rediscover india…

I’ve been lucky to have lived at several places around the world, but have always felt there was something special about India – could never really pin point out exactly what. Maybe I’ll never figure out the exact answer why, but currently I feel that ultimately it comes down to the ordinary average people I meet every day, something I had taken for granted until I’d been abroad.

No doubt there are good people everywhere in the world, and I’ve seen very little of the rest of it, and am taking the liberty of writing this based on just my little experience of a couple of years 😉

Anyway, I’m delighted to discover more and more Indians every now and then who have risen above any apathy to create a lot of value to those around them. If there is one place on Earth, where you can meet a simple looking ordinary stranger, say on a train journey or on the street, and in due course of conversation find out more about the person, and realise that that person is actually worth his value in gold, then you are quite likely to be in India. Nowhere else have I encountered so many people who have simple living and high thinking, and they dont stop there, they follow it by selfless action!

Nowadays I find more and more evidence for the same…

Off late have been reading Abdul Kalam’s ignited minds. Though a review says its primarily addressed to the young, I found the content of the book totally irrelevant to age… 😉 …makes truly wonderful reading. He too gives countless examples of very ordinary, yet extraordinary people who are silently contributing to a second revolution in our country. He gives beautiful examples of harmony among all religions. It is full of real life examples and anecdotes from his own life – eg the amazing questions he gets from various children! 🙂

Also have been following this site for quite a while, most of the stories are simply amazing…

iJourney.org is a collection of compelling individual stories. Written by volunteers, this repository offers inspiration with the simple hope of spreading more goodness in the world. We have no copyrights. Please read, share and distribute.

Recently came across this poem written by Ian McCrorie in his book The Moon Appears When the Water is Still.

In India I came upon a beggar woman
covered in dust and grime
seated at the side of the road.
Someone had given her a plate of food
which had attracted a mangy and growling mad dog.
He too was hungry
And without hesitation she shared
her only food with him.
He ate and then lay down at her feet.

Locked in their respective kammas
there was still room for kindness.
And if I could speak her language
(I spoke unilingual affluence
and she all the dialects of abject poverty)
I would beg her to tell me
how her heart can shine so brightly
beneath the dust of her life.

One might say this poem is in a way negative as it associates a popular Western notion of Indian being full of beggars, but I think thats not really the point. In the Kannada movie named “America America”, there’s a song named “car car yel noDi car” – there are cars, wherever we see! – which contrasts America and India. A lot of people also felt that song, though extremely popular, was actually derogatory since it seemed to highlight India’s poverty and America’s affluence. But luckily I saw an interview by the director of the movie NagathahaLLi Chandrashekar. He asked the viewers to pay attention to the last few lines in the song, which says “nammooralli angenlilla, yenthrakkintha manushya mukhya” – “we value humanity more than machines” !

Of course whenever we see some communal violence every now and then, one may get serious doubts about this. Both extremes can be seen, sometimes examples where only money speaks, and anyone who lacks it are terribly downtrodden. Or else the other end exemplified by the links above. And sometimes a mix of both! But I believe that on an average, the spirit of humanity is very much alive, and its up to each of us to keep it going.