Wednesday, May 30, 2007

The Megalomaniac

I had gone for a dinner party in one of my friends house and I met him. Dressed up in up market attire he looked to be over whelmed by the abundance of wealth that he has got accustomed to. I could sense from his facial expressions and body language that all those gestures were skin deep and lacked originality. Effect of extensive hours of work out in a gym was evident from the shape of his biceps. There was a crowd around him listening to the up market gossip which was streaming out of his vocal cord. There was admiration in the eyes of each of those around him. It was very evident that admiration was not towards his personality, but to his opulence.
I feel this is a very common sight in 'supposed to be high class' parties. It is the same reason why I am averse to attending these parties. That day, as usual he had chosen the most popular theme these high class 'megalomaniacs' choose. Yes, you guessed it right 'India bashing'. The theme of discussion was backwardness of India in all fields. Bashing went on,forgetting the fact that he is deprecating his own country.
I believe in 'Karma Yoga'. What you are now is because of the sum total of the karmas that you have performed in the past. This is true in case of society, where each and every one plays a role. Our nation was a very rich and flourishing nation a few hundred years back. Look at Vedas, Upanishads which have very deep philosophy and scientific theories. It took a different path than Western methodology which is strongly based on experimentation. Indian philosophy evolved through intuition based discoveries, but they were accurate. Vedas had defined 'Anu' which is nothing but what we call an atom, long time before the Western civilization discovered it. Look at temples in India, which shows the marvel of civil engineering. Precision and perfection is very lucid. List goes on!! If our country is not having the prosperity which it had few hundred years back, each and every one of us and our fore fathers are responsible for the same. Simple conclusion using Karma Yoga. Let us accept that and correct our actions. These acrid, self-diminishing gossips are going to do no good. If some body talks this way it only shows total lack of commitment towards this country.
I always feel so fortunate to be born in this beautiful country with so much of variety. Where different streams of thought co-exist. But I feel disillusioned, when I see total lack of pride and sense of responsibility towards our nation. I was wondering when will we discover our collective strength and be proud to be an Indian.

2 comments:

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Vinod Menon said...

Thanks for your words of encouragement