Freedom of Mind- Fight Within

Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high

Where knowledge is free

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments

By narrow domestic walls

Where words come out from the depth of truth

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Where the mind is led forward by thee

Into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

~ Rabindranath Tagore, 1913- Gitanjali

Eminent poet Tagore described his dream and vision about awakened India after independence in the above few lines but in our current scheme of things, lot is desired to be done to make this reality after 64 years of freedom. While we are indeed making progress on different aspects of society, much is needed to liberate our mind in our societies and in different parts of world.  How do we answer to the questions on differentiated behavior still being meted out to sons and daughters in many families, the way society objectify and treat women? Our societies are still not free from some of the archaic rules and regulations coupled with lack of education, want of basic infrastructures and poverty, pushing the growth back by quite a few decades. As citizens of a free country and today’s world, we are forced to live under a constant threat and continuous fear of security and law and order. This sense of insecurity stemming from degrading mentality of society has restricted our daughters and womenfolk to go out and win over obstacles slowing down our overall progress.  

At the individual level, while we continue to fight for legislation, we need to reflect upon ourselves to judge our actions and decisions bereft from any kind of prejudices. Some serious effort is needed at personal level to consider women and men as just as two wheels – equally needed in the journey of life. There is also an immediate need to look at how we treat our fellow people in the neighborhood or on the street with an open mind against a value system free from all biasedness. Basic civic sense is lacking in a good number of people and we need to get into an internal FIGHT -

Fist that is raised

In the hope to

Gain over

Heinous acts and

Threats 

with none other than ourselves to mature to the next level.

Engaging in Governance - Youth and All

Education is the first thing that comes to mind with letter “E” for the theme that I have chosen – “Towards a better world”. While the importance of Education is beyond any question and doubt, some of my fellow bloggers & esteemed educators are already enlightening about it – one of them notably is here by Mrs. Beloo Mehra. I will make an attempt to express my views about another equally important issue gaining importance in the current socio-economic structure and that is getting engaged and involved in governance of the country.

I personally believe that the current upswing in public involvement, from being conscious of our immediate environment to voicing our concerns with a firm resolve, have done immense good for our democracy. If we continue the momentum in the same way and be a conscious citizen, people in power will dare not do any harm to our society and country. These issue based upheavals observed in recent past- be it women safety, corruption, poverty alleviation or other matters of importance to the country have changed the dynamics of governance altogether giving rise to more of a participative governance.

We have endured enough and now with our back on the wall, we can only rebound. Youth – a potent force in this movement will need to be equally engaged in this journey. With support from media- both print and electronic ones, getting involved is not of a much hassle nowadays. In this context and with regards to my previous efforts to urge my fellow men to get engaged, I would like to bring to your attention few of my earlier posts here and here  (as a guest post).  It is my strong conviction that keeps on reminding me that there is no point siting on the fence and crib about the system. We can do our bit – however small it could be, to participate physically or electronically in these activities.

As I started the post with Education, can’t resist myself from touching upon the subject a bit in next few lines. To me, on one side we have a responsibility to make basic education reach and enter every household to prevent masses from getting cheated anymore and on the other side, we need to ignite the minds that ask and analyze rather than mug up information. When the mind manifests – quoting Swami Vivekananda- “Education is the manifestation of Divinity already in the Man”- our children will be better prepared to handle any situation in life independently. 

Corruption - Let's Chuck it

Are not systems in some countries, top to bottom, heavily dependent on somethings extra outside of the regular process, along with the “chalta hai “attitude? 

Instead of this being a deviation, these extras are so deep ingrained in the system that they have secured their deep-rooted place in the normal process and no one, us included, think them as not normal.  I shudder to think how commonplace and usual it has become to pay small extras or big kickbacks to get something done -not triggering the slightest bit of repentance in the giver and receiver’s mind at all. In fact, it is commonplace that without those tit-bits, tips or out-of-the-way service charges, things won’t move at all and they are part of the overall plan to get something done.

While most of us think and talk about it with disdain, we do take resort to these practices someway or other in the increasingly crunched lifestyle bereft of time we have it for ourselves- to do our own work.  I do believe that until and unless requirements and processes have been made simple enough and electronically accessible, this crap can’t be cut however much we protest against them.  There is an urgent need of removing the human intervention and the processes need to be driven in self help mode that is reachable anywhere and everywhere- just like in more developed countries.  If people do not need to stand in the queue for filling up a form or getting document delivered or do not need to physically run around for mundane jobs – costs according to me to get something done, I strongly believe these evil practices will be gone out of the window in a significant way.

Cost (mainly in terms of time and hassle and not the actual fee/money) of getting something done has to be less than the cost (actual money paid) of the bribe – this is the only succor to the problem at hand.

IT thing happened to India. With all the other benefits that India as a country has achieved, I also see this as something that prevented a bulk of populace of the current working generation from taking bribe- am assuming here that we, the IT folks, have not resorted to these practices.

I do not want to sound pessimistic as I see changes are in the offing- electronic stamp paper being one of the many.  While more and more people like you and me – the common people are taking interest and getting involved in main stream politicking, corrupt people have taken a note of the fact that escape routes are slowly and surely being plugged and the remaining ones will soon be buried.  The changes in terms of systems and processes are happening but need to gather momentum.  Let’s put all effort,with resolve and determination, not to yield for these extras to get something done in a hurry – easier said than done. 

Bigotry Be Bygone

Bigotry in the form of religion, caste, creed, color and gender is the debilitating poison that has eaten away our society over a prolonged period, perforating the foundation of social structures across different parts of world.  The very basic right of leading a life with minimum dignity has been denied on the basis of these human created differences.  The framework of division of work specified in old systems, which never espoused the theory of untouchables and intolerance, started decaying almost simultaneously in almost all countries and societies during the middle ages (around from 10^th to 16^th  century)  – marked as the black age. It does continue till today in many parts of India and world in some form or other.

With the breakdown of colonial rules in the west, there has been a significant change to consider a human as a person before anything – tolerance and respect for individual self being of utmost importance. It pains us to see that till today a few self-styled god men consider themselves  more equal than others and mark fellow people as sinners creating smokescreens obscuring the truth and dictating terms of how should they change their beliefs and/or their destiny. These have turned into ugly wars and battles to satisfy the interest of few with huge collateral damages of loss of common human lives for no fault of theirs.

For our society to prosper and for peace to prevail on earth, we need to be more tolerant than yesterday and there can’t be any kind of society-created classification other than natural ones.  Instead of trying to advocate that one way is better than others, there is an urgent need to adopt “ So many opinions, that many paths”, as propounded by real wise men like Sri Ramakrishna.  Peace and harmony and not intolerance and acrimony need to be the first steps towards the future.

A to Z Blog Challenge : Me, myself and theme

A to Z challenge, blogger number 1553 46with MI (Miscellaneous),the category – my coordinates for #AtoZ blog change as I joined to attack myself. Someone might think it is unusual to add another task in the already strangulated daily life, but in the path of reinventing myself -for the things I should have done earlier but could not, and for my new found passion - I thought of jumping into the pool to learn swimming out of here and it is fun all the wayJ.

Yes, I did push myself a bit to the brink by joining this and am pretty sure that I will make it to the end. Enroute, I hope to gain lots of friends and learn a few trade of the art from my fellow bloggers.

I got to know about this challenge through Write Tribe page where I joined recently. By The time, I received a message about it from Corinne, it was past the due date of 21^st March for theme reveal blog fest and I could not make it on time. My situation, at that point of time, was also complicated by some medical emergency.

Let bygones be bygones and as they say it is better late than never.  I will also like to follow that advice lest you should at least know the topic around which I plan to write and hope people visit my pagesJ.  Let me take this opportunity to let all of you know that I intend to write about “26 blogs to change this world”.

I will take a stab, one aspect at a time, on things that I feel are critical for our world to be a better place to live and breathe. I know that I, alone, cannot change for everyone but would like to take first step to do my bit. Next it will be to influence others if there is an agreement from like-minded people. We can then form a group, discuss, fine-tune our thoughts and propagate further.  We, surely, do need to make this earth a more loving and caring place for us and for our loving children and the generations to come.