This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 3; the third edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton.
I found it very hard to write on this topic. I did not know what to write. Regarding dream for India, I feel everyone has the same dream – Get rid of all the evils like blind beliefs, population, corruption and uplift the poor people.
Let me recount some instances in US that made me realize what we have already achieved:
Instance 1 –
I met this uncle when I took a seat next to him on one of my flights.
Man: Are you from India?
Me: Yes
Man: I love India. I had visited India once. Where are you from India?
Me: I am from the southern part of it
Man: I had visited Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta, Varanasi. I like the people there. They are very courteous, very nice people.
Me: Yeah that is true. We are friendly people
Man: Bangalore was such a beautiful city, with such a nice weather. How is India now? I had visited back in 1980s
Me: It has drastically changed. Pollution, population and corruption are making it hard to survive.
Man: Do you people have trouble understanding our English?
Me: Not exactly. We have very good English background. It is usually the first language in our schools. It is also the language we use in the professional world – colleges/offices, almost everywhere these days. But the accent is British.
Man: You people are so good at technology now. I heard Bangalore is the Silicon valley of India.
Me: Yes sir. I am really proud of that. We indeed are growing technologically.
Instance 2 –
I met this woman at a pizza joint when we both were standing there waiting for the pizza we had ordered.
Woman: Are you from India?
Me: Yes
Woman: I always wanted to visit India. How is India?
Me: India is good.
Woman: I heard there are no schools there. I heard it is a very poor country.
Me: No maam. It was a poor country when British gave us independence. But not anymore. We have very good education system. The primary education we get is as good as you will find in any other country.We have lot of schools now and almost everyone attends school.
Woman: I heard nobody knows English there?
Me: It is actually the opposite. Now almost everyone knows English and we study English in school as the first language. I know English much better than my own mother tongue.
Woman: Wow. That is amazing. How long has it been since you people got independence? Not long right?
Me: We just got independence around 60 years back and in such a short time we have made a lot of progress.
Woman: Just 60 years! I cannot believe. All that I see in movies is a poor India where most of the people have nothing to wear or eat. I thought education was something that was impossible to get there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now what do you people feel? In the past, people had one mission: get independence but after getting independence, are we making a good use of it? I really hate it when someone compares my country with some country which has been independent from some 300 years or more. We are as good as a newly born country because we were under some rulers (Muslim, British) all the time.
I feel we have achieved a LOT in a very short time. But we still need to achieve more. I think unless people get educated and learn good manners, we cannot achieve what we have been dreaming to achieve. With education, more people will get the sense of right and wrong. If we have educated people in top positions, we will see a brighter future for everyone. Corruption can be uprooted if people become ethical and have some morality.
My dream: 100% literacy. This will solve almost all the problems.
I like these dialogues a lot from the movie Rang De Basanti :
“Koi bhi country perfect nahin hota, usey perfect banana padta hai!! politics join karo..police mein bharthi ho jao..IAS bano” [No country is perfect. We have to make it perfect. Join politics, police department, become an IAS officer and make this country perfect!!]
“Zindagi jine ke do tarekke hote hain..ek jo ho raha hai hone do..bardasht karte jao..aur dusra ..Zimedaari uthao use badlne ki!” [There are two ways to lead life.. one of the ways is to tolerate all the bad things that are happening and the other way is to take some responsibility to change it!]
A perfect example of this is my friend to whom I want to dedicate this post. He left a high paying software job, took IAS exam and is now an IAS officer. He also got 2nd rank in IAS exam (all over India). You know why he did that? Just to improve India, not for himself. If more people like him contribute to this country, there is nothing like it. On this note, I conclude my post on this.
“Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary.” by Mahatma Gandhi.
Pic courtesy: http://www.google.com
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short and crisp.. n straight to the point.. thts wat i liked abt this post.. literacy is surely wat india needs.. but did u consider the fact that all the other major problems stand in the way of achieving it..
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I know but there are lot of schemes in place like giving free education to poor children.. they will definitely help in achieving this..
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Wonderful post..very thoughtfully written !
And nice blog layout 🙂
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We both have seem to written this post on the same line…
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Thanks 🙂 yeah read your post too!! liked it
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I m re-inspired.
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Thank you 🙂
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The fact that India is an IT giant is as true as the Fact that the poverty shown in those movies is also true.
I think the control of the elite minority over majority of the resources is the reason.
And just like Alvin toffler pointed out in his book “The power shift”….Literacy as in knowledge is the best of the powers one can have. So just like u said, 100% literacy is what we should aim for ! 🙂
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But Naveen I feel the movies exaggerate about poverty.. I agree we have poverty but poor people exist everywhere.. I have seen beggars in every country
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a good dream to start with…lets hope we acheve this!!!!
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thanks sid 🙂
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I too believe that India has achieved a lot in in its small span of being independant…we do have a long way to go,but we also HAVE come a long way from where we started.Nicely written and very to the point.Loves it 🙂
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Thanks girlie 🙂
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Wow.. That was a good one. even I met a few people who don’t know that we know english. horrible isn’t it when we write english, walk english and laugh english.. lol. all the best
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Yeah It’s the movies which portray only the bad side of India like Slumdog millionaire.. India isnt such a poor country after all!
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My dream: 100% literacy. This will solve almost all the problems.
Amen to that.
A while ago, I had an encounter that was a mixture of your instances 1-2. This gentleman agreed Indians are all over IT but repeatedly wondered how could India train software professionals when we did not have electricity everywhere. I tried to reason and got nowhere. He persisted ; till I told him we are taught software programming on “Remmington Typewriters” and we touch computers only after starting to work ! 🙂
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🙂 yeah someone had asked me about electricity too.. they think all the places in India are like small villages.. they have no idea that we are advanced in many ways
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Very true 100% literacy but was wondering why one of our states with highest literacy rate is not the best state? and theres another country which went into communist rule for 60 yrs yet it seems to have progressed ‘much’ more with ‘much’ more population … Sorry for asking these questions? Actually the posts are really thought provoking I think…
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Yeah more population is not the only problem we have.. we dont have enough resources coz all the gold and wealth we had, have been looted by invaders time and again.. and ours is a diverse country.. that country has a single religion and language.. we are very much diverse in terms of everything
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WOAW is it deja vu??i read soemthing similar somewhere…but this is also nice…while everyone is writing on the same topic,similar posts is a good sign…we are all aiming for a similar thing..the possiblity to achieve it doubles 🙂 nice post..
nice realistic converstaions.hmmm
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thanks narendra 🙂 I dont think mine deserves it because I wrote it in a hurry.. just wanted to get my point across.. I wanted to write on this long back.. just got an opportunity to write 🙂
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Rang de basanti and aamir khan rocks…. I like that dialogue a lot…. its a very good post… Both daisy’s and your post are a bit similar.. because both incidents took place in plane…
and regarding second convo… if it was me.. I would have slapped her and told..”dont speak as if you know everything about INDIA..”
A very nice post avada…oops… ashwini..
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thanks shankar 🙂 I just quoted one person but almost everyone thinks India is a poor and dreadful country and I blame them on the movies which portray only bad aspects.. I wanted to put two kinds of conversations – one person praising and other person condemning.. so many people have asked me how come I know English well!! I met a guy on the bus stop and he also asked me “India is a poor country and people have nothing to eat”.. I should have read her post.. I could have atleast changed the scene of mine from flight to somewhere else (even though I met him on my way to seattle)
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ha..ha.. similarity is not a matter… people have nothing to eat??? ha..ha.. u should have asked back… “Do you think worlds second largest populated country is starving without food?”
I pity for their ignorance… I think some awareness is necessary for Americans, British or whoever…
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very crisp writing…nice concept too…very commendable on ur part that you can write a post on someone else’s idea, suggestion and concept…and come up with a splendid write up like this one…cool..keep it up..
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Thanks Neha.. glad you liked it 🙂 thanks so much for visiting my blog
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Actually the people in western countries have this opinion of Indians are really poor.. and not even having proper facilities to live… good that they are meeting people like you.. now they will understand India is not poor country anymore… and here people are as good as they are…
and nice post AK… 🙂 🙂
but one question AK.. is it better to know English at the cost of our mother tongue…???
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Thanks Kanagu.. 🙂 yeah hope now atleast they get a good picture of our country.. No Kanagu.. agree, it is not better to forget mother tongue and speak in English.. but in my case, I stayed in different parts of India and hence not good at my mother tongue 😦 so the only language I know properly is English.. I sometimes feel bad that I am not good at my mother tongue.. planning to learn it soon
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I knew you would have talked about education, It is the first step to everything. Rabindranath Tagore had said education is not the main road for a better India, but a dirt road (mitti ka rasta) only, but it is the only road.
I agree. If one is educated lots of problems, lackings will solve themselves.
Great post. 🙂
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Thanks girlie 🙂 That quote you made is soo true!
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Hey avada, about the second instance, thts wat happens, wn ppl in US r srvd Slumdog Millionaire and we here in India celebrate the movie.
Anyway,not going off the topic, nice to read ur prspective.
U r right-
1. Education is the biggest weapon against all the ills.
2. We have to compete with ourselves and not with anyone else.
3. We have to take the responsibility to bring about the change!!
Amen:)
About ur frnd, kudos!
Talking about ias, u rmind me i hav my ias mains in jus 20 days. so mst log off nd study:)
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Thanks vipul 🙂 all the best for your exams! we need more people like you in our country!
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Beautiful post, Ashwini, for Gandhi Jayanthi. The conversation in both the incidents, is beautiful and to the point. We were well off, before the muslims and British raided our country. Though the British drained our country, they have given us modern technologies like trains, radio etc. On top of it, English. We are born intelligent people and we grasped it instantly!
You are right, education is definitely improving our society. World has started recognizing us.
Whoever is the person you have mentioned here (the IAS officer), our best wishes to him. God bless people like him, Ashwini.
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Thanks Sandhya 🙂 there are so many who because they cannot read and write, get cheated and do not understand what is happening around
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@Avada,
Thanks for visiting and commenting. I’m so happy you were touched. That train scene is moving and haunting.
We are so very GREATFUL to you for posting our video on your facebook & twitter. That is exactly what we want. That’s our HOPE. I would love if more people do what you did Avada. We have a “1 thru 10” page (top banner) that has badges, YouTube embed link etc so people can spread this.
Please feel free to use whatever you would like from the post/site. “1 thru 10” for us is much bigger than just being a blog-a-ton entry.
Again, Thank you so very much. Greatly appreciate you spreading the word. 🙂
Madhu
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Rang de Basanti is one of fav films. I will definitely do my bit to the scoiety. If that woman would have run into me. I would have made her feel miserable by sarcastically taking a dig. Which century is living 18th century is her frnd queen elizabeth one :). who stereotypical and cliched can it get.
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hehe.. I know.. even I was wondering.. Is she talking about AD or BC 😛
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I actually liked your idea very much….
100% literacy would definitely help us to achieve what we call as the Indian dream…
I put a simple logic: by the look of it all of the people who read the blogposts under this blog a tonic are already literate….
I mean our message should reach those ignorant people…
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Yeah but I guess it is WE literates, who can help the ignorant become knowledgeable.. it is in our hands to uplift the poor and forgotten!
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That’s very rightly said. I have always believed that 100% literacy would help us all in achieving the ‘Indian Dream’.
But some things we see everyday make me think if literacy is what we need. I guess it would be better if we strive for 100% education rather than 100% literacy.
A literate Indian can read and write, but an educated Indian can add his power to think to his literacy.
But even then, I doubt if even 100% education would lead to us achieving the ‘Indian Dream’. I say so after pondering over the pathetic mindset of some very highly educated Indians in my life.
But still, that doesn’t belittle the importance of literacy, as literacy leads to education, which when added with positive values and reasonable thinking would eventually lead us all to achieving the ideal India. So let us aim for 100% literacy as its foundation.
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That’s true shobhit.. 100% education should be the goal! Thanks 🙂
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great post nice to hear ppl across the world telling somethin good abt India
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thanks Manohar 🙂
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Hi girlie!!
This is a crisp post! Hitting the nail strongly in the head – This is what you have done!
You know what is the best part of your post?
You din’t criticize our country! Instead You support our country for all these 🙂
This made me realize how much u love India! Truly patriotic eh?!
WOW!!
But, though we can pacify ourselves we are lot better than other nations, still we have a long way to go!!
Kudos Avada!
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🙂 thanks girl.. yeah I do love my country 🙂 I think I am actually fed up of hearing people criticize, demean it all the time.. yeah we do have a long way to go
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nice that ur frnd did that.. but i feel need more stuff and people at the grass root level..free
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That’s true soin.. agree with you 🙂
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Great post. Since you stay abroad, I can understand with the barrage of misunderstood stuff you must be dealing with on a regular basis.
My dream for India would be to let the youth rule the country.. Your quote from RDB was so apt. Well written dear,
Good Luck for blog-a-ton3.
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That’s true girlie.. a young well-educated person ruling the country would definitely make all the difference.. thanks so much 🙂
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its good 🙂 very good post !! and even i like those lines form rang de basanti !
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Thanks Swetha 🙂 🙂
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Nice post Avada.I agree with you totally. I think inspite of curruption and poverty and everything else we have achieved lot of things and should be proud of it!But there are so many things we still need to change. Let’s work for that together…
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Thanks Pra 🙂
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Well, one of the main things I’ve encountered with people who haven’t been to India, and they admit it, their education system hasn’t been updated as far as India’s progress goes! So they still have misconceptions…
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Hmm maybe that’s one of the reasons too!!
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Education is the key, no doubt. But a lot depends upon what kind of education.. literacy is an instrument for education, but illiterate people too have to teach us a lot. But I agree with you, that literacy will make life better for them… will it? I have a doubt as I write this last statement…
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I think it will. Atleast with education, people will know whom to vote and whom not to.
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By the way, I forgot to mention in my earlier comment that I made it halfway into the IAS inspite of being a doctor…
I don’t know if it was just bad luck or something more when the UPSC guys (people who conduct the Civil Services exam) rejected my application for the ‘Mains’ exams after I had cleared the ‘Preliminary’, saying that I had filled up the ‘Mains’ form wrongly… Huhh… 😦
Everything was going so well when suddenly… Sometimes, its not really good if things start going a bit too well… Isn’t it… ?
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Oh is it? that’s actually bad.. but these days we have shortage for good doctors too.. so I guess it’s kinda good 🙂
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Hmmmm … Things changes, we are a young country after all and have complex issues to overcome .. but the silverline is “we are changing for the good”
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True Lakshmi 🙂
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Hi there, I like the way your post has been put…two contrasting conversations, really creative of you!!!
Those are also my favourite dialogues from RDB.
Thanks for coming by my blog and posting your opinions keep coming back.
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Thanks Arjuna. glad you liked it 🙂
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Very well written my dear!!!
And I totally agree with you. It is time that we acknowledge the faults that our system has and instead of only cribbing & critcising we should start working in improving it!
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🙂 thanks Smita
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You have been awarded 🙂
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Wanna chat avada?
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Beautiful post.
Really glad to hear that Instance 1.
Cheers.
This time had i participated……you would have been one of the two votes…….
Cheers
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Thanks sooooo much IP 🙂 🙂
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hey thats very truly said…..ppl abroad only know the poor part of India. They still think we have animals running around on roads(except for the domestic ones ;)….)
Good one!
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hehe.. that’s so true! thanks for dropping in 🙂
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Online now
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Lovely blog. I just finished reading it and liked your posts 🙂
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Thanks so much Doli 🙂
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Hey, just wanted to ask you why were you “waaa-ing” after reading my latest post (in the comments)??? 😀
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Okay Ashwini
i can understand yaar.
Cheers
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Girl, I saw the Blog-a-Ton results and that you voted for me. Can’t express how much that means to me. And I can only say: THANK YOU!! 🙂
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Thank you so much sweetheart! 🙂
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Hey..Tag completed…. you can check out how innocent and how dumb i am….
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Avada, thanks for giving a second vote 4 me 🙂
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