Going back to the roots……!

  When Margaret Thatcher’s lover had asked her hand for marriage she had replied saying, ” I love you my darling. I really love you. But you have to understand  baby I will never be a normal wife. I believe that one’s life should amount to something it cannot be a life lived in vain. I will not just live my life washing tea cups.” This is one of the best lines I have heard.  It is something I really relate to.

 How does one’s  life  amount to something? The answers may vary. For me it means to bring a change, a positive change around me. If I can change ‘a’ life or a thing around me it could solve my purpose.  When I was younger I would sit down with my friends and blame everything around me. I would criticise the system and I believed that we as a nation will never change. I know it’s the easiest thing to do. It’s said if you want to change the system you can do it only by being a part of it. It makes sense,  a lot of sense. All I know today are the outcomes. Poverty, illiteracy, unemployment etc are just the outcomes, the root of the problem lies much deeper, and I have no idea about it. Though I also think that change can be made without really being a part of the system. You can make donations, volunteer some of your time to help out etc. But then may be these are just temporary changes and may be not exactly be a solution.

   If I want to do things which amount to a visible change I need to first educate myself. For instance if I say I want to  change the way corporation school are run in India.  For this for starters I need to know who the education minister of India is? What are his policies? Why do we not have enough benches and stationery stuff in these schools? Why are the teachers not paid a good enough salary? I don’t have an answer to any of these questions. Here I am taking about change when in reality I have no idea what it is that needs to changed. My dream just feels naive and childish.  A tree without strong roots will never grow. If the foundation is not strong enough anything that’s built on it will not survive for long.

  Globalisation has it’s good sides but it also has it’s downside. It leads us to believe that just because we are a part of it we are growing. It’s not necessary. For instance I know quite a bit about gucci, prada, Louis vitton,etc , at least I look at it with extreme awe and curiosity but do I share the same awe and curiosity about the Indian brands.( I cant list down the indian brands without googling it.). I don’t think so. ( I am not a brand person at all. A Louis vitton bag has  it’s famous symbol all over it and it can have chains made up of gold for all that i care,  but I cannot pay Rs.45,000 for it. My bag which costs around 500 bucks max does the same thing,  hold my money. Call it middle class mentality but life is simpler because of it. All a brand signifies for me is that either you are super rich or you have a super rich best friend.) There is nothing wrong in appreciating a gucci shirt but then you should also know that raymonds is the highest selling brand in india and it’s not a foreign brand.

 Naseerudin Shah is undoubtedly one of the great actors in India. Recently he said in an interview, ” Bollywood doesn’t respect our heroes. Tell me how many movies are made on our national heroes, on our stories. Pick up any man walking on the streets of Bombay and you will have an inspirational story to tell. But no we are busy aping the west. For god sake we worship Gandhi but Hollywood made a movie on it and won the Oscar. ” The man has a point. Thankfully though Bollywood is changing,  I watched paan Singh tomar and kahaani recently and I felt proud. SRK spent infinite crores on raone and made a fool on himself but a small budget film like chak de based on an original story gave him much more respect.

 I don’t know how long will I take to educate myself. It might take me five or ten years, I don’t know. I also don’t know will I be able to change anything however minuscule it is. I think it’s worth an attempt though. I am making a small start towards that attempt. I am going for a holiday to Gwalior.

 Gwalior is my native place. It’s where I was born ,it’s where my parents were born, it’s  where they spent there majority of growing years.  Sadly that’s all I know about the place. I never made an attempt as to what does Gwalior as a city signifies. What is it’s history? What is the legacy of the Mutatkar’s? I can’t really change anything unless I know where I come from?

Roots is an important word. Some are scared, some are proud, some are ashamed while some have absolutely no clue about it.  Right now I stand neutral I don’t have an emotion attached to it. It’s time to find it. It’s high time, I need to get back to my roots!!!!