Yes, not only nicely worded, it is in fact very true ! Being in Defence, constantly brain washed, I too was under the feeling that we are a head of the ' hare - tortoise ' race having been established a secured place in Asia as a developing nation looking forward for respect from other Asian counterparts ! The belief shattered when I visited China and confirmed after staying for a few days in Hongkong and Macau. To further guarantee my thoughts, I quickly made a visit to a dozen more countries in Europe including England, France, Germany, Vatican, Italy, Austria, Switzerland etc. Each country has its own culture, strong enough to bind them, colour enough to praise about and with diversity enough to brag ! To sandwich the same came lots of information from my brother who visited Japan for a couple of weeks in connection with M Tech project work, with details of their infrastructure, basic necessities, style of project execution, gradient of development work, confidence in their technical capability, raising their head every time after catastrophy. Since my daughter is in the US, I had visited US and now I am at peace. I attribute other parameters and past glory for retaining Sare Jaha Se Acchha ! I love my country, my people and my culture and try to forget my exposure to the outside world ! You call it my weakness or strength !
On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 7:35 PM, "Rajiv rajivkm_2000@yahoo.com [worldmalayaliclub]" <worldmalayaliclub@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Xavier,
Enjoyed reading your post...beautifully written.
Look forward to hearing more from you.
Rajiv
On Monday, October 26, 2015 7:56 PM, "Xavier William varekatx@gmail.com [worldmalayaliclub]" <worldmalayaliclub@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
"I was sad I had no no shoes. Then I saw a man who had no feet at all. Happy became I again" The Gulistan of Sa'di
But with me things are in reverse "I was happy though I had no feet. Then I saw a man who had shoes." and now my heart bleeds in utter jealousy.
I was happy living in India because I was convinced that our India was 'sara Jeham se Accha' - the greatest culture on earth and flowing with milk and honey. Then I took to travelling abroad - I have now visited some 33 countries. It was Europe that I visited first and I returned home dejected at seeing the yawning and unbridgeable gap between them and us in all facets of life. Then I went East to China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore etc hoping to get some solace if they were more undeveloped than the West. However I returned home again totally dejected at seeing how they had advanced. The only consolation was I got was from Philippines which seemed as backward as we are. But this consolation too had a dark lining when I learned from the internet that the Philippines is slightly more developed than we are.
I had visited Beijing and Shanghai some eight years ago just before the Olympics were held there in Beijing and had found them cities matching the advanced nations in well dressed people, clean surroundings and sound infrastructure. Then I heard frequent reports that though the cities of China were advanced things were not so rosy in rural China. So decided to visit rural China, hoping to see some misery and deprivation. Accordingly I set out for China on 14th Oct. But my hopes were totally dashed up to see that the provincial towns of China were also far ahead of us in every facet of life clean sanitized surroundings, sound infrastructure and well dressed people - even those selling fish are better attired than the average middle-class Indian - . To rub salt into my wounds there was a report at the time I was there, that the Chinese PM was visiting England and in one of the agreements between China and England, China was going to supply high-speed trains to England where which invented trains. Yes - in China people are well dressed and clean and live in clean surroundings with roads being cleaned continuously thorugh the day. They have modern cars and the buses are all posh looking especially when compared to our ramshackle boxes we call buses. Their trains which are far more comfortable and sleekly designed than any in the West and whoosh past long distances at at a blistering 300 km per hour. I was totally crestfallen at this unexpected turn of events - the prosperity even in 8rural China. My only consolation came from reports that China had more deaths from smoking than any other country in the world had and their incidents of marriage-break ups and divorces were going through the roof. Another point of solace to the burning jealousy in me was that in spite of markets overflowing with foodstuff of every kind, the people look under-nourished and emaciated with flat chested and flat bottomed women and men bent forward and backward like an elongated S or the integration sign in calculus. But this point of consolation was applicable only to the older generation and so likely to be short-lived. The teenagers and the people in their twenties are more robust and sturdy and the new-generation girls are much better-endowed than their mothers.
To sum it up, my visit to China was a total failure and I am now like the fish who jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The yawning gap between China and India is unbridgeable in the near future. To make matters worse, they also have as rich a tradition, heritage and culture as we have. So I cannot brag to them about our unmatched heritage or culture.
In his work 'Revolutionary wealth' Alvin Toffler states that Asia was far ahead of the West in bygone days in all facets of life. Came the Industrial revolution, and the West surged ahead leaving Asia gasping behind boasting about their rich heritage and culture to no purpose and making us the laughing stock of the advanced nations. But now according to Toffler Asia is all set to regain its past glory with China, Korea, Japan and the Asian tigers surging ahead fast to match and even overtake the West in prosperity and development. But I am afraid that the South Asian countries are going to drag Asia down in overtaking the West with India proving more of deadweight because of its sheer size.
The long and the short of it is that I deeply regret wasting so much money travelling abroad only to lose my happiness however fancy it may have been. I guess I will now have to visit some war-torn famished nation in Africa or elsewhere to regain my happiness before I started travelling abroad. I hope I will not be throwing away good money after bad in taking to more travel8888.
I used to snore away8-10 hours a day in blissful ignorance of the world outside and trusting in the 'Sara Jeha Se Achcha' myth touted by our succeeding propaganda departments. But with every sojourn abroad, I have lost more and more of my sleep and now after my visit to China and Hong Kong I am a 8sleepless wreck. My only hope now lies in out PM NaMo, and as I walk around and toss sleepless in bed I chant Aum namo NaMo. If that also does not work out I will go in for an euthanasia even if I have to sell my kidney for it.88
Aum namo NaMo
Regards
Xavier William
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