Do you know the name of the man who first went to outer space? You probably do. The name of the person who invented the flush toilet? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t (I don’t, oh dear). For those of us on the not-very-well-informed side of the fence, there’s going to be janitor’s strike to establish a rule for the education on the excretion unit. And in retaliation, we probably will return the favor on those janitors if they do not know the range of values of Reynold’s number in the ascending aorta in human beings. No tolerance whatsoever! Everybody has to know everything, else we’ll pack you off to Mars.
In class 11, I told my teacher that I did not know how to solve differential equations, but she didn’t kick me out of class for it, she taught me how to do it. And there would be this snobbish classmate who would shun anybody who did not know who her father was (he was a famous politician in the city). We later realized she wasn’t really snobbish. She was just insecure. A few days ago, a famous Russian tennis player remarked that she doesn’t know who the demi-God of Indian cricket is. And nobody had the insanely-crazed mind to tell her, either. They just chose to snub her instead.
When Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire hit the theaters, everyone all over the world loved it. Everyone but Indians, of course. They disapproved of the way Mumbai was described by Boyle. We did not like the way they thought of us.
We choose to make foreigners milestones to depict our nation’s popularity. We look at our country as the land of Cricket Giants. The lords outside India may choose to look at us as the land of the biggest slums on earth. And this truth is probably rooted so deep in Indians, they shield themselves against such a ‘shame’ by rebuffing those that don’t know the good parts about our country. Are their opinions really that important if we really believe in our own strengths and fight our weaknesses?
For a nation that’s growing and developing from past wounds and fighting poverty, population, corruption, terrorism, we shouldn’t be borrowing strength from admiration and weakness from denigration. It is fair to be touched by a comment, not to be moved by it.
I’m writing for this blog that you are reading, and obviously you are entitled to your thoughts on it. Whether you write in a mailbox of appreciation, or spit on it, I’m still going to be a writer and keep writing here. Because I love writing, I love my writing, and although I adore feedback, I don’t worship it. I don’t deny that I can do better. But if today I write for the biggest newspaper of this country, Vladimir Putin reads my work and tells me he hasn’t ever heard of me, I highly doubt I’ll cancel my flight to Moscow. It is a beautiful place, and scenic skies might just inspire me to write a grand, mightier piece.
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