I Live In India

"If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most fully developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions, I should point to India."   -Max Mueller

I live in India. A nation so diverse in every way, so beautiful in every direction and so magnificent in all it's facets that you can't help but feel proud. That's what I have to say about India, but I'd be delusional to say the same about the condition it's in now. For that matter I'd have agreed with Mister Mueller up there too, if i was alive when he was. India is everything I said, and more, but today it's reputation is gonna take alot of work before it gets better.

The most secular country, home to the largest surviving poly-theistic culture, a population of 1.24 billion, and one of the biggest democracies on the planet. We're a diverse people and are very proud of our spirit of brotherhood. We also happen to the world's largest population of hypocrites. We're split right down the middle on almost major issue, we have a caste system in place that still runs how a lot of the population treats the other half and we're rather religiously intolerant.

 It's the freest country in the world. You have the right to go where ever you like. You have the right to say what you like, when you like it. Even the media has the right to say. you have the right to vote for whoever you like. You also have the right to rape and kill people and get away with it. What's better, you can do all that and then become a politician. The very politician the free people have to vote for.

"God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west… keeping the world in chains. If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts." - Mahatma Gandhi

That says a lot about our country. Not only do we have more than a billion people in our nation, we're one of the worlds largest workforce. 50% of our population is under the age of 25 and ready to work. We churn out 750,000  engineers every year, all rearing to go. If each of them decided to aggressively pursue their ambitions, we'd be unbeaten, and that we're ravenously greedy enough to run the world dry if we were given the chance. All of that would be possible though, if we weren't as lazy as we are. We'd have cleaned up our cities, there'd be less crime, the traffic wouldn't be an issue (ok, there I know I'm pushing it) or we'd get rid of corruption, only if we weren't lazy enough to say "chalta hai."

I come from the country that gave the world the zero, yoga, Indira Nooyi and chicken tikka. The country which is the birth place of civilisation itself, that house one of the seven wonders of the world and one which the worlds looks to for spirituality. Yet, our greatest achievement in the 21st century involves a nuclear deal, the completion of a subway in our capital and a space launch. We still struggle from problems of social stigma and insensitivity to paramount levels of corruption, yet we plough forward to be one of the biggest economic powers of the coming era. Yes, I live in India.