Yog mudra

An article by Chetan Bhagat

THE UNDERAGE OPTIMIST

Letter to Bapu from Generation Next

CHETAN BHAGAT

Dear Gandhiji,
You left us 62 years ago. If you were still around, you would have been 140 years old. However, we have not forgotten you. You are on every banknote and most stamps. There are many statues of you. Prestigious roads in almost every city are named after you. Our politicians try to model themselves on you. They wear the fabric you promoted, they quote you at every instance, they’ve got a photograph of you in their office and some even eat and live like you. There are books, TV programmes and movies about you. Seriously, you’d be impressed at how much we still adore you.
However, there are things that won’t make you feel proud. The India you spent all your life making free, is far from free. True, the white guys are gone. But there are still millions of poor people. In 60 years, we are still among the poorest nations on earth. This lack of money leads to a lot of problems in healthcare, infrastructure and education. In education, for instance, many children still don’t go to a good school. Those who do, don’t get into good colleges. And those who go to college, don’t get good jobs. We need to get rich, and fast. Not only to make more schools and colleges, but also because most Indian problems are linked to lack of money. Yet, it is considered un-Indian to think that way. The young generation, which thinks like that, is considered materialistic and greedy. The older generation takes the moral high ground — slowness in work is termed patience, nonstop discussion and no action is called careful consideration and lack of improvement in standards of living is countered with claims about the need to live with austerity. And yes, in many cases politicians who speak like this claim to be your fanboys.
The younger generation wishes you could come down for one day and clarify these points. Is progress un-Indian? Is change bad? Is a desire to see my country as rich as some other nations materialistic? Is getting things done fast impatience? If you blessed our purpose of making a developed India, the job would become so much easier.
The young generation needs you down here for something else too. We have a new battle here, just like the one you fought with the British. The enemy is not so clear like it was in your case — the white people. Our enemy is the old school of thought, or rather the people who defend the old school of thought. They do this in the name of antique Indian policies, culture and values. You could help identify this enemy more clearly. Many people who are at the helm of affairs now have served India for decades, maybe with good intentions. But obviously, they don’t want to accept they screwed up. We wish they would though and we’d have a national day of shame. It won’t be easy, but from there we can make a new beginning. But they won’t, for they are in power. And to defend themselves and their ways, they don’t mind crushing the aspirations, ideas and talent of an entire generation.
Yes, there is a lot of talk of India being a young nation and youth power. However, youth power is the biggest myth going around India right now. Of course, youth has spending power — we can buy enough SIM cards, sneakers and fizzy drinks to keep many MNCs in business. But we do not have the power to change things. Can the youth get a new college opened? Can the youth ask the government to give tax incentives to MNCs to relocate jobs to smaller towns? No way. We are wooed, used but seldom heard. If you came down, you could unite us. You used religious festivals as social events and propagated your cause. You understood that people need entertainment to bind them. Perhaps, we could integrate colleges in the same way, link all colleges — maybe for their annual festivals — and the message of change could be channelled through them. We have amazing technology such as the Internet now. You would use it so well. If the youth unites, there could actually be youth power.
With our purpose blessed, enemy identified and youth united — we could take the first steps towards the new Indian revolution. After all, China had one, and only after that, did they get on the path of true progress.
But if it is not feasible for you to come back, we’ll have to try to bring about change ourselves. If we can be inspired to do that, we can say we have not forgotten you and understand the meaning of your birthday. We hope you had a good one up there!
Lots of love,
THE YOUNGER GENERATION
(also known as Youngistan,
Gen X, Gen Next and Gen Y depending on the brand you’re
talking about)
The writer is a bestselling author

courtesy:- times of India

Some pics from my album

Me in navodaya

branchmates in bit

mates.......

My alma matter

Jinnah controversy and BJP

Today in the times of  india editorial i read an article by Chetan bhagat. He said that our leaders should discuss the issues related to the welfare of public grievances rather than controversies of past to enlighten the future of our nation. I have keen interest in politics so i have observed the current turmoil in BJP over this issue very closely . I don’t  know  whether the facts sited by Jaswant Singh in his book is right or not but one thing i am pretty sure that it is not going to affect the mind of voters across the nation of which BJP is concerned about. In the last general election we have seen that now the voters are more concerned about the development rather than issues related to their religion or cast. The same thing has been proved by the landslide victory of Nitish kumar lead NDA  in general election in Bihar. So In my view BJP should learn from these experiences and instead of sticking to its old ideology should concentrate on issues pertaining to developments.

The 6 year NDA regime was  praised by all although due to some unknown cause they lost the next general election. In that 6 yrs of it’s government BJP didn’t do any work which could be called as communal in any sense. So to call BJP a communal party doesn’t seem correct. So instead of  wasting their energy on such controversial issues BJP should concentrate on strengthening their base in rural areas and bounce back in next general election.

Bloging

I am not sure whether the word “bloging” is literally correct or not but i heard this word from Shekhar Suman( a well known actor and immature politician) during one of his TV shows, in which he was making some comment on the blog of Amir khan and Amitabh bachhan.  Oh that reminded me of one thing that in one thing i am more experienced then these  two veterans that is Blog writing because i started bloging much before they started-:p. In that show Shekhar was talking about how people have got the desease of BLOGING . Personally i am also feeling the heat of bloging.  Frequently people ask me  ” i saw your blog , it was really nice”. Then with joy i thank him/her and ask him which blog did you like most. But to my disappointment i usually hear the same answer ” sorry man, it was bit lengthy , so i will read it later” .  Then they ask  ” will you please tell me how to start bloging?”. With pride i explain all the steps one should follow to write the blog . Next time i meet that person i ask ” have you written anything or not ?” . Usually i get the same answer ” I started but could not proceed”. But there are few who started and wrote one or two bolg , made a tag line on gtalk and disappeared from the bloging world.

So i usually think there should be some person who should read the blogs , at least those who write blog should read oher’s blg and should leave some comment. In this regard girls are little bit lucky because they often get more blog hits then a boy . The reason being the gender. The instant a man see the tag line of a girl “………. wordpress.com” he certainly visits that blog and keep on visiting in the hope that one day he will find something interesting in her blog. So in my view every girl should write blog so that boys get a good time pass -:p.

for last one month i didn’t write anything due to some work load. But in these days i changed my blog theme thrice ( in the hope that may be people will visit at least to see the changing colours -:p. I personally feel that it is really a very good platform to share once views with rest of the world. So  i will appeal to everybody please keep on bloging. -:).