Its 'Changed' Me Or Is It A 'Different' India?

I Wish These Words Come True(pic courtesy google)

It’s been more than five years, my stay in abroad. Every year I eagerly wait for the month when my family and I make a trip to India...the most awaited and cherished one. I even willingly turn down other attractive foreign trip offers just to make sure I don’t miss the annual visit to my country.

Every time I return home I terribly miss my homeland.

India means a lot more than mere a place. It’s a part of ‘me’. My school, college, workplace, marriage and so much more valuable memories are attached to India. The bond is inseparable.I just can’t separate the proud feeling of being an Indian from my personality. 

But something inadvertently has changed over time.

This time when I was back from India there was no feeling of sadness, in fact I felt relieved…I was surprised at my own very sentiment.

How was it possible that I was not feeling sad, leaving my land? How was it possible that I felt relieved once I reached Oman (my new home)?

Somewhere within, I was unable to understand this enigmatic feel that had crept in. It made me little uncomfortable. I wanted an answer from myself, for this change. A change that somewhere had distanced me from my homeland where lays my heart and soul or I might now say “laid”.

I looked for an answer. I tried to recall and analyse the past experiences in order to fathom my state of mind.

Finally, I succeeded to some extent in reasoning out. Yes, after some pondering over my past experiences in India and self-introspection I finally got my answers.

Our minds are undoubtedly very smart. They cleverly register all that we encounter. We may forget several experiences but our minds never fail.  Experiences, good or bad always lie at our sub conscious level and our brain compels us to act accordingly.

My mind too had good reasons for my current state.

I had landed India highly elated and excited.

I was travelling to my hometown with my family by train. We were just few stations and few hours away from our destination.

The happiness to reach home was short lived. I was informed that there had been religious flare up in the city and curfew had been imposed. We were still in train and were about to reach our station. After talking to some local friends on phone (who were present in the city) it was decided that it was unsafe to stop at the station (as even the station area was disturbed). Hence, we decided to extend our journey till the next station.

Our pleasure trip was now transformed into a tensed and weary journey, leading to brain fag.

On reaching the decided station we took another midnight train for our native village which was few hours away. The whole journey which otherwise would have been enjoyable had become too tiresome and exhausting.

Thankfully we safely reached the village. The tension and curfew situation remained for some time and hence we had to extend our stay at the village.

This was just the beginning.

When we finally reached home after few days, we felt relieved but that was also momentary. There was some religious festival celebration going on. The roads were jammed. The people had put music on loudspeakers…the volume was loud enough to disturb  any normal state of mind. The unwanted music continued for days not sparing even nights.

Traffic snarls, noise pollution, water clogs on roads, mosquito terror at nights, power cuts (thankfully inverter worked) were just some more additions.

Physical discomfort has never been a big issue but mental harassment surely is. All the above factors did ensure that we had no mental peace.

Adding up to all, we were there for some official work. Now that in India is again a daunting task, especially if you have limited time. Finding out connections, greasing palms etc, all these become a part of the process. Unwillingly you have to stoop to such low levels because this is how the system works. Without it, getting work done on time is an impractical proposition.

Fortunately our work was done. There was a moment of rejoice and we needed some celebration…some gathering and some good food.. But that was also not allowed. The government had put a ban on meat. Now that was ultimate…can’t we even eat food of our choice?

Is this my India?

Religious flare ups, so much hatred among communities(politicians and self proclaimed religious leaders audaciously spewing venom against other faiths) , government using its power to curtail our basic rights, no focus on the primary issues of health, infrastructure, safety…

Never did I view India from this angle. There has always been some or the other issues going on in India but the current situation is unprecedented, it seems the country is going through its lowest phase.

Any city, state or country is worth living when citizens have faith in the government and its system, when you feel secure and confident that your rights will not be violated. This is the very first requirement of any citizen, 'SEF'(security, equality and freedom of choice), rest all comes next (infrastructure, development etc). When the very basic needs are curtailed the environment becomes burdensome and survival really difficult.