I am a thirty-three-year-old happily married man in Silicon Valley, CA who came from a tier three city in India. I work for a tier three company in the Bay area where FAANGM are the first tier companies in the Software industry. FAANGM means Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Microsoft. Though I had an offer from a tier one company but my urge to work in a Climate Change software domain prompted me to join an Energy software company.
Recently I saw the Republic Day parade of India. And I cherish this day with my thirteen dollars Indian national flag, which I bought from my first salary back in 2014 in the United States.
The reason I bought it was to satisfy my yearning for my beloved nation. It is ironic how you crave for your land only when you are away from her. Lovers and close relatives have also reported similar experiences. Oh, I forgot to tell you I re-watched Rang De Basanti on the 26th of January this year. And remembered Bhagat Singh, who once wrote “Lovers, Lunatics and poets are made of the same stuff.”
And the second reason I bought the flag is because for immigrants the new place generally pays enough to keep you on the hook for a lifetime but never enough to fly them back to their homeland. Seldom I foster how the old pirates could plunder the rich nation, go home and retire.
But this year it saddened me to see another parade of poor protesters in the old streets of New Delhi. These front runners who are called pawns in Chess happen to be farmers this time. And every season is different because these pawns come from particular states. Like last yearCitizenship bill protestwas led by UP and Bihar, the protest for theagrarian crisis by Maharashtra in 2018. And sometimes it isagainst a movie such as Padmavati led by Rajasthan. As if this is a festival for the neighbouring states of Delhi, as transporting pawns from far-flung states of India is not viable for leaders. For example, from Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and many such boiling states. Boiling states prefer to fly their civilian army to a different nation rather than to the Indian capital.
For me, the insult to the injury was those brand new green bandanas woven as a shroud by these poor farmers. Anyhow, the event was conducted in Punjabi language. Well, first of all, what if someone from non-Punjabi state wanted to join the movement against the corporate central Government of India? And what if they have no direct access to the hidden motives ofKhalistani leaders who live across the border or in Canada
And next week I saw a rift over land between Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackarey and Karnataka Deputy CM Laxman Savadi to makeMumbai a union territory.
And then there was a Twitter trend by the so-called bhakts (although Bhakti is a pure word and defined as “state of mind where the devotees surrender himself or herself unquestioningly to God.” by Wikipedia) trolling BJP leaders and missing #IndraGandhi for her treatment ofJarnail Singh Bhindranwale but probably the architects of this scuffle are smart and operate from the comfort and let the farmers flock in the Delhi cold. This is hysterical to me as Indra did not handle the situation right anyway. And is killing our fellow countrymen a solution for Bhakts now?
While all this is happening on the roads, the country is up for sale inside the closed doors of Parliament and corporate offices. And the present government is a master of concentrating power at the center which seemed in the right spirit in the first term but perhaps now we have had the overdose. Perhaps Gandhiji was right when he said “The future of India lies in its villages”. But in the present context partnership between organizations and budding celebrities (Rahul Gandhi eats mushroom biryani at Village Cooking Youtube channel) have created a dream world around themselves. Industries and monopolies (for example Jio) have proven wonders for one family, trustees or board. Thanks to Mukesh Ambani for attracting at least 10 billion dollars of FDI last year. This has led him to be the richest man with70 billion dollars in this nation of1.4 billion people.
But what about the millions of billion they would make in exchange for consumer's private data. But who cares for those GB of data when the physical world around us is on fire. But perhaps one should never forget the Panchatantrastory of 2 cats & a monkey
But in this hot mess the pawn (Kisan) never realizes that there are eight of you of the same color on the Chess board and you may choose a different path and scrap this arena between Kings and Queens of politics. By the way I wanted to run a quick survey of how many of these foot soldiers (Jawan) used the Jio network connection to communicate and Whatsapp to organize the movement. While you fight in this symbolic Chess game, Artificial Intelligence is nailing the Chinese game of Go. And the rest of the world is shaped by Communism. And the slavery of Communism would be worst of what we experienced in thousands of years.
However one can count thousands of such mob protests demonstrating rage but can someone guess the real reasons of those instigators. Fact is Indian diversity should never fall to the lows of division policies. Divisions since the age of Janpads were exploited by Britishers in the early days of East India Company. In my opinion in the last 5000 years of Hindustan we could have been one only under theBhakti movement. But today no cash cow likes that much of spirituality, not even the religions, organizations or parties. And thus spiritual and philosophical stature of ancient India is yet to be achieved by any modern country not even by the present day India. Now it is upon us the young generation to take the baton forward!
I am just another Indian away from his mother India and concerned about the state of affairs back in my country.
For someone like us who are trapped by modern education and the labor market, worry for Indian future keeps us awake. After seven years of being away from the nation and convinced through the classic books of wisdom the appreciation for our ancient civilization has been affirmed. But then we need to unite to stand the new challenges of our chaotic world.
I do not find respite in my NRI community as I meet only two kinds of Indians in this land of opportunities. First kind is a Bhakt of money. Second kind never wanted to clean their hometown in the first place. Both consciousness find solace in the comfort of the rich shining world. They want to forget their miserable past proving that they have made it. I call them both the rich and poor Ostriches respectively. Ostriches devote generations to fulfill the big American dreams. Mostly they have no left over loved ones and no reason to return back to India.
So if you ask me what you should do to make this country proud, I would laugh in the mirror. But then I would take a deep breath and say to you: “let’s keep the conversation going!”.
The cycle of an immigrant completes when he returns home. So this letter is my attempt to pay back home. And now unofficially some of us provide focus groups sessions to young Indian kids. So if you feel we can help you or anyone you know please contact Chetan Maheshwari or me.
[ Akhand Bharat is an age old dream. But the truth is that at 72 years of age Indian Republic has become old and needs some new energy. If you feel the same please join hands in the act of constructive and peaceful nation building with us. Thank You! ]
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