities that Indian farmers face, that the Indian rural folk face, at the myriad of social and economic problems that we have left to deal with, at the many, many, many things that are so terribly wrong with this country. But make no doubt, of all the sins we can commit, of all the wrongs that we are apt to do, the one that we can never, ever allow ourselves is the sin of ignorance. Understand that India is NOT shining; the urban cities are, and that too not very brightly. Understand that we are a long way off from being a superpower; we lack the basic foundations to stand upon. Understand that it is about time to stop blaming and start doing; change begins with you, and you can bring change wherever you are, but only if you choose to do so.

India, India, India. Why do I love you so?

Jai Hind!