Santusth Hai (Satisfied)!!

The Dish TV ad, featuring ShahRukh Khan, summarizes Indian's in a nutshell. The Indian economy has been growing at a great pace (except for this recession hit year) and India has also been faring well in the Happiness Index of the world. But there is a huge section of the society which has to battle each day for survival; have no access to electricity, clean drinking water, proper sanitary conditions to name a few. It seems ironical when you see the rankings in light with this.

There are two ways to survive; you change the system according to yourself or you mould yourself according to the system. The people of India advocate the later. Things have always been reactive in nature. I still remember the floods in Gujarat in 2005. It rained heavily leading to a collapse in the mini dam on the outskirts of Vadodara and thereby exposing the lack of preparedness of the municipality. Post floods the drainage systems were strengthened. I say, why go that far in past! Take the example of the 26th November Mumbai attacks. There have been numerous attacks in Mumbai in the past, but what have been the learnings. We start off again from scratch!! People seem to have adapted themselves to the existing conditions. They seem to be satisfied and content with what they have at their disposal. It is not that the people in India don’t pay their taxes or the taxation rates are low; what is actually missing is the accountability of the money that is being collected each and every year.

The traffic rules are not strictly followed so people have adapted to drive slowly; The roads might have potholes, so people take different routes. In doing all this, the value of time gets lost. The efficiency goes for a toss. But still people have adapted themselves to accept all this to be a part of the life. What we require is an uprising! A faint effort was seen post the Mumbai terror attacks, but this needs to be carried forward. Two of my college seniors (Malayesh and Gaurav) were shot dead in Leopold café. Their mistake; they were having dinner at a nice hang out in Mumbai. So do we expect their families to fight it out; while we wait for something like this to happen to some near or dear ones of ours to start the fight!! Most of us would curse the government and the politicians but do nothing about it!That is where the entire thing stops; our expecting someone else to clean the mess. This is our place and it is our onus to get this thing sorted!So every opportunity that you have to make a difference, irrespective of it being big or small, just go for it!! 

"Dont be santusth, thoda aur wish karo!!"