Sad but true. Shame on YOU...

An email extract - unedited.

Dr. Abd Kalam's (India's Past President) "acid" reply to every Indian....

Why is the media here negative?

Why are we in India embarrassed to recognise our strength, our achievements?

We are a great nation. We have many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them...why?

We are the first in milk production.

We are number one in remote sensing satellites.

We are the second largest producer of wheat.

We are the second largest producer of rice.

Look at Dr.Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal village into a self-sustaining self-driving unit. There are millions of such achievements but our media is only obsessed in bad news, failures and disasters.

I was once in Tel Aviv reading the Israeli newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had struck but the front page of the newspaper had the picture of a Jewish gentleman who in 5 yrs had transformed his desert into an orchid and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of the killings, bombardments, death were inside the newspaper, buried amongst other news.

In India we read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime... Why are we so negative?

Another question: Why are we as a nation obsessed with foreign things?

We want foreign TVs, shirts ..... We want foreign technology.

Why this obsession with everything imported. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self reliance? I was in Hyderabad giving lecture when a 14 year old girl asked for my autograph. I asked what her goal in life is. She replied: I want to live in a developed India. For her, you and I will have to build this developed India. You must proclaim India is not an under developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.

You may say our government is inefficient.

You may say our laws are too old.

You may say the municipality does not pick up the garbage.

You say the phones don’t work, the railways are a joke. The airline is the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination.

You say our country has been fed to the dogs and in the absolute pits.

You say say and say. What do you do about it?

Take a person on his way to Singapore. Give him a name =YOURS. Give him a face=– YOURS. You walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore you don’t throw cigarette butts on the road or eat in the stores. You are as proud of their undergrounds links as they are. You pay $5 (approx Rs60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 pm and 8 pm. You come back to the parking lot to punch your parking ticket only if you have overstayed in a restaurant or a shopping mall irrespective of your status identity... In Singapore you don’t say anything. Do you? You wouldn’t dare to eat in public during Ramzan in Dubai.....you would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah.

You would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs650) a month to see to it that my STD and DID calls are billed to someone else. You would not dare to speed beyond 55mph (88khm/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop “Jaanta hai main kaun honn (Do you know who I am?) I am so and so’s son. Take your two bucks and get lost. You would not chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand.

Why don’t you spit pan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don’t you use examinations jockeys or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU. You who can respect and conform to foreign system on other countries but cannot in your own. You throw papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be involved and appreciated citizen in an alien country, why cannot you be the same here in India?

In America every dog owner had to clean up after his pet had done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do that here? We go to the polls to choose a government and after that forfeit all responsibility.

We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of the bathrooms.

We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best food and toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.

When it comes to burning social issues like those treated upon women, dowry girl child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the reverse at home. Our excuse? "It’s the whole system which has to change, how will it matter if I alone fore go my sons rights to a dowry". So who's going to change the system?

What does a system consists of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our neighbours, other households, other cities, other communities and the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and wait for a Mr.Clean to come along and work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of this land or we leave the country and run away.

Like a lazy coward hounded by our fear we run to America to bask in the glory and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England. When England experiences unemployment, we take the next flight to the gulf. When gulf was war struck, we demand to be rescued by the Indian Government. Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.

Quote Unquote "Dr. Abd Kalam and many great leaders of India had actually given speeches like the above at length, but to the daft and foolish Indians its more akin to a tale told into one donkeys' ear and out of an another jackass's ass."