Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Did you say poor?

Do you think India is a poor country? What's the first impression you get when someone calls it a poor country? Yes, even I get the same impression. How can you call India poor? Its growing by the day, one of the foremost developing country. Look at the amount of development around. The growth rate, the growing manufacturing and agriculture industry.

With most of world class technology coming in, the production prowess has multiplied. Look at companies like Tata and Reliance. They have grown leaps and bounds. Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani are considered to be among the top richest people. Look at how we are growing everyday. Inspite of all this global recession, the Indian countries are doing well. Yes the IT sector has been affected, but that is throughout the world.

The telecomm surge and the mobile super nova, has tilted and ignited the wheels of development. After the vision of mobile phone by Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani, now it is the vision of Ratan Tata with this car Nano. Are we not going towards the developed nation tag? I met a girl online on facebook from cannada I think. As soon as I said, "I am from India", she says, "I have heard that it is a poor country from one of my friends, sorry to know that you are from there". I was really taken aback.

Either her friend must be blind or she must be deaf. I asked her, if she has misconception because of the movie "Slumdog Millionarie". But she had never seen the movie. She had never been to India. I told her that you should come to India, before deciding if it is poor country or not. She agreed. This was just a conversation. It had serious repercussion in my mind for the next days. I was thinking, what has India done so that, that girl's friend calls it poor. I was riding my bike thinking about it. As there was a traffic light, most of them stood. Some broke the rule and drove off inspite of red light.

Then came a red liquid from the left which feel just inches before my bike. Yes a guy spit paan. I looked at him with a staring eyes.He just looked back at me and said "Kya?" (what? in hindi), as if I had done something wrong.Then there was two guys begging for money. A old lady going from one auto to another begging. The police man stopping people who drove off in red light (I was thinking at least, there is law and order). The guy just showed some identity cards or bribed the police man. The green light in the traffic signal did not work. Hence we never knew if the signal said go or not. When the police guy waved his hands, we knew the signal had turned green and it is a go.

We must be rich as we can bribe the police man 100 bucks. We must be rich, inspite of paying taxes we don't get the green light fixed. We must be rich with 3 beggars on the road scartching their head for the next meal. We must be rich, as we spit on the board that says, "No spitting". We must be rich as we generously give 5 bucks to the beggar. Poverty is the state of mind. The guy who is begging can easily work somewhere, where he will get a good salary. He can improve his skills. But he prefers begging as it is a easier mode of obtaining money.

India is not a poor country and has never been a poor country. It is just the people of India, who makes her feel like she is very poor. Every individual can change that by being hygenic and obedient. By having that common sense and self realisation with compounded enlightenment, they can drive India higher on stature, so that when viewed from global eyes, she appears beautiful. Collective responsibility formed from individual responsibility, I should say is very much the need. India will remain poor to world's eye as long as her people ignore their responsibilities.

9 comments:

nitin said...

hey you just posted a new blog...so, i am the first one to read it...again i completely agree with you - India is not a poor country...her people make her feel poor.

Lan said...

yup man; really frustrated with these people!!

Anonymous said...

thats really frustrating.. Its just sad that people who have not been to India make comments based on movies like 'Slumdog'..

I think India is an extremely rich country. Rich in culture.. the wealthiest people.. the most languages... the most heritage sites.. There is so much that we dont even count... in our daily lifes!!

Anonymous said...

I have often wondered how many people in our country think like you did in this post? At least passively.

If it is a considerable number then there might be some hope of salvation some time in the distant future:)

Rajesh Acharya said...

Hey nice and simple blog. Well thought out and presented. Good going dear.

Lan said...

thanks!! i was frustrated!!

Prasant Naidu. said...

Hi,
India is Poor ?
Yes it has been the conception of people who are ignorant and who are not aware of current affairs and who live in there own world.
Saying that i would also say that Truth is harsh and it's bitter too.(We don't need a Slum Dog to show what India is, we all know the truth saying that even London is a bloody poor and third world country when compared to Singapore. If India have walls spitted they have there everything stinking and soaked in Beer)
Yes i do agree that we have grown from a snake charmers land to outsourcing giant and now a product developing country(Nano has been the best example).
On the other hand we have cities,towns and villages who have water problem and electricity. I am not at all talking about education. So my logic is simple that construct malls, cinema halls but please do have our basic amenities fullfilled and i beleive we pay those n no of taxes for this only.
The place where i am living at the moment is the best example and saying that i have seen that same in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi and couple more.
So there are two things which i think is that the way we are. We all know our rights but we don't know our duties. Second we take things for granted. not to forget education is must in any form.

That's all i can say but nice post LAN...On a lighter note wait for the world to pressurize the SWISS banks to change their working methodology then i beleive the world and ur Canadian pal will say we have too many INDIANS in SWISS BANK.

Keep Rocking,
PN.

Vyazz said...

I have time and again had a very frustrating conversation explaining my Russian professors that India isn't poor. Oh...but thanks to slumdog, I don't suppose they are gonna agree with me now are they??

Lan said...

@PN: Thanks for taking the time to write such a huge comment.. :) i agree on you partly!!

@Vyazz: Can't help man!! just the perception itself is totally biased!!

Powered By Blogger