Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Patriotism

 "What is patriotism?" my conscience questioned me.

 "Is it learning in a foreign country and returning back to our home land, quitting the handful of salary offered by them?"

 No I guessed. I have started to think more about it.

 We can still be patriotic to our country being in other countries by maintaining the quality of our nation and making the people around us to respect our nation and culture.

 Its not only about singing our national anthem on Independence Day and Republic Day, waiting to get a candy from elders and returning back to our home, watching special television programs and some movies.

 Its all about thinking of all categories of people, not with their caste or religion, but it is about thinking of access to facilities like public transports, common areas like theatres, prayer halls, park, etc. for differently able people.
They must be considered too with their full independence.

 First of all, I would like to question myself. How frequently can I able to find a differently able people in the public places like buses, trains and theatres in a respectful manner other than as a beggar or a wanderer??

 The answer of my inner voice is "very rare".

 I recently met a guy with improper growth of his hands. I pitied him as usual. But all his friends treated him the way they treat everyone else. He plays volleyball, works a regular job and even drives a car! People around gives him his energy and he had confidence within him. He is really a differently ABLE person.

 I was amazed.

 A sheer comparison of a similar person in our country made be really shocked. Can a wheel chair person get into any of our town buses? Can he at-least hire a taxi? That depends on how wealthy he is. Will he be respected in the same way as he treated in other locality?

 Feel free to comment your suggestions, as I am looking forward for an answer to the question my conscience asked me.

6 comments:

  1. you've considered one of the sensitive and important topic here to discuss. I always have a feeling that if Stephen Hawking were to be born in India, world would have lost one of the prolific thinkers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree. such is the indifferent attitude the able people show to the people with disabilities in our country.

      Delete
  2. The last time I felt patriotic was when I was in my teens. The entire idea of patriotism sounds demented and redundant as far as I am concerned. In fact I have expressed what I feel about this so called patriotism in a near cathartic blogpost pending for eons, which I would be publishing later today. It has been pending for a very long time.

    Your observations and probing questions on infrastructure in India is spot on. Our national emotion and reaction to the scenarios you have highlighted is mind numbing apathy.

    Cheerio!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for reading and for your comment!
      please post your link, I am eager to read about your point of view in this topic.

      Delete
    2. I have blogged about the concept of irrelevance of "National Identity", and by extension redundancy of the concept called Patriotism in the following post -

      http://saimukundhan.blogspot.in/2013/01/the-redundant-identity.html

      The post would be pretty long. Do stay motivated as you read through the same.

      Cheers!
      Prabhu

      Delete
  3. you may find this article on today's The Hindu interesting! Link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/linking-modes-of-commute/article4305038.ece

    ReplyDelete