Some are the quiet types, have a quick power breakfast while browsing the paper and off they go. Some gorge on the assortment and keep asking loudly for more helping. Some are real loud on the phone, which is annoying since the breakfast place is usually closed area and voice resonates. Some have a relaxed breakfast, enjoying the landscaped view outside. I fall in this category.
In Bombay my house offers me the view of my neighbor so my breakfast are hurried affair, no early morning dew to see, no chirping of the birds,only chirping I get to hear is that of the neighbor's kid. So I wake up early to enjoy my breakfast.
This time in Hyderabad (yep I went there again) I was having breakfast, albeit a hurried one this time, I heard two loud men talking, one Indian and other is white man. The conversation bit I caught was the Indian cribbing about Hyderabad being too hot and Charminar being a real dirty, crowded place and nothing in Hyderabad was worth a look. Taking a cue from there, the white man went gung ho on saying a few derogatory things about India which I am not quoting.
Later the Indian got talking to me and on finding he has not gone to Charminar and was airing his views on comments he had heard, I enlightened him about Charminar and the other beautiful places to see in Hyderabad.
You must be wondering what am I getting at.
Well if we Indians do not take pride in our country and voice our opinion on what is wrong in here then how do we expect others to take us seriously?
By the way the guy told me that he was a pilot and the white man was an American pilot. Being in a profession where you interact with people of other nationality, makes them brand ambassadors of their country and if here they portray a sad figure, word of mouth does the rest and India gets branded.
A country is what her people are. So its not our country that is wrong, its we people that are. If educated people with exposure are making us more vulnerable to being branded as a third world country with poverty and people, can we blame the rest of the world calling us that!!
We know what are the problems our country is facing but how many of us are doing something about it ? Or for that matter, how many of us follow simple rules to help our country grow? We make a mockery of traffic signals, sign boards like “no parking” or “no smoking”, we throw garbage on the street, we steal garbage bins, we jump queues, we bribe as we are too lazy to do our own work, we pull down people who want to bring in a positive change, etc. I really could put in a long list.
So next time you want to bitch about your country, start by bitching about yourself. Coz you made your country the way it is !
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