On Sunday evening (29th Aug), I was traveling from jaipur to gurgaon by train in the evening. in my compartment a german born austrian resident was sitting. as only angrej in the compartment, every passerby passengers were staring him. before i start my story, let me take you through what happened in my home town 8-10 days back.
There were college election in rajgarh college, some students attacked DSP, Kotwal of police deptt. three of them were seriously injured and admitted to hospitals in jaipur. Police arrested 19 students (according to unconfirmed news mostly were not students, they were part of group). All students belonged to one particular community, very dominated in my area and nearby. So one of the tallest leader of that community, and sitting MP ( not from my constituency) came to Rajgarh and protested against police. They sat on dharna on Railway tracks on the same date i was travelling.
so come back to angrej story.. Train stopped at Bandikui Rly Station (30 km from my hometown). Now this german guy stepped out of train and was wondering why train stopped. I went to him, smiled and then told that there are some technical issues with tracks. After that we started some general conversation as I also getting bored. after 30 min he asked again what's exact problem. so I described like this
me : there are some political protest by students and they are sitting on tracks, not allowing trains to pass through. this kind of protest are very common and probably are not good sign of democracy.
Angrej : really, in Europe, we have to give advance notice for protest and we are not allowed to stop the public transport. But I think you have more freedom here that you can raise your voice. I also believe that there are problem employment and poverty. I have read that after 60 years of independence Indian government is not able to solve this problem. People lives in hell situation.
this discussion went on, I took balanced approach. Train was still at bandikui station. we both got tired and went inside our compartment. and some further discussion from politics to caste, society, corruption etc...
me: how strong is family and marriage as an institution for you or in Europe.
Angrej: my family members are like my friend. I took advices from them but it is upto me to take it or not. I am not dependent on them. we all sat together and dine. during my childhood, my mom used to stop me where i am going and with whom.. but not now.. its not necessary for me to get married for having child. but there is a catch as pregnancy case on rise at earlier age. a child is becoming parent, bad for our society. I think we need to correct this situation.. What about you??
me: family are utmost important for us, We take family's permission and suggestion for a big decision. though in large city area where intellectual people are more they opt for nuclear family... trying to adopt european culture.. for a normal indian, its tough to get marry with a girl of his choice.. family has to accept that.. but now things are changing..
angrej: why you are saying that people are attracting towards european culture.. is it bad? people should have independence.
me: there is nothing wrong with your system because its working for you.. but it cant be for us.. if we try to inculcate the european culture.. neither we will be european nor indian.. he laughed and same me...
some futher discussion on those line than shifted to Asian countries and their power.. by this time we spent two and half hour at Bandikui Rly Station. finally train started...
me: I dont perceive pakistan as a threat to our nation but definitely from China.. Thanks God we have nuke weapons, which we called as weapon of peace.. Due to that we have peace on our borders.. But china got guts and any day they can encroach upon us. No europe and US can stop them..
Angrej : got some josh, you think nukes are good, my country doesnt have. but we are doing fine...you think that china can come and drop bomb on you, its a global era.. European and US will step forward and will stop anyway this kind of situation.
me: China has got more than 1 trillion USD on USA. think how much power they have.. I dont think Europe have got that power to oust China..China is causing petty troubles daily. but not direct confrontation due to the fact that we also got some nukes.
Angrej: its crazy man, why you think that.. whats the need of this..
me: During Indira Gandhi's first instinct as PM, we had to face shortage of food grains.. not many countries came forward to help. We didnt have good relation (not even normal) with USA. after the first bomb test, world took us seriously. and our situation improved after 1998 bomb test.. and after that we have never looked back. Every country want to have business and political relations with us. which was not a condition prior to that.. Though we are IT Superpower.. but bomb test opened the gate for us...
Angrej: (got more crazy after listening to me) let me tell you the fact, We European have purely business relation with India. do you think that we are interested in 100% indian population. Europe doesnt care about 95% of indian population. They are only interested in 5% of population. which have enough money to buy are product...
me: Dont worry they will be interested in 100%, we are on the verge to become developed nation. whatever may be the reason, Indian voices are being heard globally. Thats more than satisfactory for me..
My destination arrived, I shook hand with him ( we didnt ask each other's name) and told that Earth is round, we will meet again somewhere................
:) angrej ne bhi likha hoga apne blog mein..journey with an Indian
ReplyDeletewhen a country like Pakistan can threaten a country like India, how can we talk about becoming a superpower...... where a terrorist is kept in safe custody (worth 50 Cr) for which valuable taxpayer's money is being spent.... how can we say we are even near to being called developed country..... :(
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ReplyDeleter u serious!!!!
ReplyDeleteI never understood this mentality of some ppl, there is no harm in saying that we are corrupt nation, our health condition is very bad, we stand in second half on human right index of the world, still in most of the cities of India females are unsafe like chicken piece near dog's cage... we r not developed, we are still developing and it would take nearly 50+ years to say that we r on verge of being called developed nation, sometime I feel we are pathetically underdeveloped. When nearly 70% junta is living in villages where still we are deprived of proper sanitation, how can we call ourselves developed nation. When nearly 4 trillion of Rs is floating in our country as black money and much more than that is in accounts of corrupted politicians, drug dealers, industrialists etc, how can we call ourselves developed nation when anpad gawar MLAs are getting 49 Lacs ctc(cost to country) every year and they fucking wanna it to be increased to 70+ lacs/ year...how disrespectful to Indian taxpayers...I dunoo how can we be called developed nation, it is our country we need to rectify its system, but there is no harm in saying that we r not developed, actually developing and in some places we are underdeveloped ...there is no use of harping anything alien to truth in front of foreigners and believe me sometimes these foreigners know much more about India than us.
Anyways nice piece of work gkk sir, such a vast description, while reading I imagined myself to be there in train during ur conservation with Mr. German!!!
Kalal sahab.. nice post! Was interesting to see two very different points of view in a conversation!
ReplyDeleteYes we are developed nation..very soon we are going to defeat China and m sure there will be celebrations in China for that defeat..because India will be developed as 1st country with highest population..
ReplyDeleteवाह भई
ReplyDeleteसमय का सही सदुपयोग किया
जर्मन के ब्लॉग का यूआरएल तो पता करो :)
Nice read!
ReplyDeleteHi gaurav, read ur post. Nice one. But i tend to disagree with you on lot of above mentioned points. Nukes, IT Superpower, Developed Nation are the prominent points I would differ in opinion. Let's not talk about nukes, do you really think that we are an IT Superpower??? Lot of people term it as "IT Labours", do we really think that we have IT as our core competency. Need to rethink about it. Its just that at our place cost of IT labour is much cheaper that the west. And being a developed nation - we are still developing, and no one can tell how many years it will take to become a fully developed nation, because you know, being developed is not only to have skyscrapers and beautiful cities, multiplexes, world class airports, and the list is endless, but to ensure that all citizens earn a handsome living. If we see any developed nation, per capita income, per capita power consumption, and other per capita indices are way too high, and most importantly, a minimum qty is guaranteed for any citizen there. We will need may be another century to truly reach that level. Anyways, nice post, will definitely come back for more.
ReplyDeleteOne more point, why are we ashamed of telling people what we really are, we just need to work to improve our condition. If we dont identify our own miseries, how do you expect to overcome them. I will agree to Mr. Hemant on that note.
ReplyDeletegood one sir ji:) hey hemant wht all ur points and concerns abt India,I agreed with all, corruption, illness, poor living conditions,anpadh gavar politicians blla blla blla. But temme me one thing hv u ever thought to join politics or even tried, ve u done nything to improve ppl conditions?????? KISI KI BURAI KARNA BURI BAAT HAI... DON'T MIND:)
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