Be Indian.- रहो भारतीय

We have come to another country in search of education, job, money leaving behind our own people whom we are grown up with. We all have different backgrounds, families and experiences.

I agree we all have different ideas of our mother land. Some of us are proud of our nation’s rich and varied heritage. Some of us are proud of our raising GDP and recent changes of rates of developments and growing international importance. Some of us are proud of raising comfort levels among the middle class as felt by us at our home places.

But... we also have a large chunk of ourselves who are discontented with what is rampant there. Like Corruption, politics, caste system, poverty, illiteracy, violence, governments' inactivity and fraud. Yes, we are here for money, comfort and good job. Where ever we go, whatever we do, we are Indians. We accept it or not, we are Indians. Don't we have a responsibility?

In the context of deteriorating value systems in the contemporary world, I would like to tell you, we used to have a great respect towards our parents. I said "we used to" because there are a lot of instances after the so called westernization has occurred in India that parents are left to their plight. Even westerners don’t do that so often. I don’t know how that crept into our culture.

Coming back to the point, this value of respecting parents begets another great responsibility of respecting your country. You may not respect it but protect it. Help it to grow in the right way. After all that is where you grew up the whole life, even if you are not grown up there that is where you belong to. World recognizes you by that name. Your culture even after being a lot westernized has its roots in there. You can't be an American or a British even if you cultivate a whole lot of their habits. You are still called an Indian.

This is written as a response to a small debate I had with my friend about India. I think this kind of discussions are much common. But what is important is how helpful are we to our country after all said and done?

"The world is changing. But we will always be proud of what we are."