cry my beloved country

Open a newspaper or a mag. Chances are we'll come across a young face being heralded as the new-age entrepreneur or a young achiever. Entrepreneur - A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture, basically someone who takes risk.

Now, if we go back to that article we'll find that this "entrepreneur" or "achiever" is also the son/daughter/nephew/niece/wife/..... of someone who had actually done something or someone who's RICH. That's when we all begin to wonder, what else has this young achiever done besides studying in the US/UK/Australia, donning some nice formal clothes and inheriting the family business?

Entrepreneurship?? When you've already got millions deposited (not earned) in your personal bank account since the time you were in diapers, you don't need much gray matter or the never-die-spirit to take risk. You don't need them to inherit wealth or take what's already been handed to you.

Amazing India, where the cow still rules even though we have the tiger as the national animal. Slow and heavy, with a "who cares" attitude (if you've been in a cow induced traffic jam, you'll know), no other animal comes close when it comes to representing our country. Respect this animal for cow politics can cause riots or decide which party's gonna rule our country next time.

Temples. We build the biggest, most-expensive goddamn temples almost every month, almost everywhere. And no government will ever have the courage to say "enough!!" No government or political party will ever say, let's spend the money on schools, hospitals, low-cost housing schemes or roads. Because to utter these words means you are signing your own death warrant.

We talk of the IT boom, we talk of Indians in INTEL and NASA, we talk of the sensex hitting 9000 but we continue to spit on the roads, we continue to urinate wherever there's a wall (doesn't matter if there's a single brick standing) or a tree, we continue to talk about women's rights and pray to female deities though we ogle at every other woman and jump to conclusions or form opinions when a woman does anything.

We talk of unity in diversity though we continue to think and feel Indians are Hindus, Indians are Hindi-speaking people, Indians are north Indians (or people of Aryan origin). Indians in the south are still 'Southies' or 'Madrasis.' Indians in the northeast are still 'Chinkies' or 'Chinese.' We talk of equality but we continue to have, and demand reservations based on caste, religion and gender. Most of us will spend a lifetime paying monthly installments on our homes and other things but our weddings, our sons' and daughters' weddings have to be extravagant, something to dazzle our neighbors.

Somewhere underneath all the colours and the costumes, somewhere far away from the fireworks and the loudspeakers lives the real India; my country, my beloved India.