The Survivor's Tale...

           They say rules are just guidelines, not mandatory. I think so in my country, India, but I follow the same rules when I’m in some other country. We just get used to things here.

Every morning I’m driving to work and I have no road to drive on. No it wasn’t an earthquake but just the monsoons! I’m used to taking my car around the gutters. The signals posts don’t work. Jesus, they just fixed the damn thing! No problem, we’re used to seeing hand signals from the good old traffic guy anyway. And he vanishes at lunch time with no one to take his place till a few hours. Nah, that’s ok. We’ll manage pal.  I see people hanging onto an overloaded bus. They enjoy their morning ride talking to their regular friends. They just got too used to it to complain.

Oh and yeah, the buses are the “best” I’ve even seen a driver needing an umbrella inside the bus during the monsoons 

                I’m driving on, we have over filled auto’s with school going children, 4 people on a single bike rushing like it’s the end of the world, we have people spitting pan and stuff on the roadside, we have traffic blocks caused coz of two people fighting over something probably silly like “you didn’t put the frigging indicator before turning. What was I supposed to do?” We have some bikers who are weirdly shaking their bikes staring into their tanks as though to look if the bike’s used every last drop of fuel. Not that he didn’t have cash to fill it up, he ain’t used to doing it till it gets over and he has to push it to the pump. 

                I get to the office. It’s 10:30. Oh, I’m not late. Office time starts from 10 to 11:30. Lunch time? 12:30 pm sharp! The power leaves as I come in. Aaah, don’t we just love the electricity board guys? Their power always fit the caption, “I came, I saw, I went” Oh yeah, I had a power failure last night at home too. I’m just used to sleeping without complaining all night and not even trying to call up the board guys. Some poor guy who drank 3/4^th of his brandy bottle and who chewed up some fuse wire for the side snack, would probably be asleep there. If I wake him, he’ll have to drink more to fall asleep and probably won’t have any more left to start his day the next morning. We care! 

                Don’t know if you have managed to be at our government offices. We just love doing things the hard way. To enter a page into a file on the table and give you a receipt, we ask you to come back a week later. “Hey, rules are rules, you know the drill.” Unless you have some extra pages (Rs: 500 plus) attached. We don’t accept credit” 

                Hmmm…  Now, was I missing something? Aah yes, we rip off foreigners. Overly charged taxi’s and auto’s, at clothes stores; you name it, we ripped you there too. Yes, that’s why we call ourselves being from the land of the Kama Sutra, We could screw you in more ways than you can possibly imagine! 

I am the Indian who watches on TV when something bad happens at some other corner of the country and thinks, “Oh, it didn’t happen to me”. I’m the Indian who keeps liking posts on fb about supporting Anna Hazare and “being proud of being an Indian” and “righteous Indignation”  and oh hey dude, “who was Anna Hazare btw?” :P

Are we done with the list of miseries?

Nope. This is the just the beginning…

But, I’m gonna stop there… 

Coz when I still think of my country, my chest swells with pride. Coz we’ve seen a harder life, we’ll thrive over any situation. We get by in life without depending on 911. Though we have riots and all sorts of stuff occasionally, I see my neighbor is not of my religion, but we get along well. I haven’t ever seen an army man all my life, except maybe on TV. But I have a sense of pride when I think about our army, not coz we can boast about borrowed technology from Russians or so. But because however they are,  I know they will keep us safe come what may.

                I cheer along with the others for India only on a cricket match. I woke up at 12pm on Independence Day coz my boss gave us the day off. All I did was stick a small flag on my bike that day.  I'll tell you "I hate this country" 24/7, but I still love my country.  Everything is slow in our country, the technology, the PWD, the modernization, transport development (dead old buses and trains), urbanization… Almost everything is slow…  Just seeing the crazy buses, driving on the bumpy roads (gutters), waiting in line in offices, paying bribes, sleeping without power at night (oh I bought a generator), we’re just used to it…. Alongside all these things, we’ve learned to live on, learned to still be happy, aren’t we? We’re not right, we know that,  but we’re in the process of making it right. I’ll tell you this; it ain’t easy being an Indian. We just know that life is too short to spend complaining...  If you aren’t happy here, you don’t have to stay. Be happy elsewhere, that’s what really matters right?   

You tend to tell your mom that she’s old fashioned, that she’s not smart with the computer. You quarrel with her for nagging you about things; get mad at her for not being modern… Sometimes she never changes, she never understands, but you still love her don’t ya? It’s the same for us with India. She ain’t the best, but we belong to her… 

From the heart of an Indian, Jai Hind…!