Today, I was looking for my happy moment for my #100happydays post. While I was on Instagram, I came across a friend, Raj Adnani’s #100happydays post and it was a celebration of the 65th Republic Day of India. And that made me realize how happy I actually am to be an Indian.
India is my country. Indian is my nationality.
India has taught me the following life lessons:
1. Adjustment in life
India is a highly overpopulated country. Every metropolitan city has a surreal man to area ratio. People are crammed into every corner of every city. But as much as people complain about the population on a daily basis, they do manage to live rather harmoniously given their conditions. Local transport is completely packed during peak hours, but people always manage to adjust with rubbing shoulders and more (LITERALLY!) with strangers. Amenities aren’t aplenty, and yet people manage to make do with the available.
2. Loving people
We are a country of over a billion people. Love is the easiest emotion to experience, but the most difficult to comprehend. When a billion people learn to love, the effect is showcased on a rather large scale. India has taught people to love each other. India promotes the victory of good over bad. Be it from advertisements to books to movies to superstars, everybody promotes love. If that wasn’t the case, Shahrukh Khan wouldn’t be Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan wouldn’t be Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan wouldn’t be Salman Khan.
3. Respecting customs and traditions
Indian people might just be some of the most religious lot in the world. We believe in faith. We believe in what we are taught. We believe in people. And we believe in our age-old traditions without questioning them much. Even now, people go on long trips in the most gruelling conditions on pilgrimages to devote to their deities. Even today, Ganges is considered as a Holy river. Traditional dances are multiple and diverse. People are from all different backgrounds and all the customs are respected and appreciated by most.
4. Respecting your elders
I know of so many cases in the west where kids crave to move out of their parents homes as soon as they turn 16. When you tell them that you’re an Indian and that you still live with your parents, it is an “uncool” situation. But I love it. And I thank my Indian existence for promoting that thought in me. At 20, I live with my parents. I know of people who at 40, live with their parents. And after weighing the pros and cons, the pros are most certainly higher. Moreover, even today, we are taught to greet our elders by touching their feet. It is such a warm gesture. Instinctively today, when I meet someone as old as my grandparents, I bow down to touch their feet and seek their blessings. One can’t have enough blessings in a lifetime, and there isn’t a better way of gaining them.
5. Smart thinking
In India, one of the hardest thing to do is to get things to work according to your whims and fancies. When a billion people want something, it isn’t possible for them all to get there easily. The competition that you need to overcome to reach goals induces smart thinking in a person. It doesn’t mean riding over people and proving yourself right. Rather, it means using the right skills in the right places and right scenarios to promote your cause. It is because of this reason that Indians fare better than most others in the world when it comes to problem solving and brain storming. Our brains are designed to work differently and efficiently, with minimum effort, to attain the required result. “Agar ghee seedhi ungli se na nikle, toh ungli tedhi karni chahiye”. The quote translates to – “If you can’t achieve your goal while treading along the smooth path, take the crooked one to get there”.
6. Importance of family virtues
“When all fails, there’s family”. This quote most aptly applies to the Indian culture. In India, even in this day and age, there are so many people who live in joint families. There could be anywhere between 5-30 family members living together. And there is no concept in the world that could teach you to deal with people better. Today employers look for “teaming qualities”. They assess you on how effectively you can work with people. And there isn’t anything that could prove those skills better than living in a joint family setting. There’s so much love to give and to get. There’s so much to fight for and so many to fight with. It is a complete package, but a worthwhile one.
7. Appreciation for Diversity
“When we greet one another, we fold our hands in Namastey, because we believe that God resides in the heart of every human being. We come from a nation where we allow a lady of Catholic origin to step aside for a Sikh to be sworn in as Prime Minister, to a Muslim President to govern a nation of over 80 percent Hindus. It may also interest you to know that many of the English words originate from Sanskrit. For example, maatr becomes mother, bhratr becomes brother, giamitri becomes geometry, trikonometri becomes trigonometry and so on. We have over 5600 newspapers and magazines in over twenty-one different languages with a combined readership of over 120 million. We have the third largest pool in the world of doctors, engineers and scientists. We have the third largest army in the world and even then, we fold our hands in humility before people, because we don’t believe that we are above or beneath any individual.” – Namastey London
Need I say more? The diverse pool of people that we have in India also teaches us to deal with different types of people, which in turn, helps to adjust to foreign conditions much faster than most others.
8. Patience
To get your work done quickly in India is next to impossible. There are long queues at stores. There are long queues at restaurants. There are long queues at government offices. I don’t know too many other people who would wait for half an hour to buy clothes, who would wait for a couple of hours to be able to get a table at a restaurant and who would wait days to get their work done. Also, when you live in a joint family, you deal with multiple people, and you can’t always have a response instantly or in your favor. All these teach you patience, which is probably THE most important virtue the world needs to adapt to in today’s world.
9. Instill self belief and To Dream
People call Mumbai the land of opportunity and the land of dreams. I think not just Mumbai, but the country associates with the tag. India teaches us to dream. India shows us the surreal and convinces us to believe that it is not impossible to achieve it. For anyone to reach a high in life, it is more than important to dream, and our country inspires us to dream. Many dream of changing the political system, many dream of making it big in the entertainment business, some dream of making it big professionally, the country dreams of change and of improvement. A dream can always invoke a reaction, so thank you India for providing the starting step.
10. Unity
Terrorist attacks are not an uncommon event in the lives of Indians. Rapes aren’t an uncommon evil in the society. Corruption isn’t an uncommon truth in our lives. But we stand united. Whenever an event strikes, India comes out in support. Be it candle light vigils, news interviews, support campaigns or online pledges, we do what it takes to show our strength and support a cause as a nation. This is the most important life lesson that India has taught me. Be it 26/11, Hyderabad bomb blasts, Mumbai train blasts or the Nirbhaya case, the country comes out in support. Life throws challenges at you, but unity helps endure those challenges.
The world is sadly full of cynics and pessimists. These are the people who would frown upon some of the points made in the above points. However, I honestly feel that we leave no stone unturned when it comes to criticizing our country, and at time that is justifiable. But we should also encourage instances where we leave behind the negatives and appreciate the positives. This not only helps to gain a balanced perspective but could also be the motivation for change.
Nobody likes to work towards a hopeless cause. But what if the cause isn’t hopeless in the first place?
Zindagi Ka Safar 