Great People, Great Nation

I was driving back home from the town and it was 6.30 PM on 26th May 2014. On the way I saw a few youngsters serving customary Indian ‘payasam’ to all the passengers, who passed by. I realized that they are celebrating the swearing in ceremony of the Prime Minister of India, Shri. Narendra Modi. Perhaps these guys could be BJP workers and they should be celebrating their political victory, I assumed. Would Modi be able to rebuild India? This was the one question I pondered over in the remaining part of my journey. Perhaps the only dream I ever nourish is a world free of poverty, cast discrimination and corruption. As you know, Indian Thoughts is all about re-establishing the rich Indian values. 

A year back, a friend of mine from Switzerland wrote to me: “My wife and I were spending a few weeks in the country where we worked for over three decades. We used to go for long walks. Usually even the inner regions of the village are clean and tidy. But as there are now unusually great numbers of immigrants from countries outside Europe there, less cultured behavior is also observable. Youngsters throw plastic bags, and empty tins on the paths. Once we saw a native couple walking along with a sack and collecting all the rubbish from the forest ways meant for wanderers. We talked with them. They said, well, kids with not so good manners do throw things along the path but instead of cursing them we do our job of cleaning the area we see very often. May be at least one of them will come to see our example and learn better manners. That's the kind of love they have for their land.”  Great nations are due to great visionaries, I thought. There was a time when India had great visionaries in abundance. 

Here is a story: One morning a Spiritual Master was having a satsang with a group of people under a tree in a small town. It was early morning, the sun was coming up, birds were chirping and flowers were blooming. The atmosphere was very soothing and serene. During the talk the Spiritual Master asked a question to the attending people. He said, ‘Please tell me when does the night end and the day begin?’ One person said, ‘When I see the rising sun in the sky’; another person said, ‘Oh, it is when the birds are chirping and flowers are blooming; ‘when the moon and the stars have disappeared and there is no darkness’, still another said. The master said, ‘No, not any is true’. The crowd became curious and puzzled. The Spiritual Master replied, ‘Dear all, please listen carefully. When you look into any man’s eyes and do not find your brother in him and when you look into any woman’s eyes and do not find your sister in her, whatever time of the day it is, it is still night for you’. 

India is so shattered that we Indians do not even look into another’s eyes. One Modi or one Arvind Kejariwal is not enough to rebuild it. What we have now is an India without Indians. I don’t throw all the blame to the rubbish politics that dominate every corner of the nation. I am of the opinion that each one of us is responsible for what we experience. We need to regain our power of discrimination that helps us sort out good from bad. We Indians need to fine tune our vision and expand it beyond the four the walls of our hometown. India becomes smart only if all Indians become so. 

Joseph Mattappally