Are We Really Independent???

A few days back, every news channel had the racist attacks on Indians in Australia as their breaking news. Like every other news this too was hyped a lot with discussions, debates etc. taking place (media in India is very fond of highlighting bad news to a large extent).A large amount of students feared going to Australia and the ones there, came back. We called Australia a racist country…but aren’t we one? We always like to point out others faults but who is going to rectify the mistakes we do? We follow a different kind of racism altogether…we segregate on the basis of caste. Indian Students in Australia are getting beaten up by the native citizens because they are taking away their opportunities at work…and Indians in India get beaten up because they take away the opportunities of the people of that region…now isn’t that great? And we call ourselves a peace-loving nation! We blame Pakistan for being incapable of fighting the terrorists, but what about us? We are feeding a terrorist in jail instead of hanging him for killing innumerable people. I’m a true patriot by heart, trust me, and that’s the reason why I can’t see my nation going towards the negative extremity.62 years after independence and we still have a large amount of our population under poverty line…but no, we don’t want to talk about it! We hate it when some director portrays this poverty and wins an Oscar, we hate it when our politicians are exposed taking a bribe, we hate it when our president is frisked at the airport (though we claim that security of the nation is of utmost importance).I don’t think the people who sacrificed their lives for this independence would be happy seeing us as slaves of corruption, poverty, malpractices, discrimination on the basis of caste, religion, sects, gender.

We blame the youngsters, migrating to other countries for jobs, for the large amount of brain drain…but what have we done to stop it? Obviously when you are offered a good salary elsewhere, you will tend to move in that direction. Everyone wants to progress in their life, right? I was watching ‘Swades’ today and it truly depicts the condition of our country. More than the government, I feel the people are responsible for our nation’s lag. We can’t see any other person progressing. (Reminds me of crabs, if one tries to move up, the other pulls his leg!)

Even after so many years, we still believe inter-caste marriages are not good, girl’s…howmuchever they progress, ultimately the main aim of their life should be settling down and having a family, giving jobs on the basis of caste and not on merit, sentencing rapists to only 7 years of imprisonment(in most of the cases they are set free) when the crime is equivalent to murdering someone, following fanatics who don’t know what their real motto is, and the most important one…learning household chores is much more important than studying in a school(for girls that is).The conditions in city as compared to villages is much better but not something commendable. After witnessing this literally everyday which Mohan Bhargav would leave his NASA job and come to India to help people, when people here themselves don’t want to change?

I salute the people who laid down their lives so that we could experience this freedom, but I can’t say whether they really would be happy seeing what we have done to our nation! We are the youth; the future belongs to us so let’s pledge today that if not for them at least for ourselves we’ll try to make our country a better nation than what it is now!

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Expressing Yourself!

I really can’t preach on this because I myself am very bad at it! When it comes to being happy I’ll have the broadest smile on my face so that everyone knows that I’m really very happy… even if it is because of a lecture getting cancelled. But when it comes to sadness, worry, anger, fondness,confusion…I really can’t show it. Neither am I afraid that the other person will bash me up if I show my anger to them nor am I scared of sharing my fears with people. It’s just that I don’t want others to have a bad day after talking to me…after all people will remember you only if you have done good to them and not left bad memories behind! I feel it’s necessary to share your happiness and spread the smile all around but when it comes to sharing worries…you should keep it to yourself because you might just spoil someone’s day!
This attitude of mine might have been nurtured by my family members constantly telling others “she’s very strong and brave”, “she never cries even though she’s a girl while her brothers cry for silly reasons” etc.etc and my dad treating me more like a son than a daughter. And to live up to whatever they said I learnt this technique of keeping some things to myself rather than expressing them, especially the negative emotions. (I don’t think my parents saw me crying ever since the 2nd grade…pride you see!) Obviously I’m wrong sometimes when I’m not expressing myself…my friends listed this as my biggest drawback! According to them I’ll call ‘right’ as ‘right’ but when it comes to telling something is ‘wrong’ ,I’ll end up saying ‘it’s ok’. Like when I saw one of my classmate’s cell phonebook and my name with a tagline ‘bitch’, I got really very angry for I had done nothing to get that famous title added to my name(I’m still wondering why that person did so?)…but I didn’t show any signs of frustration or anger…I really don’t know why? Probably because I don’t want to hurt anyone (am I talking like some spiritual person?)
I know speaking our mind is really important but if it hurts someone is it ethical then? When I don’t speak up I know things are mounting up within me but if I do, I’m scared of making someone sad or things getting out of control. When my friends discuss their worries with me, it takes out some part of “the happy feeling” from me and I fear doing the same to them by telling them my problems (gawd…this is getting so senti!). Lastly I feel, one person sad is better than 100 sad faces around…isn’t it?

Friends Forever!!!

I would consider myself very lucky when it comes to friends…wherever I go I have always had the best friend circle that anyone can have and hence when it comes to parting ways, it has always been difficult for me. Whatever good I’m today is solely because of my friends, because I spend most of my day with them rather than my family and they understand me more than my parents do!

For me friends are not people who you only hang out with, go for parties, have fun etc. The meaning of a “true friend” goes much beyond that!

True friends stay with you in happy times to share your happiness and in your sad times they are the people who motivate you to keep going rather than providing a shoulder to cry on! They know what your each and every gesture means. They know when you are faking a smile and when you actually are happy! I have noticed this many times, Smita(one of my bessssttt friends) always knows when I am thinking or worried about some issue while my parents never suspect anything different in my behaviour. She knows me only for the last 4 years while my parents have known me since 19 years and yet they cannot make out what’s going on inside me. And I guess that’s the case with most of us…our friends know us better than many others.

True friends will never encourage your wrong behaviour and will always appreciate you when you’re right. When you achieve something, they will always be happy, much more than what you are…and when you don’t they’ll tell “there’s always a next time” (standard dialogue).

In school, I was a bit reserved kinda girl…I never interacted much with anyone and people would end up thinking that since I was a bright student I had this attitude problem. (I never had any, believe me!) Finally in 7^th grade I became friends with the “most mischievious people of the school”, as described by my teachers, and we turned out to be friends forever...Destiny, destiny! I do agree they were mischievious but they helped me in knowing myself and presenting what I really was, to others! Having studied in a girls school I always feared communicating with boys but unfortunately in junior college I had to and that was ‘THE MAJOR PROBLEM’ for me at that moment. Then came the guy in shining armor (too much of exaggeration here)…Nitish (again one of my bessstttt friends). It’s because of him that I was able to talk to guys as normally as I talked to girls. I know it wasn’t easy for him to do so because I followed this i-hate-guys-and-i-won’t-talk-to-them ideology (at the first instance, I disliked him too because I thought he boasted a lot about himself). He has helped me during my worst times and I know repaying him would be impossible! I owe a lot to all my friends…I don’t know how good a friend I have been, but they all have certainly lived up to the title ‘best friend’! Tomorrow being Friendship’s Day I just want to say one thing to all my friends…Love you all!!

Dedicated to:

Kiran,Nitish,Amit,Ameya,Amodh,Glavin,Deepika,Vanessa,Annie,Priyanka,Neha,Joyce,Gauri,Sonia,Sonali,

Reena,Arvind,Gladys,Supriya,Sanjay,Sumangala,Akanksha,Gaurav,Namrata,Mini aunty,Afreen,Nayan,Yakshita,Leena,Madhura,Racheal,Akshata,Twinkle,Pearl,Shradha,Sakina,Neha,

Tejasvi,Dwarkanath,Vishwanath,Nirmal,Anish,Harsh,Pratik,Raisa,Suhani,Smita,Namrata,Alisha,Priyanka…sorry if I missed your name :-)(You all have contributed in making my life wonderful…hope the list has more names in near future!)