Swades Mera (Part 2)… India - An enigma of metamorphosis

Yunan, Misro, Ruma sab mit gaey jahan se

Ab tak magar hai baqi nam-o-nishan hamara

Kuch baat hai ke hasti mit-ti nahi hamari

sadiyon raha hai dushman daur-e-jahaan hamara

What was Iqbal thinking when he wrote these lines into the Tarana-e-Hind. Was this poetic catharsis a result of the metamorphosis he felt happening to once what was widely accepted to be the greatest nation on the face of the earth? I have always been intrigued by these lines, for our country has always been synonymous to a golden bird always happily chirping even while having countless enemies. We have charmed many and still continue to, far-away travelers of the yore like Hieun Tsang, Ibn-Battuta, Mannuci, Tavernier who went back, came again and wrote extensively of the beauty and diversity of this country. We have fought off invaders from the River Tigris to the Indus valley and even taught the kings of Mesopotamia and “Great” Britain a lesson in humility over the last 2500 years. Still the country stands today well on its feet, still smiling with folded hands in humility and in state of constant evolution. Yes, we are the “developing” nation and that tag has rather become a sobriquet for India given we have stood up to the incessant plundering of wealth by foreigners and still been gracious enough to provide home to many of them – the Mughals are one just example.

A few days ago while sitting with a few foreign businessmen a friend asked them “Why don’t we get more investment from USA into Emerging India?” To which came the instant reply - “Half the US doesn’t know where your country lies on the map!” Isn’t this very ironical for any citizen of the nation that was discovered by a man who had set out to find India! Probably since he could never find it, the Americans have continued his legacy for another 500 years.

Also ironical to a biologist’s interpretation, sixty five years ago two parts of our country was severed on the pretext of it being the genesis of better for a certain race and of which one has now become cancerous for our very own existence. Were it the wings of Icarus, that were to soar into prosperity but landed in failure?... ironically still, the poetic lines once composed for our one nation were erased by Iqbal himself to be recomposed for the other (Tarana-e-milli) but the rhyme remains well etched in our minds ”Saare Jahaan se achcha Hindostaan hamara”.

The more educated can keep thumping the tables arguing for better governance, a higher rate of GDP or countering terrorism and corruption, while forgetting that this nation has survived the greater tragedies and follies in history. As a larva does struggle inside the cocoon into its becoming, so is our nation, we have had more than our fair share of struggle to which history stands witness and some we will continue to experience. The metamorphosis shall continue, the beautiful butterfly shall emerge, the world shall see…but not yet…

Change is challenging!

Life is slowly changing… as we learn during MBA change is often the most difficult thing... However what is very ironical is that even though change is very exciting and almost each person on the face of the earth wants to feel this excitement we all are so precautious about it. Such a livid approach to what comes new in your life…but even so I am a little discomforted by it.

Last few days I have transitioning from one role to another at workplace; this has required me to double myself into working on Business as usual at one end while training myself on the other role. Even as I am enthralled by the technicalities of the new role, I am so attached to the previous one that I find hard to let go. Humans like me can get bored and attached to the same things at the same time. While in college, I always complained of the oil dripping chhole bhatures served every Tuesday dinner time, I now miss the forsaken ritual.

Sometime I feel the fear myself, if i would be defeated by the unknown and the unexplored. But even then I reform my opinions to the fact that to be successful in life one need to look for challenges, and by challenge I mean what discomforts each droplet of me. I am my greatest challenge at times, which to me betters the benchmark theories of GE. What can be written down or expressed cannot be impossible, infinity exists in our minds and not on paper. We can strive to create our own challenges, burn ourselves day and night. I am enchanted at the thought of the fact that daVinci could write with one hand and paint with the other at the same time. God blessed him with two parts of brain much like any of us but he trained them while we keep one in the store for neverday.

I was reading a nice blog piece by Sadia Dehlvi on www.thedelhiwalla.blogspot.com, about Ramzan fasting. More nicer than the entry were the numerous responses put up by the readers. No doubt fasting in Ramadan is auspicious and one of things every Muslim needs to undergo to be called one, never-the-less it is quite a challenging experience. I mean it can be relatively easy for people working on an EMEA shift but to someone working 9 – 6 it requires patience and devotion. Compulsion sometimes and also to be among equals as better drives people, one reason due to which some of us mortals give in to hunger while on the outside we may be fasting. Purely speaking it is our soul that should fast, not the liver. Soul fasting can mean abstinence from some but not renouncement. One can express his devotion by giving up something he dearly loves for a month. I am no one to question a religions long surviving practice but yes we have to think hard as times are for sure changing. Compulsion should drive donkeys not humans.

Well said by Anatole France, “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” The perils of change often lead to the making of a tougher individual, while I am changing on a personal and professional front I hope it does some good to my future. I pray to be placid in mind and gullible to new knowledge. For now I feel like the slim matador on a new mucho grande hot headed bull, I cant fall off the back for I fear the stampings while I am conscious that the bull will for sure throw me away…Cheers to life!