This is the 1st line I have written after early February this year. The last article I wrote was a valentine day special. Well time has clearly flown by and with time, so has my motivation to write something. Now, all I have bottled inside me are random thoughts, mixed thoughts, brief thoughts about everyday things or every mundane thing which we are confronted with in our regular life.
So I decided to collate all these stray thoughts and compile something which just reflects my views on all that is social.
Life is a mess which needs cleaning. Very seldom you identify a lifestyle which is clean as a whistle. Everyone has problems. These problems are the basic motivating or demotivating factors. These causes an individual to take steps which might not be right in others view point but spot on correct in the person’s point of view. This is the basic foundation of good and bad activities. A person taking a bribe is a classic example. For us, its taboo! Why? Becoz we haven’t taken a bribe as yet, becoz society condones it. It is something of an ethical thing or a value based attribute which enables us to decide that what we would undertake is wrong. What we fail to acknowledge the situation under which the person might be pushed to take money for some work. We do understand it but never acknowledge it. The money taking might be due becoz of a not to do well background from which the individual comes. It might also be a compulsion imposed by others. For example, if a traffic cop doesn’t take bribes to do work, people would go to him and others wont be entertained. Yes, wrongdoings can also be compulsion in these scenarios.
Common Wealth Games came and went. The event in itself was breathtaking and awesomely conducted. However, the pre and post activities would always be remembered. What should we attribute this to? Greed? Or just the reason I mentioned above? There is always a motive. Yes, we made jokes and did we get any accountability from these people? The media also just moved on from this piece of news as it wasn’t “happening” enough. People and friends I know also moved on saying “This will toh happen…becoz this is India”. These are the people who look at things with a bias in mind.
The metro is a classic example. Yes it is a step in development of Mumbai. But tell me 1 thing, should we do development for the heck of it? Should be develop one area of our infrastructure and damage the other? These are questions which people fail to understand. Yes metro has long term benefits but those benefits are getting cancelled out by the vehicular traffic the rails would create once operational. Bottom line is that this project was pushed for money making purpose NOT for development as it is projected. Development is a by-product not the chief one. The route which was taken up would make life easy for people. But it would ruin the road development which has been done. Furthermore, ownership would be a key thing here. We, Indian like to wash our hands off things which are ambiguous in nature. Metro developers would build their rails by breaking the concrete road. Once they are done, then they would just move away from the breakage citing that the road development authority should handle it. The Road development authority will then say its your mess clean it up…the media would have field day of pointing to the mess but not doing anything and the common man would learn to drive/walk around it and then mention it to his/her friends saying “Is desh ka kuch nahi ho sakta”.
Please don’t mistake the above words as means of me complaining. I, as media is doing, am just pointing out the flaws. What I am willing to do is come forward and do something about it. But when I look behind, what do I see, nothing. No one to support.
Meter Jam was another awesome initiative. Even I had thought about it but didn’t think it would ever be initiated. Meter Jam did happen. There was only 1 problem. They didn’t take into account the Mumbaikar’s “chalta hai” attitude. The masses (college folks and IT professionals) did try and support the initiative. People I know boycotted rickshaw. Even I said an up-front NO to the auto walas. But the issue was that there were few areas or rather sections of society who weren’t informed or choose to be ignorant of the initiative. They took the rickshaws out of dependency or out of plain opportunistic attitude. “What’s it in for me?” “How this would hamper me today”. These are typical questions which they asked. I won’t consider this as a self centered attitude but more to do with what Mumbai is. It lives in the present, works in the present and plans for the present. It doesn’t think about the past or the future. Not even doing the times of the train blast or the infamous 26/11 attacks. This attitude costs us dearly. This attitude makes us lose out our unity and that is how others take advantage of this. The rickshaw unions celebrated as the Meter Jam folks were embarrassed by the people of Mumbai. However, what they do forget is what goes around comes around. Let’s hope that this attitude doesn’t spurge up when Rickshaw union need public backing to be in business (yes the day would come).
Speaking of Mumbai’s attitude, every step of the way since the 1960s, it has been taken advantage of. That’s till what I can recall. This divide and rule culture has been adopted by all major political parties with a view to make a mark on the country’s financial and commercial capital. This culture involves instigation, provocation and downright ugly protests all in the name of a common man’s struggle. Tell me one thing, when a common man is staying in his house on a hot summer afternoon with 5 hours of load shedding or when he scraps through the day with minimalistic water intake, is there any noise made? If noise is indeed being made then why is the common man still affected with the basic aspects of life? Why is importance given to protests on a movie which calls Mumbai Bombay? Based on my understanding of this subject, Mumbai is better off as Bombay. Atleast it doesn’t have a selfish ring to it. Bombay looks more welcoming and more open towards success. But I am the last one who would just be intimidated by the name. There was a campaign, spanning 5 years, just to change names of institutes and important landmarks. Why wasn’t such an effort spent on improving education or maintaining the landmarks which we so dearly love! As a matter of fact, where were these voices when Mumbai was siege on 26/11 or 11/7? I tell you where these voices would have been. These voices would have been plotting their next move to leverage the predicament of the common man. However, at the end of it all, we always commit the 1 basic mistake, we vote these degenerates back into power.
We are progressing towards success and development. But still I see a lot of wastage in terms of processes and in terms of personnel. Why the hell does one have to undergo N number of form filling just to get his own marksheet? The answer partly to this question is the fraudental nature of this country. This again is attributed to what we began this discussion with (remember the bribery aspect). This country lacks trust. People don’t trust each other, the system and they don’t trust the fact that this country has the capability to deliver. This is seen in all aspects. The level of bargaining which goes on in buying vegetables, the hesitancy in purchasing something online, reluctance of giving someone loan, the list is endless but the source is only 1 word – Trust. Further, I would say that we trust the wrong things in life. We trust the degenerates and vote them in power. We trust that people around us are going to dupe us. This has led to an atmosphere where only distrust has prevailed. Some factions of society have known this all their lives and have been milking it to their advantage.
Trust is an integral part of any nation. It is in full force in the USA. I would say they trust each other too much, hence the recession. There needs to be a balance. Sadly to achieve such a balance, one needs to be in a world where there are no misdeeds. This thought does bring out a chuckle in me. But it is the truth. As of now, as I type this line, I wonder how much balance the forces of good and bad bring into the truth equation. This complicates and to some extent contradicts matters now. Let me sum it up for debating:
Distrust arises due to people engaging in wrong doings. Now, to have a trustful environment, trust needs to prevail. If trust prevails, wrong doings won’t. If wrong doings don’t then there won’t be any different viewpoints and if there are no separate viewpoints, development of a country would get adversely impacted. Putting it in an equation we get:
Development = (Good – Bad) + (Trust – Distrust)
How on earth would this balance out now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
