India has won the Cricket World Cup 2011! Feelings of extreme happiness...I could not express my feelings till the time I went to sleep yesterday night! Traffic jams happening at midnight near my place...this madness happens very rarely. It was amazing!!:-) When I woke up today morning, I was feeling very pumped up and when AR Rahman's Vande Mataram played on the radio, I just felt awesome. Such moments do make you feel very proud about your country.
All this done, things move on. The world moves on. Four years from now, maybe we'll see a new champion Down Under. Things in our life move on too. I was just thinking about how I have changed as a person in these last 8 years. I don't remember how I reacted to India's loss in 1999. After that, I guess I was fit enough to remember how I have been during World Cups. In 2003, there was a certain child-like enthusiasm at the beginning of he final. At the end of it though, there was disappointment.Mind-less criticisms of the cricketers at school. Indian cricket sucks. Dada should retire and all. But I always was considerate of the losing team. I knew one had to lose. India played well, Australia was just too good. 2007, I was radical. That phase of my life is the 'radical exuberance of youth' phase. I was a pukka nationalist. I remember I had my Class X board exams at that time and I was really sick of studying(or should I say mugging, I should). I watched that match in which we lost to Bangladesh. My mood was off. And since the World Cup was in the Windies, the feeling of sadness for every Indian must have been more. Anyone would feel sad after seeing your team lose after you watching the match till 3 or 4 in the morning. But we won the T20 WC, and that was a great moment. I would explain all the scenes on the roads of my country to my American cousins. Excitable and provocative and very expressable nationalism. All this without having thought or read a great deal about human behaviour and thought.
2011. I have changed a lot. I have become passive in my expression of feelings. There's a debate raging in my mind whether this is Ok or no. I did go out on the roads to be with my countrymen, but what I saw made me think about the situation in my country. Of course, I love India. Society analysis, people analysis. Such things hold fort over the unabatable nationalist exuberance. Looking at the poor beggars of my country, sitting on the roads, wondering what wrong they did that they did not get to see even a TV in their lives. Such people were getting drunk, not because India won the World Cup, but because it was their daily routine. "Aaj kya hua hai bhai? Itne log paglo jaise aadhiraat ko kya kar rahe hai?" must have been their first reaction. After some time, they would also get into the act by dancing on the roads with the rich Indian. It is a very very rare occasion when you see the middle-class mingle so much with the poor. The rich are of course at the pubs and farm-houses around the city partying like wild with vodka and champagne. Char baj jate hai lekin party ab bhi baki hai! Even in this integrationist moment there are several divisions. If we observe closely, the divisions are in the political sphere. MNS, Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP flags were galore. Social divisions, linked with the economic divisions. Sometimes not linked. It's visible.
I have changed. I guess it happens with most of us. I won't think of all this even 1 year back. But this being a moment to rejoice for our countrymen, we must rejoice. I am happy for Team India. They played really well. Kudos!
The idea behind writing this post was to just share with you how my way of looking at things has changed. I guess it must have happened with many people of a similar age. It is just amazing. I guess, as we grow older, we realise our ignorance more and more. But people don't ignore purposely. It is just that they don't choose to see. That's not ignoring. A day will come, when they will see and ignoring would be hard. Seeing around helps me to understand the complexities of life and there are definitely no finite answers to such problems of life. I can really go on about something which I read in a beautiful book on the Mahabharata recently, but I wont go on. It is change which I realized in myself that I felt like sharing. Such things just go on and on. Things happen, for the better!!
All this done, things move on. The world moves on. Four years from now, maybe we'll see a new champion Down Under. Things in our life move on too. I was just thinking about how I have changed as a person in these last 8 years. I don't remember how I reacted to India's loss in 1999. After that, I guess I was fit enough to remember how I have been during World Cups. In 2003, there was a certain child-like enthusiasm at the beginning of he final. At the end of it though, there was disappointment.Mind-less criticisms of the cricketers at school. Indian cricket sucks. Dada should retire and all. But I always was considerate of the losing team. I knew one had to lose. India played well, Australia was just too good. 2007, I was radical. That phase of my life is the 'radical exuberance of youth' phase. I was a pukka nationalist. I remember I had my Class X board exams at that time and I was really sick of studying(or should I say mugging, I should). I watched that match in which we lost to Bangladesh. My mood was off. And since the World Cup was in the Windies, the feeling of sadness for every Indian must have been more. Anyone would feel sad after seeing your team lose after you watching the match till 3 or 4 in the morning. But we won the T20 WC, and that was a great moment. I would explain all the scenes on the roads of my country to my American cousins. Excitable and provocative and very expressable nationalism. All this without having thought or read a great deal about human behaviour and thought.
2011. I have changed a lot. I have become passive in my expression of feelings. There's a debate raging in my mind whether this is Ok or no. I did go out on the roads to be with my countrymen, but what I saw made me think about the situation in my country. Of course, I love India. Society analysis, people analysis. Such things hold fort over the unabatable nationalist exuberance. Looking at the poor beggars of my country, sitting on the roads, wondering what wrong they did that they did not get to see even a TV in their lives. Such people were getting drunk, not because India won the World Cup, but because it was their daily routine. "Aaj kya hua hai bhai? Itne log paglo jaise aadhiraat ko kya kar rahe hai?" must have been their first reaction. After some time, they would also get into the act by dancing on the roads with the rich Indian. It is a very very rare occasion when you see the middle-class mingle so much with the poor. The rich are of course at the pubs and farm-houses around the city partying like wild with vodka and champagne. Char baj jate hai lekin party ab bhi baki hai! Even in this integrationist moment there are several divisions. If we observe closely, the divisions are in the political sphere. MNS, Shiv Sena, Congress, NCP flags were galore. Social divisions, linked with the economic divisions. Sometimes not linked. It's visible.
I have changed. I guess it happens with most of us. I won't think of all this even 1 year back. But this being a moment to rejoice for our countrymen, we must rejoice. I am happy for Team India. They played really well. Kudos!
The idea behind writing this post was to just share with you how my way of looking at things has changed. I guess it must have happened with many people of a similar age. It is just amazing. I guess, as we grow older, we realise our ignorance more and more. But people don't ignore purposely. It is just that they don't choose to see. That's not ignoring. A day will come, when they will see and ignoring would be hard. Seeing around helps me to understand the complexities of life and there are definitely no finite answers to such problems of life. I can really go on about something which I read in a beautiful book on the Mahabharata recently, but I wont go on. It is change which I realized in myself that I felt like sharing. Such things just go on and on. Things happen, for the better!!
NICE :)
ReplyDeleteNice..are you a Socialist ??
ReplyDeleteI am not a classical socialist. I believe in the concept of welfare state and the allowance for the existence of a free-market economy.
ReplyDeleteRemarkable transition...
ReplyDelete