first step of any change is recognition of need

In an advertisement by Hero Honda the chief engineer who is young and rides a hero Honda bike inaugurates the flyover as the chief guest is late for more than an hour and there is a long queue of vehicles including an ambulance. It feels good in a country of VIPs where ordinary people live like 4th class citizens; class 1 being the top leaders, govt. officials; class 2 being the other leaders, next level govt. officials and the rich & famous, class 3 being the ones who have close contact with leaders and bureaucrats. There is also a large group that fights for day-to-day survival and doesn’t have any class at all (classless) and is completely at the mercy of other classes. The above may explain why lot of sensible guys and girls prefer to be second class citizens in a more sensible country where they can focus on their work and life without the need to satisfy the gargantuan egos of our VIPs directly or indirectly.
One wishes such a scenario where people’s life is not dependent on the whims and fancies of our VIPs would become a reality, but as of now one can see it only in an advertisement. One of today’s news items reflects the reality very well. Lot of inconvenience was caused when the Hyderabad airport was shifted to Shamshabad from Begumpet even though in the long run this shift was desirable. Work on the PV Narasimha expressway commenced in September 2006 and everyone has been waiting when this will be operational. However, though has been complete since 10 days it is yet to be operational and of all things the reason is the name of the expressway. MIM and few others will not let this be inaugurated unless the name is changed to YSR from PV Narasimha Rao. Can one imagine this kind of absurd thing happening in any democratic country?
The other day there was news about Karan Johar being forced to apologize to Raj for using Bombay instead of Mumbai in one of his films. Isn’t that ridiculous? If people like Amitabh and Karan have to apologize for no fault of theirs then one can imagine the plight of ordinary people. The Maharashtra CM suggested that Karan should have lodged a complaint. Who in his right mind will do that? Everyone knows that Raj has complete support of Congress govt. as they have their own agenda of using Raj to fight Shiv Sena in the election. In 2008 our family along with the family of my brother-in-law had gone to ooty, Coorg, Mysore etc. for around 2 weeks. On our return they found their house was broken into. The culprits were perhaps small time thieves who fortunately were not able to break into their bedroom. I wanted by them to lodge a police complaint. But the builder who is a leader advised him not to as his reputation would be hampered. My brother-in-law also spoke to one of his relatives who is a lawyer and he also advised not to lodge a complaint without having some close contacts in the upper echelons of the police department. Being a little idealistic I was disappointed as I thought such inaction would encourage these thieves. However, he was proved right in not going to the police subsequently when he lost his mobile. Just to lodge a report which was compulsory as the mobile was provided by the company he had to visit the police station 2-3 times, spend hours and of course bribe one or two guys. If a General Manager of Satyam (incident was much before Raju made his confession) is scared of going to the police and rightly so, one can imagine the plight of classless people.
Looks like, we can only take solace in advertisements and imagination. Another advertisement is by TATA tea where people are advised not pay bribe. It may hold good for cases where we want to bribe proactively to have an unfair advantage, but what about the case where you don’t have a choice. Recently my uncle had come for an angiogram and we went to the Apollo Hospital. I had got in touch with a senior officer in International Marketing through a friend of mine and while in hospital I met him and during the course of our discussion I came to know that the foreigners who come for treatment have to register themselves at the local police station. So these people often spend 2-3 days standing in long queues simply because they are completely unaware of the norms and no one will openly tell them about it. The norm is that you have to pay a few hundred to get that registration done. You have to khilao as you are at the receiving end and the guy on the other side has nothing to lose. Another point is that patients come as individuals whereas the police can act as a group and hence can easily impose their norms. The dependency and the urgency are too one sided. So the claim that officials are taking bribe because people are giving it is far from the truth. The only way such practices can be stopped is severe and timely punishment starting right at the top.
Yesterday there was one news item that India narrowly missed a second Nobel Prize. I was wondering which one was the first. Somehow, we have accepted that India can be credited with the Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Venky Ramakrishnan even though his higher study, his work or even his citizenship are all outside India. We all know that if he had continued to work in India he never would have won this prize. We all know how whims and fancies of our leaders like Arjun Singh can spoil our great institutions like IIMs and IITs. His award should point out the weakness in our system because of which even if we have capable and talented people we are not able to make the desired progress in the field science, technology and fundamental research. Instead we believe that India should be credited for his achievement and continue to deceive ourselves. I believe the first step in bringing in any change is to recognize the fact something is not quite right and needs improvement. In that we need to be honest, courageous and transparent. Turning our weaknesses into strength only by pretension will not help but will only worsen the prevailing undesirable circumstances.
The other day swamy Ramdev was telling that we should stop learning English and focus on our mother tongue as our constitution recognizes 22 languages. I have great respect for baba Ramdev and his selfless work and effort to improve the health and happiness all over the world. It is also true that the British introduced English in this country for their own benefit, but we should not throw it out just because it is a foreign language. That way the British also got us the railway, post & telegraph system for their own benefit. To throw these things out will be like throwing the baby with the bath water. We have successfully thrown out the bath water but let us keep the baby for our own good. We should not harm ourselves just to get even with someone for some past wrongs. Language is a primary means to establish an independent identity of a group and to differentiate it from the others. We should adopt English precisely because we have 22 recognized languages and if we add the unrecognized ones the number will be a few hundreds. How can this country be united without a common language? Only viable option is English. At the same time our mother tongue should also get due recognition and continue to flourish. I have studied in Oriya medium till college. Subsequently I studied science and then engineering where the focus on English language is very less. In fact I remember my first day in college and the chemistry lecturer asked me the definition of an element. I knew the definition conceptually but I was not able to express myself in English as we had studied science in Oriya till then. I find the system followed in my son’s school ideal. Their first language is English, second language is either Telugu or Hindi and third language is French. In fact, we should learn one or two foreign languages besides our mother tongue and English so that we can make our presence felt in the global arena. A global language or something like esperanto is perhaps the need of the hour. Till that becomes a reality we should try to teach our children 3-4 languages. Another could be Spanish with which one can manage in all South American countries.
The point is to be realistic and focus on the future. Let us be honest with ourselves. It is important to have an open and flexible mindset which doesn’t mean that we compromise in any way on our fundamental values and culture. We need to recognize the short comings and have a definite plan to improve rather than sweeping them under the carpet and pretend that everything is hunky dory.