Our House

Long ago, there lived two brothers, in a two bedroom apartment. It was located nicely beside a riverfront. Bliss they both enjoyed at breakfast. The residence had state of the art equipment and lovely furniture. The family heirlooms were a pride and like fine wines matured with age.

In contrast, the living quarters failed to meet the expectation and sadly though wore an image of grim and destitute. The garbage’s were unkempt, endemic dust, untidy floor and equally frustrated individuals occupying it. They have made it a habit to coax and curse each other for the unfortunate condition of their quality of living.

Both were always complaining on how they will take care of this abomination of a house. The relations between them were not good either. They were trying to device a strategy to initiate a discussion to first take care of their own complexity and there after the house they reside in. Their own coterie of friends also provided requisite fuel to the already raging fire. They were after all, jealous of those family heirlooms and the rich traditions, they so vehemently covets for.

Days went passed, each and every discussion ended up in epic fights. The garbage as usual kept on increasing and the entire negativity then started to affect the human inside those unfortunate souls. They were even considering throwing the other out of the flat for good. They were up for blood.

One fine morning, it all started with a fight for ownership. The unclean dinner plates from last night made for an equally bad breakfast experience. The two brothers, now armed with solidified misconstrued conviction towards the malice intent of the other, jumps for the throat. There went the sanity down the road and the story ends with a bloodbath of epic proportion. They died in vein attempt of resolving the differences. Still, the house remained unkempt as it was but by now bears the filth of blood too.

What they could have done?

Each could have engaged in their own initiative to make things in order. For starter, arranging a house cleaning help would have been a great idea. Making it a habit to clear the garbage every night and taking care of their living quarters. That could have given rise to a peaceful coexistence, isn't it? They would not have gotten the time to indulge in those malicious activities in the first place whilst they share ownership and contribute out of his prerogative to make it livable. After all, it is the only thing left in this world for them and they both knew it.

Crudely though, does the story bore any resemblance to any other you are aware? If you notice, just by replacing the characters and with a little bit of imagination, one can comfortably narrate the story of Mahabharata. Reeling back to present context, the location of our country or the house we reside in hasn't changed but only we the citizens. The ideological difference then now has taken shape of religions. Good or bad only time will tell, but acceptance of the truth is the first step towards betterment. Akin to those two brothers we as a countrymen can sit idle, wish for communal harmony and devise various strategies, when at the very least we could start shouldering our own responsibility towards a greater good.

Communal harmony is the byproduct of a developed society. A society which is developed in thoughts, health and wealth gives rise to peaceful coexistence as a reward. The holy grail of harmony is only achievable when million voices and deed resonate together in nation building. No other country has done it before. They always needed the glue of religion or language to bind their national fabric. The American president had to shed his "Hussein" middle name for the election. Look at Pakistan for gods’ sake. See for yourself at Europe. The French, the English and zee Germans have their own country. Language and religion has always been a big barrier in those modern societies. While they were busy fighting the crusade, we the people of the Indo-Gangetic were a thriving population generating one third of the world’s income.

Are they developed? No, not at all. They have so far developed only in wealth and superficial health. Some not even that and clearly lacking in thoughts and intellect.

Are we developed? No, not at all. We may have developed in thoughts and knowledge only but not in health and certainly not in wealth.

How are we developed in thoughts? We as an Indic society, in our thousands of year’s journey have perfected the art of living in peace, harmony and progress. A more recent study suggests that we as a nation chug along well, who ever is at the helm. It’s a point of another discussion where the efficiency of the leader reflects the one that we have. All this while, after many crests and turfs, we as a society have matured enough to handle our own problems with the bests of the means available at hands.

The catch here, best of means is a deadly tool. When available to masses whose genes have so far survived tens of thousands of years in the Indo-Gangetic belt gives rise to an enormous opportunity of exploitation. The results are for you to see and you are by far the best critic of your own judgment. So the onus is now on you. The decision you make will shape your future. 

Bharat or India, if you will, as we see today, is only here because we the countrymen with nationalism as our religion have survived so far. Unfortunately, we do not even realize that we have this gem of a quality. The world lacks it; it’s an eyesore for them. The reason why they are so hell bent on teaching us the one thing which we already know so well because they do not want us to focus in our other area of development. They are jealous of us. Yet in our profound ignorance we fail to acknowledge it. Sadly enough we are still falling prey to those so called friends and intellectuals.

Take pride in your nation, take pride in your own countrymen and take deep pride in your roots. Shed the inhibition and start your march towards greater good. Only then we will again be the golden bird of the world we used to be. We are already there in our thoughts but we certainly need a conducive environment to express those in depth. A healthy and wealthy society, where our everyday materialistic problems are taken care of, is the only possible means of that.

No other kingdom, empire, nation or states have so far been able to achieve it. Fortunately though, we have already done it in the past. That brings me to the question, why not again in future? That I believe is possible only when we get our priorities right and start gathering pieces together. We as a problematic and chaotic nation with our unique problems have taken phenomenal stride towards our goal already. Post colonial times, the Macaulay-ite English propaganda history and education aside, the country as we know today, have progressed quite well in spite of the popular belief otherwise. It has only been sixty five years. It will take some more time before we are there. It is just that, few more steps are left. Those are the toughest of all.

We are at a crossroad and it is us who need to define our own path and destiny with clearly defined goals. Only then we can reach the pinnacle of the developed world we used to be.