Jeffrey Archer’s best selling book “A Prisoner of Birth” left a lingering thought in my mind, are we all prisoners of birth or are we not?...India in the twenty first century is a global power, with grossly increasing GDP…instant coffees n instant emotions, the “short messaging service” riot, the 1 paisa/sec talking fever, short skirts n tang tops, tattoos, night clubs, discos, tata nano-the people’s car, the world wide web at the fingertip, withering love, relationships for a time pass, lonely mum n dad in a big house, son settled in America with a native blonde beauty…its Freedom all the way for the growing Indians…so we precisely aren’t Prisoners of birth…but maybe we are…we have lost what the freedom fighters wanted us to possess, aren’t we kind of swinging at the beats of the western world?...Aren’t we getting dominated by what our western counterparts love to do, aren’t we becoming prisoners at their hands since birth?...Progress is different from progressiveness and an intellectual mindset…upholding our heritage, our traditions, our sovereignty, our sobriety is what is progressiveness…but today’s youth believes modernity is in “Linkin Park” and progress is in minimizing what they wear…this shows a stagnant mindset, powerlessness to look beyond the external glory n look into the soul…so maybe we Indians have become prisoners in front of a fake western modernity.
Rabindranath Tagore was perhaps the first ever man from this part of the world to have been awarded the Nobel Prize, in his acceptance speech he mentioned how he believed that this award might be the foundation of a merger between the eastern and western cultures…We were two worlds before separated by oceans and mountains, different race, religion, colour and culture…an assemblage was indeed a beginning of the new world…Swami Vivekananda in his speech at “World’s Parliament of Religions” in Chicago 1893 had said that the western man needed eastern humanism to satisfy his never ending thirst and oriental men should in fact learn from the westerner his power to defy the odds n discover prospects, the work culture…his science…Mani Bhaumik, the inventor of LASIK, a LASER induced eye surgery wrote in his book “Code Name God” that a perfect understanding of life comes when we put a balance between both oriental philosophies and western intellect…there is no wedge between the both…So, a mingling of both the cultures is a healthy sign of globalization but what happens today is not what these great men had ever desired their countrymen to do…when an Indian frowns at the name of a “carnatic music conference” and empties their parents pockets to go watch the “Iron Maiden” perform live I feel sad…when an Indian thinks twice before making sure when Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was born and when our Republic day is…but very well remembers when “Valentine’s day” is…I feel sad…Its unfortunate how the big cities especially the metropolis have fallen prey and have become slaves to this unhealthy modernism.
A teenage full of liquor, smoke, rock music, disc and a whole lot of cash leads to a very common scenario when the youth proclaims “Life Sucks !” on their Tshirts. Life becomes so artificial and void, often aimless. Life becomes imprisoned, stagnant. Life has a lot more to it than just the beer n hookah, look beyond youth of
A change is always welcome, and who brings in the Renaissance?...the new ‘Us’…the one who still feels that the sitar, sarod, santoor, veena produce divine music, the one who still feels mum made food is tastier than the tastiest pizza in the whole world, who still thinks his girl looks beautiful not in a micro-mini but in a saree !
