Recently in In my opinion Category

I never thought the recent movement in India protesting corruption, would go beyond some small NGO show of strength.

Anna Hazare, who leads the protest, with all his strength and faith has achieved something...

I don't know whether this is the same with everyone, but at least for me, he has proved the Gandhian way is still something that works even in 2011.

And the recent reactions by some Indian politicians does seem to prove... majority of politicians in India want to see the country developed and corruption free... just like the rest of us. I always thought not more than a handful of them would want that for India.

Unfortunate for all the good politicians, we are stuck with the British colonization style of laws and government model, which were forced on us by the British to keep us weak... and changing a truck load of all that (importantly how government offices should work) is taking time.

I always believed current generation of Indians will bring in change, and the old-modellish generations will be replaced with the newer generation people, and India will have its day.

But, the change is already here. And the old generation of people seem to want it as much as the new ones. Probably everyone was waiting for a revolution.. very true there is always a time things happen. It is now.

Anna and the Lokpal.. just a beginning of things to come?

What are your thoughts?

On a side note: Sony pix played the film 'Gandhi' today.. to go with the timing of Anna Hazare's protest and recent developments I think, and the film which all these days looked only like a history film, today felt very different.

At school when I read that in the entire world, India was the only sub-continent because of the vast differences in cultures and people in different States... I felt very proud.

As I grew up I realized that except Indian texts, not anyone else was referring to us or even hinting of using the word 'sub-continent' .. then I thought probably we Indians coined it ourselves for covering the differences our people have, and converted it into an USP.

The same thoughts came by, when I read 'Unity in Diversity' at school .. and afterwards felt whether we say that probably to hide our conflicts of not going well between different states.

Only recently, have I had opportunity to jump outside TamilNadu on to different states to see for myself ...the diversity we have... and if there was any Unity deep inside that diversity.

I am relieved I was not cheated at school... we do have conflicts between states or people from different states within the country.. but we do respect other people's traditions and give importance to our own traditions, and that's why we allow the diversity to exist. Slowly, there is a generation of people (include me), who think diversity should be within home and outside we are to think like indians, not Tamilians or Bangaloreans, or Maharashtrians. May be that would be against the idea of sub-continent.

I have not travelled vastly, but only to Darjeeling in the North-east, to Kerala in the south which were different worlds as compared to Hyderabad, Chennai or Bangalore.

The impact of growth in cities like Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore has almost made every other place in the states TamilNadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, such that even villages have a pacy lifestyle growth interests by making all cultivable lands into houses or commercial centers.

But, Darjeeling being a small hill-station, its people still fighting to be separated from being part of WestBengal, had a different walk of life in more traditional similarity with neighbours like China, Nepal, Bhutan, than India.

Darjeeling and almost all parts of Kerala gave me a sense of visiting a foreign place. Rich with green, people not just wearing but also looking their traditional ways.

I think I also got to understand why frequent travellers and globe-trotters say that just visiting places educated them about living a good life, and made them more nicer with people... I always thought they were covering their mistake of doing nothing else but just touring by saying those things.

I sometimes wonder, if all humanity arose from somewhere in Africa as they say, and later migrated to different parts of land which became countries and states because of rulers, how did differences in cultures, traditions, and even languages come about.

While your train enters from a neighbouring state into Kerala, you can tell that it has entered without requiring any information boards. Its just green everywhere, and less populated except for Cities like Cochin or Trivandrum I guess. I definitely didn't so much people as I would have in any place on Tamilnadu or even Maharashtra.

While entire North India's cities look very much like Chennai or Bangalore or Hyderabad in population and development, there is a different air of thought, pace of life, and cultural differences embedded into how people talk to one another or foods in north india very different from the south.